Because people have wildly ideas of fun than you do.
While many hardcore gamers might like the idea of complete wipe every three months (and is has been successfully done before, see ladder in Diablo 2), the hard truth they need to face is that 'hardcore' crowd is not a majority of the market, and hasn't been for a long, long time.
People like to think that average gamer is 20-something college guy, right? That's cute image, but completely wrong.
Average gamer 30 years old. People who buy most games are 35. 45 percent of gamers are woman. There are more woman >18 playing games, than boys <17. [1]
Frankly, even though I'm only 20 years old, I'm increasingly identifying with casual market than with hardcore-tru-gamerzzzz.
I find it hard these days to spend >10 hours on a single game.
I think most games have really ridiculously tuned difficulty curves with crazy spikes in places where it makes absolutely no sense.
I can think of three, maybe four games that I spent over 15 hours in last few years. That would be Diablo III, GTA V, Cookie Clicker (does that count?) and Super Hexagon.
And frankly, if Rockstar wiped Online servers after I (and many, many, many) more people put ~20 hours into it, as much as I love that game, I would quit and never look back. I just don't have patience to grind all day long anymore.
You also have to remember that you can purchase in-game-currency with micro transactions - paying fifteen bucks for GTA$ and then seeing it vanish next day because ladder season ended would be... frustrating, to say the least.
/I'm sorry if my rant is a little bit incoherent, but video-games and hardcore gamers demanding developers to cater to them are my pet-peeves./
I agree, but a quick point about those statistics I see trotted out repeatedly: they include casual games. The people playing Bejeweled clones or hidden image games are not the same people playing Grand Theft Auto.
Not but there are many people who take a laid back approach to the game, not unlike how one could play a game or two of bejeweled then get on with their day.
While many hardcore gamers might like the idea of complete wipe every three months (and is has been successfully done before, see ladder in Diablo 2), the hard truth they need to face is that 'hardcore' crowd is not a majority of the market, and hasn't been for a long, long time.
People like to think that average gamer is 20-something college guy, right? That's cute image, but completely wrong. Average gamer 30 years old. People who buy most games are 35. 45 percent of gamers are woman. There are more woman >18 playing games, than boys <17. [1]
Frankly, even though I'm only 20 years old, I'm increasingly identifying with casual market than with hardcore-tru-gamerzzzz.
I find it hard these days to spend >10 hours on a single game.
I think most games have really ridiculously tuned difficulty curves with crazy spikes in places where it makes absolutely no sense.
I can think of three, maybe four games that I spent over 15 hours in last few years. That would be Diablo III, GTA V, Cookie Clicker (does that count?) and Super Hexagon.
And frankly, if Rockstar wiped Online servers after I (and many, many, many) more people put ~20 hours into it, as much as I love that game, I would quit and never look back. I just don't have patience to grind all day long anymore.
You also have to remember that you can purchase in-game-currency with micro transactions - paying fifteen bucks for GTA$ and then seeing it vanish next day because ladder season ended would be... frustrating, to say the least.
/I'm sorry if my rant is a little bit incoherent, but video-games and hardcore gamers demanding developers to cater to them are my pet-peeves./
[1]: http://www.theesa.com/facts/