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In terms of multiplayer, this guy's completely right. Games need to cater to short attention spans, limited bandwidth, and one-thumb interaction (I would also

by sebular 11y ago

In terms of multiplayer, this guy's completely right. Games need to cater to short attention spans, limited bandwidth, and one-thumb interaction (I would also add async gameplay to the list of things that should be embraced). I don't think this article is saying anything profound, but it certainly isn't wrong. In terms of single player games, I don't think the same logic applies, and in my opinion we've gone way too far in the "short attention span" direction. As long as a game makes it easy to save and resume, immersive hours-long experiences with detailed graphics can be really fun to consume in bite-sized pieces. Nintendo's been doing it for decades with their portable devices (Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Metroid), and it's clearly a successful approach. It's a shame that smartphones are orders of magnitude more powerful than the Game Boy, yet mobile app stores are overflowing with single-level "infinite churn" games that amount to Tetris with micropayments.

dexwiz 11y ago
Video games have caught up with the rest of the common media in terms of publishing for profit. Most TV and movies (not even counting adult films) are completely garbage. They are built around formulas that are known to work so people make money. The indie games movement railed against this, but most of them were on par with art student films quality wise. That's not to say that they are no good games or TV anymore. But they are few and far between. They take vision, risk, and a bit of money. Also right now they are harder to find. I think if game producers used their names like movie directors it may help. But right now its often just the studio name. Which leads to situations where a studio makes a great game, people learn their name, a publisher injects a lot of cash/people, the core team leaves, and their next game is a bloated mess. If people knew the core team's name, or even just their leader's name, it would help the general populace follow the person to their next project.
- TulliusCicero 11y ago
  We're in a TV golden age, man. There are more good TV series on than probably any other time in history.
  - dexwiz 11y ago
    There is a lot of good TV. But there is also 1000 channels of crap.
- je42 11y ago
  No free to play game makes money if it is not fun. Free to play cannot rely on promises of classical marketing. Hence, the game needs to be fun or people stop paying.
Splines 11y ago
> Nintendo's been doing it for decades with their portable devices (Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Metroid), and it's clearly a successful approach IMO, part of this is due to low-level technical issues. The DS does a really, really, really good job at letting players choose when and where they play. Games start up instantly, pausing and resuming is seamless. I don't know how much work developers need to do to support suspend/resume, but I've never seen it not work. In my experience on Android, very few games deal well with getting killed in the background. Yes, this is different than what happens in the DS, but the user experience should be the same. From what I can tell, there is more burden on an Android developer to deliver a seamless resume experience than there is on the DS. Because of that, you can't trust that your game state will be preserved if you do something as simple as lock your phone while your game is running. If you resume, will your game be where you left off? Who knows. Add on functionality that requires online access, and you end up with a platform where people prefer games that load quicker and where you can finish a session in the time it takes to stand in line, if only for the simple reason that anything more complicated usually ends in frustration.

by sebular 11y ago

dexwiz 11y ago

Video games have caught up with the rest of the common media in terms of publishing for profit. Most TV and movies (not even counting adult films) are completely garbage. They are built around formulas that are known to work so people make money. The indie games movement railed against this, but most of them were on par with art student films quality wise. That's not to say that they are no good games or TV anymore. But they are few and far between. They take vision, risk, and a bit of money. Also right now they are harder to find. I think if game producers used their names like movie directors it may help. But right now its often just the studio name. Which leads to situations where a studio makes a great game, people learn their name, a publisher injects a lot of cash/people, the core team leaves, and their next game is a bloated mess. If people knew the core team's name, or even just their leader's name, it would help the general populace follow the person to their next project.

TulliusCicero 11y ago
We're in a TV golden age, man. There are more good TV series on than probably any other time in history.
- dexwiz 11y ago
  There is a lot of good TV. But there is also 1000 channels of crap.
je42 11y ago
No free to play game makes money if it is not fun. Free to play cannot rely on promises of classical marketing. Hence, the game needs to be fun or people stop paying.

Splines 11y ago

> Nintendo's been doing it for decades with their portable devices (Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Metroid), and it's clearly a successful approach IMO, part of this is due to low-level technical issues. The DS does a really, really, really good job at letting players choose when and where they play. Games start up instantly, pausing and resuming is seamless. I don't know how much work developers need to do to support suspend/resume, but I've never seen it not work. In my experience on Android, very few games deal well with getting killed in the background. Yes, this is different than what happens in the DS, but the user experience should be the same. From what I can tell, there is more burden on an Android developer to deliver a seamless resume experience than there is on the DS. Because of that, you can't trust that your game state will be preserved if you do something as simple as lock your phone while your game is running. If you resume, will your game be where you left off? Who knows. Add on functionality that requires online access, and you end up with a platform where people prefer games that load quicker and where you can finish a session in the time it takes to stand in line, if only for the simple reason that anything more complicated usually ends in frustration.