# The Time Investment Into Playing Video Games **Published 12/12/2025** ## Foreword I was watching this play-through video about the game [[Ecco the Dolphin]] recently, and something the content creator, "Grand POOBear", said got me thinking about the games I used to play as a kid versus the ones I've played since then. You can skip to about 26:50 for the relevant part where he's talking about the time he thinks he spent playing video games compared to his son.  ## As A Kid | As An Adult In my head, I would normally just default to saying that I definitely played lots of video games as a kid. While I know that I played many different ones — I grew up with several [[Nintendo]] consoles that my siblings had in addition to a PC — I think the concept of playing for more extended periods of time didn't really become a thing until I was in high school. For example, even having a chance of playing through a game like [[The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt|Witcher 3]] would never be a thing for me until I was *at least* in high school. A title like that is just way too long, not to mention the DLC and such. Prior to high school, I would pick up and play shorter games for the most part. It's also worth noting that I almost certainly had more free time as a kid to do the things that I wanted to, so it's hard to say how much time I really spent on anything. Games from the [[N64]] generation and earlier were much more geared for this sort of style of gameplay: [[Mario Kart 64]], [[Donkey Kong Country]], [[Goldeneye 007]], and so on. You could pick them up for a brief play session and then just as quickly set it back down. There are some exceptions to this like [[Chrono Trigger]], [[Donkey Kong 64]], and [[EarthBound]]. Being RPG/adventure games, each of these are quite a bit longer to beat. > As an aside, I have a specific memory of playing [[Donkey Kong 64|DK64]] one day for something like four hours straight, and I was so blown away at the time by it — I had never played a game that much at once before. I recall it being a sunny day, so it was probably a summer afternoon when I wouldn't have anything else going on. Funny how random memories like that stick with you. > > Fast forward to more recent times, and I feel like I could do that easily with the right title. That said, I feel like it's harder for games to capture my attention for that length of time anymore. There are, of course, shorter games today, but the ones marketed towards kids now are *absolutely* intended to be played for longer periods both in individual play sessions and over time. [[Fortnite]] and [[Roblox]] come to mind, and their respective developers want players to stay in those games for as long as possible. These are free to play and available on every major platform, so the barrier to entry is basically zero. The more invested a player is, the more likely they are to spend money on optional things like in-game skins. The kinds of hours someone is able to put into games like that are absurdly high. The closest analogue I can think of from my personal experience would be a title like [[Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare]] or [[Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2]]. Those games were addictive in nature, but they spared the player the somewhat nefarious aspect of **microtransactions**, which came later on in the gaming industry. Video games have the potential to be quite predatory now, and, to a degree, they did back in the day, too. I feel that the difference is that the worst that could happen with older games is that you'd be out the cost of the game itself (or a rental fee) if it wasn't as good as advertised. Compare that to now where games can — and indeed are intentionally designed to — leech time and money out of you *indefinitely*. Along with some of the not-so-subtle gambling aspects of loot-boxes and similar mechanics, there are some seriously insidious [dark patterns](https://www.darkpattern.games/), you really need to be aware of the motivations behind some of the things in games today. That applies to many forms of entertainment, especially social media. > **Dark Patterns** > "*A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer.*" > > — [The Psychology of Games](https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2025/03/the-state-of-dark-patterns-in-game-design-teaser/) As I wrote this post, the original thought I had about how much time I really spent as a kid playing video games became a little bit more murky than I had expected. I know that I played quite a bit as a kid, so maybe the only real difference between then and now is the time that I have available, as well as the changes in the gaming industry as a whole. Thanks for reading! — C #blog #games #kids