According to Gregg Mayles, head of design at Rare, games are now decreasing in size because, quite frankly, gamers do not want to be bothered with lengthy games.
Rare, the creator of Banjo Kazooie and others, would be expected to at least defend extended games given some of their titles’ playing times, but Mayles simply stated that "…people are now less tolerant of really, really long games." He went on to say that "if you’re going to have a really long game it has to be structured in such a way that the majority of the players play the game up to a certain point and are happy with it, but that section is shorter and then make sure the tail-end of the game suits the people that want to carry on."
According to Mayles, developers should shorten their games in length in order to appease gamers who want less. One can argue that this is already happening, as can be seen in games such as COD4. However, is it truly a trend?
Hopefully this is not (and should not be) a trend. There have been plenty of lengthy and terrific games recently, such as Lost Odyssey. Is it not customary to want more of something (if it’s good)? Don’t you hate buying a game that only ends up lasting6 or 7 hours?
Unless gamers really do want much less now, in which case they may ruin good times for those who want more.
