The Never-ending Video Game

When I was younger, I absolutely adored lengthy games.  You know, the ones you’d spend weeks playing because even at 80+ hours you hadn’t finished them yet?  Yeah, those.

They were all the rage when I was a kid, and the thought of a game lasting that long was like rolling around with kittens under a rainbow (or to sound more manly, karate chopping terrorists).  They still make up a majority of what’s on game store shelves, too, which makes me feel like the industry hasn’t grown up with the rest of us.

I think we all have a little less time to spend with our beloved hobby these days; most of us have jobs or college, some of us have family, and a few of us are just too busy doing this and that to find the time to sit down and play anything.  Yet our games last just as long, if not longer, than they did when we had the time to play them.

It doesn’t make much sense, does it?  Why is it that so many games aimed at us older folk (I’m only in my twenties but dammit get off my lawn) seem to require such a huge amount of dedication, effort and time to truly enjoy, let alone finish?

When we talk about what makes a game “good,” especially in reviews, it seems that a game’s length always comes into question.

The longer it lasts, the higher the praise, and if it only lasts for a few hours, we condemn it for not being as long as a real game should be (though I suppose it’s slightly understandable, as not everyone wants to pay 60 bucks for a game that lasts as long as a film, but that’s a problem with pricing, not length).

But really, who has time for games like that anymore?  As much as I enjoy a good RPG, it can take weeks, if not months to actually make your way through one if you haven’t set aside a ton of other things to make time for it.

On the other side of the polygonal fence, games like Portal, Mirror’s Edge and Wii Sports Resort (yes, I’m bringing it up again) offer quick, concise experiences, ones that are short enough to play through entirely on a free evening.

They also offer better replay value than their lengthier brethren, as starting up a second run through a game that just took you 60 hours to finish can be a little daunting.

Then we’ve got online gaming, which let’s you spend as much or as little time with it as you want; getting the ol’ gang together for some Halo, CoD or Left 4 Dead is simple, fun, and doesn’t require a huge amount of effort, and you can keep it going for as long as you want if you choose to.

Yes, you could end up playing a game for months, which I’ve put in a fairly negative light in this blog, but it’s different here: Each experience is its own, individual “story,” so you can drop out at any time and not be bothered at never knowing the ending.

If games with narratives become too lengthy, I think it causes people to create their own shorter, no-pressure experiences with their friends — hence the love of many of us for online gaming.

Of course, the problem with online gaming is that you’re not getting as much out of the experience as you would with a rich narrative, though to be fair it’s giving you a completely different, and just as important, social experience.

So, why do developers keep feeding us full-course meals when we’re already close to bursting due to life’s other edible goodies?  Because they’re still selling games to our younger selves.  That, and those damn teenagers you hear about on the news — them and their MySpaces.  But why focus on this specific part of the gaming populace?

It’s simple: profit.  The teenage demographic’s hormones are raging, so they’re more than willing to plunk down their hard-earned allowances to stare at boobies and explosions, and if that experience continues on for a great amount of time, well, all the better.

Now, I’m a geek.  Hell, I’m a socially awkward geek with anxiety problems; I have more free time than your average joe.  But I’m finding myself drawn more and more to “casual” gaming and the stuff we’re seeing on handhelds, and I think it’s because console games require such a huge amount of time.

There are other things I’d like to do with that time, like read books, see the sunshine, or play ten shorter games instead of one lengthier one.  (Oh, and by “casual” games, I mean short, simple and unique experiences, not the Wii shovelware garbage that the term has sadly been attached to.)

I’m not saying that lengthy games should go away.  I read 1,000+ page novels all the time and, though tiring, they can be extremely rewarding (which is why I still play those dastardly JRPGs when I manage to find the time and the desire to spend it).

However, I’d like to see more story-driven, emotionally stirring games that don’t make me drudge through tens of hours of content to get to the “wow” moments, as right now it seems like the only stories games are telling just aren’t concise enough.  A little diversity is all I’m asking for, and I don’t think that’s too difficult a request.