Are Shorter Attention Spans Hurting The Role-Playing Genre?

[LivingMetal]

Soleron said:

LivingMetal said:

Soleron said:
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To paint a bigger picture, just because a person plays a "shallow game" (such as Pac-Man) doesn't mean that person has short attention span. According to my gaming collection, I'm an rpg fan which normally requires more attention.  But at the same time according to my gaming collection again, I'm a Dynasty Warriors fan which is probably some of the most shallow games in recent times.  So it's phantonable to say that hardcore games can enjoy both "shallow" and "non-shalow" games while your more casual gamers will tend tolean towards more "shallow" games.  So with all due respect, your view only paints a more narrow point of view.  And the trend is leaning to more "shallow" gaming experiences for the masses.

I believe the demand for 'shallow' games has been constant since the arcade days, but was just underserved on the SNES/PS1/PS2 generations (even then though, look at the popularity of PC freeware like Minesweeper or Flash games or the Game Boy (Tetris) during that time). If there were similar experiences on those consoles they too would have outsold the RPGs.

The sheer size of the market is only now becoming more visible (with Wii and Kinect and the iPhone games). At the same time, JRPGs are no longer novel and only attract the core audience now, they make little concession to those unfamiliar with the genre. So gaming seems more shallow because more people are now gaming. The alternative was for them to not buy games at all - there hasn't been a shift from deep to shallow games by individuals.

GTA, CoD and Guitar Hero fall into the short-burst category too, because of how people play them.

Anyway, JRPGs are as numerous now as they always were. They are just spread more evenly across five consoles instead of one last generation - especially notable is the number on the DS and PSP, where there was no real RPG segment in the GBA or GB lineup. Developers prefer the DS because they know they're going to make back the money even with low sales - not true for a PS3 RPG

 

Some people group games together between handhelds and non-handhelds.  Others such as myself do not.  I get a different experience between playing on a television sitting on my couch than a 4" screen in the palm of my hand.  With that being said, there were a plethora of RPG's on the PSOne and PStwo alone for both past gen consoles.  This gen with the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 combined is not much of a comparison.

The context of the article was in regards tonon-handhelds with the examples of Final Fantasy XIII and COD given.