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bite sized: worth your time? · The #Backlog Breakdown

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  Hey guys, what's up? It's Nate and it's time for. Well, it's, it's technically a bite sized, but I'm thinking I'm going to actually sort of label this as a. How should we then play? It's sort of a thing. It's a sub series that I kind of wanted to make its own thing. Asking questions about how. Just trying to interact with and explore and ask questions about the way that we interact with video games on a slightly more deeper level than we do on the breakdown, you know, but it's, you know, someday maybe this is the kind of stuff where it's like I'm throwing this out there and someday maybe I'll make a Sunday school curriculum or something about it or maybe, I don't know, write a book or something. I don't know, wouldn't that be scary if I wrote a book? But hey. So yeah, we're kind of going to be asking questions and actually I think I'm going to be doing this for. I'm going to kind of be. I would like to stick with this for a little bit. I've been thinking a lot about time lately and you might, might have even noticed that the, the, the, the title here is worth your time. And so, yeah, so let's, let's just kind of get into it. And I know this is, yeah, it's going to be some loose, slightly discombobulated thoughts and I apologize for sort of any incoherence or just insanity that that happens after this. But let's, you know, let's, let's, let's get after it. So anyways, the, the point of this one is I have a bit of a pet peeve with. Just as a general rule, I really don't like when people default to the hours per dollar metric in evaluating games or sort of trying to justify games. And most recently this came up when Crimson Desert released not too long ago. And I noticed in some of the different places that I hang out talk about video games that that was like one of the things that I saw popping up in a lot of different places where people were like, it's 130 hours long. Isn't that great? And it's only $70. And it, there's just something in me that reflexively kind of kicks against that, that kind of bulks at that. I just don't like it. It just irks me. And it's not because it's an entirely bad metric. Right. I do think there are problems with it and that's some of what we're going to be talking about. But I, and I, and I. What I will say is, as sort of a caveat right at the beginning is like, I understand that for certain people, that makes a lot of sense. You know, it's. If you're somebody who only buys one game a year or maybe two, like, yeah, you're definitely going to want to sort of extract as much value, and so you're going to be a lot more conscientious about, like, where those dollars go, right? And so I'm not trying to attack somebody who's trying to be savvy. What I'm actually trying to go after here is the idea that somehow longer equates to better because there is this conversation about value in the gaming space all the time. And a lot of times, again, when I see these conversations popping up, it kind of. There's this. That statement or that idea kind of pops up where it's like, well, how long is it? And to me, that's actually a. That. That's problematic in a lot of ways because I think one, it sort of flattens the. The conversation, and it treats all hours that are played as being equally valuable. And I don't think that's the case at all. And I actually think it matters for Christians most especially because we're sort of one of the primary currencies that we have is our time. And if we're being good stewards, we want to make sure that we're utilizing our time well. Now, sometimes at some point in time, it's like somebody's going to like, well, are playing video games a good use of your time? And my answer to that is they can be. I'm not saying they are all the time. I think actually sometimes they can be detrimental and they can be a waste of time. But. But I think for mature believers, there's reasonable room to engage with video games now. And there's lots of different techniques and tools and methods that we can talk about and that I probably will end up talking about some of these other things. But I think we're gonna just sort of make the assumption, right? We're gonna presuppose that, like, hey, yeah, Christians can play video games. That. And I mean, that's kind of the entire premise of what we do over here at the breakdown is like, you know, our sort of our miss is we want to encourage and equip the church to engage with video games wisely and well. And so, in a sense, yeah, in some ways, you could always probably find something better to do than play video games. But I don't think that brutal productivity is actually at the heart of Christian living. I'm going to save that conversation and all that stuff for something later. And honestly, you could probably scrub through the podcast and I've probably talked about this stuff to varying degrees. But what I really want to talk about is I think again, sort of attacking this idea of the hours per dollar metric as sort of being the defining metric especially. And I want to challenge Christians who might sort of default to that to maybe ask some more questions because I think we can all agree that not every video game is worth the same amount of time and attention. And I think this is a matter that is a lot more pressing for somebody like me who engages with video games more often than not as art. And so a lot of times when I'm playing a game, I'm asking the question is, what does this have to say? What does it have to show me what it, you know, I'm trying to engage on thematic levels or just whatever. Now I also, I'm a sucker for mechanics. I love like a good, just like rule set or good systems. So I think sometimes, you know, that that is, can also be, I think it's not just story, you know, it's story is important, you know, especially if we're sort of engaging with this as sort of a narrative art form. Right. But like, I don't know, man. Like one of my favorite games is Shadow of the Colossus. And you guys have heard me talk about this often, but that's a game that I think you can speed run in under five. But I would say like pound for pound, that five hours is excellent. That's S tier content. And I think what that game has to say and what it's taught me and the way it's challenged me, you know, just in some, again, sort of like the delivery, the, the sort of the philosophy of the design, all of it. Like I would put that over something. I would, I, I, I'm like, I have no bones. I make no bones about the fact that like I think that's a better game than 90% of the games out there. So there are a lot of people, you know, it's one of the things about now and I guess before I get too far afield here, I do want to say like I'm not opposed to spending a lot of time in a game for like I played, I played Destiny 2. I have like over a thousand hours in that game. I logged 130 hours into Octopath Traveler. I think I have. I think I have over 100 hours in legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. I've played multiple junior. I got the platinum in Dragon Quest 11 Definitive Edition. Right? So it's like. And that. I think that's like 130 hours, 140 hours. So it's like, I have no problems with going deep and spending a lot of time. But I think the, the issue here is, like, it's. I don't want to see us conflate quality and quantity because these are two values that aren't the same thing. And I actually think that that's kind of the problem, that we do sort of muddy those waters, especially when we sort of get into this reductive thinking. And again, we flatten this conversation where we're just like, the primary sort of criteria becomes the hours per dollars metric. Now, again, I said this came up during the Crimson dawn, you know, release. And there are a lot of people who are like, it's 130 hours. You know, that sounds great to me. It's $70. You know, that's like $2 an hour or whatever. And I'm not completely dismissing that. And actually, I think, like, Crimson dawn actually presents a really compelling and interesting experience. Like, that's 130 hours of a fairly rich world that's full of interesting systems, has lots of things to discover and explore. And so I would actually really agree with that. But again, you know, I, I. And you know, this is maybe sound like a little bit of a hot take, but, you know, like, Skyrim, you can put hundreds of hours into that. And I just don't think that that's worth the same amount of time as, like, again, the. Probably the. I don't know, maybe I've played Shadow Colossus like, dozens of. Well, not dozens, but, you know, I played it a lot. I probably put like 50, 60, 70 hours into that game. And I would say that the 50 hours that I've spent in Shadows of Colossus actually is much more valuable than, I don't know, the. The hundred odd hours that I've put in to Skyrim when I played that. And so that's kind of. That's the gist of this year. And it's like. And I actually think as Christians, again, because we want to be good stewards of our time, we need to be wrestling with is, are we using our time like, as when we're playing video games? Are we playing games just to sort of, like, sort of fill up the Time. Are we playing them to just sort of be entertained? Are we being mindless consumers or are we engaging these things on a deeper level on, on maybe even a more or like we sort of embracing maybe the challenge of, of something really hardcore like Elden Ring or one of the souls. Are we sort of seeking mastery with something like what I make no bones about I love Diablo. One of the reasons I love Destiny 2 is like the build crafting. Like I like to make these systems where it's kind of like these Rube Goldberg machines where you put all the different pieces together in the armor with the different passive effects and everything else and then you kind of, you, you watch the machine unfold in real time on the screen. I love card games and deck building games for that very reason. Right. Again, it's the Rube Goldberg machine. Kind of like it's a, that that mastery and that sort of these things are a puzzle. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with just maybe wanting to tune out sometimes. I think actually a little escapism in the proper dosages is really pretty healthy. But I don't want to see us filling up our time with like low quality just time killers, you know, just slop more or less when we could be engaging with and purs much higher end experiences. And I, I think actually that like as Christians I think there's a very strong argument that we ought to be sort of not really epicurean but sort of pursuing, you know, like having like having more refined taste. And we're not just like trying to play anything just to sort of like again sort of like chase down novelty or sort of get lost in the hype train or you know, we're not just looking for like, you know, just dopamine hits, but rather, you know. And again, I'm not saying I, I want to stress this and reiterate this. I'm not saying that those things don't have, those can't be a part of the cycle from time to time. I'm just saying they shouldn't be. This shouldn't be the defining characteristic. And that's a lot of times, like I said, the hours per dollar metric sort of reduces down to that. It's kind of almost like, you know, you can spend 15 bucks and go to an. Yeah, no, there's a Chinese restaurant that's an all you can eat buffet and it's like 15 bucks and it's, it's decent, it's good food, you know, but it's not like awesome like the other day we took my father, one of. Well, my. My wife's stepdad, out to. To lunch for Father's Day, right? And we took him to. There's a ramen shop and they do like stir fry, but we took him out for dinner and I did not pay 15 bucks a plate. You know, it's like, you know, it was a little bit more expensive than that, but it was. We were paying for a higher quality food. Now. We were still getting a lot, but it's like, you know, you ask me about the quality that of the food that I got at Takumi versus the quality of food that I get at, you know, the Golden Buffet, and it's. Or. Or Blue Moon or wherever we go. You know, it's like there's a pretty substantial difference and it's even. Again, this is. I think this is kind of a common talking point within games because again, we're obsessed with value, and I think in this market that makes sense, right? We all know that our dollars aren't going as far as they used to. We all know that, like, this hobby is getting more expensive. But I. I want us to challenge, like, challenge ourselves to maybe. Again, I think there is wisdom in sort of just waiting for sales and things like that. I also think like, hey, like, you know, sometimes you. You have to speak with your wallet and you have to encourage the things that you want to see more of, you know, so there's. We need to be creatures of nuance and discernment here where we. In. One of the ways that we can engage and should engage with this is just mindfully. And I think that means actually avoiding, you know, sort of surface level takes. I think that means avoiding sort of, you know, pretty basic analysis. And I think that actually means like, sort of like maybe challenging ourselves to reevaluate the way that we approach things, that reevaluate the way we just think about this and. And all the different framing. I. I do have a couple things I wrote down and I just. Yeah, well, I. I just. Yeah, I know. That's really great radio. And I. You're probably like, Nate, you probably should have prepared more for this. Yeah, sorry. You know, I don't do this professionally, you know, yet. Maybe. Maybe someday, you know. But all that being said, there's. There is something here that I wrote down. I said that I think we have to be really careful here because again, that sort of. I don't want to say it's causation, but I think there's correlation between when we default to Sort of getting as much as possible for sort of like, you know, the price point. And again, I think there's, I do think there's wisdom in that. Like, we want to be savvy with our money, we want to be savvy with our finances, but we, we all know that we have limited time. And so I think part of it is sort of saying like, we also need to be kind of choosy with the experiences that we engage with and we want to avoid, you know, sort of compulsion. And rather, I think that when we're playing games, we, we should be cultivating curiosity and I think the best. So it's one of those things where there's kind of a formula where it's. You, you have. It's not quality versus quantity, right? It's actually quality times quantity equals value. And so there's like, you can have a game where it's like, it's low, mid to low quality and there's hundreds of hours. And that might be comparable to something that's like four hours long, but is just. Or 15 hours long, but that's just an absolute banger the whole way through that you replay multiple times even, or that you want to replay multiple times, you know, or, you know, maybe a game that's long and good, you know, because there is, there is this thing where you don't want to just. I think this is the other thing that I've noticed is that oftentimes I've said it myself and I've seen it where people are playing games and it was like, it was just too long. It was 10 hours too long, it was 20 hours too long, it was whatever, 30 hours too long. And it's kind of one of those things where it's again, that's sort of the more does not equal better here, right? That actually the game would have been better if it was 20 hours shorter. You know, I think about. I recently abandoned. Abandoned Doom Eternal. And I'm not saying that that's a bad game, right? I think it's probably a great game also. Just, it wasn't, it's not for me anymore. Like, I think it's not even really the violence, although that I'm kind of like, I can take or leave that, I think. But I think it was just. I had put 15, 20 ish hours into it and I knew that I wasn't really close to being done with it. And I tend to be a little bit of a slower gamer and it had overstayed its welcome. And so that's kind of what I want to challenge us to sort of think about is that why are we playing and are we just sort of chasing more for the sake of sort of, you know, fulfilling a compulsive need or are we engaging with things, you know, and that challenges challenge us and make us think, are we like. Because I think games actually are in a pretty unique place where they can, they can foster curiosity, they can foster thought, they can foster conversation. And now I'm not saying that that's all that games need to be. I'm just saying that I think that's something we need to take into consideration. But yeah, it's just. I want to. I just, I wanted to offer a little bit of pushback against that I wanted to say. And I think this is actually, you know, again, I'm going to reiterate, I'm going to restate this. I think this is actually really important for Christians, especially in gaming spaces. This is a way that we need to think about the way that we think about these. You know, we need to maybe even reframe some of the ways that we think about it and that we need to maybe be a little bit more discerning. We need to maybe re examine and challenge our criteria for why we're playing games. And I think this is a way in which we can do that. It's like, I really want to encourage the listeners and the watchers here to sort of prioritize quality over quantity, you know, like, hey, when quantity and quality meet, that's awesome. But I would, you know, I would encourage you and I would challenge you to maybe play shorter games that offer substantial, you know, just that sort of pursue excellence over, you know, games that are sort of, they're good enough, but they're. And the only really advantage that they have is that they're just really long. I don't know, man. I mean, also, this is subjective, so maybe you're just saying, nate, you don't know what you're talking about, whatever, and I think you're wrong. But hey, you know, if you think I'm wrong, you know, reach out to us. There's going to be links at the, you know, in the show notes you can say, nate, you're stupid and that's a bad take to which I would just sort of say, well, you're allowed to be wrong. But hey, thanks for your time, guys. And you know, until next time, you know, be good, do the things and yeah, we'll catch you later.