Beyond 18

The DeanBeat: If only more gamers reached the end of games

The dearly departed X-Play video game TV show went out with a bang with a last episode that spoiled the ending of just about every major video game ever made. The sad truth is that many gamers probably never got to the end of those games.

Mirrors Edge chapters
Mirrors Edge chapters

Perhaps 20 percent of the population buys hardcore games and is motivated to finish them. The rest of the 80 percent don’t have the time. Rich Hilleman, chief creative director at Electronic Arts, recognizes this. At the Cloud Gaming USA conference this week, he told the audience that the thing video game designers have overlooked is time. Many adults are “lapsed gamers” who used to play but gave up games for one reason or another.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.