Random_Coffee: I've always enjoyed minigames and side activities. I remember spending a lot of time with this in the Fable-games, playing the dice minigames or the job activities. It never ceases to distract me. I can walk into a pub in Red Dead Redemption, sit down at the poker table, and the hours pass. Weirdly, I never got into Gwent.. even though I played Witcher 3 quite intensively at launch.
For the past months I've played the Yakuza games heavily, and needless to say.. the story progression goes slow. I spend the nights dealing in stock markets, playing darts, dressing up hostesses, collecting cans, mahjong, blackjack.. These games are full of such distractions. I love it.
Minigames can be fun, but if you're designing a game, *please* don't make them required. Even being required for unique treasure can be bad, particularly if the game expects you to have it for any part of its core gameplay (like Final Fantasy 10's optional superbosses, which also happen to be poorly designed for entirely different reasons).
