Game Fade.
Maybe not a common term to apply to how long it takes for interest in playing a game to wane. When Googling that term, nothing relevant comes back. A better search query is: “how long to lose interest in a game”
The reason asking in this article is because this year after my son bought a NIB (new in box) Stern pinball machine: JAWS Premium (see: Our Son Bought a New In Box Jaws Stern Premium – The First 40 Days of Ownership – What’s the Experience Really Like?), I was curious how long it would be before the family’s interest in this beautiful, yet expensive machine waned?
If you play pinball in the local arcade costs anywhere from 75 cents to $1 per play.
For some time now, I’ve been using the $1 per hour method of measuring game value. It doesn’t work for every game, but in the case of pinball, if a machine like my son’s cost close to $10,000 USD, that’s 10,000 plays.
As I write this after 215+ days of him owning the machine, the family has put in almost 4,400 plays on that machine (see stats pictured above) and getting a lot of enjoyment out of it, including our two grandchildren (age 9 and 7) the oldest plays almost every time he comes downstairs. Prior to home access, neither had shown much interest in playing pinball.
And then something happened, we decided to buy two more new in box pinball machines.
First, for my birthday as a present to myself (My Best Birthday Present in 56 Years: Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast Premium NIB). That made it 10 days before the CPU died and our first experience with a modern pinball repair process emerged. My oldest grandson had been excited about playing that, but only got a little bit of time before it went down. Not sure if that being new drew his attention away from Jaws or if he liked playing Iron Maiden more.
Then, at my wife’s urging, we purchased James Bond (Stern 2022), our first pro version of a game. My grandson took a liking to this, as well, opting to play this instead of Jaws. Curious to observe what happens when all three games are available which one he chooses to play the most.
I think whatever is “new” definitely contributes to game fade, although I’m still playing Jaws more than the other two games. Well, one, since Iron Maiden was down, that left just James Bond or Jaws., The two J’s, if you will.
Anyway, it’s unlikely our family will continue to play Jaws 1,000+ times or more per month. It’s something we’re monitoring trying to establish fade time on these new pinball machines. I’ve seen pinball owners say they have had machines for years and not had 10,000 plays on any of them. Their fade on these machines must be much faster than ours (?) or maybe they just don’t want to play their machines as much?
If we just do the math, 4,400 plays / by 215 days = 20.4 plays per day. Let’s say this drops down to 5-10 plays per day over the next six months (5 x 30 = 150 plays x 6 months = 900 plays) because there is competition for play with the other two games. Jaws should still end up with well over 5,000 plays for 2024 and maybe gets to 7,500-10k plays by the end of 2025. That’s still a very good amount of plays on the game for the money spent, I think. The other two? No idea what sort of plays they will receive, frequency or interest level, although my oldest son that bought Jaws said James Bond is his personal favorite of all Spike 2’s and he has over 95% of the plays so far on that game.
Just before publishing, I added this paragraph with Jaws pinball play stats through 310 days of ownership:
Moving away from pinball, let’s apply to any videogame, whether it be PC or consoles, how long do you want the experience to last? Looking over my Steam account under played, I’m seeing very few games reach the 100 hour mark, some reach 50-100 hours, a greater number of 20-50 hours and the vast majority of games are under 20 hours played.
This tells me, at least with my own game fade experience that the number is under 20 hours before fade sets in. Of the games I really, really like, some of these are shorter games, so that messes with the time factor. Taking something like Asteroids: Recharged, which I’ve played a bunch — or so it felt like.
I’m not done playing this game, so the 23 hours will continue to increase. Game fade? Yes, there’s been some, but as soon as I play a few games on the Steam Deck, I’ll be hooked back in and it will lead to more games.
What about you? How long do you stay interested in a game? How long before game fade sets in? Or does it only set in after you’ve beaten the game?