Building on off of some of the ideas I talked about in my last editorial, one of my most hated video game trends within the last decade is the pursuit of the Forever Game. A Forever Game is a video game that is made up of systems, mechanics and designs that try to get you to play longer and more frequently. The idea behind these games, is that through the game’s mechanics and systems, you, the player, will build a behavioral pattern to play the game regularly. Maybe to get daily rewards, maybe to replay or start a new game, so experience new content. Or It could also be to unlock some other content that alters how you played before. Fortnite and other games do this through seasonal content, new battle passes, changes to already familiar maps, new content, new systems, in game currency. RPG’s and a few other kind of games do this through a New Game+ system.
Unlike last time though I don’t want to discuss the economics, but the reasoning for attempting to make a Forever Game. To illustrate this let me you my short list of Forever Games, meaning, if you locked me in an underground bunker with John Goodman in the apocalypse and told me that you could save only one video game that I would have to play for the rest of my life, I would save one of these:
Halo 3
&
Total War: Warhammer 3
That’s it.
So why these?
Well I could talk forever about Halo 3, fun fact, in one of my college writing courses, I actually wrote about Halo 3’s level design. I might search for it one of these days and post it when I’ve found it. And Total War Warhammer 3, has so much content, so many campaigns, lords, mechanics, and shit to do. And I love the setting, the characters, the designs, It’s not a perfect game, but it’s mine.
And while Total War: Warhammer 3 does exhibit behaviors, similar to some of the Forever Games I’ll besmirch, like releasing content on somewhat of schedule, allegedly, sometimes. I don’t really consider it as being on the same level as some of the other actual Forever Games.
Back to the thesis of this post though, many modern games, desire to be the last game you’ll ever play. Meaning they want you to think about their game while you’re at work, while you’re doing something else. They want to get you to play their game everyday and for longer periods of time. They want to bombard you with ads for the game, they want to keep you interacting with the game. So that they can extract the money out of your pocket, they want to get you financially and emotionally invested. They want you to never stop playing.
I despise these games, because the result of these practices, all this time and effort into making the biggest games with the most content. Is just… shit. Just shit. These games aren’t fun to play, every time I try to play one, eventually I start having an existential crisis, what am I doing? Why am I investing my time, the most valuable resource that I have, to play THIS fucking game? Every daily mission is a grind, every new content launch is a carefully planned and scheduled song and dance to prevent players from No-Lifing the game and eating up all the content too quickly. Content that is strung out and nowhere near good enough for all the hours you’re sinking into it. The Call of Duty Battle passes, the new Rainbow Six season, the 100hr+ RPG’s like Final Fantasy 16, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Dragon Age: Inquisition, hell probably Veilguard too, idk, I’m not playing that shit. The always online experiences like ARC Raiders, Destiny, Marathon, the first party triple AAA games that last only a year or 2 before shutting down. Hell, Indie games aren’t free from this stuff either, most just aren’t able to do it because of budget and time constraints. But a significant part of the core design of many of these smaller game’s is that you can’t beat them too quickly or else you could refund the game. In short, they don’t respect your time.
I should not have to be subjected to grinding in order to have fun in a game. The grinding should be optional (don’t take that out of context), it should not be a core part of the design. Or at the very least great efforts should be taken to ensure that the core design is very solid and the mechanics are fun to engage with so that you don’t even know you’re grinding because you’re having fun playing the game. Or cover up the grinding by constantly mixing in new kinds of enemies or mixing enemy types together I understand that some people may not agree with that. But frankly I don’t give a shit. Sure, there’s going to be parts of a game you’re not going to enjoy. Sure, there’s going to be content in the game that’s repetitive, that comes with the territory, but it’s the developers responsibility to make the repetition enjoyable. To ensure that the player’s time is respected.
“So you’re saying it’s the developer’s fault?!?”
No, it isn’t.
No one wants to make a bad game. If you think that you’re stupid. Period, end of story. Some people might not have the skills or knowledge to make a good game (Or a functioning one for that matter), but no one wants to make a bad game. So whose fault is it? Who is responsible for the endless pursuit of the Forever Game, who is pushing the developers to make the last game I’ll ever want to play?
Producers, Executive Producers, maybe with some context the Game Director, the C-Suites, the marketing department, the financial department. All of these people you should be mad at. Not the developers, you can maybe disagree with design elements, aesthetics, etc. But the average developer is not the monster you want them to be. They are the people being put in no man’s land, the sacrificial lambs and they don’t deserve your hatred. Your hatred deserves to be put where it can do the most good, which is to criticize and chastise the individuals actually responsible. To call out the managers responsible for overseeing the deploying of the revenue streams purposefully placed into the video game to get your money.
The beauty of the Forever Game is that you make a game good enough that someone would want to experience it again and again and again. The game rewards the player for playing. Not with in game currency, but with experiences, with learning something new, attaining a deeper level of mastery. By challenging them to become better.
You can’t purposefully make a Forever Game. Doing so means that you’ll take shortcuts, you’ll look for efficiencies into getting players to play longer, to play again and again, farming engagement, staggering content and releases. The pursuit of the Forever Game means you’ll never actually make one. Only by focusing on making the game as enjoyable of an experience as possible, can you create a game that player’s want to play forever.