The mythical 40-hour gamer

http://wired.com/news/columns/0,71836-0.html?tw=wn_index_26

An interesting article which poses the question "Can developers ever develop a game worthy of all ranges of the gamer".
The simple answer is no.

In the article, Clive Thompson talks about how some gamers (non-surprisingly aged 6-17) can breeze through a game in one session, while other gamers take up to a month to finish it. Why? A number of reasons.
Time availability is one. Most kids in school have more free time and less responsibilities than an adult with a career and a family.
Another is experience (ie: skill) with games. The aforementioned adult gamers may not be as skilled at games like Halo as a 15 year old (most teens seem to have inherent gaming skills programmed into them now, making them more naturally capable than a 30 year old).
Also, reflexes. Tell a 56 year old to throw a ball, and then run and catch it, and tell a 17 year old to do the same. Based on a stereotypical 56 and 17 year old, the younger person will have better reflexes, and have a better reaction time to the ball. Reflexes play a large part in games these days, with micro-management being vital for victory.

So these factors combine to create a demographic. Which demographic do game developers aim their games at? Well, gamers.
However the problem is - now more than ever - is that the variety between gamers is increasingly large. You could have a 30 year old with reflexes of a trained sniper, and a 17 year old with the reflexes of a man with Alzheimers and Arthritis. Or you could have a stereotypically tactful and alert 17 year old and a distracted 30 year old with a family and a mountain of deadlines on his desk.

How does the industry overcome these problems? Really they can't, however there is somewhat of a solution (although I think it's a horrid idea).
Offer two or more game difficulty modes. The easiest one would be a percentage of time shorter than the hardest one (If the hardest game was 40 hours, the easiest could be 15% less or so). Also, in the easiest mode, the NPC difficulty would be significantly less. If it's an RPG, quests would take one (or more) fewer steps to complete.
Blizzard has somewhat put in a system like this (although it's ricockulously done, and very inefficient) with World of Warcraft. They claim that there is plenty of content for more casual gamers (which I must be missing, because I can't think of any), but a better reflection of the above method is their variety of realm-types. If a user has less time available to play WoW, they can roll on a Role-playing server, where they can play the game without the worry of being set back by getting ganked by the opposite faction.

So unfortunate as it is, if you don't have the seemingly unlimited time of younger generations, prepare to take significantly longer to complete games.
Take solace in the fact that at least you can get more out of the multiplayer modes. Grab and Xbox, a copy of Halo, and some friends, and take a night out to link boxes and match up against each other. Trust me, from experience, it's hell fun.


WARNING: If you roll on an RP server on WoW, prepare to be mocked by any friends you have that play the game. Rightly so, carebear.