Here's the premise: People weren't into games for a while, but now there's a bigger population of gamers once again.

"Iwata:
At one point, fighting games seemed like they had reached a dead end in its evolution path. The number of players had dropped off significantly. Nintendo had taken the stance of "increasing the gamer population." We wondered why the consumers who used to play no longer were. We had to understand the reason and try to remove the barriers to get them to pick up an interest once more. We thought we'd be able to change the situation that way. When I heard about your approach today, I think it's very similar to ours.

I've sure stepped back considerably. Hell, I'm not even sure if I should still call myself a "gamer" since now I mostly just play puzzlers.  But thankfully the definition of what a gamer is has also changed along with me...

Ono:
Yes. In recent years, the diversity and age range of the consumers have continued to expand. At the very least, there seems to be fewer and fewer people who have zero interest in video games. So, how do we get them to go back to games? We have to try to fill in the gaps of what's sucking away at their interest. I don't believe that thinking about that conflicts with game creation or creativity."

The obvious things are answered by "gaming in small bites" as many people have smaller chunks of time available.  And casual gaming on phones are what have expanded the diversity and age range, as they offer quick gratification through concise trial and error, so they are certainly winning the "fun factor" right now.

The difference between a console experience and a mobile experience is still a hurdle for the big established developers though because they still go and make their PSP/DS games with the same mindset and methods as they do for consoles (wow graphics and huge universes) and it just isn't fun...

I can't do Monster Hunter on the PSP, because item management just isn't fun on a handheld. Actually, I just realized this 2 seconds ago, but item management just isn't fun anymore PERIOD no matter what genre of game it is!!

Anyways, I still love all the Intellectual Properties that classic game companies like Capcom have, but I do want them in fun, smaller bites.

Guess I just need an iPhone or Android to complete my metamorphoses, then I could try Taito's efforts like http://infinitygene.net/iphone/index_en.html and see if they're doing better with the fun factor.

In my jump from SNES to N64 & PSX RPGs, what I found out was, RPGs took shittons more time!

Chrono Trigger, a 100% game, all optional dungeons completed, all secret ultimate weapons found, was a 10-20 hour game for me; tack on maybe another 10 hours (maybe less) to achieve each of the special endings in succession; just zoom right up to the place you need, and defeat Lavos. Done.

Final Fantasy IV (II on the SNES), took me about 20-30 hours, all Summons found and conquered, level-building to defeat the final boss (Zeromus).

Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX on the PSX? Each were at least 60 hours to complete!

My point is, if you ask me, games became more tedious, and a lot slower, after making them more elaborate  graphically; I believe that's the one thing that slowed things down. Cut scenes, slowing scrolling text, etc.

The PSX FFs, along with FFX, could have all been anime series, and I would've been happier; they could've spent more time scripting things better, developing characters better, and making the story overall more cohesive, and hire some animators to do all the good, on-screen stuff.

NES and SNES games play quickly for me.

Zelda II seems like a long, tough game, but when I look at my Wii gameplay time log, it took me about 10-15 hours, over the course of a week, to get through it - that includes all subsequent retries, getting all the magics, and leveling out all my stats completely.

The first Zelda took just about the same time, also over the course of a week.

River City Ransom, again, a week's time.

Castlevania II...can you guess how long it took me? Yup, a week!

And for CII and River City, those were my first ever play throughs!

Not to brag, but my point is, quick games keep players hooked! That's why I love those games!

Developers and producers are trying to do all this fancy shite, I just want something I can enjoy within a weekend, maybe a week!

Like you, Carl, I don't spend nearly as much time playing video games as I used to, but I still prefer long-form games.  Games have a greater potential for immersion than does any other creative medium, and it's the elaborate, expansive games that tap this potential.  There's a place for games that you can pick up and play for a few minutes, but if developers focus too much on bite-sized fun, many possibilities will be left unrealized.

I agree that both short-form games and long-form games each have unique strengths, and both are certainly still going to continue.

Maybe games HAVE actually achieved the same level as hollywood cinema, in that
they all seem to have the same "diluted and formulaic feeling" like all the endless empty popcorn flicks do.

No trailer or review or footage or anything these days makes me say to myself "wow, I really want to try that game out for myself".  It's like I'm numb to it all and upcoming announcements just doesn't affect me anymore - the excitement is just gone, or rather, I can see through the MANUFACTURED Excitement to hype things up.

maybe it also has something to do with unemployment doubling over the past 4 years.

no job= buttloads of free time
owning your own business = i think i put in about 2 hours of gaming for all of 2010

Life certainly is a pretty hard game itself, mike, that it is.

And yeah I've been much more concerned about improvements to real life during the past year or two, with some mild successes and a few misses too, but I suppose the effort is still something to be proud of.

The problem I see with video-games these days, is also the same problem I see with movies and music.

There're people who produce what they want to produce, and let people, who really like their style, catch onto it themselves.

Then there's people who try to produce what they think people will like, and then market the hell out of it to try and find those people.

When you try marketing the hell out of something, it really turns people off, especially since things are rarely ever as good as their boasts.

Me, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't like or play video-games anymore.

I don't feel the need to play Gears of War, or Halo, or Call of Duty, or whatever Hollywood-esque game that's been hyped to hell and back again.

However, I'm actually quite smitten with indie games these days - so many new developers and producers are taking old concepts, and figuring out how to innovate on them, to differentiate themselves - and if you're willing to dig through Nintendo's catalog of shovel ware, you will find some WiiWare titles that are actually quite charming.

(Although, I have to say, whatever studio it is, they're going crazy creating Bit.Trip titles; they're decent, but too much alike).

A lot of mainstream developers, I can't help thinking they've gotten incredibly cocky, if not complacent, and believe they can release whatever they garbage they want, and people will stay buy it. Many of those outfits, if you ask me, are just in it for the money.

But take a start-up, consisting of people who just want to make GAMES, and you better believe they're going to work their asses to create a quality product just for the sake of creating a quality product, because they just want to get noticed.

What's great about older RPGs, especially FF3/6, is that they don't waste a lot of time getting things going. Aside from the 3-4 minute un-skippable intro when the Magitek armors are walking across the snowfields to Narshe, there isn't any real downtime in the game; you press New Game and you're immediately thrust into the world and the story. The way battles load are much more preferable to how things are on disc-based RPGs, too; instead of having camera spins and cinematic intros for every single random battle, the encounter starts, the sprites run onto the battlefield, and then usually within a half-minute the battles are over. Get your GP, get your EXP, and hit the road! This relatively fast-paced type of gaming, even when there's a big story and lots of text to read through, is what sucks me in time after time.

I recently attempted to play through FFX several weeks ago and lust couldn't do it because had lots of the things RPGs like FFVI don't: Long cinematic scenes, too much emphasis on the graphics, no scrolling text to read at your own pace, etc. Ironically, making FF more "deep" by giving it a graphical makeover and trying to inject more "personality" did the exact opposite. (Oooh, voices! Oh wait, you characters are all more two-dimensional than the sprites that came before you.) Both times that I've tried to play through FFX after my initial 2001/2002 run landed me at the same exact spot in Luca where I just gave up because the game starts becoming a chore more than a fun adventure. No airship to control (selecting text to go somewhere just doesn't cut it), no real dungeons to speak of (awkwardly moving spheres from one slot to another is not a dungeon, it's a pain in the ass), a cumbersome leveling system that makes later-game leveling almost impossible, and... did I mention the voice acting? I'll take my big blue blocks of texts any day.

ditto ^^

Actually, that scene IS skippable, but it's so dramatic, in the right way, and the music's good, so why would you want to?

But, yeah, the more graphically complex that games become, the more cumbersome they are to play, with the lag times, and what-else-have-you.

Also, more time (or effort) spent on graphics is less time (or effort) spent on gameplay and plot.

Well, depends who makes the game. Insomniac or Naughty Dog don't sacrifice any aspect in my opinion. The Ratchet and Clank games are a perfect harmony of every gameplay element to me, plus you can save at any time.

I tried playing FFVI again last year, and I became too bored to continue at around the time I reached Zozo. Maybe that's a slow portion of the game. Maybe I'd have to revert to my teen years to be able to get back into the story and characters. Some SNES games still feel magical to me, and some...not as much. Also, I was playing Fallout 3 at the time and, despite its glitches and frequent load screens, I couldn't stop playing. But that's just me. Enemies exploding in slo-mo have a way of counterbalancing the tedious aspects.

I will add that I've played numerous PS3 demos and thought, "there's just nothing here." It's a multi-million-dollar game and I'd rather play Tetris. Pretty bad when you don't even want to finish a demo. Fortunately there are plenty of new games that do it right. If they were all stellar I'd have to miss out on a lot of 'em!

It took me months to beat Castlevania II, back in 1988 (I was 12). I had to talk to a lot of different people to find out what to do. I disagree with your assessment that newer games take longer, since the older games can also take a long time, provided one is restricted from using the internet (or any magazine, faqs, etc.) for help. If you have to strictly rely on flesh-and-blood encounters, that will greatly slow down the pace with which you can acquire tips and tricks.

The original Zelda (NES) took me at least 6 months to finish (both quests). I will never forget how happy I was when I found the whistle in level 5.

I never beat Gauntlet, TMNT, Rygar, or Ninja Gaiden, despite years of play. But I could cruise through Ninja Gaiden II. I had also perfected Bubble Bobble to the point where I could finish it by myself, using the trick to bring in a second player (which was necessary to get the good ending...and the sound test).

Games that were relatively easier than the others were Strider, Life Force, Mega Man 2, and SMB 2. I had those 4 mastered fairly well and would complete them with onlookers.

I loved the atmosphere of Fallout 3 but stopped playing after 40 hours.  It occurred to me that there had been very little story progression, and although interesting places dotted the landscape, most of my time in the game had been spent endlessly trudging through ghoul-infested subway tunnels and mirelurk-infested sewers that all looked alike.

Ironically enough, while I do agree with this (and I've even said while I was surprised that I enjoyed FFX when I played through it, there was no way I'd ever go back and replay it), I found the battles to be a massive improvement over many of the PS1 RPG's that came before it, in terms of speed. Games like Chrono Cross and FFIX drained my patience to the point I wasn't even going to make an attempt to finish them. It was also a lot more noticeable when I played Valkyrie Profile afterwards (which were lightning-quick). I wasn't a huge fan of the "strategic" element added (swapping in certain characters to deal with certain enemies), I NEEDS a frickin overworld and I never saw the greatness in the grid system since it was dreadfully straightforward 90% of the time.