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Some of my favorite games are 1-3 hour experiences, and I'm very interested in working on more shorter games. But "the market" is increasingly stacked against those. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-30/apple-cancels-arcade-games-in-strategy-shift-to-keep-subscribers
Replayability should be an artistic choice, but making a short game like we did with Minit is a big risk, especially with the shift towards algorithmic curation. People might love the game, but they're not engaging with it for hundreds of hours.
You get less organic "see what your friends are playing" coverage, shorter streams, no video series, less playtime (sometimes tied to revenue share), etc. Note that none of that says anything about the game itself.
But it does mean that making something that keeps people engaged for 200+ hours is the logical business move. And that means people buy less games, so you want to monetize more of those 200 hours, sometimes leading to exploitative psychology and dark pattern design.
All of this fucking sucks for the artform! It's hard enough to make a game, and when your design gets dictated by a capitalist algorithm then where's the love in that? We need platforms and publishers and media and content creators to all back shorter games.
There's nothing wrong with a binge-worthy game every now and then, but when that's the only viable option we've hit a dead end. People should be able to make good short games with small teams, stay healthy, and get paid. It's not too much to ask for.
