When Games Die

Topic: Video Games

To Mourn: verb to grieve or lament for the dead.

Hi everyone, welcome.

Please, have a seat. Some warm coffee or hot chocolate, maybe? Just get comfortable, as we're going to get into some heavy stuff here. Okay, maybe not heavy for you, specifically, and that's fine. As long as you can accept that this affects a number of other people, that's fine. In fact, we're just happy to have you here with us, and I mean that.

The concept of death applied to inanimate objects, and sometimes concepts, is nothing new. You often hear of a TV franchise dying, or of the death of a character in a movie, or the oft-uttered curse "my [insert object here] just died". We accept this, and acknowledge this as being not the litteral death of a thing, but rather as a feeling of grief brought forward by the end of something enjoyed and cherished.

I don't think I'm bringing anything new to the world if I talk about video game death. However, I would like to discuss the concept of a video game's lifetime for a moment. The way I see it, a video game goes through stages of "life" in a similar way a person does.

Young games are extremely dynamic and are constantly changing, either through active development (indev) or through its community. Here, the temporal age of a game is irrelevant; some games, such as UT2004 or Counter-Strike remain dynamic through their active communities even to this day. In a way, these games always bring something new to any player no matter how long they've been playing.

Some games, however, are very old (but still very much alive). They do not change, and the community rarely "awakens" from its years-long slumber, but people consistently revisit those games. Oldies, such as Super Mario Bros. fall into this category. Either due to their nostalgic value or their simplicity, some games will remain old forever, continuously revisited by people of all generations. They do not bring anything new necessarily, but people cannot in all honesty say "I will never play that game again".

So how does one really define a video game's death? I, for one, believe that a video game dies when it becomes obsolete for a player. Let us take the example of the Halo franchise. How many people still actively play Halo? Probably quite a few, though more because of its nostalgic value than anything else; it was the original, the beginning of the story. Halo would be an old game by the standards defined above. But what about Halo 2? How many people still played it when the third game came out? For that matter, how many people still played Halo 3 when Halo: Reach came out? Not as many, certainly. In fact, when the "new and improved" version of a game comes out, the community of the old game, in most cases, goes quiet. Sure, some people still play the game, but the enthusiasm is no longer there.

The movie is no longer in theatres. The hype is gone. And all your save files will eventually become stagnant swamps of meaningless 0's and 1's.

That game is dead.

Most gamers have had to face that problem at some point. There comes a time where the game stops being new. The urge to play again, to explore and learn from the world, simply isn't there anymore.

In a way, a game's death is a deeply personal thing. Let us take the example of one of my personal favourites, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. For me, that game is immortal. I don't play anymore, and certainly don't plan to in the near future, but I know that the next time I will re-enter Vvardenfell, I will feel at home. Morrowind is still very much alive for me. However, is this true for other gamers? Some people I know believe they're done with this game for good and will probably never play it again; for those people, Morrowind is gone.

Let me tell you a story of my own recent experience with video game death.

I've recently (less than a week ago) discovered Terraria, a Minecraft-like game where you take control of a little 2D sprite and explore a world filled with monsters and wonders. You build your fortress, survive hellish encounters (zombies, Cthulhu's eyes and killer unicorns to name a few) and explore valleys, deserts, jungles and caves in complete freedom. You have to craft your own gear from materials you gathered and use this gear to explore even further reaches of the world. Those who know me well know that this is the kind of game I usually enjoy for a long time.

Recently, before I've started playing, Terraria's developers announced that they would stop developing the game. This means that no new content would be delivered to us, and that's fine. A developer cannot continuously work on the same game forever, and those who were angered by this announcement need to realize that game developers are not subject to each gamer's every whim. Terraria will stop growing, certes, but it will still be alive, at least for me.

I'm not eactly sure what exectly happened (I've read various conflicting accounts), but at some point Terraria's devs announced another game, Starbound, described as being "Terraria in space, but much, much bigger".

This is not the devs' fault, and I do not blame them. In fact, I encourage this and am looking forward to this new game. But I know that when Starbound comes out (end of Summer 2012), I will stop playing Terraria in favour of its new bretheren. This is no one's fault other than mine, but I know that when the new game will come out, the old game will die for me.

And yet, I still enjoy Terraria a lot. I know that in a few months, the place I instantly fell in love with will be replaced by a "new and improved" version and will effectively die, and yet I cannot stop myself from spending time in it. In a very sad way, I am exploring a dying world. And knowing that it is dying, that it will be dead in a few months, makes me sad.

Gamers are fickle and quirky people. We impatiently wait for a game to come out, then complain that it is not perfect in every possible way (knowing well that no game is). We complain about every little bug, and howl in rage if the ending is not to our liking.

But we love our games, and when they die, we mourn.

Stay frosty, everyone.

Yours truly,
Snowman