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Message
re: How long should a game be?
Posted on 2/17/15 at 11:21 pm to Carson123987
Posted on 2/17/15 at 11:21 pm to Carson123987
quote:
doing the same hiding/puzzle solving stuff for over 12 hours can wear on you
Yep, and that's applicable to every game. We have to be careful with our expectations, because our desire for lengthy games is usually served up in the form of filler. Publishers then tout "100 hours to complete" and what it really amounts to is 10-15 hours of actual story, and dozens of collective hours of repetitive side missions, minigames, collectibles, puzzles, etc. that you'll never even touch, let alone enjoy.
Again, hate to bring up the whole "I have kids" topic again alongside Gardoki, but it's a major factor in what I consider worth playing when my gaming sessions may last only an hour, or 20 minutes. Nowadays, it's difficult for me to justify lengthy games in any regard unless I can accomplish something meaningful in a short time -- I can't do highly involved RPGs because it's frustrating when I spend an entire precious gaming session collecting herbs or grinding to level a weapon, or filling in one more notch in a skill tree. Similarly, I never reach higher than 50% completion on Arkham games or the Ubisoft-formula titles that are big on collecting clones of meaningless items amongst clones of buildings on clones of terrain filled with clones of NPCs.
Unfortunately, that means the majority of my gaming money goes toward multiplayer shooters and action games with mostly linear (but compelling) campaigns. It also means my backlog is really just a list of games I have officially decided not to play.
This post was edited on 2/17/15 at 11:23 pm
1
Posted on 2/18/15 at 12:07 am to ILikeLSUToo
Yeah I've been chipping away at dragon age and it feels like I've made no progress. I'll probably take a break soon just to play other stuff. I wish a western rpg like that would come to vita.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 7:20 am to Mr Gardoki
quote:
I've been chipping away at dragon age and it feels like I've made no progress
That's me. There was a time when I could bang out multi-hour sessions of RPGs, but that time doesn't really exist much for me anymore. Sucks when you can only play 45 minutes, and half of that is spent relearning something.
I feel like I'm becoming a dirty casual, and I'm ashamed of that. Heck, the other day I was looking for a bowling game because sometimes I just want to have a beer and zone out. Tiger Woods has always been a good game for that.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 7:29 am to BottomlandBrew
Or with a game like dragon age half an hour is spent managing inventory and skills. I started auto leveling the rest of my party just to save time.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 7:47 am to HeavyCore
quote:Perhaps he's simply saying he's sad that he probably won't have the time to invest in a game like that?
Seeing this and this guys other video's makes me think he hates video games.
Proof:quote:
"Dragon Age: Inquisition is 40-80 hours long....and that...just made me...weep inside."
If I say I'd love to become fluent in a foreign language but it makes me sad when I realize how much time that will take, it doesn't mean I hate Spanish.
When I see these really lengthy games being talked about, I get a little sad too knowing I'm probably not going to have the time to play through them.
I could be wrong here but I feel like people's opinions on how long they want their games will largely be shaped by their age. When I was in my 20's and I heard a game was 40+ hours long, it made me happy. Now in my 30's with a family, that same news usually means I won't be playing that game or at the very least not playing it to completion.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 7:54 am to DoUrden
quote:That touches on what Dr RC said and I understand the logic of it, but do we do that with different forms of media?
$3 an hour is about the going rate for a movie so unless your game has great replay ability for a short campaign you better give me a longer play through.
"I was going to read Gone Girl but then I saw War & Peace was cheaper AND 3 times longer, so I decided to read that instead."
Do we really care if one film is longer than another? Do we maximize entertainment per an hour in the same manner as we seem to do with video games?
This post was edited on 2/18/15 at 7:55 am
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:01 am to oauron
The length is tied to cost for me, for full price I still want at least 15-20 hours, but for $15 I am not expecting that. There are some $15 games like The Long Dark that isn't even finished yet and I already have 15-20 hours in.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:05 am to Carson123987
quote:This really hits a nerve with me. Hunting or similar side quests to upgrade items has become a staple of many games in the last few years. Maybe I'm alone here, but I find hunting a honey badger or disarming yet another random bomb on a building (Infamous) fun once, MAYBE twice, but then I'm tired of it. Why do I have to get 10 beaver pelts to get the cool ammo case? Why not 2 or even 1? Is anyone really having fun doing this crap or do we simply do it because we want that upgrade and/or want to check something off a list?
what chaps my arse is when you get shite like far cry 3 where there's a ton of skill trees, collectibles, fetch quests and shite and the game only lasts 12 hours. that's when i feel like i wasted money. i dont want to start over and go find 30 relics to unlock a badass gun again.
Jamin, in the "Are Videogames Too Long" video suggests the idea of a slider to adjust the length of a game. I know it would be blasphemy to some, but I'd love something like that. Maybe if I slide it all the way down I only have to collect 1 unicorn tear instead of 20 of them to upgrade my magical crossbow.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:09 am to DieDaily
I only play games with 50+.
I don't want some campaign that is done in 7 hours then nothing but mindless multiplayer crap.
I don't want some campaign that is done in 7 hours then nothing but mindless multiplayer crap.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:10 am to UltimateHog
12 to 25 hours to finish the main game. Any time games start going over 30 hours I lose interest.
Dragon Age Inquisition is a good example of a game with obnoxious length. It's an 8-12 hour main story padded with 70 hours of fetch quests to slog through in between story missions
Dragon Age Inquisition is a good example of a game with obnoxious length. It's an 8-12 hour main story padded with 70 hours of fetch quests to slog through in between story missions
This post was edited on 2/18/15 at 8:19 am
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:17 am to oauron
quote:I think this is my frame of mind, though price still plays some part in it as we talked about briefly in TLOU thread.
Length of the game doesn't matter to me. I had far more fun with MadWorld (3 hours at most) than I ever did with Dragon Age. As long as the story is quality and I feel like I got value out of my purchase, I'm good. Aiming for some arbitrary length or benchmark can hurt the game if forced.
Journey can be beaten in one sitting, roughly 2 hours, but I had more fun with that game than all 10 hours combined of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which is roughly when I gave up on it and decided I don't like Assassin's Creed games.
Now would I pay 60 bucks for Journey? No, but I think I'd be fine buying it for $20 or $25. I'm pretty sure I paid $15. (I didn't pay full price for Black Flag, thankfully, but I know many did.)
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:25 am to DieDaily
I finally got to watch that video and he makes very good points. It is no doubt an age thing too. I don't think any of the people on this board with kids has a problem with this but there are people for sure that want games longer. It is depressing when I know I can't play Dragon Age the way I want to. I'll give them this though, Dragon Age doesn't feel padded to me. Ubisoft is the company that pads games and that is one reason I basically don't touch their shite anymore.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:35 am to DieDaily
quote:
How long should a game be?
As long as it needs to be to be efficient, concise, and worth the investment.
Sometimes that's 100+ hours seen recently in Xenoblade Chronicles and Skyrim. Sometimes that's 15 seen in Shadows of Mordor and Lego City Undercover.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:40 am to Freauxzen
quote:
As long as it needs to be to be efficient, concise, and worth the investment.
Well put. I think the better question might be if games should be priced accordingly? Of course people can't have it both ways. If a game is shirt you hear "This isn't worth $60" Then Dragon Age comes out with 50000 hours of content and if they charged more than $60 people would lose their shite.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:45 am to Mr Gardoki
quote:The other problem with this is when a new game is priced at $40 some people assume it might be an indication of the quality of the game. There's a difficult, unintuitive balancing act that publishers have to perform in regards to pricing.
I think the better question might be if games should be priced accordingly?
Posted on 2/18/15 at 8:50 am to DieDaily
I think the availability of games also affects this, I remember the days where I would check the store every couple of weeks or so just hoping something new would come out and I would pay any price and play and finish that game no matter what because there just weren't that many games out there. SSI, D&D, and Microprose owned my soul waiting for new games.
Posted on 2/18/15 at 9:17 am to DieDaily
quote:
This really hits a nerve with me. Hunting or similar side quests to upgrade items has become a staple of many games in the last few years. Maybe I'm alone here, but I find hunting a honey badger or disarming yet another random bomb on a building (Infamous) fun once, MAYBE twice, but then I'm tired of it. Why do I have to get 10 beaver pelts to get the cool ammo case? Why not 2 or even 1? Is anyone really having fun doing this crap or do we simply do it because we want that upgrade and/or want to check something off a list?
Amen
Posted on 2/18/15 at 9:27 am to DieDaily
i think generally the expectation for a $60 console game with no multiplayer is probably 12-15 hours. Slightly less if there is replayability as some have mentioned already. For me personally, if there isn't at least a co-op option with some fun replayability or potential for interesting DLC, there's no way a game with less than 10 hours of gameplay is getting a full $60 from me. I wouldn't bother investing that few hours to be disappointed and feel like I wasted $60.
I used to think that was a pretty standard opinion around here, but we have a lot of diverse opinions on this topic this week. strange. honestly, it seems like a lot of the PS fans are dropping their expectations around here just to defend Order 1866 (because it's a PS exclusive). Which is puzzling because they aren't developers or investors. Seems like it would be to their advantage to not allow a developer to soo easily pull this off without receiving some grief to prevent this from becoming the norm. just calling it how i see it. sorry.
I used to think that was a pretty standard opinion around here, but we have a lot of diverse opinions on this topic this week. strange. honestly, it seems like a lot of the PS fans are dropping their expectations around here just to defend Order 1866 (because it's a PS exclusive). Which is puzzling because they aren't developers or investors. Seems like it would be to their advantage to not allow a developer to soo easily pull this off without receiving some grief to prevent this from becoming the norm. just calling it how i see it. sorry.
This post was edited on 2/18/15 at 9:34 am
Posted on 2/18/15 at 9:29 am to DoUrden
quote:I think this is a big factor. We have more games covering more genres at cheaper prices than ever before.
I think the availability of games also affects this
Last night while watching TV with my wife I made a quick spreadsheet to look at the length of some of the games mentioned in the "What series deserves a comeback" thread. (I ignored games that weren't known for their single player campaigns, which is what I'm talking about here.) Here are the results.
KOTOR - 29.5 hrs
Scarface: The World is Yours - 15 hrs
Mech Warrior 2 - 13 hrs
Onimusha: Warlords - 5 hrs
Mega Man Legends - 6 hrs
Mega Man X - 3.5 hrs
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins - 8.5 hrs
Jak II - 18 hrs
Jak & Daxter - 11 hrs
GoldenEye 007 - 10 hrs
Half-Life - 12 hrs
Half-Life 2 - 13.5 hrs
MediEvil - 6 hrs
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - 11.5 hrs
Psychonauts - 13 hrs
Banjo-Kazooie - 9.5 hrs
Perfect Dark - 9.5 hrs
Wing Commander - 8 hrs
Average: 11.25 hrs
If I drop the 2 outliers, KOTOR and MMX, the average is 10.6 hrs.
Since these are apparently beloved games I find it interesting that they are all relatively short. The notable exceptions being the RPG KOTOR and the open world games Scarface and Jak II. They are, of course, all older games too.
This post was edited on 2/18/15 at 9:33 am
Posted on 2/18/15 at 9:47 am to DieDaily
quote:
This really hits a nerve with me. Hunting or similar side quests to upgrade items has become a staple of many games in the last few years. Maybe I'm alone here, but I find hunting a honey badger or disarming yet another random bomb on a building (Infamous) fun once, MAYBE twice, but then I'm tired of it. Why do I have to get 10 beaver pelts to get the cool ammo case? Why not 2 or even 1? Is anyone really having fun doing this crap or do we simply do it because we want that upgrade and/or want to check something off a list?
In AC Unity, I did all the cafe missions and bought all real estate pretty much only because doing so gave me tons of cash To spend on weapon and armor upgrades
This post was edited on 2/18/15 at 9:48 am
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