I don't think 20 hours for a game is all that short, but if it's a single-player only game with no way to add replayability such as a level editor or mod support then there is no way in hell I'm going to play $60 for it.
"Games are getting easier" is another can of worms as well, much like "games are too linear". It's also a much slipperier slope to try discussing, because when you're talking to somebody who has been playing video games for 20+ years, is it really that video games are getting easier, or is the issue just that the person is better at playing them? If you've been playing first-person shooters since Doom first hit the market, obviously you're going to know what you're getting into if you pick up Halo, Resistance, Call of Duty, or Crysis. But to someone who has just barely gotten into playing video games, learning the mechanics those games hold could be immensely more difficult, and thus the overall difficulty of the game is much higher.CCountZero said:Personally, I think that games these days are plagued by being too easy. I'm not the type of RPG-lover who despises first-person shooters, but I do wish that they'd be a lot harder. I can't even remember when the last time I got stuck on a first-person shooter level was, but it may well have been prior to the 21st century.
(And yes, while I'll admit that I never start out on the very hardest difficulty, my second play-through always goes straight there. I wanna know how the game "handles" first.)
Okay, but consider this:mirage202 said:My personal dislike of "short" games is the price.
If I get Game A that has a 40+ hour campaign for £30/$60 that is fine with me, but if I then pay the exact same price for Game B that is only 8/10/12/15/20 hours worth of campaign, that is a bad thing.
I agree, especially because using the logic that a game's length is determined by the fastest run possible, a huge game can be considered criminally short! My favorite example is Morrowind, in which i saw a video of someone completing it within 5 minutes (not including the intro, no cheats, just alot of luck) Or another that completed it in less than 7 minutes, which required more luck, and possibly no glitches but i would need a confirm.zehydra said:Speedruns are not really what you want to base gamelength on, as you already know how to do everything perfectly in a speed run typically.
You should calculate average time to beat on first play-through, since that in the end will be the experience of the game that mattered the most.
I don't really disagree with anything you're saying here. I know plenty of people who are in the situation that you describe.shrekfan246 said:"Games are getting easier" is another can of worms as well, much like "games are too linear". It's also a much slipperier slope to try discussing, because when you're talking to somebody who has been playing video games for 20+ years, is it really that video games are getting easier, or is the issue just that the person is better at playing them? If you've been playing first-person shooters since Doom first hit the market, obviously you're going to know what you're getting into if you pick up Halo, Resistance, Call of Duty, or Crysis. But to someone who has just barely gotten into playing video games, learning the mechanics those games hold could be immensely more difficult, and thus the overall difficulty of the game is much higher.CCountZero said:Personally, I think that games these days are plagued by being too easy. I'm not the type of RPG-lover who despises first-person shooters, but I do wish that they'd be a lot harder. I can't even remember when the last time I got stuck on a first-person shooter level was, but it may well have been prior to the 21st century.
(And yes, while I'll admit that I never start out on the very hardest difficulty, my second play-through always goes straight there. I wanna know how the game "handles" first.)
For instance, I've never really played RTS games, and because of that I'm absolutely terrible at them and even something like Starcraft 2 is incredibly difficult for me, whereas if you found somebody who has been playing RTS' since the early 90's, they would probably tell you that Starcraft 2 is the most simplified, "dumbed down", and easy RTS currently on the market.
All right, I understand what you mean. I think maybe "simpler" might've been a better fit than "easy"? Not "simpler" as in stupider, of course, but in the fact that a lot of games do play out very similarly to their contemporaries. If you've played one "modern" first-person shooter, you'll probably know the gist of how to play through most "modern" shooters, and like-wise for a fair number of RPGs or MMOs or action or hack&slash games.CCountZero said:Brevity Snip
oh bugger off...seriously, its a chicken or the egg thingWhiteTigerShiro said:The problem isn't the length of the games, it's with how easy they are these days. And honestly, it's the consumer's fault more than the developer's.