Topic: ArsTechnica -> Article on the length of games in the modern industry of gaming

[MysterD]

ArsTechnica -> Article on the length of games in the modern industry of gaming.

[Cobra951]

Same tired arguments.  The article leads off with a story about how the introduction of game saving meant you didn't have to finish games in one sitting any more, then later on someone's arguing that people don't have time to play long games.  Well, isn't that exactly the purpose of the game saves covered earlier?  If you only have an hour a day to play, you save your progress when you have to quit, then come back to your game tomorrow.  You can take 20 sessions to finish a 20-hour game that way, giving you lots of calendar time for your buck.  Then there's the argument about making right-size games rather than long games.  I'm all for keeping tacked on content out, and not making the difficulty so high that you have to repeat segments forever.  But no matter how you approach game development, I'm not going to pay $60 for 5 hours of play.  If you want $60, give me quality and quantity.  Otherwise, I'll see you in the bargain bins, eventually.

[idolminds]

Then there's the argument about making right-size games rather than long games.  I'm all for keeping tacked on content out, and not making the difficulty so high that you have to repeat segments forever.  But no matter how you approach game development, I'm not going to pay $60 for 5 hours of play.  If you want $60, give me quality and quantity.  Otherwise, I'll see you in the bargain bins, eventually.

This really is something the industry needs to fix. Maybe not making games longer just to be longer, but they need to foster a mid-price game market. All we have are $60 "blockbusters" or cheap shovelware with very little in between. But if they start releasing quality games for $30 day one, even if they were short I would still consider them. Portal exploded onto the market despite being really short, but it was $20 brand new by itself.

The other thing I didn't see them touch on (I quickly skimmed the article since I probably know 90% of what they were going to say) was that games are more and more trying to mimic movies. Linear with a singular, unchanging story. Thats fine and I enjoy those games but they end up being shorter because its much much harder to make a decent story told over the course of 60 hours keeping you interested the entire time. There seems to be a lack of "gameplay games", games that are simply fun to play in their own right, story or no. Games where the gameplay is fun so you will replay it over and over just because you can. Minecraft is a good example of this. It probably didn't cost much to make, it only cost me $10 to buy, and I can play that thing for hours at a time and will keep coming back to it.

Maybe a better comparison there for me is Doom vs Half-Life. I will play and replay Doom until I die. Its just freaking fun to play even on the same maps over and over. Half-Life on the other hand I've played through twice I think. Its scripted and linear and I get a serious feeling of "been there done that" when I play it now. Its hard to pinpoint why this is, exactly. They are both FPS games with set levels but one is infinitely replayable while the other is not.

[Xessive]

The Sequelitis episode was pretty funny. Good points about classic Castlevania.

[MysterD]

Then there's the argument about making right-size games rather than long games.  I'm all for keeping tacked on content out, and not making the difficulty so high that you have to repeat segments forever.

Higher difficulties should be there for players w/ skill in the game's series, game's genre, and for [of course] replay value purposes.

But no matter how you approach game development, I'm not going to pay $60 for 5 hours of play.  If you want $60, give me quality and quantity.  Otherwise, I'll see you in the bargain bins, eventually.

Exactly.

I have no problem w/ games being around 5 hours where it's all killer and no filler - but charge me LESS i.e. expansion pack pricing ($20-40).
Example - Medal of Honor 2010 was just fine at its length, but it's definitely not worth $40-60. It surely was EASILY worth the $8 that I spend on it recently from Direct2Drive.

Most games that I buy that are at $40 or more, these are the games that are quite LONG-winded. Usually, RPG's are the kind of games that normally qualify for this - i.e. Bethesda games and Bioware games come to mind.

[Cobra951]

The other thing I didn't see them touch on (I quickly skimmed the article since I probably know 90% of what they were going to say) was that games are more and more trying to mimic movies. Linear with a singular, unchanging story. Thats fine and I enjoy those games but they end up being shorter because its much much harder to make a decent story told over the course of 60 hours keeping you interested the entire time. There seems to be a lack of "gameplay games", games that are simply fun to play in their own right, story or no. Games where the gameplay is fun so you will replay it over and over just because you can. Minecraft is a good example of this. It probably didn't cost much to make, it only cost me $10 to buy, and I can play that thing for hours at a time and will keep coming back to it.

I've mentioned before that gameplay and freedom are much more important to me in games than story.  Doom 1 & 2 are outstanding.  Most recently, Borderlands filled this need nicely for me, though not to the extent Doom 2 did in its day.

[MysterD]

I've mentioned before that gameplay and freedom are much more important to me in games than story.  Doom 1 & 2 are outstanding.  Most recently, Borderlands filled this need nicely for me, though not to the extent Doom 2 did in its day.

Since we're on the subject of making games more "game-y", I'd also like to make a note of Bioshock's method of supplying you w/ optional audio logs and not using cut-scenes - well, there's one cut-scene in the entire game if you want to get technical, but you catch my drift. That's right - they are optional. You want to listen to them, go right ahead. Nobody's shoving it down your throat, if you just want to go out and just kill stuff and keep pressing forward.

Another thing - I think the option to skip cut-scenes is important in just about any game. Seriously, there's just times - especially on replays of a game - where I just want to avoid the story and just go kill stuff.

RPG's are probably the few cases where I don't mind being bombarded w/ story and cut-scenes, since they are interactive and the chances are usually quite good that you're gonna wind-up making a decision in the dialogue that can change something in the quest, game-world and main game's entire outcome.

[Cobra951]

It's not that I'm opposed to story.  I'm opposed to the story eclipsing the gameplay.  Some Final Fantasy games come to mind, though not all.  You are dragged by the nose from plot point to plot point, forced into the roles of different characters, and led down a rigid, linear path to an unalterable conclusion.  I'd much rather be in an open world where my freely chosen actions and decisions have an impact on the experience.  I want to spend the vast majority of my time doing, rather than being told what to do, or worse, watching a movie piecemeal.

[Xessive]

Oh God, FFXIII.. I still haven't finished just because it's so, soooo monotonous. I don't mind observing the story but the gameplay feels like something they just put in there just to technically make it "interactive" so they can call it a game.