A different perspective on time investment

[StriderShinryu]

I've noticed something recently that seems a little odd to me. We have all heard the comments about how Game X is too short because it's only a couple of hours long, or how Game Y is too expensive because the per hour cost is too high. This isn't about that.

What I've noticed is more comments, here and elsewhere, about players stating that they've spent 50 or 100 or even more hours in a game and feel somehow ripped off or shorted on their experience. It's almost as if there's an expectation that a game needs to totally engage you at a 100% satisfaction level until you decide to put it down otherwise it's not a good game.

I can certainly understand the perspective of a gamer having many hours in a game having their own unique complaints about the experience. The more you experience something, the more appreciation you may have for it but also the more the cracks are going to show. Is, however, a complaint along the lines of getting bored after 100 hours of play really a valid complaint?

Just curious about other peoples thoughts on this. It may not be anything new, but it is something I've personally noticed a fair amount recently.

 

[Zhukov]

Ehhhh... kinda.

They say first impressions last, but I'd say it's last impressions that stick.

This happens to me with every single Bethesda game. I start playing and I enjoy it. It's nothing amazing, but there's stuff to explore and it's passing the time pleasantly enough that I'm going back for more. Then after maybe 40 hours I get bored. The combat gets repetitive and shallow and everything starts to look the same. I keep playing for a bit, hoping it will get fun again, but it never does. So I stop playing. After a couple of months I go back and give it another go and give up after half an hour, wondering how I could ever have enjoyed this.

When I think back on those games all I remember is the boredom. I do remember the fact that I enjoyed them at one point, but I don't remember the actual enjoyment. So they are forever branded as boring games in my memory.

There's another thing too.

Now, this is very likely to be just a personal thing, but I find most things are only truly satisfying once they're finished. Say I'm eating an ice cream, but then when I'm halfway through I trip and drop it in the dust. Sure, the half that I got to eat tasted fine, but I'm still not going to be too pleased about it. Same goes for games. Or books. Or projects. Damn near anything really. A thing incomplete is, to me, a nagging irritation in the back of my mind. (Fun fact: to this day, I still remember the first book I didn't complete. I was 14 years old and the book was a biography of Ho Chi Minh.) For this reason I will sometimes power through to the end of a game I am not particularly enjoying just so I can have the satisfaction of saying, "There, that's done with" and forget about it.

So if a game becomes unbearably boring before it reaches a satisfying conclusion then I will not remember that game kindly.