Success...and boredom

After the most recent session of The Movies, I'm happy to say that I was able to climb from 10th place (aka last place) to the third spot. In addition, I received more than half of the rewards at the last ceremony, including the best actor prize (not bad for someone who hates dealing with the talent). As exciting as it was to pull myself out of debt and rise up through the ranks, I must admit that I'm getting a bit bored with the game. This is pretty surprising, considering that I'm generally focused until the objective is met, but at this point, I'm not too concerned with getting to that top position.

I think part of the reason has to do with the fact that I've been exposed to so many other games throughout the course of this class, which seem a lot more interesting than the one I'm currently planning. Similar to Anne, I think this has a lot to do with some of the things that I uncovered throughout the course of my interviewing/investigating for the gamer paper.

Although I live in graduate housing, where you wouldn't normally expect to find the game systems that were so prevalent in the undergrad dorms, there are quite a few gamers who remembered to pack their Xboxes and Playstations before making the move to Cambridge. While my objective was to study them as they got their game on, I also learned a lot more about my own gaming preferences.

First of all, I am definitely a narrative person. I like a game that tells a good story, and the story within The Movies just isn't cutting it. I observed one of my floor-mates playing Bioshock a few weeks ago, and the story actually drew me in even though I wasn't even the one playing. I also found that I prefer games where I actually get to do something...management is definitely not my bag. With Guitar Hero, for instance (I actually rocked out on Medium last week!!) I am in the band playing a song, with Ghost Recon 2, even though I do have to manage a small team, I'm still very much directly involved with defeating the rebel forces. It's very likely that if I reached a point in the game where I was promoted to major, I'd probably stop playing.

Since I'm a bit OCD about finishing what I've started, I will continue to play The Movies until I've written a happy ending by securing that top spot; however, come graduation, I'll probably be in line behind Anne and her SimCity game with something that's a little more my style.