The Length of a Game

I'm basically posting this because I'm curious, and concerned about the length of upcoming games, particularly Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Developers have begun to be notoriously bad about fleshing out their creations via the length of the storyline/action/etc. To do so with this game would be particularly awful, considering the fact that the length of the original Deus Ex was part of what made it such a cult classic, and just a damn good game.

Some developers get the need; afterall Bioshock 1/2, DA:O, Cryostasis and a handful of other games were pretty lengthty, but unfortunately they've begun to be the exception that proves the rule, rather than the other way around. Before those, you have to go back quite a few years to things like TES IV: Oblivion and Half Life 2 to find a game with good length.

Does this concern anyone else?

I think it really depends on the player. Granted, I will say on average that games this generation have been shorter than in the past, but going back and playing games from last gen that I never got around to, I find that I'm beating them in the same 4-8 hour range that I do with games today.

I think for a single player game quality is mre important than quantity.

While quality is important I still won't pay full price on a game I perceive will be to short. Perceive by means of reviews both official or player. I realize I take longer on games then most because I'm almost never in a hurry but there is still to short. These games I'll usually pick up after a price drop.

That said games made overlong with boring filler stuff aren't my cup of tea either. It's a balance thing that is best left to the player I guess. But I do seem to remember games being longer and very much fun throughout that didn't take 10gig of HDD space for all the flashy graphics and 6 hrs of gameplay.

Homefront benefitted from high production values but equated to a 2-3 hour game. While quality does matter, I want a dinner and not an appetizer. A buffet (Sandbox) also works! Sorry, hungry.

I prefer long single player games, although in these terms I'm talking about the initial play through. Obviously if you've played a game before, you're going to get to the end a lot quicker, and I've replayed some older games and been surprised how quickly I completed them.

But for a first play through, I usually want to spend about 15-20 hours on the campaign (including as much exploration as the game world allows). Unfortunately, as indicated by the TC, the trend is for campaign lengths to become ever shorter, and I wish that were not the case.

Sometimes long games can be too long. Even a good game can be too long sometimes. Just because a game is 35 hours, or whatever, doesn't mean it's an entirely enjoyable 35 hours. Each game is different, however. Some games can disappoint with short length. You have to speak with your wallett. If a game is widely considewred too short don't buy it until the price drops. If the developers don't want to release a full game, don't pay full price.

Every Single-player game should have a lengthly campaign (like half-life 2/elderscrolls) like you said. But what most games lack is that they are either too short or they ARE long but don't have very much re-playability due to lack of a good story or RPG elements. RPG elements like in the upcoming game Dues Ex: Revolution. I'd hope that is long, length makes a game BETER, but like I said, only if it's good to the core.

I think you are somewhat right in that the length of games has been decreasing. I really dont think its because game devs have been going cheap on us. I think they are choosing to go after the flash and the high production values in many cases. However, a lot of older games were long, but extremely generic in my opinion.

For example, I have been forcing my way through Doom 3 the past 2 months and am almost at the end of this 20 hour haul. Its been pretty entertaining overall, but exhausting. I cant help but feel that if they had cut back 1/3 or 1/2 of the content and just improved what content they kept then it would have been a more quality product.

I'm fine with rpgs being somewhat short if they change a lot depending on your choices. Alpha Protocol was short, but your choices mattered a lot so I didn't mind at all.

I prefer long 60 - 70 hour games, at least, that last me a month or more. I don't like to pay for nothing.

I honestly like games that have no ending. Sure, the story might conclude, but then you're still in the world and you can play as much as you want. I feel that there are so many examples of this done well these days, many of those examples coming from smallish indie devs, that it's hard for me to go back to an 8 hour linear game and feel satisfied.

I honestly like games that have no ending. Sure, the story might conclude, but then you're still in the world and you can play as much as you want. I feel that there are so many examples of this done well these days, many of those examples coming from smallish indie devs, that it's hard for me to go back to an 8 hour linear game and feel satisfied.

xLittlekillx

Same here. Mount & Blade, Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout: New Vegas. These games have endings but it never really seemed to matter. You played to play, not to get to the end. I know that Deus Ex won't be that way from looking at the first two games, but what it lacks in sandbox will be made up in good story telling and solid mechanics. This much I believe.

However, to me, length is a HUGE part of what makes that $50 price tag bearable. I thought home front looked cool at first too, and maybe the campaign is amazing, but to me, $50-60 for a 3 hour campaign is a rip off. Just like Brink's extremely brief campaign wasn't worth the money.

Remember when first person shooters were made with the campaign in mind, then multiplayer either worked with the game or it didn't?

Even the original Unreal Tournament had hours and hours of fun campaign time with bots, then you could LAN party the **** out of it.

I'm, quite frankly, a little offended at the trend of short "appetizer" SP campaigns that clearly steer the herd towards the multiplayer, which is all the devs intended in the first place.

If I want a MP only FPS, I'll go play CS:S. Please give me some campaign time when that's what I pay for.

I think for a single player game quality is mre important than quantity.

Daytona_178

I think for a single player game quality is mre important than quantity.

Daytona_178

For my rule, I think the standard length of a single player game should be 10-12 hours.

It depends on the game . There are some games, that are to long and some to short

[QUOTE="Daytona_178"]

I think for a single player game quality is mre important than quantity.

Elann2008

I feel like that was a swipe at DA2:P

[QUOTE="Elann2008"]

[QUOTE="Daytona_178"]

I think for a single player game quality is mre important than quantity.

JangoWuzHere

I feel like that was a swipe at DA2:P

I have a limited gaming budget, so I tend to look for a game that nets me the biggest bang for my buck. Length of the game impacts my decision considerably. My rule of thumb is, $1 must equal at least 1 hour of gameplay or for an RPG: $1 = 2 hours of gameplay. Of course, the more hours I get out of it the better. Needless to say, I rarely buy games at launch. I wait for the price to drop or Steam gives me an offer I can't refuse. :Dssvegeta555

[QUOTE="JangoWuzHere"]

[QUOTE="Elann2008"] This. Although the game can't be notoriously short. An RPG I would expect nothing less than 40-45 hours. I think people asking for 80-100 hours are pushing the envelope a little too much. That's a very costly game and developers don't know what kind of return they'll get. To take such a risk means a studio could get shutdown, or barely make enough profit to turn a sequel. A game that is of incredible length, will surely take more development time than your average game. It has to be in the best interests of both parties (developer and consumer). But quality first, and foremost, then length. And I hate nothing more when a game drags on...and on. and recycled environments.

Elann2008

I feel like that was a swipe at DA2:P

Yeah I thought DA2 was a great game, but the recycled enviroments really REALLY hurt the game. Dragon Age is obiously a game that requires a long devlopment cycle. They managed to do well only have a year and a half of development time, but that cannot happen again for DA3...it just can't.

[QUOTE="Elann2008"][QUOTE="JangoWuzHere"]

I feel like that was a swipe at DA2:P

JangoWuzHere

Yeah I thought DA2 was a great game, but the recycled enviroments really REALLY hurt the game. Dragon Age is obiously a game that requires a long devlopment cycle. They managed to do well only have a year and a half of development time, but that cannot happen again for DA3...it just can't.

Half an hour of the best gameplay ever is not > 100 hours of average game play. There needs to be a balance. Cod: MW2 and all the other recent FPS games had, quite frankly, notoriously short campaigns, just like you said. Both Half life games, as well as many other FPS games managed to pull out a pretty good length (45 min Half Life time attack accepted... ;)), so I think, yeah, publishers should try a little harder when it comes to SP content, even if they're trying to make the big bucks off the MP features. Doing that keeps people like me from ever buying their games. Which is a shame, because CoD 1-2 were the best WW II games ever made for my money, and then they went and sold out to the MP only side of FPS game development. On that note, though, imo, coop gameplay = single player gameplay, a la Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, etc.

Totally depends on the game. Just because a game has 12 hours of content doesn't mean it's actually worth playing for 12 hours. If the game really starts to go gray around the 8-hour mark, then those remining 4 sucky hours are kind of a rip-off to me, and they actually detract from the experience (I still feel compelled to play them, since I paid for the game). Wolfenstein is a good recent example of this; it was a lot of fun for the first 10 hours, but I just couldn't bring myself to wade through the game's clunky final few chapters, even though I was only about 12 hours in. Had I not had the experience of getting absolutely sick of the game (even though I did get my money's worth), it would have felt more "worth it" to me.

Singularity is a good example to look at here. The campaign clocks in at a fairly modest 7-8 hours, and yet I actually enjoyed it so much, I played through it three times, totalling around 22 hours. But I didn't do it because the game asked me to -- no alternate paths, no unlockable "extreme" difficulty setting, no achievement/collectible hunting -- I did it because the gameplay was fun enough to me that I actually wanted to play the campaign again and look for any cool stuff or tactics I might have missed the first time around. So, yes, part of what made up the value of the game for me is that I played it three times, but I actaully enjoyed all three times to the same degree. It could have been downright awful if the game was full of time-wasting mechanics and dull stretches of pure padding (which it so isn't; go play it immediately - seriously).

As for multiplayer games: they're generally worth full price in my opinion, so long as they're reasonably well supported by the developer (patches, dedicated servers, mod tools, those kinds of things). I think it's quite silly to criticize a game like Bad Company 2 for having a short single-player campaign, since that's clearly not the intended focus of the game. (It's a bit like criticizing hot fudge because it goes terrible in an omelette.) It's especially silly, however, because these games usually have far larger issues that are more deserving of criticism. I'm just sayin'. :P

I perfer long singleplayer games and I don't pay 60 dollars for an 8 hour experience. If it goes for 8 hours it better have good multiplayer or be highly re-playable.

1. It's already been said, but it bears repeating: Length doesn't necessarily equal quality.

2. As gamers get older, have jobs, are raising families, there is simply less time to spend on games.

3. The future may lie with episodic content. HL2 Eps. 1 and 2 come to mind. Valve packed an enormous amount of content into a few hours of gameplay.

A lot of games just drag on and on and on. Bioshock, Doom3, Crysis - all eventually develop into tedious "corridor crawls".

A good game should be like a good college essay: Develop a point, execute that point, bring it all to a satisfying conclusion.

1. It's already been said, but it bears repeating: Length doesn't necessarily equal quality.

2. As gamers get older, have jobs, are raising families, there is simply less time to spend on games.

3. The future may lie with episodic content. HL2 Eps. 1 and 2 come to mind. Valve packed an enormous amount of content into a few hours of gameplay.

A lot of games just drag on and on and on. Bioshock, Doom3, Crysis - all eventually develop into tedious "corridor crawls".

A good game should be like a good college essay: Develop a point, execute that point, bring it all to a satisfying conclusion.

Ricardo41

TL;DR: Although I do agree that there is some limit, and that paying full price for something 2-8 hours long is ridiculous, I don't think a 20 hour game is necessarily worth more money than a 10 hour game.

Yeah, maybe quality is more important than quantity, but you shouldn't have to settle for one or the other. It's like when people say that personality is more important than looks. Why can't you just find somebody who is both attractive and enjoyable to be around?

Yeah, maybe quality is more important than quantity, but you shouldn't have to settle for one or the other. It's like when people say that personality is more important than looks. Why can't you just find somebody who is both attractive and enjoyable to be around?

xLittlekillx

[QUOTE="xLittlekillx"]

Yeah, maybe quality is more important than quantity, but you shouldn't have to settle for one or the other. It's like when people say that personality is more important than looks. Why can't you just find somebody who is both attractive and enjoyable to be around?

Xeros606

Isn't easy? Would you give it a good try for the millions of dollars you'll be raking in as a result? I'd like to think so.

Quality is definitely more important than quantity, but no, we shouldn't have to decide between the two, there should be a good mix of both. And for 50-60 dollars, that quantity should be more than 2-3 hours.

You forgot to mention that even Episodes 1 and 2 for HL2 contained more content than most "full" FPS games do these days.

Bioshock was not tedious at all to me. The environments were fresh and varied, you continually got new guns and powers to play with, and the story was super engaging from start to surprising finish.

Oblivion, Morrowind and other sandbox games manage to provide hundreds of hours of entertainment, so yeah, I'd say the developers that actually try to find a compromise between quality vs quantity rather than just expecting you to be happy with what they give you are the ones that have it right.

P.S. I'm betting Diablo III has at least 30 hours of gameplay for each class. It'll be worthy of my, and your, money. :)