The good and the bad [editorial]

Time is Money...Time is video game play?

A couple of days ago I had a thought. The thought was partially depressing and partly exciting. The video game industry has changed so much since I was born in 1986. Games are becoming longer, story lines are becoming more intricate, graphics are becoming clear and sharp, TV’s have picture that looks incredibly real, and physics engines make the gamer believe they are actually in the world they are playing.

This is all well and good, but here’s the problem, the very aspect of gaming that is making it great, i.e. the length, story line and graphics, also may be its detriment. I have done no research on this, I don’t have my P.H.D. in gaming, unless PHD stands for “way cool person who has played a lot of video games since he was three.” The following statements are strictly my opinion and I open the comments up to discussion for this subject, whether you agree with me or not.

Games used to be about completing a task that had very little to do with story line, almost a pick up and go if you will. Games also never had a save function. Fast forward 20 years, gamers are complaining that games seem too much like movies, the graphics, story lines, and characters rival some of the best movies every made. The gameplay is deep, the physics engine is lifelike. One $60 game can now take you from heaven to hell and all the emotions in between. You can rescue someone, find out how screwed up you are, and defeat a nemesis of yours all in the first 20 minutes let alone the entire game that may take anywhere from 20-100 hours if you decide to get everything.

This longevity of games is in itself wonderful for the gamer. Depending on whether you are a casual gamer or you are a gamer that plays something until you beat it, long games with story lines and memorable characters are what make games great, now-a-days, in my opinion.
But the problem for the developers is also a problem for the gamers. The length of video games is now making it harder and harder to keep up with every hit title that comes out, whether it be the underdog that came out of nowhere, or whether it be something as world renowned as Grand Theft Auto. Unless you are sitting in a basement somewhere living off of your friends and family, there is no way you are going to be able to keep up with every racing, RPG, sports, adventure, strategy, war-time, first person shooter, motion sensored, superhero, mascot , beat em up game that is available to play. Yes, you might be able to keep up with some, maybe even most, but let’s be honest, time doesn’t grow on trees and we don’t have as much of it as we’d like. Secondly, even if you do manage to enjoy all these great games, can you beat them all? Can you fully experience everything that game has to offer when you have another 25 games to get to in the next six months to a year? I would venture to say no, because I know I have more time than the average person and still I can’t keep up with EVERYthing that great developers have to offer.

On the flip side, this is great for the industry, and yet it’s bad. Granted, most people are only going to buy one game at a time, but if they have the ability to buy multiple games for multiple platforms, would they even do it; knowing that they don’t have time to beat this game on the Wii, and enjoy that game on the 360, while interacting with this game on the PS3. Granted, most people don’t have all three systems, but the same philosophy of time you have to play games, and the amount of games you buy is applicable to all platforms even if you only have one. This in turn may mean declined sales, in the long run, I repeat, in the long run, for developers. Even though the video game industry has EXPLODED in the past few years, I guess I’m thinking out loud as to how long it will last and at what price. By no means am I saying the video game industry is going under, nor do I want it to. I just wonderful if the added dimension of time going into gaming on both the developers and game players side will have any negative effect on the game industry as a whole.

I hope nothing bad happens, but if games continue to get longer, more complex, and have deeper story lines will there be enough time to go around that will keep the industry thriving? Let me know what you think.

-Jeremy aka Adridius