I was reading through a post on Joseph Burchett’s blog (flash dev with increasing Unity favoritism , and a certain quote caught my eye:

“I have noticed that over the years my gaming habits have dramatically changed. It could be that perhaps I am getting older and I am more busy that I just don’t have time for such epic and long games anymore… Burning away hours or days playing just one game, and taking in one long intense experience. It seems that I am more into really short games that catch my attention quickly with some sort of unique game mechanic and satisfy my needs with in a couple minutes or hours worth of game play.”

Thing is, I feel the same way, and it seems increasingly that my peers do as well. When I stand in GameSpot, or read through the latest releases on Kotaku, I don’t see the features they hawk: the unique randomized blood spatter, the way mud spits up from racing tires, the new multiplayer team modes. I see time, hours to be exact – how much of my life will I effectively write off playing this game? If you were in Blockbuster facing a wall of 60 hour movies, I reckon it’d be a much harder decision. 60 hours of free time is a huge commitment. One you’d perhaps be tempted to avoid altogether. Not to mention the $50+ price tag that comes along with.

It’s no secret that this short individual play-session/ long campaign niche is one Muse Games is looking to exist in. In many ways, we are simply expanding on and extending the path cleared by the Flash game industry. But self-promotion aside, I can’t help ignore the intuition that this notion is increasingly becoming a part of the gamer zeitgeist: AAA games, by necessity, take a long ass time to play. If they do their job right, they lock you into one experience for weeks, if not months. I think Joe’s right. We are getting older, our free time vanishing in opposition to our growing responsibilities. But in many ways, we are the original videogame generation, the ones truly raised around them, and perhaps the first not to neglect them as we grew older. We want them in our lives, but can no longer justify the massive time-sink they demand. We want something we can pick up on a whim, and more importantly, put down. I don’t feel that online gaming is competing with console titles. We’re competing with television, Hulu, YouTube, PerezHilton. A person finds themselves with a half hour to burn, in any way he or she desires. And rather than go watch an episode of Family Guy, why not play a browser game that, for all intents and purposes, offers the same experience as a round on the ‘ol XBOX, only takes typing in a web address, and likewise will disappear from your life with the closing of a tab.

I was shocked to discover that Blizzard developed the core mechanics in Diablo III in a year or two, and has spent the years since churning out enough content to qualify the game as a Blizzard title. That’s how you justify spending all that time making the graphics look spectacular. With no release date in sight, I’m not sure I quite buy it. Without reservation, I can say that I would prefer 10 unique games from Blizzard, versus 100 hours playing Diablo. Like Joe, I continually want to move on – try a new game mechanic – massage my brain in a new way. As with any long exposure to a medium or hobby, our generation’s tastes have grown more and more particular. I venture we’d rather discover the core bits, play with them, and then try something new.

The last game I bought (okay I’ve borrowed a few in the meantime) was Far Cry 2. I hadn’t made it 2 hours in before I decided I didn’t want to commit my next month to it. After I’d shot a few people, and smashed a few trees, I was on the grind. Money wasted, game forgotten. On the contrary I spent an hour with Doppelscope and left satisified and refreshed.

Console titles have their place, and continue to push the medium forward in an essential way, but I suspect a growing affinity for games that better fit our evolving tastes, and the modern digital lifestyle.