The other day my co-worker Sander (he used to work at 1up) lamented his complete inability to finish Mass Effect. Likewise, I'm simultaneously interested in finishing Bully and completely uninterested in playing it. We were playing these titles when our Xboxes RRoD'd, Sander's in late January, mine in March. It is now mid-May.

So here's a question I wanted to put to the gaming community here: How important is momentum to finishing or playing a game? I'm wondering if, in the timeline of developing, we've reached a tipping point. The 50-hour gaming experience is upon us. In sports simulations stretching an entire season, it can be even longer. How, if at all, can a developer create and sustain momentum in players to complete something that long? Because these campaigns are only going to get longer, not that it's necessarily a bad thing.

But for now, the question that we here can answer: Is there a period of time where, separated from gaming (a week's vacation, a borked machine, a ton of work or school obligations) you're just unable to get back into it?

I know Bash had a TUD on Friday, but I'm curious here, so Tell Us, Dammit! In the comments after the jump.

The Evolution of the Team Multiplayer FPS

Brash Teams With Factor 5 For Movie Game

We're already working on a title that is more than two years out, and because the filmmaker is a game fan who is really excited about how we want to expand on the story of the film, we've been given a lot of latitude. It's been really fun to dig deep into this universe.

Keeping the Dream(cast) Alive

Positech's Cliff Harris On Making the Indie Model Work

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a great interview up with Cliff Harris of Positech Games (Democracy, Kudos, Rock Legend, etc.); it's chock full of interesting bits on his games, the makeup of the indie side of the industry, and how you can make money with indie development (the horror!):

I'm unusual because I'm genuinely interested in the business side of being an indie gamer. I love the whole entrepreneur thing, the setting the right price, getting expenses down and sales up, etc. My fave TV show is Dragon's Den for fucks sake. The vast majority of indie devs are programmers, and the C++ DNA seems to interfere with the DNA that makes people enjoy marketing or business. Most indies who make no money do very little marketing or promotion, because it terrifies them ... Marketing is a big deal. I know that Introversion put a lot of effort into marketing, and you can see the results there too. If you really are the typical shy semi-autistic sunlight-hating game coder, you need to get an outgoing biz/marketing guy to work with.

It's an interesting (and sensible) look at indie development; it's refreshing to read people being bluntly honest and not going off about the moral superiority of those who develop games for purely altruistic reasons.

Deserved Kudos: Positech's Cliff Harris Interview [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Havok Goes Free In May

"This is fantastic news for commercial PC game developers as well as the independent game development community, who will really benefit from this move," said Mark DeLoura, creator of the Game Programming Gems series.

Next-Gen's "Hot 100" Developers List Is Great

Havok Gets Cracking, Fluttering

Jaffe Introduces Twisted Metal Blog

Kuju Comes To America

One of Europe's leading independent game development companies is making the move to the U.S., as Kuju Entertainment announces the opening of Kuju America, they're first studio outside of the UK. The website for the new studio features a British flag emblazoned United States, coupled with the exclamation (warning?), "The Brits Are Coming!" The studio is located in beautiful San Francisco, convenient to a large pool of development talent as well as Kotaku weekend editor Flynn DeMarco.

Jonathan Newth, Corporate Development Officer of Kuju Entertainment, commented "The US, and San Francisco in particular, is a natural choice for our first non-UK studio. It's a hotbed of development talent, home to many leading publishers and some of the leading US games press.

Kuju America [Official Website]

Will Wright on the Making of the Sims

Unreal Engine Invades Kids' Summer Camp

iD Tech Camps, a sort of summer camp for children interesting in game development and computers, announced today that they will be offering classes on using the Unreal Engine 3 tools to make games to six or seven students this year. The instruction sounds like it will be heavy on the modding, but there will also be instruction on creating original games and environments.

"We've partnered with iD Tech Camps because of their reputation for quality game development instruction for teens," said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. "Unreal Tournament 3 delivers unparalleled game quality that gamers have come to know and expect from Epic Games. We are reaching an audience of gaming enthusiasts who play the game as well as learn to design and mod with our deep set of tools."

This seems like a pretty smart move on Epic's part. It's sort of like Apple giving computers to schools to use in their labs. It hooks kids when their young.

What's In a Word? The Meaning of 'Casual' Gaming

Innovation and the Casual Market

NCSoft's UK Expansion

'Indie is the New Popular' - Musings on Independent Games

The9 Buys Stake in MSN China, Makes More Microsoft Deals

VastPark Is Coming