What many gamers often point out as being a problem is not having enough time to play as much as they want, and it made me wonder, when we have limited time, what motivates us to spend that time playing games when we could be doing something else? We have various reasons why we might buy a game, but once you’ve spent your hard-earned money on it, what causes you to spend hours playing them when time is often even more limited than our money is? For me, my favorite kinds of games involve good stories and characters, and I can spend countless hours playing them because I want to experience the entire story and see what happens to the characters. But, that doesn’t cover all the genres out there. What about games that have no plot, or at the very least, where the plot is not the focus?

Well, in addition to games with good stories, I do enjoy platformers and other such genres, because I like the satisfaction it brings me to get 100%, story or not. And yet, I recently bought two games on the Wii U that largely don’t really fit either category and which I think act as a good illustration in what might motivate someone to play and what might not. Continue reading What Motivates You to Play? →