I am not sure if I’m noticing my own habits of buying games that are similar all at once, or if the world is conspiring to release an onslaught of similar games one after another. This is where you decide. Do you see handfuls of games that appear to be coincidentally similar? Or, am I just making things up?
Recently the trend has been almost entirely tower defense games in my household. I picked up and have played: Monday Night Combat, Toy Soldiers (with a sequel incoming), Slam Bolt Scrappers, Defense Grid, and Section 8: Prejudice, all in the last week or so.
Of course as a gamer I see very cut and clear differences between each of these games to make none of them seem like a copy or thief to their predecessors - they’re still all Tower Defense style games or have tower defense style modes.
When I first landed in the Arcade scene it seemed like everything big was a SHMUP. This was about 2 years ago when Aegis Wing was free, Ikaruga made the trek to XBLA, Shoot 1Up debuted on the Indie games, etc. Then on to twin-stick shooters, then tactics games - you get the idea.
So in your opinion: Is there a cycling trend for which genres stand strongest at a time, or is this girl out of her mind and good at accidentally buying the same type of game over and over again? Keep in mind it may be developers and publishers testing the market for whats big, but it may also be gamers demanding moremoremore of something they love.