I have the opposite problem, I try to play every new game I can, always get 85% or so through the game and then I can't make myself finish it because I don't want it to end. Dragon Age has me stuck right at the last boss and I haven't gotten to pick it up again yet, even though I bought awakening.

I've always had the opinion that games should be shorter and cheaper (and hopefully have shorter development times, too). I've been playing Metroid Prime 3 (for the second time), and after 10 hours I was satisfied and ready to move on to another game. Of course, the game cost me $50 (I bought it at launch), so I feel the need to complete it at 100%.

I would much rather have $20 games that give you 10 solid hours of gameplay, or something like Battlefield 1943 that gave you decent multiplayer for $15.

This is a dumb argument. You are making excuses. What you REALLY mean is that you have the attention span of a 2 year old on a suger rush.

Let's take Dragon Age vs 'Mini Epics' as an example, and for sake of argument, let's say you can only play games 1 hour a day. Dragon age takes 100 hours to complete and Mini Epics takes 10 each. Again, this is for sake of argument. How is playing 10 Mini Epics any different then playing Dragon Age? The overall time spent is the same. Your agument is flawed.

--- Replying to Sabre -----
the difference: with mini epics, you experience 10 different compact stories and get more out of each one hour session. with dragon age, you could spend an entire one hour session and hardly advance the story... can you say boring? of course that's a matter of personal preference.

oh, and your argument is invalid.

You just agreed that he has no attention span. How does that make my argument invalid?

--- Replying to Sabre -----
on the contrary. i was just using your example. only having one hour sessions has nothing to do with that person's attention span. i'm a busy parent and that's usually all the time i have on most days. how does that say anything about my attention span? kat is a student, so i suspect she tries to fit in an hour or two between classes. again, how does that say anything about her attention span?

kat is a women. i'm shocked that one of our top 10 posters doesn't pay attention enough to get to know our editors.

your argument is perfectly valid (though, in my opinion, wrong). i was just returning the favor of shooting down your "argument" with no regard to you, your opinion, or any facts.

look at it this way... if you only have 30 minute blocks to watch TV or movies, would you watch an episode of an amusing TV show, or the LOTR trilogy? personally, i'd much rather wait on the LOTR trilogy until i could sit down and watch one entire movie at a time. splitting LOTR into 30 minute blocks would degrade the experience. don't you think?

Gender is irrelivent on the internet. You could be a woman for as far as I know. Doesnt matter.

It's an attention span thing because they aren't willing to spend a long time with 1 game. As I said, the total time played is the same, why is it an issue?

Let's take your TV program argument, that makes alot more sence. Given the option in that scenario I would go for the TV show.

BUT that is backward. Almost no one is going to finish Dragon Age or Fallout in 1 sitting. In fact most quests are broken up into parts for this very reason. Let's use your TV show example. Instead of watching 1 episode of Twilight Zone a day until the series is done, instead he/she/it is watching 2 episodes, then switching to Lost, watching a few episodes, then switching to Twilight Zone.

To put it another way. She won't watch a TV show because she can't watch the whole series today.

Let's look at a real world game example. Global Agenda, a MMO. I have 2 lvl 25 characters. I play it occationally and will likely reach lvl 50 some day. That won't be for months at my current pace. A friend of mine, in a couple of weeks got all 4 characters to lvl 50. I keep playing occationally. Should I give up on the game because I won't be lvl 50 by tomorrow?

Catching up on my co-optimus...

Anyway, I do like games like Mass Effect where there are lots to do. But in my opinion a lot of the time in the first Mass Effect was exploring barren planets. Heck, the achievements for your allies required you to complete a large percentage of the side-quests on those barren planets.

So to me, that's basically filler. It's great the first time through, but boring on subsequent playthroughs.

Epics tend to have a lot of those moments that are meant to extend versus entertain. Even Red Dead Redemption has you do tasks for locals just to get to your main objective. Heck, you could have taken out the last boss at the start if the game didn't push you out of Blackwater. Most epics are epic so they can relay the atmosphere and setting. RDR does that terrifically and the first Mass Effect gave it a huge scifi-opera (when you didn't spend hours on barren planets between the main missions).

But as I grow up, I have a 40 hour job, pets to take care of, bills, errands, friends, social activities outside the home, etc. As much as I love gaming, there is a life outside of it and long epic games are good, but variety is better.