Games for Adults

Executive Summary:

"Gamey"-style games which can be played stem-to-stern in under an hour can easily be enjoyed by an adult. "Immersive world" style-games which focus on dozens-to-hundreds of hours of continuous story can not. Darn.

The details:

When people talking about games for adults, they tend to focus on the content. (Some) sex and (some) drugs and (a shit-ton of) violence.

The big problem I have with many games is that I simply can't fit them into my schedule. I want to enjoy epic RPGs and immersive action/adventure games, but I find myself increasingly turning towards sports games and quick multiplayer games since those are the only things I can shoehorn in.

Here's an average daily schedule for me. I'm sure many others have similar schedules.

Hours Task

.5 Wake up, pack bags and lunch, out the door
1 Gym
10 Work
.5 Chores (cook + dishes, laundry, bills, etc)
.5 Eating dinner
1 Practice spanish
.5 Get ready for bed + next day, wind down
7 Sleep

That's 22 hours, which leaves 2 hours for random other things. Which could mean 10 hours of playing games during the week. Except that 1 night a week I have Spanish class. 1 night a week I usually have some meeting/lecture I'd like to attend. And 1 night during the week I like to do something social/fun.

Which leaves 4 hours during the week of potential game playing time. Unfortunately, I also like to read, and watch a DVD now and then. So, knock it down some more.

Basically, this makes playing a "short" 12 hour action game occupy a month, and a "decent-sized" 30-40 hour game taking up the better part of a season.

So, the types of games I now gravitate to are ones with quick rounds, so I can start and finish a game within an hour (and preferably a half hour).

Madden and MVP baseball are great for this, and the franchise modes provide just enough connective tissue between each round to make the long-term gameplay interesting.

Advance Wars and RTSs are pretty good for this, although they sometimes take a little too long. You can save in the middle though, although how many times do you watch half a movie one day and the other half some other day? Errm, I guess sometimes.

Halo 2 and other multiplayer games also work really well because of the short turn-arounds. The big problem with these is you tend to compete with people who have lots of time on their hands, not to mention better reflexes.

Still, there is some room for story-based games which still have clearly-defined rounds which end in under an hour. RTS's such as Starcraft have a story mode which essentially focuses as a tutorial for the multiplayer mode, but also lets you enjoy the fiction of the universe in nice bite-sized morsels. "Episodic gameplay" could do this as well, and there are many games which could be easily broken down into episodes (Sly Cooper 2 was explicit about this with named episodes, although each took around 2 hours to complete so they fall a bit outside the window of quick consumption).

IGDA's Quality of Life Open Letter

There has been a ton of debate about Quality of Life in the game industry recently, mostly due to some postings by ex-EA employees (and the spouses who love them).

The IGDA printed an open letter about this which you can read.

http://www.igda.org/qol/open_letter.php

There are two main problems I have with the letter. The first is that it seems to imply that there is a core set of "Quality Of Life" values which all game employees share. The second is the implication that companies which follow these guidelines are more successful than companies that don't.


In response to the first problem:

When I first entered the industry, my criteria for choosing a company were different than they currently are. I wanted to work in a high pressure, high expectation environment which challenged me and would have me toiling with my collaborators into the wee hours of the morning. Eventually, I wanted more balance, and made adjustments to my work style to make this more attainable. Fortunately, I was able to do this at the same company (after making a move from a company that was high pressure but producing garbage).

The IGDA seems to indicate there is a set of universal best practices, which I strongly disagree with. The IGDA would serve people best if they provided an open forum and database for people to research business practices of companies, and let individuals make their own judgement rather than having IGDA provide the judgement for them. Focusing only on companies which fit IGDA's fitness criteria limits the flow of information, and prevents people from making informed decisions.


In response to the second problem:

EA has been under fire recently for poor QOL issues, and I'm sure the impassioned web postings sparked this open letter. However, they have proven to be more successful than almost any other company under numerous criteria (longevity, financial success, name recognition, etc.) Arguably they could be more successful with better QOL, but they may also be far less successful. Many, many, successful companies have had difficult crunch periods, such as Bungie, Naughty Dog, Blizzard, Id, Valve, and more. Arguing that this has not been a successful strategy is quite simply incorrect, and makes the rest of the letter difficult to swallow.

If anything, the EA case reiterates the need for providing an open forum for addressing QOL issues. Now that the word is out, they may have difficulty recruiting people. employees may leave for greener pastures, and customers who deplore their business practices might boycott their games.

Johnny Damon is my Homeboy

Last night the Red Sox beat the Cardinals to win the world series.

It was a bit anti-climactic after the ALCS, although I'm sure the parade scheduled this Saturday in Boston will be a higlight of many people's lives. Menino mentioned that up to 5 million people may show up along the route, although that may have been the liquor talking.