Two of the games from my Top Ten for 2010 released this week: God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII. Both reviewed very well, especially God of War III. The adulations will only increase in their adulation. Last week, Heavy Rain dropped, another critically acclaimed step forward in gaming. But specifically, in the God of War III case, do I even care?
We've been incredibly spoiled for choice in the past year to six months. The quality and scope of released titles have been unbelievably good. The uptick isn't just due to review score creep or the dumbing-down of gaming. There have been so many genuinely remarkable games released in the past year that it's staggering. Consoles are at that sweet-spot of maturity and acceptance, and the Windows 7 release has attracted more people to PC gaming. Developers are experienced enough that every game has a level of polish and innovation never seen before. But the quality and amount of games may be reaching a tipping point in the industry.
All this makes it increasingly hard to shoe-horn games into a busy schedule. The average age of gamers is going up if not growing up, and that can mean less time to play. We also play games that last longer now. Developers and publishers themselves are designing games to be more valuable to us, by adding multiplay or persistent worlds, downloadable content whether free or pay-for to lengthen the game experience, and generally make games better to make us want to play them more. And there are only so many hours in the day to fill up with gaming.
I think all this is leading up to a market for video games that may actually decrease. Even if growth in the market continues, the advance in the longevity of games defeats the growth of new entrants into the market. Even if you never sleep or work, there's still only so much time in a day and time before other games release. If the games increase in length and value in an attempt for publishers to attract customers, that decreases the availability for gamers to buy and presumably play those games. It's a vicious cycle, because if value and length of gameplay is the basis for competition, eventually all games will be perpetual experiences that you'd never stop playing. The market for video games may simply trend to one game per player per lifetime.
WoW of course is the ultimate example. Assuming games are a perfect substitute for one another, a WoW player may never buy another game (expansions don't really count) and keep playing the same one for the rest of their life. That's good for Blizzard, but the market shrinks as a result. The only way to achieve any more growth in the market is to add participants, and it's unlikely that people who play WoW will breed, or to rely upon people jumping ship to another game that they can play for the rest of their life.
Now, games aren't a perfect substitute, and not everyone can play the same game for the rest of their life. But already we, as consumers, pass on so many games and platforms due to time, not price or quality.
Of course I don't want game developers to make short, terrible games. Nor do I want fewer games to choose from. But from where I sit, those publishers and developers might be trying to cut up an ever-decreasing gamer time pie. What might happen in the near future is price increases in games to combat decreasing sales. Frankly, already games are too inexpensive for what we get out of them.
That long aside done, no, I probably won't play God of War III or Final Fantasy XIII. Not because I don't want to, just because I don't have the time.
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