Kotaku

Dear Videogame Industry,Hey, it's Mike Drucker again. Last time I wrote you, I was six years old and my house was robbed and I asked if you could send me free copies of all the NES games I lost. You never wrote back. It's okay; I emulate them now.This time I've got a different favor to ask. You see, I've been playing videogames for my entire life. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve sitting in front of my television for hours experiencing stories so vast that even Nintendo missed some of the sex stuff.But recently, I've noticed a growing problem in my favorite hobby. I own three consoles, two handhelds, an iPhone, and a PC.But, unlike anytime in the past, every current platform has multiple amazing titles worth playing to completion.And you're releasing too goddamn many of them.There are too many good games being released every week for me to keep up. Every day,GameSpy releases videos of a new game that I'm going to have to buy because it builds on a foundation of nostalgia that only videogame developers know how to exploit.I know, I know: "You don't have to buygame that comes out," you're saying after taking the cigar out of your mouth.Stop it.Of course I'm not going to buy every shovelware horse-mating simulator and mini-game collection. But that's not because I'm a good person, that's because I hate shovelware. If all videogames were released by shovelware developers,! That's like saying if all the porn was made by my grandma, I'd be capable of sustaining real relationships. It's not andEvery Tuesday, a dozen new role-playing epics and cinematic shooters and thousand-year-spanning strategy games are released. All of them are billed as the most important experience of my life by every videogame site I read. All of them are covered in the New York Times as a cultural event. All of them feature mind-blowing graphics and genre-bending gameplay with celebrity voice-acting and Pulitzer-worthy writing.And here's what's really crazy: It's all true.Videogame Industry, you're literally releasing too many good games. When I was a kid, not only were there less games, but there were lessgames. Boogerman was one of the 10 best games of 1994.. You know, the game with the superhero who shoots? Top 10. With a bullet.To look at it from another angle,. If you told me that 15 years ago I would've drank, because weeping is so much less subtle.Let me ask a question: has anyone actually beaten Dragon Age: Origins? I can't really tell. Every time I try to bring it up with another gamer, they start talking about Mass Effect 2, and when I bring up that I still didn't finish Mass Effect 1, they start talking about Heavy Rain. And thenhave to Google Heavy Rain, because I thought it was the game about the guy with writer's block, but it turns outgame is Alan Wake.You're releasing too many great games and Ikeep up."But movie studios release tons of movies every year and people never complain," you say.