Video games are an expensive hobby. If you bought one console game each month for a whole year, you'd be out the better half of a thousand bucks by Christmas. Add to that the cost of the console itself, accessories, and the occasional downloadable content and your bank account will be rid of a significant wad of cash thanks to your little habit. You don't need that kind of cash to supplement your love for novels or movies. That's why we often find the length of a game brought up in its reviews either as a negative or positive, both aimed at our wallets. Majority of the game community agrees: Video games need to be longer.

Don't confuse length here to mean video games need to take longer to complete. In the months leading up to a game's release, producers like to release statements about how great their title is, including proud boasts of "over fifty hours of gameplay!" Players don't need their games to be bloated with superfluous levels designed for the sole purpose of extending play time, like with Modern Warfare 2's Brazil-based missions. They need a reason to keep coming back for more, not a series of obstacles made up of little more than fluff. The way to do this is through substantial multiplayer and DLC.

Modern Warfare 2's campaign was short, even with levels that added nothing to the experience, but it's main draw from the beginning was its strong multiplayer. The game's constant rewarding of new weapons, equipment, and abilities keeps players engaged, but Infinity Ward's clever Prestige Mode give its audience a reason to do it all over again. The next step would be to consistently release well-designed map packs to keep the experience fresh and diverse for relatively little price. Infinity Ward dropped the ball with the last Modern Warfare by only releasing a single map pack, but Treyarch did a great job with World at War by supplementing its multiplayer as well as its co-op zombie mode.

Rockstar's continuous support of Grand Theft Auto 4 with expansions like The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony and Harmonix' amazingly consistent stream of new Rock Band songs illustrate the proper way to handle DLC. Instead of cosmetic changes (Street Fighter 4's alternate costumes) or shallow shortcuts (Tales of Vesperia's experience points download), GTA4 and Rock Band have become platforms for experiences that grow and continue to offer value through fun, new content rather than forced, repetitive content.

Players want more value in their games and downloads. By offering longer more substantial experiences that continue to capture our interests, developers will be killing two birds with one stone.

This is the first half of my response to On the Contrary, a Bitmob community writing challenge. Want to participate? View the submission guidelines in the original post and post your entries by January 31^st.

The other half of my response can be found here.