Artificial Replay Value in Games

[mohit9206]

i was wondering and thinking about this thing for some time and then i came upon this article and decided to make this topic and know your opinions.
http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2012/10/11/games-with-manufactured-replay-value-are-starting-to-wear-out-their-welcome/

a lot of games today infact a majority of games today boast that they have tremendous or lots of replay value. and ofcourse who doesnt love replay value in games ? we all do.
completing the single player once and then playing through it again to make different choices that would affect the outcome of the story and in turn the ending is always cool and fun
to be able to experience different stuff the game has to offer on multiple playthroughs that could not have been explored on the first playthrough. it gives us a lot of bang for the buck.
however a lot of games today have fake/artificial replay value where on the second playthrough the only thing you can do is upgrade your skills/stats/rank/level etc and obtain all achievements.
the rest of the game stays exactly the game.no branching storylines,no different endings.
a lot of people enjoy this stuff but it really puts me off. how can you advertise a game has replay value when there's not except for getting all achievements.
the only thing you are making the player do is grinding for skills/achievements which is tedious and i dont consider it as replay value.
so what do you think about this ?

 

[Uriain]

The writer of that article brings up a couple good points. Games like LoL, Halo, and Super Smash Bro's do have tremendous replay value, that is because they have a strong multiplayer component. You could say the same thing about Halo's single player, you go through the different difficulties but its the same levels, same enemies, and same scene's (for the most part).

The issue I think comes down to this: why is "replay value" used so much to describe the single player component

In my opinion, that is because developers/publishers want their games to be in the forefront of people's minds as much as possible, so when new content for those games comes out, people are MORE interested in buying them. A perfect example, day 1 DLC, which many people dislike because they think they are paying for the "rest of their game" (and in some cases its true) sells so much better then almost any other DLC. Why?? because people are picking up the game, so they want to get everything.

At the end of the day though, I think it comes down to how much you enjoy the game and that level of enjoyment will dictate your "replay value". I play the Mass Effect series and Dragon Age series multiple times because of all the choices and character options I can select, but I also play through Borderlands, simply because I really enjoy the game and its mechanics.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Isn't this a problem as old as games themselves? Back before we had branching storylines, multiplayer and different characters to play through with we were pretty much stuck with playing the same game over and over, until we eventually knew most of the game and its' challenges by heart.

That game developers now tend to make games were you can replay it and further upgrade your character, find more weapons or whatever it might only shows that they realized that many players like to keep playing a game after they finished it and want to keep the same character they just put 20+ hours into. Personally I find it to be a pretty good system. I, as someone who mostly plays for the story, can play the game, enjoy the story and put it away when I am done but my friend who loves to munchkin it up can keep playing for at least double the amount of time to reach max level/get the best weapons/that silly 100% achievement achievement.

This ain't a zero sum game an I ain't losing out on anything just because my friend can get loads more replay value out of the game. I just have to accept that I am not the target audience for the New Game+ option.

 

[TehCookie]

First of all not everyone enjoys replay value, most just like to see the story. Second how is leveling up artificial? Disgaea is made to be replayed to make the perfect team, which is a ton of leveling. You don't have to do it if you don't want to but it's not artificial.

Replay value to me is how much I enjoyed the game. If I loved the game I'll want to play it again and check out what I missed the first time. Even if there's no extras I never see everything in a single playthrough. Added incentives like what you said are great, but if I didn't love the game I wouldn't bother with them.