Answering the Call of Duty

On Tuesday's News Stream, we talked about the "millions of gamers" rushing out to buy and play Call of Duty: Black Ops.

I am one of those gamers.

By day, I produce News Stream.  At night, I squeeze out whatever time I have to venture online and play games.

And I'm not alone. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. There is a generation that grew up with Nintendo, took PlayStations to college, and are now carrying a passion for games into adult life. But finding time to actually indulge that passion is harder than ever.

It's the irony of growing up: With greater spending power comes greater responsibility. We can afford the games we coveted and saved money for as children; we just don't have time to play them.

Thankfully, there seems to be a strange sort of solution at hand: Games are getting shorter. Alright, that's a blanket statement that is not entirely true. There are still epics like Grand Theft Auto and Mass Effect that have long campaigns. And more games have online multiplayer components that in theory never end. But games with short single-player campaigns are becoming ever more common. The last three games I finished were Medal of Honor, 007: Blood Stone and Halo: Reach. Each took less than ten hours to complete. The last Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2, took less than five hours to finish.

Judging by the number of friends I see playing online at 1am, carving out time for games is still a battle no matter how short they are. So if you'll excuse me: I have a game to play.