Game Companies To Follow the Community

With Age of Empire 2 making its way to the Xbox, it re-ignited my love for the game I used to play as a kid. What Microsoft did here is something we don't see much of in the gaming industry. They realized, a few years ago, that Age of Empire 2 was still being played by the community and hired a few community molders to work on the HD edition of the game and the Definitive Edition soon afterwards.

The reason why we still see updates for the game is because there's an healthy community that still plays it.

Games should live, or die, based on the community but how often do we see games seemingly loose support either too soon (Splitgate) or too late (Battlefield 2042). If there's a healthy community, then keep supporting the games; if there isn't then stop.

It's annoying to see a game loose support too soon or too late. If we look at the mess that was Battlefield 2042, it doesn't really matter that they managed to bring the game to a playable state as the community as rejected it in favor of earlier entries or other series altogether. If the community hasn't moved on from Battlefield 1 or Battlefield 5 then why not spend additional resources into those games rather than attempting to fix the latest/broken entry?

If you're lucky enough to have made a game that resonates with players then keep investing in it rather than dropping support in favor of a new iteration of the series. If Battlefield 1 still average decent numbers then stick to it! There must be something to this game that players appreciate over the competition and working on a new iteration doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be able to move that community forward. 

High End Gaming PC for This?

I've recently gotten my hands on a High End Gaming PC and was surprised by how many games actually struggle to run decently using the bells and whistles found at the high-end spectrum. While not all games caused crashes I found that some didn't handle being played at their highest settings very well. This could always be an hardware/driver issue from my side, of course, but since the issues seems to be occurring for some games under some specific conditions, and not others under similar conditions, It seems to me like the issue is with the game rather than anything else.

The 2 items that seems to be causing the most problems for me are:

• RTX - This newish technology doesn't seem to work well for some games as using the highest RTX settings directly impacted the stability of some of the games tried.
• Refresh Rate - Some games gives the option of a higher refresh rate than the standard 60hz but stability seems to be taking a hit whenever choosing anything beyond 60hz for some games.

I would argue that the reason why some games have bugs at the higher end settings is because not as many people play games using high-end parts. Most gamers likely use mid to low range systems and games work fine with lower configurations.

I'm not ruling out the hardware/driver issue entirely. This is my first high end gaming PC and I thought everything would run without any issues. The reality, however, seems to be that high end gaming still has some, different, issues than my experience with lower/mid range gaming PCs.

The Sonic Frustration

While I never was a fan of Sonic, I have come across a few Sonic games over the years which were polar opposites in terms of quality and fun factor. Essentially, it's difficult to get excited at a Sonic game release as you never know what to expect from the SEGA mascot. 

If, on the other hand, I would tell you that another Mario game is coming out there's some sense of predictability that can be felt. Mario games, unlike Sonic games, have consistently been quality experiences that, sure, may not always appeal to everyone but they were generally bug free with an experience that felt well thought out.

Even with Sonic Frontier's positive reception, I'm reluctant at the idea of picking the game up as I get flashbacks of other Sonic experiences that I would rather forget (is that PTSD?). SEGA has sandwiched good Sonic games in between bad ones and I no longer care to give their games a try - even the seemingly good ones.

Sonic is, to me at least, a "don't buy or buy on discount/sale" type of mascot.