Yesterday, the news that EA was shutting down Visceral Games and passing off their developing Star Wars title in order to shape it into something else dominated a great deal of community discussion. As more details emerged, one thing became clear: for EA, at least, with their “games as service” mantra, the single-player adventure’s twists, turns, and charm are a thing of the past and the future lies in the perpetual, the game with updates and events, the game you can always turn to. I followed discussions on social media and lamented to a few friends about what a dismal future that might be for all of us… and then I came home and played a few games of Fortnite Battle Royale while chatting with my partner about Halloween loot boxes in Overwatch. Meanwhile, that last bit of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider remains unfinished because I haven’t had the time to sit down and dig into it.
Reader, a dark guilt swept over me in that moment, because I am helping create a landscape I thought I didn’t want. But is that true?
I’ve railed against the time commitment of MMOs and high-skilled shooters, microtransactions, and multiplayer-focused games that require access to high-speed internet connections, and yet here I am, spending the gaming time I have during the week on games that are building that very culture. I don’t have much time, I tell myself, but outside of the recent charity marathon, the only single-player game I’ve spent any time at all on is a little Stardew Valley to relax. And the games I enjoy, really enjoy, the Dishonoreds, the Firewatches? Most of them (hundreds of hours in State of Decay notwithstanding) I play three times at most, and usually only if there’s something else to be done, some new way to experience the narrative, some other choices to make. I’ve never replayed all the episodes of Life Is Strange. Never started over in Skyrim. I struggled to think of the games I’ve treated the way I treat Fortnite, Overwatch, and Hearthstone, and besides State of Decay, I can only really think of Don’t Starve and The Flame in the Flood.
Yet I still rail against the games-as-service notion, the multiplayer experience, the game that requires such dedication it becomes the only game. I had my MMO period and even now, I’ve reconciled myself to never getting much better than 12-13 in Hearthstone because I just don’t want to spend the time grinding up every month. I don’t play competitive Overwatch because it’s not worth it. I’m satisfied finishing second or third in Fortnite Battle Royale. And the Life Is Strange prequel and What Remains of Edith Finch sit unplayed on my Xbox.
But I don’t think the problem is these games; the problem is time. I bought them. I will play them. And since I include games in my classroom teaching, I spread the gospel of story-driven titles wherever I go. So I wonder: do we want only these multiplayer, popcorn-entertainment/play-when-you-can experiences, or do we still hunger for story? I do. In terms of the time issue, maybe this is what drives episodic releases (along with money, of course), but even then, who wants to stop in the middle of an episode? I don’t, usually, so the games sit unplayed until I can find a weekend night without anything else to interfere, The struggle is real.
I don’t want to given in to a games-as-service future. So where’s the middle ground, and what does that look like?
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One thought on “The End of Visceral and the Future of Perpetual”
I do something similar – spend my time in FFXIV and Granblue Fantasy rather than playing anything in my ever-expanding backlog of games I ostensibly love. For a while, I wondered if it meant I didn’t really like the things I think I do – the personal games, the narrative games.
But that’s not it. Not for me. When I sit down to play a game, it’s easy to play those two eternal, endless games than it is to start something new. I don’t need to choose anything. That’s big. How do you choose which of the 500 games you’ve been meaning to play as being more immediately worth playing than any of the others? I have no idea. So I don’t. And FFXIV and Granblue are more urgent. There’s always something I can do to progress on an ongoing project, something that needs my attention. It’s a fake sort of productivity that feels very good. Playing something new? That’s a risk. I might waste an evening. But playing those games has the guaranteed reward of moving forward at something, even if it’s ultimately not anything meaningful.
How do we address this? Well, I do two things. First: I support games I care about even if I don’t play them. I’d rather vote with my wallet AND my hours, but at least I have the privilege of being able to do one of the two. Second: I play small games that people I trust are talking about. There are so many small, inexpensive personal games on sites like itch.io that provide fascinating, novel experiences that are done with in an hour, or less even. When it works, I get a bite-sized narrative experience that gives me far more than I’ve invested. When it doesn’t, I still have time for something else, and I’ve put a few bucks into the pocket of an independent dev who’s making cool stuff (even if it’s not exactly cool stuff for me).
I’d still rather play all the wonderful games I buy instead of the same two games forever, but at least I feel like I’m doing something to help make the gaming world a slightly better place.