The past eight or so years, I've almost exclusively played skirmish games that play in a couple of hours. Our problem is that we
never seem to be able to play a game through in the time as stated by the manufacturer!
A wargame marketed as being playable in two hours? We do it in three and a half (at least)! A skirmish game that can be finished within half an hour? We need at least two hours. We tried to identify this; yes, we chat a lot during game play. We often require looking up a rule here and there, but we don't get sidetracked to the degree that we are totally out of it.
It made us wonder how the creators envisage people playing their games. Because when you set up like a mad man, don't speak unless required for the game, take no time to think your moves through and know all the rules by heart, yes; you'd probably be able to finish a game within the stated timeframe.
But games are... (wait for it) meant to be
fun. They're games after all! And games, at least in my neck of the woods, are meant to be enjoyed, which means interaction with the opponent; friendly banter, rules discussion, joking around, and no time pressure!
It's one of the main reasons I stopped going to GW's grand Tournaments (or any tournament for that matter). Because those meant 2 days of non-stop gaming. 4 games a day, each with a time limit, and a short break in the middle for lunch.
It was exhausting. In the end, I had lower back pains from bending over the (too low) tables, my voice was hoarse from talking louder than usual over the constant (battle)din and the dry air, and my head hurt because of the above and the constant concentration required. Not to mention the frequent friction with fanatical knife-on-the-table type of players (and even cheaters!).
Such fun...
To be fair; it certainly sounds enticing; an entire weekend of gaming, surrounded by likeminded people, playing with miniatures. But the reality was that it was quite the slog, especially towards the end of the first day. The second day, I usually started in the bottom half of the field, and people were a lot more relaxed, (and also tired). The most enjoyable games during those tournaments were inevitably the ones on day two that didn't get all the way to turn six within the alotted time, because we were discussing modeling and armies and fluff or even the weather...
This carried over to how I see playing games at home with mates as well. We no longer play Apocalypse type games (or 40K at all, for that matter), because those tended to take all day. We often gamed those from the morning into the evening. And even though I always enjoyed those long games (because we only were able to once or twice a year), I don't know if I would today.
Why? Well, time restraint is as good an excuse as any. Having a (functional) family life really takes up a lot of the time left over after a full-time job. Add in other leasure activities such as sports, other hobbies and of course painting and modeling, plus a social life outside the gaming circle, and there's precious little time left to actually game.
So when we do get to it, it needs to be fast and furious; it's a weekday after all, and you need to get to work on time the next morning. So better make this a quick couple of hours game, to fit into the schedule.
I find it's a sentiment we see all around. Not just in gaming, but everywhere in modern society. It might just be me getting old, and the world moving faster than I was used to, but I do think there is a noticable trend there.
Everything needs to be consumable in ever decreasing chunks. Take a look at entities like Tiktok, basically taking already bite-sized Youtube content and making it even shorter. And it's not that I blame Millennials or Gen-Z's for this; I, as a typical Gen-Xer am just as much grabbed by this phenomenon as they are, and I'm certain that I'm not the only one.
And the entire trend of smaller, shorter games very likely ties into this same race towards ever decreasing content size, to cater to ever decreasing attention spans. Get them before they butterfly off to the next shiny thing (something we as miniature hobbyists have long been very familiar with of course
).
So yeah; I suppose I need a conclusion now.
Well, let it be this then; even though the trend is to move to ever decreasing game sizes, parallel to what's happening to entertainment in the outside world, we might do well to sometimes ponder about why we are no longer able to play the longer games we did decades ago. Maybe we should, even if it's just for old times sake, every once and a while plan the time to actually play a longer day-long game. Just make sure that the enjoyment factor is there. It should not be a race to finish this massive game (because they're waiting at home with dinner), but rather perhaps playing a (what used to be) standard game, with lots of extra time to spend outside of the actual moving lead and rolling dice. You know; enjoying the game...
13 September 2012, 10:56:14 AM