"The dirty little secret of gaming is how much time you spend not having fun."

That's what author Steven Johnson wrote last year in "Everything Bad Is Good for You," a best-selling book about how some of society's most-criticized forms of entertainment — games included — actually make their fans more agile thinkers. He had a lot of praise for video games, but en route to all that, he had to level with many of his nongaming readers about just what it's like to really play a game.

Many gamers would agree with him. Even the most fun games have parts that are tedious or torturous. "Halo" tested patience with its notorious library level. "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" broke many gamers' resolve when they were asked to fly a clumsy model plane in the game's version of San Francisco.

It's not just the games you're destined to like that have their rough spots, of course. Bad games — or even games that just aren't your thing — have their tedious moments as well. As a result, it's hard to tell when a game's turbulence is worth riding through and when it's simply time to bail out.

Take "Oblivion," a favorite of critics and gamers alike. It's been praised just about everywhere, including MTV's own Game Makers Roundtable, which featured top developer Harvey Smith confessing a 100-hour obsession with the game. (Click here to watch the Game Makers Roundtable, only on Overdrive.)

If the game shines for him at 100 hours, then what to do at, say, 11 hours, 14 minutes and five seconds when your elf warrior has reached level four, completed seven quests, killed 28 people, picked 16 locks, told 13 jokes, been turned into a vampire zero times and just isn't having a lot of fun? Is the game just getting warmed up? Or is it just never going to click?

High praise was heaped upon SquareEnix's "Dragon Quest VIII" last year. But what to do when the game looks great but isn't proving to be fun at 15 hours and 46 minutes? Play some more? Enough, eventually, can be enough.

"The saying goes, 'Quitters never win and winners never quit,' " said Chris Scott, a hard-core gamer who lives in Brooklyn. "But in the gaming world, quitters can keep their sanity and save developing carpal tunnel syndrome for a game that is worth it."

Scott said he's only failed to complete two games that he started: the massively multiplayer "City of Heroes" and the Sega Dreamcast adventure "Shenmue."

"I try not to bail on something I've started," he said. "It is sometimes hard to stay focused on some games because of just awkward programming and time constraints."

Problems with the slow pace of the later levels ruined "City of Heroes" for him. "It was a smooth run up till level 30, and then, kablamo!"

He said "Shenmue" just required too much busy work. There were too many errands to run and too many virtual people to talk to. "When I realized that about those games, I was downed because I wanted to finish. But if I forced myself to play, I probably would have started to hate the game."

Barbara St. Hilaire, better known as the notorious Old Grandma Hardcore, had a very different reason to quit a game. Quite simply, it disturbed her.

"One game I specifically remember quitting that I really wanted to continue, I suppose, was 'The Suffering: Ties That Bind' for the Xbox," she said. "It was a really fantastic little game ... but for me, well, it was too disturbing. I lost a daughter to drug abuse back in the day, and here were images of madness, loss of self-control, hallucinations. It just hit home — too hard, in fact."

St. Hilaire's troubles could befall anyone reading an upsetting book or watching a challenging movie. But Scott's problems speak to the challenge of games that Johnson wrote about in his book: There's so much nonfun that is required to reach the real fun.

What's a gamer who's tempted to jump ship to do? Smith says to keep on playing "Oblivion." It's the Dark Brotherhood quests that are really worth it. The "Dragon Quest" fans say the game isn't supposed to have an exciting plot; it's just supposed to be pretty to look at.

Or maybe it's time to move on to the next game. Word is, "Suikoden V" is pretty good. But there's also a word of warning about the 60-plus-hour game in a review on the IGN games site: "Hitting up your first deep dungeon doesn't really happen until the hours are well into the teens on your progress clock, and that truly makes it difficult to stick around for the good parts. Hang in there long enough, though, and eventually, it ALL becomes 'the good parts.' "

Hang in there. Or jump. Who said being a gamer was easy?

More from the world of gaming:

With summer-concert season back in full swing, composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall are taking another try at drawing crowds to listen to music from their favorite games. The Video Games Live Tour (VideoGamesLive.com) features music from "Mario" to "Myst," from "Final Fantasy" to "Ghost Recon." The tour is scheduled to reach Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Toronto before summer's end. A similar tour had been planned for last year but yielded only a single date in L.A. Last year's show began with a live orchestra playing the sounds of "Pong" (see "Elijah Wood Says Video Game Concert Isn't 'A Nerd Event' "). ...

Have you ever wanted to know what game was the first to use trust and fear to affect nonplayer characters or just quibble with whether the PC game "The Thing" was really the pioneer in that category? Or whether "Space Invaders" was really the first game to have infinite levels? A source for answers and an attempt at establishing a genuine history of the gaming medium's most important breakthroughs can be found at the Game Innovation Database (GameInnovation.org), a project run by the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University since mid-February. The site is open to any contributors and even has a spot for those who don't have the answers quite yet. Among the inquiries pending a response on the "challenge" page: "What was the first game to feature a giant robot?" ...

There was a time when a public figure would sit in a dunk tank for charity. But with the four-game Red Sox/ Yankees series that began Monday, Sox pitcher and massively multiplayer online gaming fanatic Curt Schilling will lend his name and likeness to a new villain in the MMO "EverQuest" and let himself be killed for charity. Slaying the virtual Schilling during the three-day Sox-Yanks series will earn a $5 donation to the ALS Fund. After the series, Schilling will remain in the game, but the charitable tie-in will cease.

Recent video game stories from MTV News: