Creating Video Games to Last a Lifetime

People get bored. When nothing is going on, people feel the urge to do anything at all that can entertain them for as long as possible. It is from this human necessity that movies, music and video games were born. And although they are the newest member in this group, video games are especially good at entertaining the player compared to other entertainment. For instance, how long in total have you watched your favorite movie for, or listened to your favorite song for? Then compare that to the total amount of time you've played your favorite video game for, and you’ll see that (assuming your favorite game isn’t brand new) the length of time spent playing a video game almost always will exceed these other two totals. Video games can sometimes be played for over 100 hours, so it makes sense that video game usage would be longer than something like movie watchtime. Video game companies have seen this potential and now more than ever have been making sure they take advantage of what makes video games last for so long. But what exactly makes a video game playable for so many hours in total? Multiple ways to play.

If a game only has one way to play it, once you finish it the first time you won’t play it again if you can play something else. Meanwhile, the more options the player has, the more potential times to play the whole game. This also allows for the video game to have a better chance of not upsetting the player, as in a single-path game if the player doesn’t like that path, they will hate the game as a whole. But in a multiple-path game, if the player doesn’t like one or even a few paths, chances are that they will like one of the other ones and will see the game better because of that. It is because of these reasons that the number of ways that a game can be played can determine how long the game can be played for in total, and is ultimately why gaming companies try to create games that follow this multiple-path idea. But the hardest part is exactly how they can do this, how they can turn one pathway into multiple ones. However, they have been able to figure this out as well, and their strategies almost always boils down to one of these three: side stories, player-based challenges and unpredictability.

Courtesy of Monster Hunter: World (Iceborne Expansion)

Side quests are the most reliable and consistent way to expand a video games total usage as they are very hard to mess up. Simply have a main story/series of quests, put some non-essential but rewarding side plots/quests in and voila, you have an expanded video game because it allows the player to choose what they want to do. The Monster Hunter video games are known for doing just this. They have a massive amount of quests you can do, boss monsters you can fight and the game rewards you increasingly based on how difficult the given task was. By putting this many quests into the game, making each of them have various levels of difficulty, the game makes sure that the player feels rewarded after their quest and gets them to want to finish the game, even if just for the extra materials or money to get better gear to defeat the final boss. By making some optional choices, it allows the player to feel like the choice to do these quests was theirs and makes them upon replaying the game to want to see what those other quests were if they didn’t do them already, causing them to play for more time to complete the game. This side quest style of expanding the game as long as they aren’t forced on the player will almost always result in a longer played game, so this is the style many video games end up using.

Courtesy of Minecraft

Player-based challenges are a little harder to do right in comparison. How can you have a game that knows the player and creates challenges just for them before the player even buys the game? It’s a little bit tricky, but the strategy boils down to this. Allow the player to do whatever they want.

This sounds oddly specific, I know but this strategy has created games with longer potential usage than side quest games, potentially even games that can be played forever. Even Minecraft, the most sold video game of all time employs this exact strategy by allowing the player to use the resources present to do whatever they want in the world, creating potentially infinite ways to play the game. And even if they ended up running out of ways to play the game, Minecraft employed this strategy in two other ways too: modding and servers. By allowing their community to build other features to the game, Minecraft players now have access to several new materials, goals, mobs and buildings so that they can further customize how they want to play their game. Servers, furthermore, allow the game to have a multiplayer experience, whether it be based around a group of friends or going on public servers in order to play in mini-games or meet other people. Minecraft was able to succeed because it had this ability for the player to choose how they wanted to play the game, creating endless opportunities for how to play, allowing the game to be potentially infinite in play length.

Courtesy of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

And video games don’t have to be at Minecraft’s level of modding or servers. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for example used the same basic strategy as Minecraft, simply giving the player multiple options for what they wanted to do. If they liked fighting bosses and solving puzzles, they could go into massive mechanical divine beasts and do just that and get rewarded for it in the final boss fight. Meanwhile, if the player liked speedrunning after the tutorial they could run directly to the final boss and try their luck. This versatility allowed for the game to be played in different ways, allowing for exploration and for the play the game how they wanted. The only difference between these two games is that Breath of the Wild is limited in its possibilities because it doesn’t have the endless options that Minecraft’s modding created, but still this game is able to be played for a long time, so it also was a success in the player-based expansion strategy.

Courtesy of Tetris 99

And finally, this leaves the last strategy, unpredictability. By making every individual game (inside of a singular video game) different from the last with a touch of unpredictability, the game can continue to be interesting and even more rewarding when the player succeeds in their goal. Due to the inherent nature of this type of game, a new way to play the game is essentially always needed, giving the game potentially infinite ways to play it by forcing the player to change their tactics. This is definitely the most risky tactic of them all, as by forcing the player to play a certain way, there is a chance that the player will hate the game and drop it, lowering the potential usage of the game basically to zero. When this unpredictability is balanced though without being forced, the game can once again be potentially played forever. Tetris is the second most sold game for this exact reason, every game is different from the last and every game is challenging to complete, but every time a new record is reached it makes the player feel like they have achieved something. This achievement creates the player’s want to play more, as this strategy of game design makes every game different from the last, making the player want to see if they can beat the next level.

And those are the strategies that gaming companies have been using to expand their games in length. But why bring any of this up? Because if you look at all the games I have mentioned that have used these strategies so heavily, every one of them has been released in the last 15 years (with Monster Hunter: World and Tetris 99 being released during this time), meaning that companies have only recently been putting together how to exploit these strategies and make a game that can be played for as long as possible. They have been putting together these types of games more in these past few years than ever before, with games like Fortnite and GTA V surviving past when people thought they would. Video game companies are getting better at making long lasting games and even though not everyone has liked these games, companies are still being able to produce longer lasting games anyway. So my question is when will a video game be released that fits this mold but is likable by almost everyone? These other games have all been stepping stones to get closer to what I presume is this goal, to create the perfect forever game, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. And it is because of this that I am excited for video game companies to create that game. Because when they do create it one thing is certain. It will be extremely fun to play.

-Post by John