Missing The Boat

Before today, I hadn’t ever felt I was on the wrong side of a gaming argument. As I look through my friends list to find people to play MW3 with, I’ve come to the sudden realisation that there’s only one person out of 21 currently online playing the game. Now this isn’t necessarily the death knell and I’m not portentous enough to cry foul but when I compare this state of Xbox Live affairs with previous AAA titles a few weeks after release, it depresses me.

I’m not for one moment suggesting that the entire world shares my fate, I am after all merely talking about my own experience but I’m worried by the apparent downside of the gluttony of gaming choices that we have. Many of my fellow writers have bemoaned the grindstone of gaming release titles realising that their bank balance and time cannot support such a release schedule. My original opinion was that we live in a heyday of gaming the likes of which I have never experienced before. It’s almost as if games production has become the automotive industry – nobody makes a bad car anymore, what you choose is simply a matter of taste.

The problem arrives when my tastes stretch across several titles all released within a few weeks of each other. I’ve been extremely lucky in that I never have to choose which games I buy, only which ones I play. The upsides are plentiful and previous game release schedules have meant my affluence was an advantage – I could join the online community on the day of release and have an equal chance of progress parity with my friends. However now, it’s not a question of whether I can join the online community on release day but which one.

Up until very recently, I decided to spend my time playing MW3 online, purely and simply because I enjoy it. The ease with which I can join a game, get friends involved and start playing meant it’s always been my top choice: it matches my gaming lifestyle. When it comes to alternatives there’s been an uneven split within my online community between Skyrim, MW3 and Battlefield 3. MW3 is a game being actively avoided by people on my friends list either as a protest against perceived similarities to previous titles or in favour of one of the other contenders. Skyrim doesn’t appeal because of the limited amount of time I have to play and Battlefield 3, whilst an excellent multiplayer experience is not an easy game to get more than four people involved in.

So I chose MW3 on launch day and watched the filtered friends list that were playing the game drop in number quicker than I’d ever seen. I still think there’s life in the game and I’m all about the online multiplayer experience so I’m hoping for a post-Christmas resurgence. However in the meantime, I’ve bought Battlefield 3 but to mix my references abhorrently, I’ll be the only noob in the village.