Can anyone really keep up with modern games? I mean, I'm a PC-only gamer anymore, and there's no way I could spend even an hour on every PC game to come out in a year. Fortunately or unfortunately, I wouldn't want to spend an hour on most of them. But still, I cannot keep up.

Just this weekend I bought copies of Dodgeball and Final Fantasy I (with player guide and world map / beastiary!) for my NES, and Knuckles' Chaotix for my 32x. Progress is great and all, but there's a lot to be said for many old games.

I prefer to just keep the fond memories. Almost every time I go play and play "classics" I'm disappointed.

Can anyone really keep up with modern games? I mean, I'm a PC-only gamer anymore, and there's no way I could spend even an hour on every PC game to come out in a year. Fortunately or unfortunately, I wouldn't want to spend an hour on most of them. But still, I cannot keep up.

I think the point is, have you heard of The Last Of Us? I game almost exclusively on the Xbox, but that game has been on my radar for some time now.

Am I the only one who does this ?

I'm on it as well. Mostly buying indies however. Last money I spent was on a Telltale games package. Quality is a bit inconsistent but for 1EUR each, I'm fine with it.

I find insane that the budgets have skyrocketed, studios and publishers go belly up yet they insist in AAA development with the same budgets as before. With some console hardware convergence (not to mention entry-level PCs) I hope they'll be able to lower prices so we can do business, but as long as they keep the price that way I'm not going to be a customer. I need to buy the hardware and running at 12fps isn't "gaming" anyway. Raise your hand if you're still on DDR3 graphics!

Can anyone really keep up with modern games? I mean, I'm a PC-only gamer anymore, and there's no way I could spend even an hour on every PC game to come out in a year. Fortunately or unfortunately, I wouldn't want to spend an hour on most of them. But still, I cannot keep up.

I think the point is, have you heard of The Last Of Us? I game almost exclusively on the Xbox, but that game has been on my radar for some time now.

Yeah sure I've heard of it. All one has to do is follow http://memebase.cheezburger.com/videogames and you'll hear what games the community is excited about. But if I don't actually play it I won't know enough about it to discuss it. I hear about Grand Theft Auto and Assasin's Creed all the time, but I haven't played one and probably won't. People have been talking about Pokemon X/Y and Animal Crossing recently, but I probably won't play those either. And if I eventually get to one of them two years after it was released, all the discussion will be over.

I find it a little bit insane that someone would consider themselves a game developer, but not keep up with modern games. (As well as being familiar with the classics.)

Why do you think folks HAVE to buy the latest and greatest games to be a developer?

I find it a little bit insane that someone would consider themselves a game developer, but not keep up with modern games. (As well as being familiar with the classics.)

Why do you think folks HAVE to buy the latest and greatest games to be a developer?

I too would like to know.

There's surely more games available now than anyone has time to play. Why choose a new game over a game from 10 years ago that you haven't played yet? Good things (books, music, films, games) are timeless. The older ones are often much cheaper :)

I'm a gog.com fan here. Old game are fun, there are nostalgia (for example i won't have money to buy all the best game of that time, but do read reviews on the net and all.) but now i can buy it. also to play other type of game. for example i rarely play 4X game, but now I can play sid meiers 4x game, and other games, cheaply.

I find it a little bit insane that someone would consider themselves a game developer, but not keep up with modern games. (As well as being familiar with the classics.)

Why do you think folks HAVE to buy the latest and greatest games to be a developer?

I too would like to know.

Because I don't see game development as a "stick my head in the ground and keep hacking away at whatever idea I have" type activity. And I consider 'latest and greatest' as casting a very wide net of a wide variety of options. I'm not telling you to buy the next Modern Warfare and I'm not telling you to drop $60 pre-orders for everything that wanders past. But I'm looking at Last of Us, Remember Me on the AAA side and Antichamber on the indie side. These games are doing interesting things and that means the potential for interesting ideas inspired by them. The exact games of interest will vary from person to person, but I think of myself as part of the game industry and that means paying attention to what the industry is doing. Good AND bad.

I'm also a heavily technical engineer, so it's critically important for me to be aware of what the state of the art is on all platforms. So I'm paying a lot of attention to technical aspects (eg Battlefield 4 destruction), presentations that discuss implementation and challenges, techniques, etc. I'm paying attention to whether people are using deferred renderers, how much of the pipeline is built in compute shaders, etc. These things matter because I'm a systems/engine guy. If you're just grabbing tech off the shelf or from someone to support a design, that's a little different.

The point isn't to buy the latest and greatest games. It's to be aware of the ENTIRE landscape. Past, present and future. In that sense I see ignoring PS3/4 games as equivalent to ignoring N64 games. Or iOS games, or even social games. If the games you play are five to ten years out of date, then so are the games you develop. That's not just technical, but cuts across design and art considerations as well.