Too much grind will kill you if you can't make up your mind. When playing video games becomes a full-time job?
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The problem are not the game-services in general, but how intensively they are based on addictive time-consuming mechanics. The aforementioned Hitman 2 offers a single contract that occurs only two or three times per month. To complete this mission in optimal way you have to spend several hours in the game. Moreover, additional minor tasks appear regularly in escalation modes, together with bonus challenges or paid content – but without any time limit. And this system suits me perfectly. On the one hand, these updates keep the game alive many weeks after its release. New content gives me a reason to spend a few hours as Agent 47, at least a few times a month.
On the other hand, it is so reasonably balanced that I don't feel like I have to sacrifice other duties or personal interests to keep up to date – I can play most of the content when I want, and the time-limited content is offered within a wide time-span which doesn't pose a problem. Unless, I'm very busy with something else during the whole contract availability period – in this case I wouldn't even find a few minutes to play the game. Then all that remains is anger that I have lost something.
At the other end of the spectrum we have this unfortunate Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, designed in such a way that if you want to unlock all skins in the game then you have to play it daily (and devote your free time to it every day). A new Grand Prix season is launched every month, with a lot of content that can only be acquired during this particular season. These content includes new characters, skins and karts. Certain amount of these new features can be obtained by completing daily missions, and some by collecting coins. In summary, to unlock everything that the Grand Prix has to offer, you have to play the game every day from one to three hours for about three weeks. When you finally turn out to be successful, the next season will start after a few days. Then, the whole fun begins from a scratch. You'll say it's probably a trick to encourage players to microtransactions. Well, the prices are so high that purchasing additional stuff or buffs is not even a reasonable alternative.
In the case of Crash, after just over two months I became worn out. Not only I didn't want to continue playing, but also my inner impressions of having fun have simply faded out. Objectively, it's still a great racing game with a ton of content (also excluding the one from Grand Prix). Subjectively, I mainly remember the subsequent races, during which I couldn't feel a spark of emotion – playing consecutive missions was like completing a daily task schedule in some corporation. As long as it remained interesting, it involved me and encouraged me to play, but the exaggerated number of challenges completely rejected me from spending time with it at the very end. Developers have lost one active gamer, while I've lost one cool game for further testing. Both sides have lost on it. And if this title didn't require so much of my time and effort, I would probably play it even for another year.
I have never spent a penny on FIFA Ultimate Team and I am very proud of that. I'm a little less proud of the fact that since 2018, when the line-up battle mode was introduced for two months, my entire schedule of the day was adjusted to the rhythm of the aforementioned update. This way I was able to play new teams in a given time period, rank as high as possible in the weekly rankings and get packs with the best available players. I completed the first two objectives flawlessly, but the third one (rather a reward feature than objective) brought me some worse results – because the gods of FIFA didn't provide me with titans like De Bruyne or Messi and instead offered me some mediocre players like Milik or Lukaku. No wonder I gave up after some time.
Jacob "Miro" Mirowski
And Crash Racing is just one game out of many. Maybe somebody should conduct an experiment and try several time-wasting games at the same time. If you're playing CTR on a regular basis, then how about buying a new part of Ghost Recon with dozen of daily quests to your collection. Then, let's add some lovely mobile title based on the FOMO mechanics. And suddenly it turns out that playing games doesn't even resemble a secondary job anymore – it literally becomes your homework. Too bad that salary is so disappointing. You couldn't make a living like this. Also, it's pretty hard to eat your fill with such a legendary skin. It's difficult to complete new titles and unlock unique content as it consumes your whole spare time.
KING OF TIME KILLERS & SPARE TIME FILLERS
Members of our editorial team at Gamepressure.com enjoy some clicker games like the Clicker Heroes. These are time killers, which are not concealing their main time-consuming feature – all the fun consists in clicking compulsively and gaining currency. In-game money can be used to buy improvements which can automatically click without your intervention and make the whole process more autonomic.
Does that sound a bit cliché? Actually, it does and this is what it turns out to be in practice. Unless you get involved too much and start spending hours on Reddit, analyzing the complex mathematical formulas of users who calculate and search for the optimal way of buying upgrades. These titles are perfect to play in the background, for example, during office work when you can check your gameplay status once in a while. Despite that, they're very addictive and your frequent checks of current progress may quickly turn into a regular habit. According to Steam stats, I lost more than 6 thousand hours in Clicker Heroes. It wasn't worth it.
Take the blue pill, Neo
Major issue of daily quests, daily missions, daily log-ins and other temporary challenges is their initial dose of satisfaction. However, this initial joy smoothly and unnoticeably turns into a monotonous state that can last for a really long time, becoming an ordinary habit. When we finally become aware of it and quit our addiction, we end up with a feeling of overwhelming bitterness and realize how much time we have lost on playing pointless video games. Like a lightning from the sky it strikes us that we didn't stimulate the mind during the game, we didn't absorb the fascinating story, we didn't develop reflexes, we didn't even care about the value of end-game content. We were just killing our time. But is that the main role of re-play value? A lot of time spent only to get a few additional trinkets or skins in a game which we're ready to abandon.
Therefore, when we play some endless game-service titles, it is worth asking yourself the following question: are you still playing it because it provides a lot of pleasure, or maybe you have just taken the bait casted by game developers (which turned into a secondary job)? If the part-time job is the answer – maybe it's time to let it go or we may end up like a badass marshal who want to hunt down a Rambo. The sooner you quit, the better for you, as the feeling of wasted time won't be that dreadful.
