moving-on
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Drama Mamas: 20 signs it's time to leave your guild
Many of the letters the Drama Mamas receive are from players who don't actually have a problem they need or want to solve; they're simply seeking support and permission to move on. Boy, is it tough to let go! People naturally feel trepidation about leaving a known environment, even when it's the very thing making them unhappy. We cling to the familiar, losing sight of the fact that if we change nothing, nothing changes. Sometimes, though, the best thing to do is to calmly pick up, dust off, and move on. While the columns we've linked below don't necessarily represent times the Drama Mamas thought moving on was the best or only solution, they do illustrate the tangle of denial many players find themselves in over circumstances that are right there in black and white. You know it's time to move on when ... Your guild condones or even promotes public drama. Your guild has no firm rules. You're expending emotional energy to tolerate an atmosphere that doesn't fit what you want from a guild. You've made it a rule to refuse to group or speak with a guildmate who plays with you frequently. You don't actually play with the people in your guild -- and you're lonely.
The Daily Grind: Where do you go after the end of the world?
Let's say that the unthinkable -- or at least, the undesirable -- happens tomorrow. Your favorite game's servers shut down today for good, and you're left with fond memories and little else. In the ancient refrain of the bartender, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. So that leaves you with the obvious question: where do you go now? Some people would prefer to take a break from MMOs as a whole for a while, since the idea of investing time and effort into another one seems a bit less reasonable after you've watched one die. On the other hand, some people would like to get right back into the business of questing and slaughtering, even if they have to move back to an old standby to do it. Still others jump on to the next big thing with renewed vigor and start talking about how it'll be everything the now-dead game wanted to be but wasn't. So what's your feeling? If your favorite game went belly-up this morning, would you soldier on to a different game, start looking for an upcoming release, or just move on with your life and leave MMOs behind?
The Daily Grind: Leaving your last love behind
Let's face it - we invest a lot in our characters over time. Maybe you have that one devoted main that you come back to, no matter what happens. Perhaps you've spread your love over a series of alts. Whatever the case may be, the truth is that many of us tend to get emotionally invested in our characters as time passes. We've worked hard, gotten them nice gear, picked up a nice mount, gotten an in-game house, etc. (depending on game). So, when the shine has worn off your old favorite game, and you're at the point where it's time to move on, how do you say goodbye?The team here have done everything from visiting favorite zones one last time; logging out in a particularly pretty area; throwing a party with friends as a way to burn off back-stocked food/drink; or logging out in the place where we felt we had the most fun in the game. There again, others on the team just logged out and didn't really care, although it seemed like more often than not, that was the case in games we didn't really click with anyway. This morning we thought we'd ask you - when you've moved on from game to game, retiring your old adventuring 'friend' as it were, did you do anything special before you signed out and shut the account down? Or did you just sign out without a second thought? If you did something special, what did you do?
Growing old and bored with video games
Game companies are worried about gamers growing up and growing bored said the Wall Street Journal earlier this week (available only through subscription). A study of "lapsed console gamers" by consulting and research firm Frank N. Magid Associates shows where gamers lose the faith. The first drop occurs as males enter the 18-34 demo, where those playing console games once a week drops from 78 percent (12-17 year-olds) to 42 percent. At 35-44 the playing drops to 24 percent.Obviously, the reason for this is that stupid thing called life getting in the way. It's not that gamers want to stop, it's just that jobs, school, relationships and babies get in the way. 48 percent say they leave because they get too busy and 40 percent say they simply got bored (no further data there, but that's worth looking into). There is also talk about how controllers have gotten too complicated, which Nintendo is currently attempting to tackle through the Wii. We'll have to wait and see how the Wii control concept plays out in the long run. The article loses steam toward the end and saves itself by bringing up the fact that although older gamers may not be on consoles anymore, they probably spend 40+ hours in front of a computer and the "casual games" market isn't hurting from that fact one bit. The whole article is a little silly in its statement of the obvious: As we age, free time dries up. We don't watch as many movies (film industry), we don't go to as many concerts (music industry) and we don't play as many games. But the human race continues to breed and multiply, the next generation will replace us and pick up the consumer slack. We also have an issue with this "problem" being at all true to begin with because the average age of gamers, according to the ESA, continues to go up.
