Attention Span: A Common Misconception?

[dak]

You'd be really surprised how many "adults" in the United States are on Crack/Cocaine/Amphetamine. Especially ones with enough disposable income and job freedom to play MMORPG's.

They may seem like they have ADD but in reality they are just wired.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Brikker

Yea, I think it's a personal thing, in my case. Video games just don't keep my attention like they used to. The older I get, the quicker my mind shifts to thinking about doing other things as I play. This goes for all types of games, too. I play for a few hours and then lose interest, so I go do something else. It's probably why I have something like a 66% raid attendance, heh.

This is about where I am. I still look forward to good games, only to find that I would rather be doing something else when the game finally comes out. I've been sort of into EQ2 the last couple weeks, but I'm sure that will only last so long. I think as I find my free time becoming less and less with work and other things I need to get done during the week, I want to spend less of that free time playing games.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Digo

Yes, but I think you have very odd ideas about what is actually fun in practice or best for the game.

So you think that dozens of people hunting for gromsblood is good for the game or fun? Do you REALLY think that or is that just the fanboi speaking?

[Zarcath]

This thread got gay fast.

[Etadanik]

Perhaps ADD was the wrong term to use, but really, when have people here ever used the term ADD to mean the specific psychological condition with respect to MMOs? It's always been a rather elitist way of denoting the short attention span people have and thus why games like WoW are successful - because within the frenzy of button mashing and monsters dying lies one of the secrets to Blizzard's success, no? Or at least so it seems.

So, a definition of attention span with respect to games could go something like this: attention span is defined as the time it takes for you to become bored before having to be stimulated by a new sort of experience. It includes any form of waiting within a game - for example, sailing on a ship in EQ. Flying on a griffon in WoW. Waiting for a raid to start. Waiting for a monster to die after executing all the needed attacks. Waiting for LFG. Waiting for a monster to spawn (camping). It can also include generally repetitive tasks such as grinding and farming, since people with "ADD" are thought to abhor doing the same thing over a long period of time. This is pretty much the definition (armchair) designers use when they talk about why quests in WoW are supportive of shorter attention spans in "breaking up" the monotony, or why having combat last 30 seconds instead of 3 minutes is more conducive to attracting the kiddies.

With that behind us, I'm generally referring to and responding to the commonly held idea, these days, that games are more fast-paced and action-packed because companies are targetting a younger audience, which naturally implies that kids have shorter attention spans. But I'm wondering whether that's really true - after all, it's not like adults were the primary consumers of games back in the day. Personal experience informs me that I used to sit in front of a computer/SNES playing games like the FF series (which, if you recall, was the epitome of slow) for hours at a time, and that people I knew who gamed did the same. Could you do the same these days? Could you put 200+ hours into a turn-based RPG ever again?

I'm also referring to the tendency for people to look back to their younger years and, with nostalgia, praise such slow games that nowadays would be considered tedious. This trend implies that gamers were, indeed, much more tolerant of the sort of "bullshit" that spawned 200+ hour games that people gladly enjoyed despite the fact that, if the same game came out nowadays, it'd be heavily criticized for being drawn-out.

What has changed between then and now? Well, for one thing: gamers have aged. Yes, there's a younger generation of gamers, but what makes them different from the current generation of adult gamers back when they were young? If you were capable of putting up with slow games then, they're capable of putting up with slow games now. It's *you* who can no longer put up with slow games, because you've grown past them - either in age, or in experience (gaming and otherwise). Or in both.

There are certainly other factors: for one, the player base has grown. Perhaps as a result of games becoming more "casual" in the sense of requiring less attention spans, more people with less attention spans have entered the market. But if so, I'd say that these tend to be older people than younger, since the net effect of a enlarging market is that the average age of gamers have gone *UP*, not down. There' aslo the argument that games are faster and more action-packed now because developers have learned that being faster and more action-packed makes a better game - that this is, in fact, the gaming industry's come of age. However, that too maybe challenged. Who remembers playing games like Contra and Raiden back in the day? Or Street Fighter & Doom? It was not so much that we lacked fast games back in the day, more that we also played slow games. Nowadays, slow games are generally criticized for taking too much time/being slow/etc, and that is evidenced by the "death" of the turn-based game in many genres, by which I mean publishers are no longer willing to fund them.

But what it comes down to is this simple fact: for the most part, adult gamers do not have the same time to waste on games that kids did. We have responsibilities and commitments, and while some might've had the same as a kid, I daresay that most of us did not. I used to be able to put 8+ hours into EQ without as much as a blink. Even thinking about doing that in WoW or EQ 2 now gives me the shivers because I simply cannot imagine wasting 8+ hours playing a game - there's too many other things that I could be doing. So nowadays I'm content to play an hour or two, max, in one sitting. It would not be a stretch to say that, because of my shorter gameplay time, I also developed a shorter attention span. After all, if all you've got is 1-2 hours a day, you likely won't be satisfied spending those 1-2 hours waiting for a group, traveling across the world on a boat, or fighting ten mobs because it takes you ten minutes to take one down.

Your tolerance for games that take a long-ass time to complete would've also been affected, since you probably won't want to spend the next two years finishing just one game. No, you'd want instant gratification, because you want to be entertained in the short amount of time that you have, and because you want to get the same feeling of having finished a game that you did all the time as a kid. You'd become the proverbial "ADD" gamer, even without noticing it - to the point where it becomes a common misconception that it's kiddie gamers, and not the growing number of adult gamers, who are driving the industry's move towards shorter, faster games. You might not think yourself as having a shorter attention span, but let's be honest here:

Could you still muster the same effort you had back when you grinded through the travesty that were the hell levels, EQ 50-60, the hundreds of AA's, or the raids of Vex Thal that took seven hours of monotous grinding? Could you still muster the ability to sit fifteen minutes while waiting for your mana to regenerate? If not, then congratulations - you have a shorter attention span. And I think we all do, as we get older.

And yes, I recognize the irony of making a post this long while arguing about adults having shorter attention spans. But I'm hoping, in this case, that there are enough new points raised that it won't be a monotonous read - it certainly wasn't a monotonous write, as I've been forced to look at many of my own biases with regards to attention spans. Alas if it is otherwise.

[Etadanik]

A quick reply to those who argue that "we didn't have a choice" back in the days of EQ: yes, I agree. But then again, you did have a choice. You could've quit. Would you be playing EQ *now* if WoW and EQ 2 didn't exist, or would you simply have quit and moved on with your life as many people I know did?

[Quineloe]

If you just exclude WoW or EQ2, it's still a No for me, I wouldn't play

[Lyenae]

Speaking for myself... it's not so much ADD as it is MOTSS (more of the same shit.) The games that drew me away from EQ: Anarchy Online and Shadowbane, actually innovated and were different enough to stand apart. One was a fantasy/sci fi hybrid with completely different takes on how people level, grind, and move aroudn the world... the other was strongly PvP based that allowed players to create the world.

It's just goddamn MOTSS for the rest of them.

- How many other fucking MMO games are going to follow the "50 levels" model?

- How many other fucking MMO games are going to have a warrior "tank" a boss?

- How many other fucking MMO games are going to disallow you from using an oak bow because you need be a certain level to wield OAK??? (<--- GTFO RETARDED)

- How many other fucking MMO games are going to have skill-less "hit the hokey as soon as it's up" gameplay?

Back on topic, I'm still willing at 29 with a fulltime job to dedicate 4-8 hours toward a game if the content reward is worth it. There really haven't been any huge leaps in content rewards as far as I'm concerned. Raiding still follows the pointless "raid to get gear to raid tougher stuff" model. With enlargening worlds and instances, you can't really brag to other people how awesome you are/look as much as you could in EQ. Hell in EQ2 the majority of people need to run low quality models so everyone looks like a melting wax statue. What's the point of working my ass off for a kick ass looking sword so it only looks good when I look at it???

For me to put in that time, I need to know the content rewards are there. I'd like there to be high skill rewards too, but the MMO genre lables anything you conquer with skill as an "exploit."

[Zarcath]

I'd think it would be premature or rather difficult to make any type of quasi-pyscho analysis of MMO players as we're still a young genre. EQ and UO players (excluding muds) are the first generation of die-hard MMOers.

The point you're trying to make, I think, is that game companies are dumbing down their content to target the younger audience? If this is your point, this isn't something unique to MMOs or even the game industry, it seems like the standard operation for big business. Movies have long been in this state of mind.

It's impossible for any of us to make any kind of comparisson or opinion on what we would have found worthwhile in our younger years compared to these kids. Short of actually having these kids come here and post their point of view, though you could just read WoW General.

Content isn't the only deciding factor for MMO success, it's how well they distract you.

[Etadanik]

The point you're trying to make, I think, is that game companies are dumbing down their content to target the younger audience?

Not sure who you're responding to, but my argument is the opposite: that game companies are dumbing down their content to target the *older* audience, who have shorter attention spans.

[Digo]

Has it occurred to any of you that Everquest -- and most MMOs -- had insufferably inconvenient mechanics and were entirely too tedious? I'm sorry, but sitting in a group of 6 people beating on one exp mob for two minutes at a time with autoattack in the same spot for five hours isn't exactly what most sane people would consider even approaching fun. It's not a matter of WoW "dumbing down" the game. The designers -- who had a lot of EQ experience -- realized "holy shit, this is boring. Let's make basic gameplay mechanics actually fun."

I'll save you the trouble of calling me a fanboy. I confess. I love WoW. The combat is actually fun. The dungeons are interesting. I actually like doing tradeskills -- something I hated with heroic intensity in EQ. WoW takes a lot of the insufferable tedium out of the genre.

[Etadanik]

That's fine, but it still doesn't change the fact that people played EQ and enjoyed it back in the day, but can no longer do so now. The market *is* changing, and I'm not making a qualitative call here. I'm simply observing that age, or at least years spent on games, has an inverse relationship with the amount of tedium people are willing to put up with.

[Iannis]

Yeah, adults have lower tolerance thresholds.

So games get shorter and with less obnoxious parts. Those levels where one misjump meant starting over are gone from console games. The monotonous level treadmill approach of an MMO is degrading bit by bit. One of these days someone is going to just say "to hell with it!" and chuck the level approach out the window.

Of course we also start to feel more gyped by games because it didn't take as long as they used to. "I beat this already...god damn?"

[Zarcath]

I think adults are more likely to enjoy a game, even if it's tedious, if there's less retarded kids around. EQ didn't have the same tard population WoW has, being subjected to that wears you out faster.

[Vorph]

Originally Posted by Iannis

One of these days someone is going to just say "to hell with it!" and chuck the level approach out the window.

That's probably about when I'll think about playing a mmo seriously again. I thought WoW was tedious and boring when I quit, and everything I read here makes me believe it just keeps getting worse; Vanguard is "clearly not the game for me", and there's nothing else on the horizon except for Age of Conan.

I'm not sure why I put up with EQ more than I've been willing to put up with anything since it. I'm anywhere from a few to 15 years older than most of the people around here, so I'm not so sure that age has anything to do with it. I think it's more about the games themselves, and possibly some sort of side effect from doing absolutely nothing in EQ except raiding for the last 2+ years I played it making me very unwilling to do random required busywork in a new game.