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The Impact of Episodic Gaming
GameDailyBiz has a piece up looking at what episodic content is, and what it means to the future of the games industry. From the article: "Our age is one of aging. Mainstream gamers are now older on average than they have ever been. When you are single and unemployed, it is easy to play The Godfather for nine straight hours the day the game hits the shelf. When you are married, it becomes tougher. When you have kids, it might be impossible. It is difficult to slice some time for yourself. And in that slice, you have to carve a portion for gaming. It is no wonder casual games that require no more than 10 minutes to play continue to grow in popularity. This is why we are more likely to login to Call of Duty 2 on Xbox Live to play a quick five-minute Team Deathmatch and leave the Lobby."
I hear that. I used to love to play World of Warcraft all day on Saturdays and after work. But since my baby was born, I get to play when she doesn't need attention (for those of you who don't have kids, thats rarely ever). And when I do play, I can't do anything that takes a while to do because before you know it, she's crying and I need to put the laptop down. It really changes things.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
My family bought it's first pc back in 1979, a TRS80 Model 1. My dad loved computer games back then, but he hated how long it took to get anywhere. He said, "why doesn't someone come up with a game where you can define how long you have to play, and it will make sure you finish something meaningful in that amount of time." Well, no one has made anything like that, and now he doesn't play games.
Back then I thought it was a dumb idea, but now that I'm in my thirties I know exactly what he meant.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Maybe I'm too obsessive of a gamer, but when I was first dating the woman now my wife, I thought it was important that she was into gaming at least half as much as I was, just generally interested in my interests. My wife attends LAN parties I go to, we play WoW together, and she kicks my ass at Dr Mario when we play.
32 hours at a friend's frat house. Morrowind, about 3 months after it came out on XBox. The rule was that you could play as long as you wanted, but you had to a) keep drinking (beer, coffee, pop, water, didn't matter), and b) hand over the controller to the next guy when you needed a piss break.
Unpleasantries.
That's crazy. I play to have fun, and playing games for more than a few hours can get really boring for me, besides the fact it's terrible for your health if your too obsessive to take breaks, and excessive marathons have cause one or two otherwise mentaly ill people to die.
There, now your post is more accurate, and isn't judging the whole of the gaming community by your own personal standards.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
What with all these "getting older" stories? Is the gaming community having a mid-life crisis?
Basically, yes.
Those of us who grew up as the first generation of video gamers are growing older. Sure, there's all sorts of new gamers, but we're starting to see gamers in their thirties who started on video games in elementary school. As a result, there's a lot of navel-gazing about people who still love games but can't play all the games they used to as a kid.
I'm a big console RPG gamer. When I was a kid, I used to regularly rack up over 50 hours on a run through FF4, and I probably played the game from start to finish over 8 times. I'd disdain strategy guides on the first run or two while trying to find everything myself.
Now, as a gainfully employed adult, I'm lucky to have enough time to play through one of my RPGs once. I don't have time to get everything I missed on a second run, so at this point, I'm hitting FAQs from before I start the game and using cheat codes at the end to bypass some of the tedium of finishing side quests. I have a lot of games that I've bought thinking that they'd be great that are sitting on my shelf unopened because I just don't have time anymore.
I also haven't played a good 4X TBS game in ages because I just can't see myself spending a week to finish one play-through.
That's a demographic shift for gamers that does actually mean something in terms of what kinds of products we buy, and since we're the money makers now, the industry is catering to us. That's why you're seeing so much about this.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yeah, but if you don't have enough time to play The Godfather for instance, will you, as this article suggests, have enough time to play the same exact game distributed to you in parts.
The answer is, of course, no. This is just a way to start a game with little funding hoping that you will make enough money to complete it. It is what I'll call the current PC "patch model" of distribution taken to its logical extreme.
Here's what will happen. Most games will never be finished, and even the ones that do will fall into the "release and patch" format for the individual episodes. No one who didn't have the full time to play the whole game will buy its parts (at least they won't get any more use out of them if they), and nothing worthwhile will come of this.
Two groups want this model of distribution: developers/publishers who hope the price of parts will add up to more than the price of the whole would, and small developers who hope to get their unadulterated vision off the ground with less money. The latter sounds good, but it would be better if they reduce their scope and ensure their fans get the whole game. Maybe then their next game will get the money they wished they had.
So if this article got a point this superlong game would not be selling. Except that it is.
So the story is complete and utter crap.
What is "important" for people with other demands on their time is the ability to segment their gaming. Or in other words. Save anywhere.
Call of Cthulhu is another Betsheda game yet while it is much shorter (except for some fake replay forcing) I can play it far less. In Oblivion I could play for say 5 minutes before saving and doing whatever is demanded of me. CoC would mean I had to quit and next time do whatever I did over again because I had not reached a save point.
The online 5 minute FPS section offcourse can't be saved but then again doesn't need to. Same with MMO games wich in way save CONSTANTLY.
I think the most important lesson game companies should learn is that older players with real live demands on their time will have less patience for being forced to play from savepoint to savepoint. Being forced to replay a game if they want maximum difficulty (what the fuck is up with that? Consoles are weird) or all the goodies.
Putting out games in small bits is not going to solve anything. So what if the godfather was segmented into 1 hour episodes. That STILL would not meet your 5 minute game session time.
I just wish gamemakers would wake up and realize that savepoints are a leftover from the days consoles didn't have enough memory to save a full game.
It is a tech limit NOT a design feature. I paid for the product, I decide how to play it.
If you think about it savepoint system is like that recent Philips patent to disable your TV controls during ads. It is the content maker telling you how you should play. Fuck that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I like Diablo II a lot. It's the only game I play. It's a lot of fun because I know I can sit down for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever and make a small contribution to my next level. I guess I would call it incremental gaming. After spending 4 or 6 hour chunks of time studying ochem or material for the MCAT in August, it is nice to run around whacking monsters and finding magical stuff. And since I play a little here or a little there, it doesn't really affect my family time at all.
In this scenario, never have I said, "Sorry you're bored, I'm busy."
:) Oh, and to the parent, don't let anyone here get you riled up. Everyone has their own view of what they feel is the perfect relationship - hell, my best man really didn't want me to get married... but that's their overstated opinion, FWIW.
I've actually told my wife that before. It doesn't get you very far, what being a negative statement and all.
It is depressing when you have a hobby (gaming, music, cars, whatever) and my wife felt like pestering me... "You don't spend enough time with me!"
After communication and working through life's issues, though, I've found that we have "our time" and "quiet time". I now have my time for hobbies, and we still do things together. It's all about give and take. Of course, once we have kids.... that'll be give give give
Karnal