Expectations are a curious thing.
At best, expectation can become anticipation which provides us with the much needed excitement and emotional rollercoasterings that makes life interesting and fun.
That said.
Expectations, equally often, are made too high, correspondingly making it harder to enjoy your anticipated pleasure because you want more from it before you are happy.
Take Modern Warfare 2 for example. My brother and I, sharing a room as we do, often have late night talks about our future plans, aspirations and most anticipated games. Modern Warfare 2 was discussed ad nauseam and naturally we began to anticipate the next "greatest thing evar!"
It arrived, and, pardon my upbringing, it was F#CKING TERRIBLE! I don't play multiplayer so all I was hoping for was a storyline-erific action packed single player campaign. What I got was one big, incomprehensible explosion of a conspiracy theorists wettest dream with more unexpected deaths than the Black characters in horror movies.
By comparison take Red Faction Guerrilla, I had never heard of it, knew nothing about it and tried it with a blank slate. I ended up loving it. The game is pure functionality and fun, albeit nothing special if you're looking for the next Mass Effect, but fun nonetheless.
My lack of expectation led me to having fun, whatever my twisted logic. Human beings are hedonistic (pleasure seekers) by nature, so I see no reason to sabotage myself with unecesesary expectations.
So here is my message for the day, expect sparingly. I don't mean lower expectations but choose carefully when to begin making them.
A connoisseur will tell you that having your expectations fulfilled is better than being "pleasantly surprised" by a hundred experiences.
While nothing can beat the feeling of having an experience meet or exceed expectations it also means that for every one of those feelings of pure fulfillment there are many more occasions of disappointment.
Expect sparingly and have the best of both.
If Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim are not the greatest contributions to culture since the Mona Lisa I will personally find and violate their makers.
I will also be pleasantly surprised (hopefully) by Deus Ex: Human Revolution and RAGE.
As my grandfather always said:
"Everything in moderation, including moderation."
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Yeah I know what you mean. If you set your expectations too high then you will likely be letdown.. Out of all the games I bought this year at full price Infamous 2 met my expectations.. And thats due to no small part to me not being overly excited by it like I was with KZ3 or L.A. Noire. Im trying really hard not to get too excited for ME3 but i cant help it lol.. As far as the other games this year.. My moderation with expectations is just right..
Uc3, BF3, Arkham City, aand RAGE.. Im not overly exicted about any of these games
Low expectations are pretty keen.
Going in with low to no expectations means the game can only exceed them.
I always employ a healthy dose of skepticism, especially for games everyone loves but nobody has played.