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C What Compels Us To Play?

Brittany Vincent Profile _ Twitter _ E-mail _ Homepage

Last night, while clearing out a PlayStation 2 memory card and setting up Para Para Paradise, I decided to take a look at Persona 3 on a whim. I completed it way back when, almost two years ago now. But something nagged at me, told me to have a look. So I did, and went to reload my final save. Then I saw my play time: 174 hours. Wait, was that right? I looked again. It was. A paltry number for some, perhaps, but for me, mindblowing. That wasn't even counting all the time spent where I would ragequit immediately after losing a battle and charge right in again without leveling up, just switching strategies. Huh. I had guessed it would be an astronomically high amount of hours as far as my playing habits go, because for almost my entire final school year I had spent each day coming home, doing homework, and going to school again, only this time at Gekkoukan High. I vastly preferred my in-game classmates (and Tartarus) to the real ones. As someone who prefers seeing a game to completion without always necessarily taking the steps needed to see every little thing, this was absolutely mindblowing to me. And the fact of the matter was, I hadn't seen nearly everything there was to see in-game. I completed the narrative and stayed for the ending, but I managed to keep playing that long without ever wanting it to end. It got me thinking. Why do some lengthy titles feel less favorable to watching paint dry than others, even if I enjoy them equally? As much as I play for review or otherwise, some days I just can't force myself to play another second of whatever's in the disc tray, even if it's a fantastic new release. What compelled me to keep playing, besides the fact that I was enamored with every single little facet? It's a strange phenomenon. I'm a massive fan of the Halo series, but play more than a few hours and I need a break. It's the same with Pokémon. I want to keep playing and catch them all now rather than later, but even with all the time in the world, I switch the DS off and find something new to do (or play) for a while. Perhaps one reason so many of us gravitate to MMOs and the like is because we never have to see them end...for a while. Those persistent worlds never have to go anywhere...for years and years they'll be around for you to fall in love with over and over, and to suffer that devastating blow once they're over. Just some food for thought here. What keeps you coming back to a game? Similarly, which games in your collection did you hope would never end?

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