I can’t help but feel that lately gamers as a community are over analyzing things.  I’m guessing this is a direct result of all of our “past failures” (and I’m using the term failure very loosely) in the gaming industry, specifically with MMOs.

Note: It has just bothered to re-enter my short attention span as to where I first saw an article similiar to this.  You know, the one a few days before this one.. on this site… written by Slurms.  Whoops.  Ah well, nothing like positive reinforcement right?!  Honestly, you can skip over mine and read his, I think he gets the point across better anyways.  I’m just glad you’re here reading the stuff we post either way.

I can understand the whole “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” mentality we’ve come to adapt with skepticism towards games.  I myself just recently used that argument when discussing Aion’s *hiss* new expansion.  That said, I think we’ve come to a point where we need to draw a line and say “This is just ridiculous”.  Both Slurms and Syp seem to have a similiar viewpoint to my own.

The new games aren’t bad, they’re great in a new way. Times change, games change. Maybe we should care less about the “MMO” label and just treat each game individually. – Slurms

The inspiration behind this post is Heartless Gamer’s Dissection of Firefall’s Gameplay Video.  The post itself is harmless, and actually very well done.  In the comments section however.. we get stuff like this.  ”Looks good, but I’m not a fan of the setting. Apart from that I never play F2P” or “The game made me want to play Borderlands and Mass Effect 2 more, but F2P sounds a bit fishy for what I saw. Is it going to be lacking content, depth, anything to do but kill bug… What’s the catch?”  Now to be clear, I’m not trying to pick on these two gentlemen by any means.  That said, it seems like gamers have adapted an overly profound sense of skepticism towards F2P games.  Heartless sums up my thoughts nicely in his response.

Why does there have to be a catch with Firefall? There are plenty of examples of F2P games that offer plenty of content and are easily on par with subscription/box-price games in terms of quality.  If there is a “catch” at all, it’s everyone calling it an MMO (but really thinking of WoW when they say that).

Its fair to say that in the past we’ve had our share of free to play games that have either been “pay to win” or “secretly pay to play”.  Yet look only a month back, suddenly now we’ve got GA, EQ2X, DDO, LOTRO, and many other very popular games either converting to the F2P model or starting out that way to begin with.  I think its about time that we as a community put aside our past disappointments with F2P games and give new ones a chance.  If they’re free, who gives a damn if you go in with either high or low expectations of the game?  If it’s fun, you’ll keep playing it.  If not, the only thing you’ve lost is a little time, and you move on.  It doesn’t have to be this complicated!

Heartless Gamers’ comment is also a great lead into my next point of discussion.  Is the argument about whether Firefall is a “true MMO” or not even important?  Honestly, I think its even more stupid than debating politics with your polar opposite.  Is the label of MMO going to determine whether you play and enjoy the game?  If it does, then why do you even play games?  Since when do labels supersede fun in gaming?  Maybe I missed that memo about a year ago, but in the long run it really shouldn’t matter.  Grimnir brought up a great example when I was discussing this article with him.  Diablo II isn’t widely considered to be an MMO, and yet people still to this day argue that it can be, and that Diablo III should be recognized as such.

“Look back at our roots fellow gamers.  Now, let me be clear.  I’m not saying we should all stop typing to one another and completely close all discourses about these subjects, I love a good debate.  I just feel we are losing sight of what really matters with gaming, the three F’s if you will.  Friends, fun, and freedom.  Thank you my fellow Americans, and God Bless Video Games.” – Probably What President Obama Would Say If He Was A Gamer

Now stop reading this and go play a game you enjoy playing simply because its fun!  Mush!