Chasing virtual pigeons.

I had been late to the party due to a tragic incident involving my former PS4 and a poorly placed beverage, but today I was finally able to begin my much anticipated dive into Insomniac’s new Spider-man game. In the past this would have been a bandwagon that I’d hitch myself to on opening day. The gaming community hype machine has been churning my interest for this game for months and not without good reason. Insomniac is a quality studio that puts out a varied assortment of quality work and Spider-man is a golden license.

In my limited time with it, I’d say the game is pretty good. I am having fun navigating New York with webs and it seems like the massive overhype has not soured my opinion as it has so many times before. Regardless, this isn’t about that. This is about how a mission where you chase birds around triggered an existential crisis in me. This is a missive to myself to reconcile who is actually in control of my time, specifically my time with video games.

Let me explain. After getting myself into the “flow” of Spider-man, I found the first available bonus quest to me on the map; titled: Storming the Castle. The quest is simple, a New York resident living near central park spots some dastardly villains up to something near her house. You beat up a wave of bad guys to locate the flash drive that reveals their ultimate motives.

The twist: a pigeon steals the flash drive.

Let’s pause here. Over the course of my life I’ve seen thousands of pigeons. For the most part, our relationship has been one of mutual respect involving me attempting to charge and scare them and them defecating on my car. Despite our mutual animosity, I can point to zero times in which a pigeon has actually stolen something from me.

This is not to say that birds don’t steal. Just ask pelicans, the new pirates of the coasts.

Rather, let’s just say that making the inciting incident of a quest dependent on pigeons stealing something that Spider-man, a super human, is stretching things a little bit.

The quest then kicks off. You chase a flock of pigeons in and around central park, picking them off one by one allows you to eventually locate the one holding the flash drive revealing their evil plan to you. Looks like this case is just about wrapped up. Except that the thugs have noticed your ally spying on them from her nearby home.

You zip on back, beat the bads, and bid your confidant farewell. Seems like another simple case is under wraps. Right…?

Wrong.

I rarely end up contemplating the menial side-quests I end up carrying out during video games and it all would have been the same with this particular one except that for a while, it decided to have me chase virtual pigeons.

The joke of the mission is that it is such a menial task that necessitating Spider-man to pull it off is amusing, but behind that Spider-man is me and if I’m committing my time in a video game to chase pigeons, how little do I value my time?

Gamers for a tenuous contract with developers when they purchase a game. Ideally an investment of money and time is paid off with an experience that is fun but more importantly adds lasting value beyond the confines of the time spent playing. This can be achieved with a well written story or a game that inspires community.

Spider-man is a pretty good game. Insomniac built an impressive representation of New York and it is incredibly fun to travel around in it and the pigeon mission isn’t even all that offensive. It is not particularly long and totally skippable, but it’s in the game and before it was over I realized I didn’t want to be doing it.

This is a common problem in modern gaming. Developers feel the need to make games of certain length in order to justify the $60 asking price. Gamers and critics expect it too, and make note of it in reviews. This is achieved by padding a game’s length with collectables or menial tasks i.e. chasing virtual pigeons.

Ideally gamers wouldn’t punish developers for good but short games, but this is an unrealistic expectation in an industry where the bottom line collides with the art so aggressively.

In the meantime, I will continue playing Spider-man and continue playing other games. Without a doubt I will be tricked into wasting my time with more”virtual pigeons” and from now on I will wonder if there isn’t something else I could be doing with my time.