archaven: The 16 endings was kind of marketing gimmick to me though.

archaven: I kinda agree.. the game is really short. The only replayability game has is the 2 paths (Iorwerth or Roche).

yupper: It just became apparent to me that English may not be your primary language, not intending this as an insult, but as an attempt to understand why you seem to consistently miss the point of our conversation.

First, I am not sure why you would think I missed the point about 'brain adaptation.' The whole point I made about 'stretching attention' is to show that our habits, our bodies, can be retrained and reconditioned by (new) media. I think we are in agreement there? But you keep diverting attention away from the original question that yourself had raise din your original post. Are you defending Blake Snow's conclusion in the article you cited? I am unclear on this.

You raised the question whether video games are becoming "shorter" (as in less content to cut down on the amount of time player would spend 'completing' the game--since there is no clear correlation between the rate of game completion and how many copies a game sells--at least I haven't seen any empirical studies that's made this correlation--I don't see why anyone would think that game development would adopt this as a 'industry trend', since we all know game publishers and developers must fundamentally aim to generate profit as their primary motive). You cited -one- CNN article by a freelancer writer who, I contend, has no clue about videos games other than possibly having played some games, to support this claim. When you say "cheap pseudo science", are you critiquing yourself? I am not clear on this.

Then you cite three sources that further elaborate on the argument of 'brain adaption': One from a motivational speaker, one from a random post on some dude's blog titled "Why I Hate Science", and Plato's Republic. Then you tell me to 'Google' for information (about what, exactly?). These are not 'reputable' sources, and this is not 'research.'

My point is that the author of the article you cited in your original post is clueless about new media and video games (do you disagree with this? If so, please explain why). I can provide you with texts from academic, peer-reviewed journals in the discipline of Game Studies or Media Studies regarding the points I raised (specifically around the concept of 'attention' and how it is changing in the new media environment). I am certainly not the originators of these insights.

Lastly, I fail to see how reading Plato's Republic can unveil any new insights in this discussion, since I don't recall that he ever mentioned anything about 'New Media' in the Republic. The closest thing I can recall is Socrates discussing his disdain over the proliferation of 'writing' as a communications medium. But if you can point out the specific passages of the Republic that you think is relevant to our conversation, I am all ears. I have a copy of the Republic on hand and I will certainly look up the passage and engage your interpretation of his work.