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Miyamoto Says Today's Games Too Long
CNN Money's Game On column has an interview with legendary designer Miyamoto in which the respected Mario-maker says that today's games are just too long to capture his interest. From the article: "There's not a lot I want to play now...A lot of the games out there are just too long. Of course, there are games, such as 'Halo' or 'Grand Theft Auto,' that are big and expansive. But if you're not interested in spending that time with them, you're not going to play." Commentary on the column at Press the Buttons.
### But does not the savegame feature take care of this?
The length you have to play between savepoints certainly is an important issue, if the time you can spend in a game is 20min, but the next savepoint is 30min away, you are lost, you will make zero progress no matter how often you try and sooner or later dumb the game (almost happen with MetroidPrime for me). But things like 'Quest logs' are at least equally important, ie. if I don't play a game for a while, a week or a month, I might have totally forgotten what my current goals are, if the game doesn't keep a proper log which allows me to find out what I am suposed todo I will have a very hard time finding back into that game. There are quite a few games (Banjo, multiple Zeldas, EthernalDarkness, FF, etc.) that I havn't finished for exactly that reason, not because they where to hard or anything, but simply because I couldn't find the entrance to the next level or dungeon. Its simply absolutly no fun if you want to go back to a game you havn't played for a while and all you manage to do is wandering around aimlessly for half an hour without accomplishing anything.