Hooksexup, that monolithic purveyor of literary sex and cultural commentary that spawned 61 Frames Per Second from its lurid brain, has, broadly speaking, a pretty open mind about everything. We are free wheeling folks accepting of both things that are not stupid and many, many things that are stupid but still fun. Great cultural criticism and stunning new fiction? We love that heady stuff. Brainless celebrity gossip? We love that too (well, some of us. Frankly celebrity culture confounds me. That is, unless the celebrities in question are, like, Brenda Brathwaite. Or Prince. Or Optimus Prime.) What I am trying to express is that we are not easily shocked.
Earlier today, videogames managed to shock our fearless editorial leader, Will Doig. He stumbled upon a story that’s been making the internet rounds of late concerning the discovery of a boss in MMORPG Final Fantasy XI that takes close to a full day of constant play to beat. Not just one player, mind you, but an entire team. The intrepid adventures in Beyond the Limitation, the name of the FFXI crew in question, spent eighteen hours straight fighting the Pandemonium Warden, stopping only because, according to one member, “People were passing out and getting physically ill.” They also apparently vomited later on. They didn’t even win the fight. This staggered Commandant Doig to the point where his only comment about the story was, “Physically! Ill!”
I’m right there with him. But it concerns me that I can imagine spending that kind of time playing a game, though maybe not in a single fight in a role-playing game. The time investment required to play most games is a difficult issue to tackle. Twenty years ago, the average action game took twenty minutes to an hour to complete, while today it’s anywhere between ten and twenty hours. Time was games were designed to be played standing up in an arcade but when consoles and PCs became the venue of choice for gaming, designers began to lengthen the experience to increase both product value and the boundaries of what a game could be. I’m no stranger to long games or long play times, especially when it comes to some JRPGs (Dragon Quest VIII caused some, well, problems. There were a couple of days where I played for almost twelve hours straight. Hey, at least it wasn’t playing a single fight.) But when does it become too much? The high cost of high-definition game development has curbed game length somewhat in the past couple of years, but, on the whole, most still take time to learn, time to play, and a lot more time to complete.
How long should a game be?
Related links:
She’s a La-day, Whoa Whoa Whoa: The Top Twenty Women in Games
Whatcha Playing: Cleaning House, Finding Roots
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