Stretch Goals

I really need to steer this blog back towards gaming related things. Out of ten entries only one really touches on the subject that certainly makes up more than 10% of what I do. Following on the heels of my thoughts about longevity of television series, it makes sense to touch on some similar issues in the gamespace.

The obvious connection is really a problem for the entertainment industry as a whole, that being the overabundance of sequels and remakes. Let's be honest, gaming seems to be all about franchising... at least that what the publishers seem to be thinking (GTA4, Halo3, Madden382, etc). I for one happen to enjoy it when a developer takes a proven game and refines it or experiments with it. On the other hand, mindlessly churning out revisions doesn't grow the space of games much at all.

The other issue facing games is the content explosion. Games are constantly under pressure to be bigger (in size) and better (in visuals). RPGs and MMOs are the first to suffer as they require ridiculously massive worlds to be considered decent. Even the staple of games, the FPS, feels the need to expand its world. Usually this is all well-intentioned... an effort to make the games feel more realistic. The end result? We have games featuring endless hours worth of gameplay as though that's always a good thing.

I'm notorious for not finishing games... which immediately excludes me from the core gamer category. You know the type... the ones pulling their hair out to get 100% completion. They won't stop until their satisfied that they have truly completed (or defeated) the game. This type of gamer tends be be extraordinarily patient as such a feat is rarely fun as it requires much repetition of gameplay that already ceases being engaging or fun. Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I can't help but feel like a good chunk of this superfluous content is targeting this niche of core gamers.

This begs the question, is all that content developers spend time and effort to create really getting played? It seems to me that the average gamer has to be pretty seriously compelled to sit through 40 hours of gameplay that hasn't changed since hour 5. Usually that motivation comes from story, or sometimes clever reward structures, or rarely gameplay that is purely fun by itself. Is our time really best spent on making these massive games?

I've become intrigued by the notion of episodic game content (currently most notable in Sam & Max and perhaps Half-Life 2 to a lesser degree). It seems to have the advantage of breaking the content into more playable chunks and also builds in some breather time to keep the gameplay from going stale in one sitting. Interestingly, it could also lead us right back to the same issue we have with television series: knowing when to quit.