A Letter to “Santa” Concerning My Christmas Wishes

Dear Video Game Developers Santa,

Hey, it’s me again. I just wanted to let you know how good I’ve been this year: I’ve prevented at least three secret organizations from overthrowing our society, gone back and personally ended World War II again (would they have ever won that war if I hadn’t stepped in?), and even created a LittleBigPlanet level in the shape of Jesus’ head! Needless to say, I think my good deeds definitely outweigh the bad (let’s just forget about that little instance where I parked my car on top of a dead hooker, shall we?) and I think some Christmas swag is in order. But I’m not going small, Big Red. No, this year I’m asking for some gifts for gamers in general, and I think we all have a few things you could mark off our lists.

First off, I’d like for my games to be spread out a little better next year. While I’m all for there being a lot of quality games around, do they all have to be released within a month of each other? Why not spread the wealth a little? I don’t know about everyone else, but I would be more than willing to shell out for a quality game in May. On that note, why not see if you can knock prices for new games back down to $50? Since we all know your elves are in control of production and pricing, I figured you could step in with a little managerial advice and resolve this dilemma.

Also, I was wondering if you could spice up the contents of my stocking a little bit in the near future. On last year’s list, our biggest must-haves included Halo 3, The Orange Box, BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Super Mario Galaxy. While they were all a lot of fun, four out of five of them involved the same main play mechanic: the art of pointing a gun and pulling the trigger. While it may be too late for this year (Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Left 4 Dead, Resistance 2…), I definitely think you should try to a little more variety next year. I mean, killing things is fun and all, but if you eat filet mignon for every meal, a saltine cracker quickly becomes a delicacy.

Scenes from the next Zelda?

But really all I want is for creativity to take precedence in the medium once again. While it hasn’t completely evaporated yet, it seems the elves have been taking it easy as of late, using the same designs over and over again—not just too many first-person shooters, but too many sequels and rehashes. Oh, you mean Link found another boomerang in this adventure for nostalgia’s sake? Well then, maybe you should make us all less nostalgic; that way we won’t hold onto old game concepts as being an “homage” instead of lazy design. If you could make that fit under the tree, I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, on a more personal note: is there any way you could make daddy come back?

Merry Christmas, Santa!

-Jordan