Passive Gaming?
Here's another "just thinking out loud".
I'm one of those guys who like to watch anime. I recently watched the Eureka Seven series. It's 50 episodes, each spanning around 20 minutes. It took me less than a week to finish. After that I watched Clannad After Story. It's 25 eps and took me three days.
The reason I can finish them so fast is because it's passive entertainment that doesn't require much from my side. When I get tired at night, I can watch a couple of hours with anime before going to bed. This is of course true to any kind of show, and not just anime.
Another thing is that since it requires so little from me, it's easy for me to do it for extended amounts of time without getting "exhausted".
Here's what I'm thinking. Is it the same with games?
Games are a very active activity. It often requires me to stay sharp, think hard and execute physical actions, even if it's just with my hands. No game can be purely passive, but the things required from me can differ. I'd say that a Point & Click Adventure Game doesn't require as much activity as a Quake Death match.
Is it easier to spend time with passive games than active ones?
If I want to make a game in which player can spend many hours with without getting tired, should I aim for a passive one? I have no idea.
And how do I make a really passive game? Personally, when I'm tired and I'm still up for some anime (or Dexter, The Big Bang Theory, or whatever) even adventure games are too much. Hm... This deserves some thinking. How do I make an extremly passive game that's actually fun? Not only passive in actions, but also in mind efforts, while still not being too easy and boring.
Eureka Seven was decent.
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December 9th, 2009 - 08:46
It’s a LOT easier to spend time with games that demand less concentration of you. Just look at facebook games. They are designed to be played without effort, neither cognitive nor time consuming.
Also remember that games traditionally has been something we need to learn to enjoy. You need to really practice playing chess or quake live before it’s really fun.
No such need in the first level or Mario or the first generations of arcade games.
As an industry, the games industry really is only catering to self interests. With a few small exceptions (big fish games, runescape and facebook games etc).
December 9th, 2009 - 14:30
“It’s a LOT easier to spend time with games that demand less concentration of you. Just look at facebook games.”
You have a point and I’m not trying to disagree, but I think it’s easier to get in “the zone” with games that require lots of concentration in which time flies!
December 9th, 2009 - 18:41
I think you can differentiate between attention/concentration, and thinking. I think some of the most addictive games are the ones that require high attention, but not high-level thinking. Think, for instance, about any number of click-oriented puzzle games (zuma, and bejewelled come to mind).
On the other hand, a puzzle-solving game can be addictive in its own right, but it requires breaking up the focus of the player’s attention (usually, mini-objectives that coalesce in a meta-objective). But you can’t run high attention and high thinking for extended periods of time without exhaustion. But in most games, high-level reasoning becomes mid-low level functioning as you become more adept at the game.
To use Jesper’s example: how exhausting and overwhelming was your first round of Quake/Doom/Halo (whatever your first FPS was)? Because nothing was intuitive and natural (yet) all of the on screen information had to run through intentional cognitive processes, but there is no chance to pause and breathe and your attention must be constant… or you die.
On the flip side, the more you master the game, the more passive the experience is. I’m sure you’ve experienced gaming “on autopilot.” The more your mind can automate, the less strain and the longer you can sustain play-level mind function.
December 9th, 2009 - 20:01
@Mike C
Touché. Yeah, I agree with you about differentiating.