[unknown] I played WoW! I leveled two characters to the cap of L60 and played a few months of Burning Crusade (the first expansion). I enjoyed my time with it though it basically subsumed all game time that I had. And yet I still felt like a “filthy casual” every time I talked about it online or with my friends.
What’s average game session length for you/the WoW community now? That’s something that I really struggled with as making a 2-3 hour commitment to strangers (my friends out-leveled me super fast) for a leveling dungeon was really difficult for me.
The personality test question for you is what race/class you picked!?
Different topic: you know what video game I’m not playing? Mario 35. RIP Mario 35. I enjoyed Mario 35 quite a bunch. I know that’s not a popular opinion with the IC show hosts, but it’s totally the most fun way to engage with the Super Mario Bros levels. Yes, it had a few fundamental problems with how it selected levels (badly, you played 1-1 and 1-2 ad nauseum) and some of the more advanced targeting mechanics were opaque (standard Nintendo design nonsense there), but it was super fun running through a level flooded with monsters and Bowsers and being able to slot-machine spin for a fire flower if you screwed up and got hit.
I don’t agree with the limited edition for digital goods that do not rely on an online service. It’s stupid to say that Nintendo can’t sell Mario 3D All Stars on the e-shop any more. But I do think that the limited edition of a service game is something we’re already accustomed to, we just aren’t used to having it outright revoked. You can’t play WoW 1.0 anymore (yeah yeah, technically on an emulated server). You can’t play the last Halloween event on Fortnight where you were a zombie dancer or whatever. You can’t play the first season’s classic content in Fall Guys. I think that for a project like Mario 35, it’s totally feasible to say “Hey, this is how long this online service is going to run”. I do think that Nintendo (and others) have to learn how to position it to the market, but I think this is going to be a more common thing going forward.