A Gamer Guide to Battling the Summer Doldrums
According to the free online dictionary over at dictionary.com, the word doldrums is defined simply as:
dol·drums [dohl -druhmz, dol- , dawl- ]
--noun (used with a plural verb )
1. a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art: August is a time of doldrums for many enterprises.2.the doldrums ,
a. a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
b. the weather prevailing in this area.
3. a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits.
The Gamers Dictionary and Reference Manual (The Full Court Games Press, 2010) defines the Summer Doldrums as:
"The Summer Doldrums are the period of the year marked on the calendar from July 1st to around August 20th during which very few major game titles are released by games publishers and, during which, gamers are traditionally forced to either make do with the games that they already own or, more frequently, combine play on MMO games with the titles that occupy their normal game rotation for play in order to make up for the lack of new games."
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That is about as accurate a definition as they come, though the recent trend by games publishers to plan out and release DLC expansion content for major titles is slowly chipping away at the misery induced by those pages on the calender. The recent string of new cases for L.A. Noire and the upcoming DLC expansion for the hit title Fallout: New Vegas are excellent examples of the trend.
The use of DLC expansions and content to buff up the play value for existing games is a welcome trend by gamers, who view it as an opportunity to add value to games that they already know, love, and enjoy playing.
Boredom Slaying for Summer 2011
It would be very easy to take the cheap route here and open this section with suggestions of things that you can do that are only tacitly gaming-related. Oh, what the hell, let's start with the easy route and work our way around to the harder path, shall we?
Common sense might suggest that part of the reason for the Summer Doldrums has to so with it being the traditional time of year during which employees take their paid holiday -- but the fact is that this has pretty much nothing to do with the matter at all. Just the opposite in fact -- one of the primary causes for the sudden lack of game releases has to do with the fact that this is the time of year during which accelerated and intense development is taking place for the games whose releases will pack the Fall calendar and deliver your gaming fun later in the year.
But that only applies to the people who work in the games industry -- you and I still take our annual paid leave in the summer, so any proper list of ways to combat boredom and give us something that we will like to do rightly must include activities that we can seek out during our paid holiday!
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