Here is an editorial I found interesting.  Read on...

Are Shorter Attention Spans Hurting The Role-Playing Genre?

It's why one camera angle isn't utilized for more than ten consecutive seconds when filming television shows or movies. It's why everything from commercials to cartoons has to constantly be in the face of the viewer. The information age has resulted in many positive things, but one of the negative results has been a society of instant gratification-seeking, something-must-always-be-happening, sneaker-gazing people.

While it's certainly true that gaming once relied almost entirely on reflexes and many would argue that video games might be a root cause of attention problems, we're starting to see the "twitch" impact in most every angle of the gaming world. And the one genre that may suffer most - especially in the eyes of the long-time hardcore fans - is the role-playing genre. While we now have the technology to allow actions and commands to happen faster and more fluidly, we're also sacrificing any semblance of slow (or even moderate) pacing. Final Fantasy XIII has often been used as an example of flashy speed supplanting depth and overall micromanagement, and that's hardly the only instance. Last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops was so over-the-top, it was borderline absurd. It was fun and intense but one could easily note the increase in rapid-fire "impact" moments.

Many say turn-based gaming has died as a result of better technology, and it simply isn't desirable anymore. All real-time is superior, because developers can include all the depth and strategy without the need to pause combat. ...but that may not be the only reason we're not seeing any slower-paced games, anymore. Is it also because game designers, like most entertainers, understand that the masses now have attentions spans of hamsters, and can't focus on any one thing for more than a few seconds at a time? One other intriguing thing about RPGs: they used to be the king of cut-scenes and CGI; Xenosaga boasted half-hour breaks in the action, and many other RPGs featured hours of non-interactive content. The argument that it was like "watching a movie" was always stupid, as the adventures were at least 40 hours in length and no game included more than a few hours of "movies."

But the longest cut-scenes we've seen this generation have probably belonged to MGS4, and that's about it. Most any other game doesn't feature a cut-scene longer than a few minutes; it's almost as if developers have a limit or formula now. In regards to RPGs, many of which thrive on storytelling, this may prove problematic. How much longer before even "RPGs" will include action that isn't much different than CoD? That's the question that keep role-playing fans up at night, somehow knowing they'll be forced to keep revisiting the classics, because the pacing and style of the "future" has forced the entire industry to congeal into one, giant, incessantly flashing piece of seizure-inducing entertainment.

1/4/2011 9:20:29 PM Ben Dutka

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/8367.html

On a personal note: I feel the statement, "a society of instant gratification-seeking, something-must-always-be-happening, sneaker-gazing people" characterizes the generality of the North American culture, the largest gaming market thus far.  Just an observation from being an American and witnessing the overall influences of the media and its results on its inhabitants.

Being an american (Canada), I also agree with your observation. Now, for video game, I somewhat agree with the editorial. Why somewhat? Because personally, I have short attention span for games that doesnt have character development or an emphasis on story telling. The only type of game im able to play for hours on end are jRPG, wRPG, action RPG, strategy RPG ect.. I guess it has more to do with not wanting to pass hours playing something I dont really enjoy more than having attention span problem. Based on that, I guess that gamers who play fastpace action game, doesnt necessarily reflect an attention span problem.

Also, im not sure the fewer releases of heavy cutscene jRPG arent related more to the raising cost of development and the already low jRPG audience.

Video gamers always had a short attention span. Remember arcades with Pacman and Space Invaders? They were 'impact moments', as the article labels them, 100% of the time.

On the NES, the way people played was in short bursts of Mario or Zelda interspersed with others, but they'd carry on playing those games for years to get hundreds of hours of total playtime because those games had replay value after completing the main progression.

The concept of the 40-hour game you play exclusively for a week to complete arose with the PS1 generation, pretty much. Wii and Kinect show that the arcade-like playing style is still there and the most popular way to play; I see no decline compared to those days.

The JRPG has always been a niche genre due to the time commitment, and it's not surprising that the most successful JRPG (Pokemon) is played in bursts over many months and isn't heavy on the story.

Great post, I can into this thread about to post something similar

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 agree with your precision. But I still think the jRPG drought may be related to the higher development cost. What do you think about that?

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.

I'm sure they could make as many RPGs as they did before for consoles, if the market would accept PS2-quality graphics. Look how long FFXIII took to make - with the same team they could have done an FFVII looking game probably three times.

Since they won't, they must shift resources to handhelds. And it IS a case of one or the other because of how game companies work; you can't just disregard handhelds economically.

Disgaea 3 was great.  So was the first Valkyria Chronicles.  And let's not forget 3D Dot Game Heroes.  Eternal Sonata was nice.  All on the PS3 to name a few.  And aren't there several exclusive JRPG's coming soon to the PS3?  Wish there were more, but still sweet!