Hitman: Absolution Dev Says Most Players Won't Finish the Game

Sarah LeBoeuf

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Hitman: Absolution Dev Says Most Players Won't Finish the Game



According to internal metrics, only one in five players will make it to Absolution's credits.

Developer IO Interactive is using a lot of metrics while working on Hitman: Absolution, and the results aren't always pretty. According to game director Tore Blystad, the unwillingness of gamers to commit to one title for a long period of time means "the general player will probably never even finish the game." Though he feels that Absolution offers plenty of compelling content, IO's data shows that only 20% of players will make it to the last level, which "makes the people working on it really, really sad."

Blystad went on to explain the development challenge of getting gamers to keep playing, such as giving them things to find and reasons to explore each level. In user tests, players have responded well to the IO's efforts to increase the "replayability factor," though it's unclear how these tests will affect its estimate that only a fifth of players will see the end of Absolution. Pushing some of the more interesting content to an earlier point in the game, where more gamers were likely to experience it, was also considered, but Blystad stated that Absolution's story structure would make that too difficult.

"I think in some of the previous Hitman games that that might have been the case - that some levels were moved earlier, because they were more catchy or interesting," he said. "For us it hasn't really been that easy, because the story is really tying all the levels together, so they're still coming in the same order, more or less, that they were designed."

It's easy to imagine why developers would be upset about their hard work never being played, though Blystad's description of the "really, really sad" development team is kind of depressing. IO's estimate that only a fifth of people who play Hitman: Absolution will complete it is a little disheartening, and it will be interesting to see whether that holds true when the game comes out later this year.

Source: CVG [http://www.officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk/2012/06/26/hitman-absolution-director-20-of-the-players-will-see-the-last-level/]

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felbot

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May 11, 2011
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i can already hear the rage coming from a mile, people are going to hate this game aren't they?
 

robert01

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Jul 22, 2011
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Any game that I have found engaging and over all not shitty I have completed. If you feel that your game will only have a 20% completion rate then you are pretty much telling me that your game is not worth playing.
 

5-0

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What? If I buy a game, I complete it. Unless it's shit. Are they telling me it's shit?
 

Combustion Kevin

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Nov 17, 2011
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not finishing a game?!
well, I never.....

unheard of, outrageous, BLASPHEMOUS, I say, to leave a game unfinished is to leave your lover unsatisfied, this is an outrage!

DVS BSTrD said:
If you put all the interesting parts at the beginning you're only giving people more incentive NOT to finish it. 20% is better than nun!
HAH!
 

TheDoctor455

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Apr 1, 2009
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And have they really asked themselves WHY they're getting the estimates that they're getting?
Is it because the game so far is too difficult? Or is it simply not interesting enough for players to keep going?

Either case seems like it would have fairly clear indicators of which it is, and while the solutions for either could be... dicey, I can't see why a dev team would be willing to simply resign themselves to that, rather than actually trying to fix it. As unlikely as it is, if no one on the team can think of a decent solution, then they should probably hire some new talent or transfer new people onto the team from other projects... anything to get a new perspective to tackle the problem. And if worst comes to worst, rewrite the story to be a little more flexible.

I know they'll probably never read this, but, eh.. what the hell?
 

Rednog

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Sigh, I'm pounding my head on my desk for preordering Hitman just this morning.
Unless this is a common statistic among games and completion rates I really think that this does not bode well for this game.
 

WaysideMaze

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Apr 25, 2010
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robert01 said:
Any game that I have found engaging and over all not shitty I have completed. If you feel that your game will only have a 20% completion rate then you are pretty much telling me that your game is not worth playing.
It's not the same for everyone though. I have so many games that I haven't finished for 1 reason or another, some good, some bad, some great.

And don't forget, a large portion of the gaming website won't be as dedicated to the hobby as someone who frequents a video game website. To many people, they'll just pick it up, play it for a weekend, then throw it in the pile with the rest.
 

Grygor

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Protip everyone:

Achievement tracking and other gaming metrics show that the overwhelming majority of people who play a game fail to complete it, or even progress very far. Any game.
 

Zydrate

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Uhm. Can someone tell me how they have statistics for a game they haven't released yet?

Consider thus; I have never completed Assassin's Creed 1. Still haven't slowly working on it. Just because I haven't done so doesn't mean I never will.
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Thats an interesting marketing tactic.

For instance, why would most of us not finish the game?
 

mrdude2010

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Oh how pathetic kids are these days with their inability to pay attention to a game for long periods of time or complete difficult parts.
 

Kungfu_Teddybear

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Why's he sticking his rifle out of the window? 47 should know better than that.
 

viranimus

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Nov 20, 2009
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Maybe.. Or its possible that the industry needs to re-evaluate what it is the consumer wants out of a gaming experience. prolonged drawn out tedious gameplay isnt it. Entertainment content IS. SO perhaps there needs to be a developmental shift that focuses on developing content instead of focusing endlessly on redeveloping the same gameplay mechanics that basically worked just fine.
 

Bat Vader

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I intend on playing the game from start to finish. I want to see the different ways I can assassinate a target in each level.
 

Corven

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Sep 10, 2008
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If they get 60 dollars in their pocket it shouldn't matter if I play only one level, or all of them. As long as they got their money they shouldn't care.
 

UNHchabo

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According to Valve's stats, only about 90% of players ever made it to the second map in HL2:Ep1 or HL2:Ep2.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep1/
http://www.steampowered.com/status/ep2/ep2_stats.php

And both games had about 50% make it to the last map.

Valve said:
Our data indicates that while 52.03% of the players have reached the final map (as noted in the Highest Map Played graph below), only roughly half of those players have completed the game. This leads us to believe that either players are quitting before they see the credits, or there is a bug in how we collect this data.