Content in video games being limited to real world time windows have always peeved me a bit. I should note that not every game that utilizes this type of model is bad, I’m just giving my experience and how the mere existence of real world timed content shapes how I view the game.
It’s a shame, because it’s even ruined my experience with a game sometimes. Even in inconsequential implementations like in Hitman or Monster Hunter World, it’s enough to just influence me in a slightly negative way.
And then we have more extreme cases like with Destiny 2, taking timed content to a whole new level. We’ll see if it works out for them in the long run.
Transcript:
I play a lot of different types of games. I wander from genre to genre, series to series, without sticking with one for long. I’ve sampled most of the major MMOs out there, quite a few living games, and definitely a lot of single player games. Out of the three, I probably stick to single player games more. I could probably do a whole video on why that is, but if I get at the core of why I like single player games, it’s because I get to play on my own time.
Playing on my own time and at my own pace is something I value very highly in gaming. Even though I’m still at the point in my life where I have a lot of time to dedicate time to gaming, unlike a lot of older gamers, I still value my time. There’s only so much time in a day that can be spent enjoying things. Time spent replaying a game I’ve played many times in the past could be spent enjoying a new experience. So I try and maximize my time consuming whatever piece of media interests me at that moment.
Sometimes it’s a multiplayer game that fancies me. But it’s not always possible to get into a multiplayer game with friends at the drop of a hat. It’s a hassle to sort out times with friends if you want to play with them, that is if you even have any friends that play that specific game. Like I said, I bounce around a lot from game-to-game and it’s hard to convince people to get emotionally and monetarily invested in every game I think is neat. On the off-chance I do convince someone to play with me, we still have to work around each other’s schedules. So I play single player games mostly because its a reliable way to enjoy something when I’m in the mood.
Timed content throws a wrench in that. By limiting quests to a certain time period in real life, then retiring them, the developer is taking away the ability for the players to play on their own time. For me, it takes a leisurely activity that I enjoy playing in my own time, into something I have to plan for.
A year ago, I decided to get into Final Fantasy 14 in my ever hopeless search to find an ongoing game that I can justify spending time and money into. I quite enjoyed my time with it for a bit. I especially loved how any character could play all of the combat classes. Not needing an alt-character for other classes and having everything centralized feels really cool to me. It was definitely something I could see getting into for the long haul.
A dozen or so levels in, I learned of an event coming up. A crossover with Final Fantasy 15. I played like 30 hours of FF15 and thought it was fun enough. After a while the quests started to bore me and with all the talk of the disappointing story, I decided to drop it. But I still loved the idea of the game. Traveling the countryside with your bros in a badass convertible.
The crossover featured a Noctis outfit, which I knew I had to get. But at the end of the trailer, it showed some characters riding a Regalia in FF14. That was it. I was going to get that mount
It was more work than I expected. I was still early on in the game, like level 15 or so, and you had to beat all the main story quests in the base game to even be able to buy the Regalia mount and Noctis outfit. Luckily, it was only purchasable through in-game currency. So in addition to beating all the main story quests, I had to grind out the money to buy it. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish the main story in time though. It was dumb to think that I wouldn’t beat the story in the 2 month time I had until the event was over, but the pressure was still on.
I hit the max level for the base game pretty quickly. With a constant XP buff up to level 60 or something, I knew I wouldn’t have to do any side quests to keep up with the main story quests. Thing is, I got bored of the story pretty early on. I’ve heard talks of how great the story is in FF14, but it seems like it only gets really good in the expansions. So I was stuck grinding out quests of a story I wasn’t interested in just to get a car mount and outfit for a game I was getting more and more tired of as the days went on.
Just before the event hit, I completed all my tasks. I beat the story and got the money required to buy the mount and outfit. The event lasted more than a month, so I had plenty of time to finish it, but I rushed it.
I wasn’t enjoying the game anymore once I got those items. Maybe it’s because I burnt myself playing as much as I did in those two weeks or maybe the quests were just poorly designed and it wasn’t my fault. Either way, I was done with the game.
Which is unfortunate. Because the best parts of the game were still ahead of me. The content between the base game and the first expansion, is still rough though. So I’d still have more filler before I’d get to the good part.
But since then, I got back into Final Fantasy 14. Over a year later, I’m almost at the second expansion and the story has been fantastic. Leagues more engaging than the story in the base game. It’s just a shame I had to slog through like 100 hours to get to this point.
Now, don’t get me wrong, me burning out like I did isn’t necessarily the fault of the developers. They make these limited timed events to cater to the people at the end game.
Look at Monster Hunter World. I’ve played maybe 30 hours of World split evenly between two characters on PS4 and PC. I never reached anywhere close to the end game, but the idea of timed content was looming over my head since I started playing.
From what I understand, the timed content in Monster Hunter World features mostly rotating monsters that swap out every now and then. So if you want to fight a specific late game monster, you might have to wait a few weeks for it to appear.
Now, maybe it doesn’t matter what monsters you fight in the game. It might only matter when you’re at the super late game, which only the hardcore players reach. But it’s still disheartening. Knowing that I’ll maybe miss on some cool cosmetic stuff or intense fight, no idea of when it’ll return.
I’m over it though. I’ve just accepted that games like that aren’t for me. But I bring Monster Hunter World up for a specific reason. And that’s to compare it to Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate on the Switch.
Monster Hunter Generations on the 3ds followed an update cycle of receiving free DLC with random crossovers and new quests. Sort of like Monster Hunter World does. Only these events would never expire.
So as they add more content, the game gets more beefy. And you don’t have to worry about missing out on anything or waiting until the developers decide it’s time for you to play content that they already added in the game.
Both of these games were ported to another system a while after being on it’s original platform. And this situation perfectly encapsulates why I dislike the timed content model in games.
Monster Hunter World was ported to PC about 8 months after it’s initial release on PS4. And during that 8 month period, there were a fair amount of timed events released. But those events weren’t in the game when it was eventually released on PC. It was basically like the game when it came out on PS4.
The update cycle between PC and PS4 were out of sync. Content updates that came out on the PS4 would come to PC months later. It made playing on PC feel like a lesser platform, even considering how much better it is performance wise on a PC. I think they might have caught up 2 years later, but I’m not sure.
Monster Hunter Generations was ported to the Switch 2 years after it’s original release on the 3ds. I bought it day one, because it was the perfect excuse I was looking for to get into the series. I booted up the game and saw a download option.
I clicked it, expecting to be taken to a store page or something. Instead, I was greeted with dozens of free downloadable DLCs. Everything from consumables, to palico and hunter outfits, to new quests. It was overwhelming. There was so much stuff. And it was an amazing feeling.
It made me feel like I got an amazing value out of my purchase. I got all the free DLC that was added to the 3ds game over the past 2 years. Granted, there’s no way I’m ever going to play all of it. There’s like 1000 quests in the game. But the perceived value of the game went up for me astronomically by including all that content for free.
And I can’t say the same for Monster Hunter World. I’m not knowledgeable about if the content in World is better than the content in Generations Ultimate, but just looking at the numbers, if I’m going to play a game, it’s going to be Generations Ultimate. And that’s because it lets me play on my own time. At my own pace. It’s been a couple months since I’ve played Generations Ultimate on my Switch, but I know I’m not going to have missed out on anything.
The new Hitman games feature timed content as well. Every few weeks or so, an “Elusive Contract” is released. It’s a special mission that requires you to assassinate some special NPC designated by the developers at IO Interactive. And it would be inaccessible up to a week later. But these weren’t like the other missions in the game. You only have one shot at these hits. If you go in and alert or kill the target, you can’t restart.
I think it’s a cool concept to be honest. Stakes like that allow the tension to build quite high, especially in a game where you might be used to save scumming when you’re caught. It also keeps a player interested in the game, to keep coming back every few weeks and goof around for a bit.
Unfortunately, I think the negatives outweigh the positives here. First off, while it seems cool that you get only one chance to pull off a mission, to a person like me, it’s only more frustrating. I can see that they want to push a certain type of playstyle with Elusive Targets. They want the player to have an imperfect run. They don’t want you to keep restarting the mission every time you’re caught until you create a perfect run. They want you to have a sloppy run where you make mistakes, but pull the mission off in the end. I’ve heard countless developers talk about how they love to push players into playstyles where they roll with the punches and have an imperfect playthrough, because that creates a player’s own story.
For one of the most legendary Hitman runs ever, we need not look further than Giant Bomb’s Holiday Spectacular 2016. I’ll just play this clip without any context. Buckle up buckaroo.
(Sheikh Zanzibar clip)
And here’s another clip to pleasure your eyeballs and earballs with.
(Helmet Kruger knife throw)
If you’re trying to play a run perfectly, you aren’t going to have moments like that. You’re going to spend a lot of time calculating the best approach and if you don’t get the result you like trying to get to your goal, there’s nothing stopping you from loading an old save. That legendary run will always stick in my brain because they kept rolling with it.
I’m not that type of player though. I get kinda stressed when playing Hitman, but having the ability to fall back on an older save takes a little bit of the weight off me. Elusive Targets just add that weight back on, and more on top of that because I know this is my only chance to do that mission. Some may like this aspect, I don’t personally.
More notably, you can’t access previous Elusive Targets. There’s 33 elusive targets that were released for Hitman 1 and 2, and you just can’t access them if you bought the game today. And that’s a shame, because IO got a little crazy with a few of the targets. Sean Bean played the first target in Hitman 2. But. There was another celebrity that played an elusive target.
(reveal of Gary Busey)
Yes. You got to assassinate Gary Busey in Hitman 2016. And he wasn’t playing a character like Sean Bean would go on to do. He was just Gary Busey, the actor. And that’s kinda awesome isn’t it? It perfectly encapsulates the dry humor of the series.
But while there have been reruns of past elusive targets if you never completed them, the Gary Busey mission never returned. I don’t know if there’s been any official confirmation of why, but I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch to say that they likely only had his likeness to run that mission once back in 2016 and never again.
That being said, I think one of the reasons they were able to secure him for the role was precisely because the mission was only available for a week. You see a lot of time-sensitive contracts around stuff like music licensing in games, and I think its a similar thing here.
If I were to choose between elusive targets being unlocked forever but not have the Gary Busey mission, I think I would go with that. Either way, the missions are not playable today outside of developer decided time windows, so losing out on 1 or 2 isn’t that big of a downside to me.
Another game I’d like to talk about is Destiny 2. It recently made rounds on gaming websites because Bungie announced that they’re going to flatout remove a fair bit of content from the game. I’m not into Destiny, so correct me in the comments if I get something wrong, but I’m gonna do my best to explain the situation as I understand it.
Bungie is introducing a “content vault” where they are going to remove 4 of the planets from the game. Planets are like hubs where you roam around open environments and do quests. They’re the main area where you experience the game.
And there’s a fair amount of story on those planets. So what’s gonna happen to the story developments that happened there? How are new players gonna experience the story of the base game if all those planets are removed? I got into Destiny 2 when it launched on Steam and they really hid the base game questline. It’s obvious they didn’t really want new players getting sucked into it and just wanted them to play the new content.
But what about a player who’s new to Destiny all together? How are they gonna get context for all the events happening the current expansions?
(sigh)
So why are developers doing this?
What does a developer gain from locking the player out of content that’s already in the game?
Bungie has been very clear about why they are removing older content from Destiny 2 and I think it’s the less egregious of the examples I’ve given. They’ve said that they don’t want to start on a Destiny 3, they want to build upon Destiny 2 for years to come. They have a roadmap for expansions up to 2022. That’s honestly pretty crazy. I don’t see many developers just laying it all out like that. Bungie feels confident that they can keep Destiny relevent for many years to come.
And one of the main things they need to keep in check to remain popular is the game’s file size. Destiny 2 is currently 90gb on steam. I don’t think I need to say how crazy that is. And if they want to add multiple expansions in the coming years, then they need to get that file size in check. And once we hit next gen, filesizes aren’t going to go down. They’re going to go up. Texture sizes are going to increase dramatically as resolution increases. And developers love to do live games like Destiny, so they just eat up hard drive space with more and more updates. I see so many tweets about people having to delete games to free up hard-drive space on their PS4s and Xbox Ones when a new Modern Warfare update comes out. It’s over 200 goddamn gigabytes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that big. And it came out less than a year ago!
So I think just flat out removing content like that is a good way to keep the game’s file size manageable. Although I would prefer they just put these campaigns into separate DLC files, so if I wanted to play the story of base Destiny 2, I could just install a 20-30gb file, play it, then delete it when I’m done.
I’m a lot less sympathetic for games like Monster Hunter World and Hitman 2 though. It’s obvious that these events are timed so that the developers can keep player engagement high. It feels like a method cooked up by some sales people who thought the game didn’t have big enough player numbers, so they had to come up with a way to keep people playing constantly, rather than the player playing when they want. I know if I decide to play Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate 5 or 10 years down the line on my Switch, then I’ll still have access to all those bonus quests. Can I say the same for the extra quests in Monster Hunter World? I don’t know. Can I trust the developers to add those quests to the game when they don’t want to maintain the it anymore and the servers go offline? I don’t think I can.
So many online games are shut down each year and they will likely never be played again because the developer didn’t want to put in the effort to make it playable past the point it wasn’t profitable.
All that being said, I don’t think that you shouldn’t play those games. Monster Hunter World is Capcom’s best selling game, selling twice as many copies as the game behind it. And I think it speaks to the quality of the game. From what I played, it was fantastic. But I hated missing out on content because I wasn’t playing on the right platform or I wasn’t max level yet.
But thats… just me. How do you feel about timed content in video games? Leave a comment telling me what you think. Also, if you liked the video, a like and subscribe would be nice. If you disliked the video, I heard there’s a button somewhere near the like button that you can use to express that distaste for my video, but I’ve never seen it. I think they might just be rumors frankly. Thanks. And I’ll see you on the flip side.