Last night I was playing Final Fantasy XII (which btw is brilliant) and I got a call from my main man Mardas.
“How about some FIFA games?” he asked.
“Sure, why not. Give me 10 mins to find a save point and then I will turn on my 360”
45 mins later I finally found a save point…..We just managed to play a game and then i had to rush a shower to get to my sister’s flat for dinner.
It reminded me of an email sent from one of Edge magazine’s readers in this month’s issue where he describes how he was scolded by his wife for not joining her for dinner on time because he didn’t know how long he had left until the next save.
Compare games to a movie or a music cd where u can just pause it or at least know how much time you have left. Books also have this high tech accessory, called bookmark, and you can also check how many pages left until the end of the chapter.
I understand that developers have to balance the difficulty issue with save points but they need to understand that games need to be flexible enough to allow us to include them in our ever busy schedules. As gamers grow up they need to devote more time to family, work, the army (LOL).
Developers need to acknowledge that time management is a serious issue for gamers and especially for the increasing number of more mature gamers.
