05-30-2006, 05:35 PM
A couple years ago, I discovered a game called "Pokemon". This game had so much content, it felt like I could play forever and never run out of things to do. Life was good. ...until a few hours later, when I realized that all battles in Pokemon followed one of a few formulas: rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock (or something like that). Suddenly I realized that no matter how many different sizes, shapes, and colors of scissors I discovered, they would always just be scissors to get smashed by a rock of appropriate strength. And the real point of the game was not figuring out clever ways to beat scissors, but rather to spend tons of real life hours beating different scissors the same way over and over again in order to find some rare random watchamacallit and obtain status amongst my real-life peers as the Pokemon Master.
It's all about the guts of the game. If the game is inherently fun, additional content is not needed (Starcraft, anyone?). If the PvP is truly balanced and dynamic, you could have an MMO with a few unique styles of battlefields and be done with it for years. If the PvM is inherently clever, with each enemy offering a unique challenge to be solved in a variety of subtle methods (in the case of an MMO, presumably requiring the teamwork of tons of players all reacting cleverly and dynamically to the situation), a few hours of content could last a lifetime.
If the game is inherently motonous, additional content will only appeal to those who want to be Pokemon Masters. Hence, it is pretty clear that offering in-game status in exchange for real life money is designed to appeal to exactly the same mindset as offering thousands of hours of grinding at a monthly fee... pay us enough money to keep generating pointless content and you too can be a Pokemon Master and gain the envy of your peers. This way, creativity at the gaming companies is only required from the graphics and audio departments. Since this exactly what so many people want from a game, who am I to comlain?
It's all about the guts of the game. If the game is inherently fun, additional content is not needed (Starcraft, anyone?). If the PvP is truly balanced and dynamic, you could have an MMO with a few unique styles of battlefields and be done with it for years. If the PvM is inherently clever, with each enemy offering a unique challenge to be solved in a variety of subtle methods (in the case of an MMO, presumably requiring the teamwork of tons of players all reacting cleverly and dynamically to the situation), a few hours of content could last a lifetime.
If the game is inherently motonous, additional content will only appeal to those who want to be Pokemon Masters. Hence, it is pretty clear that offering in-game status in exchange for real life money is designed to appeal to exactly the same mindset as offering thousands of hours of grinding at a monthly fee... pay us enough money to keep generating pointless content and you too can be a Pokemon Master and gain the envy of your peers. This way, creativity at the gaming companies is only required from the graphics and audio departments. Since this exactly what so many people want from a game, who am I to comlain?