PaigeFTW: The Value of Time
As I get older, I find that I have less time to play video games.
This is mostly because Netflix and its ilk has revolutionized media and thus given me abundant TV shows and movies to watch in my limited spare time. More Daredevil means 24 less hours to spend rambling around some fantasy world.
Still, during my great Dragon Age marathon of early 2015, I spent something like 300 hours on all three titles. I also did nothing else for three months. And of course, I spent what felt like 150 hours playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I did nothing else for a summer.
Meaty games are great, but meaty games are damn hard to tackle when you’re an adult. The long games I cherished as a child are tiring now because I just can’t give them the time they deserve anymore.
It’s a thought that’s on my mind since Witcher 3’s last expansion just came out this week: Blood and Wine. The DLC — this supplement to the main story — will take about 20 hours to complete, assuming that I actually can focus on the primary missions and not the 9,028 new monster nests, bandit camps and other time wasters the game has helpfully added in for me. And I love clearing those side missions.
But when you factor in all that time, it’s like … suddenly those measly little 16-hour games that we used to scoff at as being worth less than $60 seem a lot more appealing: A nice little self-contained adventure romp that you can finish in a weekend or two.
In fact, now that I’m older, I’m seeing the foolishness is complaining about a game “not being worth my money.” If I can pay $13 to go watch a two-hour movie, $60 for a 20-hour game is still a steal, just as $60 for a 200-hour game would be.
The biggest thing you learn as an adult gamer is that finally, at long last, time is worth more than your money.
