With an ever increasing amount of gaming choice on growing number of platforms, it can be hard to keep up with the gaming scene these days. Not only are there now three major gaming consoles, there are at least as many big name portable devices to boot. Factor in gaming PCs, including the ever present "browser-based" game market, and you might as well just give up on trying to stay both multi-platform and current.
There are quite likely more quality gaming hours produced today than one person could possibly play in a lifetime. Portable devices are cranking out AAA quality titles. iOS offers more gaming content per $0.99 than anyone would have believed. Browser games are rivaling traditional desktop in terms of complexity. Free-to-play is on the raise and doesn't look like it's stopping. MMO's can bleed a person's schedule and wallet dry. There are quite likely more quality gaming hours produced today than one person could possibly play in a lifetime.
So how does someone deal with this onslaught of choice? For awhile as my gaming choices grew I found myself in the habit of picking up and playing games in short bursts, rarely finishing them. After a time I couldn't even remember which ones were still incomplete. It was unsatisfying, like reading the first chapter of several books.
Fully experiencing a game provides for a much richer, more memorable experience. I'm a believer in monotasking in my life as much as possible. I find that if I do one thing at a time, I enjoy it more and do it better than if I'm trying to do many things at once. To that end, I try to focus on playing a single game start to finish before moving on whenever possible. I believe that fully experiencing a game, whether a story told via narrative or experienced through actions, provides for a much richer, more memorable experience.
But are all games like books, best experienced in isolation from start to finish? Perhaps not. Many casual and indie games might be better compared to magazines, there to pick up and flip through at leisure. Surely games like Sudoku puzzles and Words with Friends fall into this category. A tougher call is a game like Angry Birds. Many I might not want to finish Angry Birds entirely before playing Cut the Rope, so it's sometimes better to at least finish a chapter casual games offer very complete gameplay experiences. Unless you're a casual gamer who rarely dips into the "core" gamer territories however, I find it hard to imagine someone playing the hundreds of available levels back to back.
For these games, I waver a bit on my "one game at a time" policy. I typically play at least one such "casual" game on the side of a larger, modern gaming experience. Sometimes, I'll try out several casual games. I still find it important to carefully watch the number of games I'm playing at once however, or I quickly become overwhelmed again. For example, I might not want to finish Angry Birds entirely before playing Cut the Rope, so it's sometimes better to at least finish a chapter or a set amount of levels. Just having a goal often helps to keep things under control and feel like I'm making progress. We gamers, with few exceptions, love to see progress.
Do all games even need to be finished? I'd say no, especially not to "100%". As a final thought: Do all games even need to be finished? I'd say no, especially not to "100%". Some games, especially arcade games, are endless by nature. However, publishers increasingly seem to think so. They stress about "losing" the gamer, about resell, and about budget put into content the gamer might never see. Games increasingly bend over backwards to help the player get to the goal, or otherwise provide shortcuts through DLC / in-app purchases.
It's not all bad - growing up I simply used cheat codes (or devices) to access content that I otherwise couldn't get to. I never would have finished several classic titles with my grandparents without using the Game Genie as an equalizer for our skill levels. Other titles, I never did finish. How many people actually saw the end of Battletoads? Did it matter? Not to me, not at the time. Perhaps, at least in some cases, the answer is to once again just play until it stops being fun.
