Are bloggers walking on eggshells? Skating on thin ice?

Columbus (upon landing on a beach somewhere in what is now Cuba): I would like to take a few of you guys back with me to prove I discovered you.

Taino Indian: What do you mean you discovered us? We discovered you.

Columbus: Oh? How’s that?

Taino Indian: We discovered you on the beach here – it’s all how you look at it.

The above, taken from Stan Freeburg’s History of the United States of America points out what the mmo community continues to forget, time and again – it’s all how you look at it.  As it is, the video game industry seems to be leaning toward the console side of the house rather than creating pc games.  The November PCGamer talked about this in brief, explaining that the average price of a pc video game hasn’t risen in the last decade, and the profit margin is already slim. The whole situation is exacerbated by mmo bloggers who busy themselves tromping all over the eggshells (or thin ice if you prefer) on which they were already walking.

Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We are all aware of the expected drop off of mmo subscriptions after the initial month – it’s nothing new.  What doesn’t help is that bloggers seem to once again be making their own bed hoping that they don’t have to sleep in it.  We are continually beleaguered by bloggers informing us “the honeymoon is over” because they don’t like playing a game, and expect everyone else to follow suit.  The “blogosphere” is rife with posts about the “grindy” nature of Aion Online.  The reality of the situation is that if you put 10 gamers in a room and ask them to define “grindy” you will no doubt get 10 different answers.  The person who has spent most of the time playing import games will read the insistence that Aion is grindy and look at you like you have three heads, when the second would have been considered extraneous.  There are players who are used to games like World of Warcraft that, relatively speaking, has a leveling speed that could set land speed records and they will consider just about anything a “grind.”

Now I am even reading bloggers who are predicting that developers like Cryptic only care about the first month after the release of the game – forgetting all about the obvious, that it will take far more than one month just to break even with the average mmo. On the whole, there are many bloggers and columnists who seem like the glass is not only half empty, but the other half is full of toxic waste. 

More and more I find myself agree with Beau Turkey of  the “Spouse Aggro” podcast;  especially in a recent post he wrote called “Actually most players are not complaining” (available here ).

 See you online,

Julie Whitefeather