Today's a snow day where I live, and I couldn't get my car out of my driveway, thus unable to drop my girlfriend off at work. She had to take the bus, which oddly got me thinking about videogames.
Where's the "public option" for videogames? I mean, sure, shareware and demoes sort of count, but they don't offer you the same experience as the full game. So here's my idea, which is bat-shit crazy and probably will never happen.
Also, let me preface this by saying that I don't think that videogames should ape other media forms. How many "interactive movies" do we have that are steaming piles of crap?
OK, hear me out. What if we made videogame TV channels? Like, at 8:00 you could see that Zelda would be "on" for an hour, and you could play the game during that hour. Of course, there might need to be advertisements to pay for this service, so there could be commercials during the game. Then, if you wanted to continue your game, you'd have to wait until its next showing time.
I think that this could open up some really interesting avenues for developers to make really interesting chunks of a "season" and really stretch the narrative of videogaming, not unlike how a show like Friday Night Lights is able to really delve into its characters because of its format. Of course, if people didn't want to wait, they could buy the "season" from a retailer.
What do you think?