Is there such a thing as “too much content”? Or when do games start to become “work”?

Earlier today I read an article on Destructoid by Chris Hovermale that really spoke to me. In the article, Chris talks about how he was a big fan of Nintendo’s newest mobile game “Dragalia Lost” when it launched back in September of last year, but eventually grew tired of the game’s constant stream of timed events.

This happens to be extremely relevant to me right now, as not only someone who was kind of scared away from Dragalia due to its constant content schedule, but also as someone who has been thinking about playing more of a “live game” like Monster Hunter World lately, but feels like I’m forced to play it during times where the game is specifically having an event.

I took to Twitter to share the article with others, and to be honest it kind of got the creative juices flowing in me enough that I wasn’t content with just making a series of long tweets, but actually putting my thoughts down on my often neglected Medium account.

I actually had an argument with my best friend who felt differently about this subject than I did. And while we ultimately settled things as a misunderstanding between the two of us, we each have different opinions on the question of “is there too much of this content?”

In his mind, the constant events in Dragalia Lost are important to him as a player of that game, because it gives him a reason to keep coming back to it, without feeling like there’s a drought of content. I can definitely see where he’s coming from with this, but my opinion on the matter is a little different.

To me, this level of content acts as a sort of barrier to entry for me an that game, because of a simple thing that I’m sure we’ve all heard tossed around the internet at this point: “FOMO”. Otherwise known as the“fear of missing out.”

I have more than a little trouble with FOMO. I’m the kind of person that wants to constantly be part of the zeitgeist on a new release. If I see a bunch of my friends, and people I follow talking about something — I want in on it. Regardless of if it’s something I myself was initially interested in.

This has caused me to take on some pretty shitty purchasing habits when it comes to games. On one hand it’s definitely helped broaden my horizons from when I was a kid. But on the other hand it often leaves me with entirely too much to play at any given time.

Now toss in games that are constantly pushing out new content to keep their playerbase engaged, and you go from just having a lot of different games to choose from, to having a lot of different commitments.

I’m not gonna lie, I have more free time than the average person. But not as much as when I was a teenager. There’s also way, way, way more games to play nowadays then when I was growing up too, so it makes it even harder to stick to one, or even a handful of games for long periods of time.

As a result I’ve spent most of my adult life judging how much time I want to put into a game, not only by how much I’m enjoying it, but also by its length. How Long To Beat has become a very frequent site for me to visit anymore when trying to decide “Do I really want to put this kind of time into a game?”

Yes, I’ve put over 500 hours into Paladins. And spent 200 hours finishing up everything I could do in Dragon Quest XI. Did it help that I absolutely love these games? Certainly, but also I had the freedom to choose when I wanted to play them*.

*For the most part. Paladins does have timed events, and Battle Passes. Which I could easily see being a problem for others. But since it’s a daily activity for me I find it easier to keep up with. Also you usually have a month or more to complete these events so it makes it a little bit easier than some other games.

So back to the original point of this post. When does a game start to feel like work? Well, as someone who has sunk many, many hours into various MMORPGs over the years, I can tell you that a game starts to feel like a chore whenever you stop enjoying the act of playing the game.

Whenever you hit a point where games really start to feel like a grind. When you’re logging on a game every day to do your “dailies”. When you’re clocking into a job that pays out loot and cosmetics instead of playing something for fun. That’s when it becomes a job.

Now, like I said, I understand the business reasons for “games as a service”, and I know that these kinds of games have become popular for a reason. But on the other side of things when does it become overwhelming?

I have a ton of mobile gacha games installed on my phone, but I actually play very few of them. Most of the time I can’t even be bothered to login to most of these games to collect a daily reward. The main one I keep up with is Fire Emblem Heroes.

Why? Well, I love Fire Emblem. But also I feel like it’s easy for me to keep up with it. Part of that might have to do with the fact that it’s the main one I stay current with. But also I feel like the way that its designed lends itself more to my gaming habits.

My friend argues that FEH isn’t as enjoyable for him because they’re constantly incorporating new modes of play into the game. I can see where he’s coming from with that, but my counterpoint is this: I don’t feel like I need to engage with this stuff to get what I want out of Fire Emblem Heroes.

The only things I care about keeping up with in Heroes are new characters, and maybe Sacred Seals from the Tempest Trials. So the only time I ever usually “play” Fire Emblem Heroes is to do Tempest Trials. The rest of the time I just cash in on a few easy orbs when I have the time.

I haven’t even played all of the different modes in Heroes. I don’t feel like I need to. The only thing I care about is rolling on new characters when they come out. And while I could have two times, maybe three times as many orbs if I grinded out all the content — I feel like I currently get enough to have a chance whenever there’s a banner I’m really interested in.

With a game like Dragalia Lost, there aren’t a bunch of new modes added to the game. But the way the game doles out new event characters, and the repetitive nature of these events that make it feel like a grind are what keep me away from that game primarily.

I don’t like feeling like I’m going to miss out on a character because I didn’t play enough of the game during the event. I also don’t feel like there’s enough time in-between events for me to feel like I can casually keep up with everything.

It’s a case of different strokes for different folks for sure. But for me I feel like I’m being punished for not putting in the time into something that I feel ultimately should be something I can pick up and play as I please.

Unfortunately this is how almost every mobile game of this type operates. Another such game is Fate/ Grand Order. A game that I’m much more invested in due to its characters and lore. F/GO on its own is a massive turn based RPG with a heavy dose of visual novel segments tossed in. Later chapters of the game can take dozens of hours to complete.

If that weren’t enough, the game also frequently has these types of time limited events where you have to grind them over and over again to get your rewards. And in some cases F/GO is even worse because it doesn’t have an auto-battle function like many other games of its type.

In the case of both of these games, I can come back to them any time I want and play through the story at my leisure. But isn’t it kind of shitty that I miss out on so much of the game’s content because I either don’t have the want or time to play them during these limited windows?

The concept of a “live game” isn’t exclusive to phone games however. As many modern PC and console games have adopted the previously mentioned “games as a service” model. Games like Destiny and Monster Hunter World are constantly trying to push out meaty content updates to keep their players playing the game.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both of these games, but I’m a little more hesitant about coming back to them to keep up with content cycles. This again could be a preference thing, but when I play games I like to play them for a chunk of time, then move onto something else.

With live games, you usually can’t stop playing for large chunks of time then expect to come back and jump right back into the thick of things. This is further enhanced by the fact that as multiplayer games, it’s always a possibility that the people you play with have moved on without you.

In the case of Monster Hunter, I’ve come back to it several times since it’s come out. And I enjoy it every time, but there’s always so much for me to catch up on. That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but it starts to become a problem when it becomes apparent that the only times I should be playing Monster Hunter are when they have an event going on.

Now to MHW’s credit, whenever there is an event going on, to my knowledge, most, if not all of the previous event content becomes available again. But only during an event. Why is that? If you’re going to bring the content back again and again, why not offer me the choice to play it whenever I want?

And Capcom’s answer to that is probably a business reason. But I’m not a business guy, and this isn’t my game, so I can’t relate to that side of the problem. All I can do as a player is feel shitty that I have to play this game at someone else’s pace.

So where does that leave us? I wish I knew, honestly. It’s apparent that this current trend in gaming is the norm, and I should just be thankful that between indie games, and the occasional big single player experience that I’m still able to enjoy games at my own pace.

But it still sucks that I have that fear of missing out on a lot of games that are otherwise pretty awesome. And it’s not that I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t like a constant stream of content like this. But for me, I find it a little too difficult to keep up with in a lot of cases. Like I said, I don’t have a solution to this. But I guess maybe the best I can hope for is that somehow we get to a point where the people who run these games can comfortably make it accessible to people with different playing habits.

And that’s it for my “short” post about games as a chore. Thanks!