While I guess some of what he says is true, wouldn't at some point in time the player would experience all that the game has to offer? Granted, I suppose this could take a while, if you are talking about games that take maybe 50 hours to complete, but I think there would eventually reach a point in the game that you really have nothing new to be had with the game.
The only way you could still keep a game on someone's shelf is if you were adding new content constantly and, judging by what Arquhart is saying, this might have to be enough content to be equivalent to an expansion pack for a game. While I guess this could be done, this would take a lot of time and effort on the developer's part to continue to work on a game after it has been release. This does work for some games, as I am a fan of Minecraft and Terraria, where the former will follow this type of updating once its official release and the latter has been doing this since it was officially available on Steam. So I guess if the company is willing to release new content constantly on their own, then I guess there is nothing wrong with that.
If the developers do not give new content, then my previous argument of eventually playing though all of the content in the game is still very much valid. Pretty much after that, the game to me becomes just like a book in that I would only pick it up again if I want to read the story again, but even then I can say that is questionable on how long that would keep my interest.
Also, there just might be player's who only are interested in one play though of the game, either because they didn't like the game, they do not really like to mess around with side quests and/or they just do not have the time to play though the game again. All of these are possible reasons I can see for why a person might return/trade in a game.
The only way you could still keep a game on someone's shelf is if you were adding new content constantly and, judging by what Arquhart is saying, this might have to be enough content to be equivalent to an expansion pack for a game. While I guess this could be done, this would take a lot of time and effort on the developer's part to continue to work on a game after it has been release. This does work for some games, as I am a fan of Minecraft and Terraria, where the former will follow this type of updating once its official release and the latter has been doing this since it was officially available on Steam. So I guess if the company is willing to release new content constantly on their own, then I guess there is nothing wrong with that.
If the developers do not give new content, then my previous argument of eventually playing though all of the content in the game is still very much valid. Pretty much after that, the game to me becomes just like a book in that I would only pick it up again if I want to read the story again, but even then I can say that is questionable on how long that would keep my interest.
Also, there just might be player's who only are interested in one play though of the game, either because they didn't like the game, they do not really like to mess around with side quests and/or they just do not have the time to play though the game again. All of these are possible reasons I can see for why a person might return/trade in a game.