GRcade

I am a console hype cycle fiend. That’s the main reason I’ll buy each Nintendo machine in release: to build excitement and to get talking about it. Doesn’t matter if the launch line-up’s lousy: that’s just something else to talk about! That’s also why, even though I know I’d have no interest in 90% of the titles out for the PS5 and XBSX, I’m still a bit jealous of y’all getting new machines and being able to talk about them.

This also applies to new big games. Otherwise I have no FOMO whatsoever, and think it’s a horrible manipulative shitty technique. In particular I’d have quit Animal Crossing by now if my sis wasn’t still playing it.

Animal Crossing is actually not very bad at all for manipulating by FOMO, because a) the game is explicitly about busy work and collecting things, b) the events repeat indefinitely and at most yearly, c) there is no monetisation, d) you can trade with other players to get most things, and e) you can time travel if you really want to.

It's far, far better than a game making cosmetics artificially scarce with a timer and trying to persuade players to spend real life money on them. Now that's a horrible manipulative application of FOMO!

I actually think it is good to give into the feeling every now and then. There have been a number of times I have held off on picking up a game only to find that by the time I get on board, the majority of people have moved onto something else. It's nice every now and then to be there day 1 and be a part of a larger community talking about and enjoying a particular game, especially if it a multiplayer game.

Xenoblade Chronicles of the Switch was the last game that did that for me. It was great to be playing through the game and seeing how everyone else was getting on with it at the same time.

I look back at a number of games I've played over the years and if I wasn't there in the first six months, I'd have missed out on the best bits. I've been playing a fair bit of Squad recently and when it first started, all the competent players from Project Reality were there and I imagine it was a blast to play. It's still great fun now, but I can't help but think what it would have been like to play with my old PR buddies.

When it comes to many triple A games I usually wait til a price drop with ease, but when it comes to consoles yeah I'm very impatient and it's always nice to be one of the first to get a new console.