Survivor Series: Finishing a Anime Series or a Game
Recently, I been reading a lot of articles on game sites I frequent in which the authors lament the fact that studies show that only about 20 percent of gamers actually finish a game they start. When I heard this I was a little shocked and thought no way that can be right but, then I started to see in multiple articles on multiple sites. So in my mind this is a disheartening for a couple reasons; one that developers put so much time into making a game that only a very small minority of people that play games see the end and that people paid like 60 dollars for a console game these days and that’s like getting only a portion of the value of what you paid for. I’m the kind of gamer that must finish a game’s story all way through. I’m what you might call a “game finisher”, however I’m not a completiontist by any measure as I don’t feel the need get every achievement or trophy in every game I play. Its more about seeing that the job gets at the basic level by simply beating the game because that is still is the base objective in any game even games that are multiplayer centric like Call of Duty and Battlefield 3. I finish a lot of games, this year so far I think I have finished maybe 20-25 so far this year, which probably puts me in the 1-5 percent of that 10-20 percent of gamers that finish games.
So that got me wondering what percentage of anime fans actual finish the anime they are watching? Now I don’t any figures for this like with game, but I’ll try to use what I know from anime fans I know have told me. The hosts of the anime podcasts I listen to will often comment that they have only seen a portion of a certain that is in a given discussion. This is probably because they are also reviewers and they have a lot anime to watch and its just not possible to watch the entire series. Also another difficulty is access to the whole show which is sometimes hard because maybe you cannot find in your country or its not very popular and thus not streamed or fansubbed. Then there is simply having not a lot of time to devote to watching anime, which is probably a problem we all have unfortunately.
So the point of me bringing this up is that I just think its a bit tragic that all these talented people put so much time and effort into making great anime and games and the vast majority of people never see them. Some tips I have to have to maximize your game and anime experience is to focus on perhaps a couple at a time and clear them out move on to the next game or series. In anime series skip the opening and ending credits as this can often save about 5-6 minute per episode of a series.So get out and actual finish a game of anime!
Here are some the articles taking about the low number of gamers that finish their games:
http://www.gameguru.in/general/2012/27/hitman-absolution-director-says-20-percent-gamers-will-finish-title/
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/08/18/cnn-report-only-10-percent-of-players-finish-games.aspx
Cheers and Beers,
Devil_Survivor
August 17, 2012 @ 11:51 pm
Great article, I must say though when an anime or game or any medium in particular doesn’t get finished, its steering into the “don’t judge a book by its cover” waters. Storyboards find a way for the most part to get better especially towards the end, for the ones reading this article give that medium, you didn’t finish, just another chance who maybe you’ll go buy it afterwards.
November 21, 2012 @ 2:58 am
I think that, in the end, developers, artists, etc, are just happy to be part of companies that aren’t closing down. Damn, the list of studios that close year after year is tremendous.
In anime, the only anime I don’t finish are the ones that aren’t worth it. It may take years (Samurai 7 is a recent example) but I always come back to the scene of the crime. 🙂