Timesink

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A timesink is a term used to describe activities that consume a lot of time.

In massively multiplayer online role-playing games, the term is used disparagingly to describe a simplistic and time-consuming aspect of gameplay that was possibly designed as a thinly veiled attempt to keep players playing longer, especially in the case of limited-time trial accounts. Boring and lengthy parts of gameplay are merely an annoyance when found in most games, but in MMORPGs where players are paying for the time to play, they become controversial. Game designers must be prudent in balancing efforts to produce both involving gameplay and the length of content that players expect. Common timesinks are fights where the player only has to press the same attack-button again and again or quests that require the player to run for a long time to deliver an item from one NPC to another. Other timesinks can involve collecting large numbers of items (such as asteroid mining in space-themed MMORPGs). Another common MMORPG timesink is the slow nature of regenerating lost life and mana, usually forcing the player to sit and wait before rejoining a battle. This is called "downtime" and is a component of MMORPG's that is heavily criticized.