I decided to write this for all the comments in which, people in this consumer industry post about losing faith, and saying nothing is going to change. I believe that we have full and complete control of this industry, and it takes the realization of this control to utterly turn the tables in this industry. The average gaming consumer is fed up with day one DLC's, map packs, add on skins, characters, secret weapons, secret summons, additional levels, cross hairs (SE shame), and a list so long I couldn't even begin to fathom for add on content. The solution I propose is simple. Our rights as consumers are lost in translation on a long lawyer transcribed tombstone that accompanies each and every game we purchase from our local retailer. Which essentially states we're stuck with the product once we purchase it. Which in essence is the truth, but how about we rewind. Let's go back to the moment right before we click pre-order, or walk into our local game retailers, and throw down hundreds of dollars for a collectors edition. All I'm asking is that we stop and think and vote.

The right to vote is a privilege in some countries, and here in the United States a lot was paid for the right to do it. But let us consider that if we treat purchasing a product, like voting that we'd be sending a message to each and every game maker about what we're comfortable with. So far the gaming consumer has voted that he/she is comfortable with day one DLC. The gaming consumer has voted that he/she is comfortable with map packs. And the gaming consumer has voted that they love incomplete games, that lock content behind pay walls. Despite the fact that the forums are ablaze with the exact opposite we vote yes, to the continuation of our misery. So again, the solution points to the simple premise of voting no for this type of content. Wait for the GOTY editions, wait for the huge price drops, wait for the free DLC. Vote no for the types of business practices you don't like, vote against the constant micro-transactions in games by not buying them. The more we buy, the more they will put out, because we are essentially telling game makers, that that's acceptable.

And if we truly want this type of behavior to stop from game makers, then we need to vote. Vote with your wallets, please I implore you, if anything is to change we have to make a stand somewhere, and as a gamer, I know that when enough talented people come together anything is possible.

Seeing everyone make lists got me thinking I should put some thought into my time as a gamer, and really contemplate where I spent a majority of my childhood. Now my list will include games across multiple platforms ranging back all the way to 1985 and the first Nintendo, so ten really is a small amount. Facing scrutiny or mere backlash is expected with a top ten list, but I figured why not, just for the sake of it. So without further ado, here goes my top ten of all time.

1. Golden Eye 007 - Nintendo 64

Now I know it's been fought over for quite some time, but I consider this game a classic in all its glory, mostly for the nostalgia aspects of gaming. Who can forget the first time you sat around with four friends arguing over the golden gun, or laying out the rule that no one was allowed to pick Odd Job as a character. It was really the first time four people could sit around together and sling comments back and forth while blowing each other away. So for that reason it makes my first pick for the top ten of all time.

2. Road Rash Series - Various Platforms

Whats more fun then driving a super powerful motorcycle over a hundred miles an hour up a ramp, jumping a car, kicking someone into on coming traffic, and crossing the finish line to be greeted by half naked women. I mean cmon. And then getting the money to buy an even faster bike for the next race. This game, was just as fun as it was crazy, but thats what made it fun, was the fact that it was so outlandish.

3. Conkers Bad Fur Day - Nintendo 64

You play as a furry red squirrel who swears like a sailor, and fights enemies that came right out of a Roger Rabbit movie. This game was why Rareware inevitably disspeared from the gaming world but, to me, it was worth it. Battling evil teddies and rein-acting Speilbergs Saving Private Ryan was worth every minute I spent playing this game. Leaping into multi player with a samurai sword to massacre zombies, you just couldnt ever go wrong with the craziness that was Conker. To this day Matrix mission, and ending was most fun Ive had in a game in years.

4. Zombies Ate my Neighbors - SNES

Yea there was Mario, and Donkey Kong, and all the others, but why not just a regular dude with a squirt gun, saving his neighbors and getting the girl. What a fun game, to run around endlessly jumping on trampolines and taking down crazy bosses that some how got included in the story line. What's not to like.

5. Final Fantasy X - Playstation 2

This game revolutionized story telling for me. It had depth, it had emotion, it had characters that I truly cared about and was upset to see go. It had secret dungeons, weapons, aeons, and it had so much fun to be had playing it. This is and how a FF game should be designed, implemented, and played. To this day I have yet to see a character most mysteriously fleshed out than Auron, the guys a beast!

6. Halo 3 - Xbox 360

Master Chief ya did good. This entry in the series was just in the right place at the right time. And it was Bungies farewell so of course it rocked. And of course millions of people had fun rocking with it.

7. Silent Death - PC

I dont know if anyones even heard of the game but I sunk so many hours into playing it, that I couldnt not include it in my top ten. Basically it was a online top down space shooter, where you could customize your ships, buy better weapons, form clans, play tournaments, and overall just needed a single player campaign story to make the transition to a shelf.

8. Magestorm - PC

Best RPGFPS I played online, and the fact that its back leaves something to be noted. After many years in hiatus the fan base successfully brought it back due to Mythic Games finally releasing rights to it. And basically it was a first person shooter where you accumulated experience points and leveled up by selecting new a powerful spells. Was great if your akin to allowing game play take precedence over graphically quality.

9. Pokemon Series - Nintendo Gameboy

Who hasnt at least tried to catch em all? I spent more time playing these games then anything else. Favorite pokemon ever Growlith, check! I mean this game was practically the selling feature for Nintendo Gameboy and essentially what carried their hand helds over today. I couldnt not mention the game. And somehow some almost twenty years later Nintendo is still popping them out.

10. Grand Theft Auto Series - Multiple Platforms

No other game paved the way for the sheer amount of freedom this series afforded. I mean sure it wasn't until the third entry in the saga that we saw this, but someone at Rockstar thought it was worth pursuing and were they ever right. Sure violence is this games first name, but instead of fighting the wave of political correctness, and streamlining a genre, this series embraces who it is, and not only excels, but strives for perfection.

Often times I've wondered where the magic has gone in video games. I remember some twenty years ago now, waking up on Christmas and getting my first NES. I remember the hours upon hours I spent playing something of the five games my brother and I actually owned. Five...seems funny now, but of those five odd games we had, it kept us occupied for the majority of our childhood. It just seems like video games on the whole, or at least a mass majority of them, are getting shorter and shorter in lieu of prestige graphics, sound, CGI cut scenes, and completely voiced characters. And although these trends no doubt show unparalleled results, something of a little bit of magic is left from their creation. Let me elaborate a little bit further. Old classics like for instance Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 had approximately 30 levels of gameplay. And with those some odd 30 levels you had four difficulties to approach each, and each playing out in a different manner, so essentially you had 120 different play throughs. Subsequent Bond games hit shelves with maybe ten levels, and although new Bond games have come out to ascend to something along the lines of the original the fact remained, there was no magic in the in between years. Developers, publishers, game designers have all been to inclined to approach the model of "Well we could have a few secrets in the game," but more directly translates to lets just add it later as additional DLC. My real question as to the whereabouts of the magic of games in line with storytelling is this; what happened to all the secrets?

When I was younger I'd play through a title, pick a multitude, and I would be rewarded for my in game exploration with numerous things. Secret bosses, weapons, areas, treasures, Aeons ha-ha, to name a few. But with today's games, the exploration is gone, and has been just spoon fed to us, upon shelling out some X amount of Microsoft points. I mean let's take for example a recent game Assassin's Creed III. Phenomenal game might I add, has everything you could ask for in a title. However, the Mayan Ruin's add-on? Couldn't you just as easily go through a crazy plat former in a secret area and find a scroll to the Temple's location. But instead we shell out some ten dollars, and were told as to where it is exactly. My point is this, what good is DLC if everything is just immediately given to us, with no inclination of self reward. The entirety of video games at least for me was getting lost in a world indifferent of my own. If a customer is constantly reminded that a game is just a game via micro transactions does not the customer lose interest and move on to something else? And if that is the case, I believe the companies that produce games have beaten us at our own game. The solution is simple, just don't buy into the senseless, make developers work hard for the money. Senseless rebuttals of the same reiteration over and over, prove that money is there, but the magic is gone.

I just wish games would go back to the days, of telling a story, to tell a story. I understand the constraints of huge blockbusting successes and their desire to out due the last iteration in the series, but all the while making Call of Duty 17 Nazi Zombies hardcore edition, could the publishers work on a side project that in itself is a new creative IP. I mean the industry is starving for the magic that once was. You have publishers saying storytelling is dead, and needs not to be in video games. You have publishers saying that the next biggest craze is social gaming. And to give them credit everyone is right in their own respect, and they also share a common denominator. Given its current course gamers will become burnt out, and the once great empire that was calling yourself a gamer, will be the next yo-yo craze.

The saddest thing about the disappearing act of magic from games is that in the last few years or so the biggest successes in gaming have been sequels to the same game in a series. Now there have been a few emerging titles under the ramparts of the largest publishers such as Dead Space, Red Dead Redemption, Journey, Mirror's Edge to name a few, but the vast majority has been sequined titles. I just believe that the depth that once went into storytelling has been seemingly replaced with micro transactions.

Lets take for example another game Final Fantasy X. Now before everyone thinks I'm going to glorify this title beyond all others.....I'm not. The fact is everyone can agree it was a decent FF. However, if we were to take that title, and let's say it was released in todays gaming market, how many micro transactions would be get out of that one. Each character had a branching story, that's a clustered bunch of DLC there. You had secret dungeons, and legendary weapons, that would all be DLC. You had secret summons, and hidden temples, again that would be DLC. You had a sphere grid leveling up center, which could have been turned into DLC. You had Blitzball, and the opportunity to recruit players, almost like you had your own FIFA tournament within a game, also could have been DLC. Now keeping all that in mind, why didn't they make it additional content.

There's the question of the century folks. If you were to ask the creators of FFX, did you not make it DLC because the technology wasn't there to administer it, or was it because you wanted to show the world you created in Spira with all the magic that it entailed? How would they respond? Good question isn't it, and it's the focus of my entire argument here. When did gaming become more about making the most money off a title, and less about delivering the most amount of product to a customer? Skyrim was a perfect demonstration of packing hundred of hours into a title, every play through different, from whatever the individual chose to tackle first. There were tons of caves, mountains, rivers, forts, and towns to pillage and explore. This is what the gaming community needs a sense of exploration, and reward for doing so, not some sword that is instantly transferred to my hand by the power of the DLC God's. If we cater to people and offer instant gratification in gaming it transverses onto everything we do in life. Gaming was about rewards, and consequences, and hard work. The magic from gaming once carried with it morale aptitudes. As much a video games were about fun, they also carried with them some self perpetuating guiding principles. Rewarding characters for exploration, and crushing those whose ego's got in the way of self preservation. Now this is all begotten by the mighty DLC sword that allows players to transverse a game unparalleled to all those not paying for the same sword.

I'll end with this, the magic in video games, pops up every now and again, and to be honest surpasses most titles stuck in the rut of reiterations. My advice to the major publishers is that a rose cannot be bled not for a little while nor forever, and if they do not branch out and transverse different avenues, well then their characters will die at the start menu, while others fearfully but adamantly took the first steps towards the magic.