The Want for Length - Why?

[Iori Branford]

Score another for indies and used game shops.

However, I paid 45? for Dodonpachi Daioujou, which lasts 25 minutes to complete, 50 if you loop that shit. So far I have clocked over 100 hours. Because only wussies use continues.

30 lbs. (keyboard doesn't have the sign) for 'Fukkatsu right here. Me will love it long time.

 

[Strazdas]

we'd have to listen to an album 10 times, or watch a movie 10 times before we'd get the same value for money. Sandbox gaming or multiplayer-centric is really the only way to get value for money with games.

There are albums i listened to for over 30 times. there are movies i saw 10 times (and i know a person who same one movie 56 times, he counts). and i dont agree that its only miltiplayer games. take a linear racing game - GRID. i had fun for 187 hours in it. it certainly was my moneys worth. take another linear game - Crysis. 5 hour and i dont want to repeat it. certainly not made my moneys worth. Altrogh shortest game i played was Red Faction II, which took me 4 hours, mainly because i had a 1 hour long final boss fight. its pretty bad game dont bother.

Yes, I know what you mean - but typically I don't listen to every album 10 times in reasonable amount of time. With GRID, I would see that as a sandbox game - it's not like you've played through it once and it took you 187 hours, it's more like a sports game. Any game really that doesn't stop can be considered sandbox, I'd say most racing games are sandbox. Maybe not to the extent of TestDriveUnlimited, that is the most sandbox racing game I've ever played - but your working towards goals that are beyond the scope of the original plot so most racing games are at least partially sandbox games - racing games tend not to be linear (as daft as that sounds), you usually have a lot of freedom to decide what cars to buy and which races to do or redo. Thing is, I much prefer the strongly sandbox racing games like TestDrive - in fact that's the only sort of racing game I tend to buy... if I work hard for a car, I want to show it off .

I guess it does depend on how you play games, my focus was on the games that only last 6 hours or so, the ones I tend to be dissapointed with.

well it was actually all on single character. went over 200 seasons actually i could be playing same race till i get to the top of fame chart (usually 11-15 identical races in a row). i like playing games like that, completistic. but the point i was making that grid was a good game that was more or less linear. yep those 6 hour long gmaes do dissapoint. and i noticed a lot of people seems to mention portal as a example of "short game worth the money", but i would disagree. i didnt bought it but i got to play it at friends house and i didnt like it at all.

 

[targren]

I'm sure this has been asked somewhere before, but I couldn't find it within the last couple years, and I'd like to hear forum-goer responses - why is the sheer breadth of a game's content so vital to it's consideration for purchase or even success?

I suppose there are some simple responses to be had, but I really don't see quite where the focus on it comes from, aside from one or two only-partially formed ideas.
Ultimately: a game may have you sitting at the computer for weeks, but is that really a worthy selling point itself?

It's the lack of a middle ground, particularly in marketing. There are games out there (we've all been bitten at least once) where we pay full price ($60 or more) for a game only to find out it's all but content-free: a 4-6 hour meh-fest.

So naturally, when marketers hear that gamers may have a problem with an ROI that is surpassed even by the perennial ripoff that is cinema tickets, decisions jerk aaaaaaall the way to the other extreme, and you get games like Skyrim. Which isn't to say it's a bad game[footnote]Though I do have my issues with it, but that's OT here[/footnote], but they loaded so much stuff into it that I'll never see it all, and have no interest even in seeing most of it since it would mean neglecting something else in my life for waaay too long, just to read flavor-text (I like lore as much as the next sane guy, but honestly, I've never understood the TES books thing...)

 

[geK0]

If I can only put 6 hours into a game it's probably because it's a shit game....
probably one of those titles where you don't do much other than walk between cut scene locations. Beating something in such a short period of time probably means it's easy as hell, doesn't give much room for decision-making and has shallow linear gameplay with little or no room for strategy.
A good quality game should take more than six hours. cut scenes don't make a quality game btw.

Edit: talking about 6 hours for the first play through, some good games can be beating fairly quickly if you rush them and know the game like the back of your hand.

 

[veloper]

Well it's obviously bettter to have a short but fun game, if the alternative is a long and boring game.

The usual compromise we gamers get is some good bits in between big time wasters.
Remove the padding and give me the remaining quality 5 hour game instead then. I almost never buy games at full price and I can always buy another game, if I can find the time to play it.

 

[Zeema]

if i can play a game and keep coming back and having a nice long adventure thats all i want.

 

[everythingbeeps]

Meh. As far as I'm concerned, most of those who are bitching about a game being too short are kids with empty lives, too much time to kill, and a small allowance.

Me, I don't have an endless amount of time to pour into one game. I appreciate good short games. While six hours is, admittedly, too damn short, I'm usually satisfied with around 10-12 for a good action game, or around 30-40 for an RPG type game. There are obvious exceptions, games I enjoy so much that I'm happy to keep playing them (Skyrim will be one of these), but most games would just overstay their welcome at a certain point.

Mostly it just comes down to, I'd rather play an excellent game that's on the short side than a mediocre game that just eats hours. Expecting every game to be both excellent and time consuming is pretty silly.

 

[Tharwen]

If it's the same game for 20 hours, I often get bored, so no. I'd rather have lots of short indie games with a few high-profile longer ones than have every box boast weeks of endless play.

 

[AD-Stu]

Short version: games are expensive and I want value for money.

That's not to say I need every game to have an 80-hour single player campaign or anything, and I definitely prefer quality over quanity. But if you pay for a game that's over in five hours and has no replay value (particularly as a PC gamer that can't trade in dud titles) you definitely feel cheated.