Gaming in the Age of Abundant Choice
Falling well into the realm of first world problem is that of too much choice in games. That said, any little problem is still a problem, and that’s what we want to at least look at today. So why does this problem exist, and what parallels exist to other forms of popular digital online gaming?
It’s not niche
Since its inception, gaming has always had a dedicated following. This following, however, was often smaller and not publicly visible. Back in ye old days, you’d often only see people playing games in arcades, which are sadly today going the way of the dinosaur.
Modern gaming, on the other hand, is visible almost anywhere and everywhere you go. On a trip into town, you might see someone playing a game on their phone, wearing gaming branded clothing, or infuriating others with their imitation of Fortnite dances.
In fact, there are reports like those touched on at https://variety.com/2019/ that gaming could be worth $300 billion by 2025. It’s already worth more than the film box office, and there’s no telling how much room is left for growth.
Choice is everywhere
Back in the day, your choice in games and platforms were limited, to say the least. A NES or a Master System? Maybe your parents had a ZX Spectrum you could play on?
Whatever the case, I hope you had access to transport and a bunch of cash on you. These games weren’t free, and you weren’t going to download anything from the internet unless you had a time machine. Also, if you did have a time machine, shouldn’t you do something more productive?
In today’s world where mobile phones are ubiquitous and free games are everywhere, the issue of choice has run to the opposite end of the (ZX)spectrum (forgive me).
Drawing parallels
There aren’t exactly a lot of similarities we can draw between digital gaming and other forms of entertainment, so let’s look within. Search and comparison websites are a great way of narrowing down options and finding potential titles based on various filters such as genre or the year it was released, as well as a way to find the cheapest available option so they are a great place to start. These types of sites are also common in other areas of gaming such as online casino services with CasinoGuide.co.uk being an example as they assess the various welcome bonuses and the library of games to provide a review.
These can even help you choose if you only have specific types of digital currencies available. For example, https://www.casinoguide.co.uk/paypal narrows the list into PayPal compatible websites, again listing all the pros and cons for each.
Of course, video gaming storefronts aren’t quite as varied as this. Instead of dozens of choices, gamers are more limited to, well, around a single dozen. Among the best bets here are Steam, GoG, the Epic Games Store, and even smaller sites like Humble Bundle.
We’re not complaining
Well, I mean, technically we are, but it’s not a bad problem to have. Rather than mastering Alex Kidd to an absurd level, now we have a bunch of games on the backlog, which we swear we’ll get to one of these days now.
With the next generation of consoles coming sometime next year, we can rest happy that the gaming market is only growing. So what are you jumping into next?
