[[2026 Games]] Lately I’ve been thinking about how my taste was refined by the media that I was super into as a kid, and how that was only possible thanks to the release schedule of said media. For reference, between when I was born and when I turned 18: - A new **Zelda** game came out in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. - A new mainline **Final Fantasy** game came out in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2013. - The entire **Mass Effect** trilogy came out between 2007 and 2012. And that’s just off the top of my head. I played so many **Monster Hunters**, **Metal Gears**, **Resident Evils**, **Metroids**, **Jak & Daxters**, **Sly Coopers**, and so on and so forth. I could be a fan of any game in any genre of any size, and look forward to an iteration on it within a few years — or at least once per console generation. The reason I mention all of this is because I realize that kids growing up now are very unlikely to have that same experience, and I think that sucks. mFranchises that defined my taste and set my imagination on fire and made me love games are missing not just console generations, but entire generations of gamers. How could any kid growing up now be a fan of a game series when it comes out every 8 years? If you grew up now as a **Final Fantasy** fan, you’d play one game when you’re 7 and the next when you’re graduating high school. Obviously the trade-off here is the sheer amount of games a kid has access to, but I still think it’s a bummer! The multiple series I mentioned above were constant companions as I grew up, drawing Tri-Force symbols on the back of my homework and pretending to be Samus Aran during recess. I don’t think it’d be impossible to reach this level of consistency again. Beyond spin-offs to spice things up — which we used to have until [[Handheld Games Left Behind a Gap]] — there’s that oft-repeated adage of wanting cheap games with worse graphics, yadda yadda. It was easier to release games at that previous pace because you didn’t have to make sure your game looked hyper realistic, nor did you have executives meddling by forcing you to make live service slop. I think this is important to do as well, because I believe this is why so many kids are turning to mobile/gacha games. I’ll spit whenever I hear about Mihoyo games until I day, but I can’t exactly blame a kid for enjoying their games given their frequent updates. I’m just disappointed that a fucking gacha pipeline has replaced a kid’s ability to play **Final Fantasy IX**, **Final Fantasy X** and **Final Fantasy XII** within like 5 years of each other. How can you grow up with anything you enjoy when those things you enjoy can’t grow alongside you? How can you love something that takes an eternity to come out? I don’t really have answers to these questions, but I wonder how else they’re affecting the way kids engage with media today.