Foreshadowing of things to come: Article, "Are AAA games too long?"

Ovenall said:

The length is not the issue. The ratio of:

the amount of time it takes to complete quality content/total amount of time the game takes to "finish"

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This!

I've played amazing 60 hour rpgs packed full of quality content that I didn't want to end. On the other hand, I've also played 20 hour rpgs that felt padded out and I was forcing myself to complete.

The time taken to complete a game isn't a solid indicator of value or quality content. Well, with an exception that it is really short. I expect a AAA rpg to last over 20 hours.

JemyM said:

Another issue when it comes to length that I have to deal with today is the amount of time I have. I had plans to get through 10-20 games this summer and I am still playing Fallout New Vegas.

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This is an important factor. We've got a skewed demographic here at the Watch, but overall the generation of kids that led the charge into electronic gaming (call it kids of the 80's, with some 70's and 90's probably thrown in) is now in the stage of life where they have the least amount of disposable time. They're well past the student years. They've got jobs. They've got families of their own. Those with kids generally still have them in the house, so they haven't made it to the empty nest years.

When the point of the spear, hardcore gamers like those at the Watch, lacks the time and concentration for "epic games", it should come as little surprise that the industry will shift to make games shorter and easier to pick up. You know "the masses" will drive down the average, so we've got to force the direction of change. We're simply not in a position to make that happen these days.

dteowner said:

This is an important factor. We've got a skewed demographic here at the Watch, but overall the generation of kids that led the charge into electronic gaming (call it kids of the 80's, with some 70's and 90's probably thrown in) is now in the stage of life where they have the least amount of disposable time. They're well past the student years. They've got jobs. They've got families of their own. Those with kids generally still have them in the house, so they haven't made it to the empty nest years.

When the point of the spear, hardcore gamers like those at the Watch, lacks the time and concentration for "epic games", it should come as little surprise that the industry will shift to make games shorter and easier to pick up. You know "the masses" will drive down the average, so we've got to force the direction of change. We're simply not in a position to make that happen these days.

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Heh. According to another poster here, the "minority" shouldn't have a powerful voice in the way games are made... 18% only play as female, yet Bioware "caters" to them. So why should anyone give a rat's ass about hardcore CRPG nerds?

We're a minority! Ignore us!

Ovenall said:

Heh. According to another poster here, the "minority" shouldn't have a powerful voice in the way games are made… 18% only play as female, yet Bioware "caters" to them. So why should anyone give a rat's ass about hardcore CRPG nerds?

We're a minority! Ignore us!

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Difference here is that females is a growing market, hardcore geeks is not.

For nearly two decades (1980 to perhaps the mid-to-late-90s) video and computer games were not mainstream. With PS2 and Xbox I think is when it began to go mainstream… and then with PS3, Xbox360, and Wii I think is when it really went mainstream.

But before that time, there was still enough of a niche inspired by early text adventure games as well as other early videogames to spark development of all kinds of computer and videogames - all NOT mainstream.

For more than twenty years I've mocked the 'PC Gaming is Dying' articles that would appear now and again. More recently, we now have the 'casual and social gaming is killing console gaming' rhetoric - I find it all laughable.

Computer gaming, console gaming, and now 'social' gaming by way of mobile devices and social networking sites such as Facebook are not mutally exclusive.

Perhaps 'social and casual' gaming will become 'mainstream' for no other reason that that is all a certain masses of people want. But that by no means results in the automatic death of other forms of gaming such as console gaming and PC gaming.

If that logic were true then board games would have gone the way of the dinosaur. When television was invented the cinema would have suffered a slow death. Yet these things still prevail because they bring different experiences.

This article is an exhibition of gaming 'elitists' pontificating from ivory towers for their own amusement. The end.

Fnord said:

Difference here is that females is a growing market, hardcore geeks is not.

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This is what I believe as well.

And meanwhile I still want a "traditional" formula of RPGs, I also want some bits of "newness" dripping in here and there.

Fnord said:

Difference here is that females is a growing market, hardcore geeks is not.

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Meaning a femake hardcore geek creates a paradox that lead to a gigantic vortex and the end of the world.

Fnord said:

I don't know, looking at many what many of the "older" people around me do, I can see that they prefer "simple" entertainment, the kind where you don't have to put much effort into it as much as the current younger generations. The difference for computer games is that they are reaching a wider and wider market, and thus has to appeal to more people.

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Excellent points and thanks for the well thought out reply. I think you make a strong case that my own perception is off.

I think some of that perception has come from console games "driving" the industry to some degree (again a perception on my part) and to my mind they seem simpler. But then again wider audience and said audience may have always preferrred simpler things.

the other thing that made me consider the idea are articles/studies I have read (some for school some just online various places) that the heavy cell phone use, texting, social networks and the quick blurbs of information (twitter for example) show a tendancy for this generation to have less desire to focus on a single thing for any length of time and prefer more stimulation from many directions, i.e. shorter attention spans.

It does seem to me that current technology has created a difference mentality then what has existed in the past. How much of that has to do with attention and games I don't know.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

The *really* bad thing is, if this is not only limited to ntertainment …

Is the entertainment industry actually training whole generations to live "from the hand to the mouth", as we say here (it's a proverb) ?

And what does this mean for politics ? Are generations of politicians growing who know nothing else than short-sighted goals ?

Or, on the other hand, are some social classes refraining from this kind of entertainment so much that they can still think and act long-term, meanwhile a protelariat is growing up which is trained to think and act only in short terms ?
This would make it much, much easier to control them, then.

I'm always thinking big scale - trying to project developments into the future and into other areas.

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Your going a bit deep for me but interesting points and ideas. But the statement I bolded in your post made me think about a book I read a few years ago for school, Democracy In America by Alexis de Tocquevill (for those curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_America).

While I am not sure I agree, the author makes some interesting suggestions that religion can provide people with a "noble purpose" that lets them set long term goals that seek greatness. Because of the idea that there is an afterlife people are willing to sacrifice for the greater good and participate in things that may not reach fruition untile long after they have died.

There is a lot more to it than that but thats the basic idea. As people move away from religion, to various degrees, it may also mean a greater focus on self and more immediated gratification versus long-range planning. People want things now and quickly move onto the next stimulation.

I am not trying to promote religion (nor was the author in many ways as he felt strongly there needed to be a separation of government and religion) but I do find the idea interesting.

Of course one can still want to achieve great things and also be willing to sacrafice ones own life/time in the pursuit of something greater than meeting ones own needs. But in many ways religion provides a good motivator for this type of thing.

I think each generation is just growing up with shorter and shorter attention spans when it comes to entertainment. Got nothing to prove that though - just a casual observation that could be totally inaccurate.

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As others were saying, going mainstream has this effect. Another effect would be how much free time people have. The 40 hour work week is turning into 50 hours and that extra 10 hours isn't coming out of time spent mowing the lawn.

Zloth said:

As others were saying, going mainstream has this effect. Another effect would be how much free time people have. The 40 hour work week is turning into 50 hours and that extra 10 hours isn't coming out of time spent mowing the lawn.

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That would have to be one godam huge lawn if you spend 10 hours a week mowing it!!!

Ovenall said:

Heh. According to another poster here, the "minority" shouldn't have a powerful voice in the way games are made… 18% only play as female, yet Bioware "caters" to them. So why should anyone give a rat's ass about hardcore CRPG nerds?

We're a minority! Ignore us!

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My you still cant let it go can you. Does the truth bother you that badly?

Gregz said:

This is why I love sandbox games, if you want to play 10 hours, or 100, or 1000 it's up to you.

Let the user decide how long, and in what ways they want to interact with the game.

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But as stated, it is a two way street. Developping games requires guide lines and for letting the user decide how long and in what ways they want to interact with a game, it has to be factored in the pre developpment sequence. It is the result of design choice, just like wanting players to interact only with a game for ten hours.

Gaming like every other thing, in sex, some people love to do one thousand things with the same partner while others love to do the same thing with a thousand different partners.

No surprising that the length of games are to be shortened. It favours the game industry and a sizeable amount of the population of gamers enjoy playing over and over again the same game principle but with a different decorum.

The emerging solution is the most favourable outcome for both sides: developpers sell more games and players who enjoy that are to play the same game a thousand times but painted in different colours. And to accomplish that, one needs to spend as little time on each game as it is possible. And this for both sides, shorter developpment time and shorter playing time.

TheMadGamer said:

For more than twenty years I've mocked the 'PC Gaming is Dying' articles that would appear now and again. More recently, we now have the 'casual and social gaming is killing console gaming' rhetoric - I find it all laughable.

Computer gaming, console gaming, and now 'social' gaming by way of mobile devices and social networking sites such as Facebook are not mutally exclusive.

Perhaps 'social and casual' gaming will become 'mainstream' for no other reason that that is all a certain masses of people want. But that by no means results in the automatic death of other forms of gaming such as console gaming and PC gaming.

If that logic were true then board games would have gone the way of the dinosaur. When television was invented the cinema would have suffered a slow death. Yet these things still prevail because they bring different experiences.

This article is an exhibition of gaming 'elitists' pontificating from ivory towers for their own amusement. The end.

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Mere sidetracking. Resources are limited and the allocation of resources to one type of gaming is detrimental to the other any time there is no growth in the inputs of resources.

Board gaming prevailing? Where? Figures show that video games have eaten on traditional gaming share.
Board gaming not going extinct is deeply different from prevailing.

But I suppose it is the same vein as seeing RPG as a thriving genre by listing tons of games without bothering to know if they fit the RPG label.

ChienAboyeur said:

Board gaming prevailing? Where? Figures show that video games have eaten on traditional gaming share.
Board gaming not going extinct is deeply different from prevailing.

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Germany.

Here, everything's different.

The biggest board games fair *worldwide* is here in Germany.

I bought my share of german boardgames/tabletop games. Enough to know that a number went under.

Board games are always played, no doubt. Does not make them the prevailing kind of games.

Btw, I remember the utter contempt some players had against DOOM almost 20 years ago, and "3D" was synonymous with "mindless" actiongames. Real games was in 2d, turnbased and with alot of thinking involved.

JemyM said:

Btw, I remember the utter contempt some players had against DOOM almost 20 years ago, and "3D" was synonymous with "mindless" actiongames. Real games was in 2d, turnbased and with alot of thinking involved.

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You say that like it's not 100% true...

ChienAboyeur said:

Mere sidetracking. Resources are limited and the allocation of resources to one type of gaming is detrimental to the other any time there is no growth in the inputs of resources.

Board gaming prevailing? Where? Figures show that video games have eaten on traditional gaming share.
Board gaming not going extinct is deeply different from prevailing.

But I suppose it is the same vein as seeing RPG as a thriving genre by listing tons of games without bothering to know if they fit the RPG label.

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Board games seem to have been regaining a lot of ground in the last 5-8 years. They are not back to their pre-videogame days, but the amount new games that are being released, the resources that are being put into these releases and the amount of board game stores that seem to thrive seem to be a strong indication of board games actually doing well. You have to go to more specialized stores to actually get any exposure to board games, but if you do visit them, you will see that there are a lot to choose from (a few board games are still being sold in toy stores, like monopoly, TP and those other not very good but still very popular games (and Settlers, for some strange reason toystores seem to actually sell a good board game)).

The same thing seem to be true for pen & paper RPGs.

dteowner said:

You say that like it's not 100% true…

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I remember arguing with my friends that they really should try Deus Ex, which most of them still haven't.