Or only a few days at most!
Looks like my hard work paid off. I'm moving into my 5th month of word-of-mouth work, and I was offered another decent project that will get my month of May off to a good start. It's hard to say no to work when they offer you such good money :)
So, while I'm not getting to take the time off like I initially planned, I am taking the rest of this week off. On Monday we are going to Metro and I should be picking up a new desk and a chair, as well as going over to a friend's house to grill up some steak strips and make fajitas, and I'm going to make my potato salad as well.
It's very satisfying to have a client be so happy with your work that their response is "hey, we've got three or four rather large projects coming up in the future, so if you want to stay busy, we can definitely keep you that way".
It's hard to work part-time :) People keep sending me work! I've turned down a couple of projects, but I do so enjoy the money, you know what I mean? And considering the fact I've been contemplating buying a laptop this summer (yeah I'm behind the times, but I rarely work outside of the office and when I'm on vacation I'm on vacation...I don't want to be bothered with networking and e-mailing), maybe it's a good thing.
Tomorrow I'm re-subbing two short stories that were rejected, and preparing to jump into my novel work again with the month of May. All these ideas brewing, and they're bubbling over!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The World is Your Oyster: Part Five
Low paying vs. high paying.
Over at one of the community websites I visit there is an ongoing discussion (let's not split hairs. It's a debate, perhaps even an argument) between myself and a select group of writers who look down their noses at writers willing to work for less than them. I'd like to take the opportunity to look at the numbers for a moment, to give people a clearer picture of what really is low and high paying, and the difference between realistic expectations and simple ego.
The average wage for a US citizen or resident is around 40 thousand USD per year. That's on the gross end. If you work that out to an hourly rate it's 21 dollars an hour.
Unskilled workers make less. That is, people who flip burgers at McDonalds, or work the graveyard shift at 7-11, make less than 21 dollars an hour. Skilled workers make more. Carpenters, nurses, IT guys, tech writers, these people make slightly more. Specialized skills, that is jobs which require a specialized degree OR 10+ years experience in the field, make double or more...that is, 40 dollars an hour or greater.
This isn't opinion. It's fact. I'm not going to take the time to link to all of my sources this morning. Suffice to say this comes from research I've done over the past few months working on a couple of specific projects for one of my clients.
So, looking at the statistics, the only people making greater than 40 dollars an hour are specialized skill workers, or people with greater than 10 years in their chosen profession. Those individuals with a Master's degree or their Doctorate are making even more...usually over 100k a year, depending on their position and profession.
So let's observe for a moment. If a freelance writer, regardless of their location in the world, can pick up work from a client and average greater than 21 dollars an hour, they are making more than the average individual. Would you consider this low paying, or high paying? You cannot consider it low paying, because in order to qualify for low paying it would have to be less than the 21 dollars an hour. It's not necessarily high paying, either. Let's call it "standard" rates, because we are working with the law of averages here.
If a writer can make 50 dollars an hour, is he working a low-paying job, or a high paying job? Statistically, he's making more than double what the average person in the US makes. This would be considered a high-paying job, simply based upon factual statistics.
I think ego has a lot to do with it. There are a few writers out there who enjoyed an unprecedented level of success in pre-recession America, when they were riding the tide of America being the only country with high speed Internet available to nearly everyone. Now, 5 years later, wi-fi nooks exist in every corner of the globe, and high-speed Internet is available to most people in most countries. The writers who enjoyed a period of higher-than-average rates during those times were living high on the hog, enjoying a situation that existed simply because the market hadn't expanded. Now that the market exists within the framework of the entire world, these same writers are experiencing job losses because there are other people out there who are willing to do the work for less than the 75 dollars an hour or more that these people charge.
Let's face it...if person A charges 75 dollars an hour to write website content and person B is willing to write the same content for 30 dollars an hour, and they both have the exact same qualifications...a smart employer is going to pick the 30 dollar an hour writer. Why? Because it's a better deal. It's smart business. Suddenly the 30 dollar an hour guy is swimming in work, but the 75 dollar an hour guy is finding his jobs getting fewer and farther between, until eventually, he ends up making less per year than the guy who worked 30 dollars an hour.
Now, sure, the guy who did the work for 30 dollars an hour probably worked more hours to get the same result, but if you have two people who are making relatively the same amount of money per-year...that is, greater than the average US median wage of 40k a year...it has less to do with high-paying vs. low-paying and more to do with simple ego. The writer charging 75 dollars an hour feels it is unfair that the guy doing it for 30 dollars an hour can make the same amount of money per year.
Fair enough, but we still haven't really uncovered why the ego writer feels that anything less than 50 dollars an hour is a "low paying" wage, because according to statistics, it's not. It's more than double the national median, which means by its very definition it is a high paying job.
Ego. That's all it boils down to. Statistically, 50 dollars an hour is an extremely high paying wage... double the national median. Now, maybe the ego writer lives in an area of the nation where their cost of living is more than the average, therefore they need to make more than the average. However, this does not change the fact that 50 dollars an hour is high paying wage. All it changes is the fact that they themselves are not part of the average, and therefore applying labels will result in a skewed viewpoint that has little to do with what is or isn't realistically low paying or high paying. Instead, their results are tainted by personal experiences and ego. They term low paying as anything that cannot support their way of life, which doesn't apply to the average person.
Low paying, high paying, and in between. A lot of writers like to label their work as "per word" or "per hour" or "per article". What does it matter? If an individual can make X amount of dollars per month/year, and it's greater than the average median, it is by its very definition a "high paying" job.
So for those of you freelance writers who worry about whether or not you are working a low paying gig or a high paying gig, look at the end results. Are you going to make roughly 25 dollars an hour for your work based upon the law of averages? Then you are making standard rates. If you are making 40 dollars an hour or more, you are getting high-paying gigs. Anything less than 20 an hour and you are in the low-paying range.
Don't let yourself be misled by egotistical writers. There is a realistic approach to this industry, and it can only be achieved by having a realistic view on how the industry works. Good luck in the job hunt, and I hope to see you on the other side!
Over at one of the community websites I visit there is an ongoing discussion (let's not split hairs. It's a debate, perhaps even an argument) between myself and a select group of writers who look down their noses at writers willing to work for less than them. I'd like to take the opportunity to look at the numbers for a moment, to give people a clearer picture of what really is low and high paying, and the difference between realistic expectations and simple ego.
The average wage for a US citizen or resident is around 40 thousand USD per year. That's on the gross end. If you work that out to an hourly rate it's 21 dollars an hour.
Unskilled workers make less. That is, people who flip burgers at McDonalds, or work the graveyard shift at 7-11, make less than 21 dollars an hour. Skilled workers make more. Carpenters, nurses, IT guys, tech writers, these people make slightly more. Specialized skills, that is jobs which require a specialized degree OR 10+ years experience in the field, make double or more...that is, 40 dollars an hour or greater.
This isn't opinion. It's fact. I'm not going to take the time to link to all of my sources this morning. Suffice to say this comes from research I've done over the past few months working on a couple of specific projects for one of my clients.
So, looking at the statistics, the only people making greater than 40 dollars an hour are specialized skill workers, or people with greater than 10 years in their chosen profession. Those individuals with a Master's degree or their Doctorate are making even more...usually over 100k a year, depending on their position and profession.
So let's observe for a moment. If a freelance writer, regardless of their location in the world, can pick up work from a client and average greater than 21 dollars an hour, they are making more than the average individual. Would you consider this low paying, or high paying? You cannot consider it low paying, because in order to qualify for low paying it would have to be less than the 21 dollars an hour. It's not necessarily high paying, either. Let's call it "standard" rates, because we are working with the law of averages here.
If a writer can make 50 dollars an hour, is he working a low-paying job, or a high paying job? Statistically, he's making more than double what the average person in the US makes. This would be considered a high-paying job, simply based upon factual statistics.
I think ego has a lot to do with it. There are a few writers out there who enjoyed an unprecedented level of success in pre-recession America, when they were riding the tide of America being the only country with high speed Internet available to nearly everyone. Now, 5 years later, wi-fi nooks exist in every corner of the globe, and high-speed Internet is available to most people in most countries. The writers who enjoyed a period of higher-than-average rates during those times were living high on the hog, enjoying a situation that existed simply because the market hadn't expanded. Now that the market exists within the framework of the entire world, these same writers are experiencing job losses because there are other people out there who are willing to do the work for less than the 75 dollars an hour or more that these people charge.
Let's face it...if person A charges 75 dollars an hour to write website content and person B is willing to write the same content for 30 dollars an hour, and they both have the exact same qualifications...a smart employer is going to pick the 30 dollar an hour writer. Why? Because it's a better deal. It's smart business. Suddenly the 30 dollar an hour guy is swimming in work, but the 75 dollar an hour guy is finding his jobs getting fewer and farther between, until eventually, he ends up making less per year than the guy who worked 30 dollars an hour.
Now, sure, the guy who did the work for 30 dollars an hour probably worked more hours to get the same result, but if you have two people who are making relatively the same amount of money per-year...that is, greater than the average US median wage of 40k a year...it has less to do with high-paying vs. low-paying and more to do with simple ego. The writer charging 75 dollars an hour feels it is unfair that the guy doing it for 30 dollars an hour can make the same amount of money per year.
Fair enough, but we still haven't really uncovered why the ego writer feels that anything less than 50 dollars an hour is a "low paying" wage, because according to statistics, it's not. It's more than double the national median, which means by its very definition it is a high paying job.
Ego. That's all it boils down to. Statistically, 50 dollars an hour is an extremely high paying wage... double the national median. Now, maybe the ego writer lives in an area of the nation where their cost of living is more than the average, therefore they need to make more than the average. However, this does not change the fact that 50 dollars an hour is high paying wage. All it changes is the fact that they themselves are not part of the average, and therefore applying labels will result in a skewed viewpoint that has little to do with what is or isn't realistically low paying or high paying. Instead, their results are tainted by personal experiences and ego. They term low paying as anything that cannot support their way of life, which doesn't apply to the average person.
Low paying, high paying, and in between. A lot of writers like to label their work as "per word" or "per hour" or "per article". What does it matter? If an individual can make X amount of dollars per month/year, and it's greater than the average median, it is by its very definition a "high paying" job.
So for those of you freelance writers who worry about whether or not you are working a low paying gig or a high paying gig, look at the end results. Are you going to make roughly 25 dollars an hour for your work based upon the law of averages? Then you are making standard rates. If you are making 40 dollars an hour or more, you are getting high-paying gigs. Anything less than 20 an hour and you are in the low-paying range.
Don't let yourself be misled by egotistical writers. There is a realistic approach to this industry, and it can only be achieved by having a realistic view on how the industry works. Good luck in the job hunt, and I hope to see you on the other side!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Almost!
Almost done with my huge April project! I've got about 3 hours worth of work, which I'll save for tomorrow.
In retrospect, this was my largest freelance project to-date. It took me the entire month to complete, and I worked pretty much 6 days a week, for at least 3-4 hours per day. I'm a little drained, and to be honest, I think I'd rather focus on smaller projects in the future so I can spend more time doing my creative writing. However, there's also the necessity to keep doing work to spread your reputation, so if the money's good, I'll probably keep going on large projects as well.
Still...I'd like to take the month of May off, other than a few select projects that I do around my chapter work. I don't have any short stories that are brewing at the present, only 6 in submissions, so I'm circulating those until they sell. I fully expect it to take the rest of the year, because it takes 6-8 weeks to hear back from the editors as to whether or not it's been accepted or rejected, and you can't dual-sub, so...it's a lengthy process.
I've been debating another post in my "The World is your Oyster" series, but it's a bit foggy at present...not nearly refined enough to post about. Maybe I'll have something up towards the end of the week. I've also been debating starting a "how to get started as a freelance writer" discussion/network, because I see a lot of college kids and other people struggling during the recession trying to break into this market without any real knowledge of how to do so. I think that practical knowledge is key, and too often you see the veteran writers giving out canned responses or generic replies such as "don't give up!" or "apply to more jobs!" as advice, which doesn't help the new writer whatsoever.
What's more important is practical application of common sense in order to land jobs. We'll see how the idea pans out. It won't be free, that's for sure. I'm thinking of hosting a seminar type webisode or something where I give a 45 min or so lecture + answer a few questions + a written guide on how-to's, where-to's, and otherwise. It's all in the "planning" phase, but it's bubbling.
That's it for now. My work for the day is done and I'm going to enjoy the rest of the sunny afternoon out and about. Cheers!
In retrospect, this was my largest freelance project to-date. It took me the entire month to complete, and I worked pretty much 6 days a week, for at least 3-4 hours per day. I'm a little drained, and to be honest, I think I'd rather focus on smaller projects in the future so I can spend more time doing my creative writing. However, there's also the necessity to keep doing work to spread your reputation, so if the money's good, I'll probably keep going on large projects as well.
Still...I'd like to take the month of May off, other than a few select projects that I do around my chapter work. I don't have any short stories that are brewing at the present, only 6 in submissions, so I'm circulating those until they sell. I fully expect it to take the rest of the year, because it takes 6-8 weeks to hear back from the editors as to whether or not it's been accepted or rejected, and you can't dual-sub, so...it's a lengthy process.
I've been debating another post in my "The World is your Oyster" series, but it's a bit foggy at present...not nearly refined enough to post about. Maybe I'll have something up towards the end of the week. I've also been debating starting a "how to get started as a freelance writer" discussion/network, because I see a lot of college kids and other people struggling during the recession trying to break into this market without any real knowledge of how to do so. I think that practical knowledge is key, and too often you see the veteran writers giving out canned responses or generic replies such as "don't give up!" or "apply to more jobs!" as advice, which doesn't help the new writer whatsoever.
What's more important is practical application of common sense in order to land jobs. We'll see how the idea pans out. It won't be free, that's for sure. I'm thinking of hosting a seminar type webisode or something where I give a 45 min or so lecture + answer a few questions + a written guide on how-to's, where-to's, and otherwise. It's all in the "planning" phase, but it's bubbling.
That's it for now. My work for the day is done and I'm going to enjoy the rest of the sunny afternoon out and about. Cheers!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Afternoon Naps
I just had one.
Once again I'm reminded of how lucky I am to work from home. Back in the days when I was in the field all the time, working 12-14 hour days, I could never rest. I'd come home, back aching, fingers worn out, knees throbbing, and slump down into my office chair for a few hours of gaming before I passed out in the evening.
Now, I can sneak a couple hours in the afternoon on the pinch. I love it! You wake up refreshed, invigorated, and ready to face whatever challenges the late afternoon and early evening have to offer.
In my case, it's working out (skipped it this morning) and finishing up the 45 min or so worth of work I have left. Cya!
Once again I'm reminded of how lucky I am to work from home. Back in the days when I was in the field all the time, working 12-14 hour days, I could never rest. I'd come home, back aching, fingers worn out, knees throbbing, and slump down into my office chair for a few hours of gaming before I passed out in the evening.
Now, I can sneak a couple hours in the afternoon on the pinch. I love it! You wake up refreshed, invigorated, and ready to face whatever challenges the late afternoon and early evening have to offer.
In my case, it's working out (skipped it this morning) and finishing up the 45 min or so worth of work I have left. Cya!
Update
A fine Monday morning! Wrapping up my April project (will be finished sometime Wednesday), I just finished the second round of interview-emails for another project I'm looking at potentially doing, and I'm about ready to cycle a couple of short stories that I got back.
Many people get discouraged or offended by rejections. I don't. I think the reason for that is I spent years prior to actually doing this for a living making connections and establishing friendships with people who do this for a living, full-time. I also studied the success stories of some of my most favorite authors, and I've been down the beat path of doing door-to-door sales calls when I was first starting out my construction company years ago using my OWN name, rather than relying on the family reputation to land me work.
It's business. Some of the writers I've connected with over the years were rejected even AFTER they won awards for their stories. One writer in particular I know of won a Nebula award for a story back in the late 90s, only to have the majority of his stories rejected over a six month period of time. It takes time to sell an idea.
The good thing is that there are hundreds of magazines, e-zines, anthologies, and contests out there compared to 15 or even 20 years ago, then market was drastically smaller. The potential for getting your work out there is a lot higher, and it's not only being graded by a select few elite editors who shrug off everyone but the biggest names who are going to bring in the fat paychecks. There are a lot of publications these days who focus on quality writing, rather than the name behind the story. I find this commendable. Too often you see big-name authors pushing out shit short stories simply because they were paid a few thousand dollars to write something for a magazine simply to boost its sales. It's good that there are publications out there who cater to the little guy who, like me, is working on getting his work out there and refining his craft.
I've had moderate success. On the plus side, while I'm circulating short stories to various publications, I've got a successful freelance career going, which means I'm building up credits even if they aren't in the short story market.
The way I do it? I simply look at a rejection with a "your loss" mentality. Years from now, when I've made more of a name for myself, I'll be able to look back and chuckle at the magazine that could have been for ignoring my early works.
Arrogance? Perhaps. But I like to look to my role models for examples. I may not like his writing style, but his stories are compelling. Dan Brown, he of Da Vinci Code fame. If you've not read his success story, you ought to. His first three novels sold so poorly that DVC was his last attempt at writing. The previous novels he wrote had only sold 3-4 thousand copies per, and he was going to go back to being a teacher if his fourth novel didn't sell. Then boom!, lo and behold, 250 million dollars later, he was an international best-seller who is now one of the most wealthy authors in the world.
Take Roger Zelazny. The guy worked for years in the social security office as a clerk, writing short stories for (as I remember) nearly 9 years before he had established enough of a reputation to work at it full time writing novels.
The key is to have patience and to remind yourself every day that no matter what, someone out there will eventually buy your work. That person will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, and even if it takes you 4-5 years, you will eventually transition to full-time novel writing.
I've researched this for years, preparing. I've done the workshops, I've done the conventions. My very first attempt at a short story last year sold to the very first place I sold it to. Luck? Possibly. I also know that I've got talent, and I'm honing my craft. Almost every author out there has to spend 3-5 years doing something else part-time before they get enough fans to buy their books and make it worthwhile to transition over to full-time novelist. My blessing is that I have a loving wife who supports my endeavour 100%, so even if it takes 5-6 years, I'm in this for the long haul.
That's my inspirational Monday afternoon post :) I'm going to take a break and watch some shows!
Many people get discouraged or offended by rejections. I don't. I think the reason for that is I spent years prior to actually doing this for a living making connections and establishing friendships with people who do this for a living, full-time. I also studied the success stories of some of my most favorite authors, and I've been down the beat path of doing door-to-door sales calls when I was first starting out my construction company years ago using my OWN name, rather than relying on the family reputation to land me work.
It's business. Some of the writers I've connected with over the years were rejected even AFTER they won awards for their stories. One writer in particular I know of won a Nebula award for a story back in the late 90s, only to have the majority of his stories rejected over a six month period of time. It takes time to sell an idea.
The good thing is that there are hundreds of magazines, e-zines, anthologies, and contests out there compared to 15 or even 20 years ago, then market was drastically smaller. The potential for getting your work out there is a lot higher, and it's not only being graded by a select few elite editors who shrug off everyone but the biggest names who are going to bring in the fat paychecks. There are a lot of publications these days who focus on quality writing, rather than the name behind the story. I find this commendable. Too often you see big-name authors pushing out shit short stories simply because they were paid a few thousand dollars to write something for a magazine simply to boost its sales. It's good that there are publications out there who cater to the little guy who, like me, is working on getting his work out there and refining his craft.
I've had moderate success. On the plus side, while I'm circulating short stories to various publications, I've got a successful freelance career going, which means I'm building up credits even if they aren't in the short story market.
The way I do it? I simply look at a rejection with a "your loss" mentality. Years from now, when I've made more of a name for myself, I'll be able to look back and chuckle at the magazine that could have been for ignoring my early works.
Arrogance? Perhaps. But I like to look to my role models for examples. I may not like his writing style, but his stories are compelling. Dan Brown, he of Da Vinci Code fame. If you've not read his success story, you ought to. His first three novels sold so poorly that DVC was his last attempt at writing. The previous novels he wrote had only sold 3-4 thousand copies per, and he was going to go back to being a teacher if his fourth novel didn't sell. Then boom!, lo and behold, 250 million dollars later, he was an international best-seller who is now one of the most wealthy authors in the world.
Take Roger Zelazny. The guy worked for years in the social security office as a clerk, writing short stories for (as I remember) nearly 9 years before he had established enough of a reputation to work at it full time writing novels.
The key is to have patience and to remind yourself every day that no matter what, someone out there will eventually buy your work. That person will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, and even if it takes you 4-5 years, you will eventually transition to full-time novel writing.
I've researched this for years, preparing. I've done the workshops, I've done the conventions. My very first attempt at a short story last year sold to the very first place I sold it to. Luck? Possibly. I also know that I've got talent, and I'm honing my craft. Almost every author out there has to spend 3-5 years doing something else part-time before they get enough fans to buy their books and make it worthwhile to transition over to full-time novelist. My blessing is that I have a loving wife who supports my endeavour 100%, so even if it takes 5-6 years, I'm in this for the long haul.
That's my inspirational Monday afternoon post :) I'm going to take a break and watch some shows!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
More Old School
Ok, so...I've been on an old-school kick recently. I'm in the middle of the downtime between all my favorite shows (everything is ending in May, and none of the shows we follow start up again until late fall), and I'm just about wrapped up with Stargate: SG-1. I was going to watch Stargate: Atlantis next, in order to prep for Stargate: Universe this fall, but I decided to take a drastic U-turn and go back to one of the original shows: Star Trek.
"WHAT!?" you gasp in disbelief. "How can you not have watched the single greatest science fiction show of all time?!"
First of all, I wasn't born. Second of all, I was never into Star Trek that much. I caught a few episodes of all of the other spin offs, including a brief period where I actually followed Deep Space Nine and Voyager, but that was about it. So I decided I'm going to go back and watch the entire sequence of shows, starting with the very first season of the first first show, the Original Star Trek. After that I'll slog my way through Next Gen, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.
In the meantime I'll also finish up Stargate and wait for new seasons of Dexter, True Blood, Burn Notice, and all the other shows we follow.
I've got my work cut out for me. Good thing I have plenty of spare time on my hands!
"WHAT!?" you gasp in disbelief. "How can you not have watched the single greatest science fiction show of all time?!"
First of all, I wasn't born. Second of all, I was never into Star Trek that much. I caught a few episodes of all of the other spin offs, including a brief period where I actually followed Deep Space Nine and Voyager, but that was about it. So I decided I'm going to go back and watch the entire sequence of shows, starting with the very first season of the first first show, the Original Star Trek. After that I'll slog my way through Next Gen, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.
In the meantime I'll also finish up Stargate and wait for new seasons of Dexter, True Blood, Burn Notice, and all the other shows we follow.
I've got my work cut out for me. Good thing I have plenty of spare time on my hands!
Old School Games vs. New School Games
In the past few years I have been sorely disappointed by the amount of content that games are putting out. Having been an avid gamer now for roughly 25 years, I've experienced most of the game world since the inception of MUDs, the first gaming systems, and so on and so forth.
To highlight a few of the games I've played in the last year: Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, just to name a few. And while those games have great graphics and awesome cinema sequences, the amount of gameplay is crap. Not a single one of those games gave me more than 20 hours of gameplay. I beat all of them within 2 gaming sessions, three at the most (Mass Effect was 3).
The point is, I got to thinking about the games of yesterday. One in particular that stands out, and is regularly pointed to as the crowning achievement of RPGs, is Baldur's Gate II. The game has roughly 120 hours of MAIN questlines and over 100 hours of additional side quests, bringing your total game time to over 220 hours if you play through the side quests for your party members and class quests.
Games today boast 40 hours of gameplay at most when they market the games. Fallout 3, for example, boasted 40 hours of gameplay. I beat the game in 14 hours. I know a friend who beat it in 9 hours. Now, granted, that's doing mostly only the main questlines, but for the main questlines to be beatable within a single game session? Pathetic!
To top it off, the game studios charge 60-70 bucks a pop for a few hours of entertainment. Back in the day I could spend 50 bucks on a game and know that I was going to get WEEKS of entertainment out of it. Now, I'm lucky if I get two days out of my favorite games.
I re-installed BG2 the other day and I'm already 20 hours into it and nowhere near the 120 hours of main questlines offered. The game is nearly 10 years old but the world graphics are still fairly good (character graphics are, sadly, not), and it just got me thinking about how epic the games of yesterday were compared to the crap that gets farmed out these days. Sure, the modern games LOOK great, and are fairly entertaining, but you don't get anywhere near the bang for your buck that you used to get.
Some games have multiplayer aspects that can make up for the lack of a single player element. Games such as Halo 3, sure. But what about the single player games? The closest thing I've come to old-school was Neverwinter Nights II, which gave me about a week's worth of play, doing 3-4 hours per session.
I'm looking forward to Dragon Age: Origins, but the foremost thought in my mind is the thought: Is the game going to give me more than 2 or 3 days of gameplay? I know it's being developed by Bioware, but it's the post-EA buyout Bioware, the same company who put out Mass Effect, which is one of the games I'm complaining about for its lack of substance.
Don't get me wrong...I loved Mass Effect. It was fun, it was breath-takingly beautiful, and I've played it through 4 times so far, twice on the X-box and twice on the updated PC version. However, the storyline is almost an exact copy of Babylon 5 (ancient race of beings comes back thousands of years later to wipe out everything yet again; a central "space station" where all of the races have their diplomatic meetings; I could go on), and it was too damn short.
I know that things have changed over the years, and I do appreciate the beauty of modern games in high def, but I seriously miss the games that had me spending 2-3 weeks worth of gaming sessions to beat. I haven't been sucked into a game since Baldur's Gate II, or an MMORPG outside of EQ1 and Vanguard, the only two MMORPGs I feel had substance behind them. But that's a topic for another day :)
To highlight a few of the games I've played in the last year: Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, just to name a few. And while those games have great graphics and awesome cinema sequences, the amount of gameplay is crap. Not a single one of those games gave me more than 20 hours of gameplay. I beat all of them within 2 gaming sessions, three at the most (Mass Effect was 3).
The point is, I got to thinking about the games of yesterday. One in particular that stands out, and is regularly pointed to as the crowning achievement of RPGs, is Baldur's Gate II. The game has roughly 120 hours of MAIN questlines and over 100 hours of additional side quests, bringing your total game time to over 220 hours if you play through the side quests for your party members and class quests.
Games today boast 40 hours of gameplay at most when they market the games. Fallout 3, for example, boasted 40 hours of gameplay. I beat the game in 14 hours. I know a friend who beat it in 9 hours. Now, granted, that's doing mostly only the main questlines, but for the main questlines to be beatable within a single game session? Pathetic!
To top it off, the game studios charge 60-70 bucks a pop for a few hours of entertainment. Back in the day I could spend 50 bucks on a game and know that I was going to get WEEKS of entertainment out of it. Now, I'm lucky if I get two days out of my favorite games.
I re-installed BG2 the other day and I'm already 20 hours into it and nowhere near the 120 hours of main questlines offered. The game is nearly 10 years old but the world graphics are still fairly good (character graphics are, sadly, not), and it just got me thinking about how epic the games of yesterday were compared to the crap that gets farmed out these days. Sure, the modern games LOOK great, and are fairly entertaining, but you don't get anywhere near the bang for your buck that you used to get.
Some games have multiplayer aspects that can make up for the lack of a single player element. Games such as Halo 3, sure. But what about the single player games? The closest thing I've come to old-school was Neverwinter Nights II, which gave me about a week's worth of play, doing 3-4 hours per session.
I'm looking forward to Dragon Age: Origins, but the foremost thought in my mind is the thought: Is the game going to give me more than 2 or 3 days of gameplay? I know it's being developed by Bioware, but it's the post-EA buyout Bioware, the same company who put out Mass Effect, which is one of the games I'm complaining about for its lack of substance.
Don't get me wrong...I loved Mass Effect. It was fun, it was breath-takingly beautiful, and I've played it through 4 times so far, twice on the X-box and twice on the updated PC version. However, the storyline is almost an exact copy of Babylon 5 (ancient race of beings comes back thousands of years later to wipe out everything yet again; a central "space station" where all of the races have their diplomatic meetings; I could go on), and it was too damn short.
I know that things have changed over the years, and I do appreciate the beauty of modern games in high def, but I seriously miss the games that had me spending 2-3 weeks worth of gaming sessions to beat. I haven't been sucked into a game since Baldur's Gate II, or an MMORPG outside of EQ1 and Vanguard, the only two MMORPGs I feel had substance behind them. But that's a topic for another day :)
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