When it comes down to brass tax, game length does heavily impact my decision when purchasing a game. If a game is 6-8 hours long with no multiplayer or replayability, I sure as fuck am not going to pay $59.99 for it. I'm either going to rent it or wait until a major pricedrop. I simply can't afford to pay that much money for a game I could finish in 1-2 days.
I don't mean to come off as attacking yu here, but this is the problem. Games aren't stuffed with padding because developers think it's great design - they're stuffed with padding because if they don't hit that 20+ hours to completion, no one will buy it! Really, which would you rather actually play? The 12 hour version you're willing to pick up at $20 or the 24 hour version with the fetch quests and grinding inserted it almost invariably gets turned into? Why is that busy work worth another $40?
Now the pricing model in the industry is ridiculously inflexible and completely broken, but that's another issue. I'm not sure f it's really separate or not, though.
Nah man, I don't sense an attack or hositility here. S'all good.
Of course I'd rather play the 12 hour version. I value my time. The problem being they're going to charge me $59.99 regardless of whether or not it's double the length so the point is rather moot.
The industry's pricing scheme is completely relevant to the thread topic. It's not my fault they think their game is worth sixty bucks. The consumer is not the one to blame for their pricing scheme. They can price their game however they want, but ultimately it's up to me to decide it's worth.
Were it up to me they'd simply reduce the games retail price rather than pad it with a bunch of shit... but y'know, logic isn't exactly the corporate world's strong suit. Profit is all they care about.
Game length is not an absolute variable, it needs to be appropriate for the experience the developers are trying to provide. Some games are better suited to shorter sessions, some to longer. Furthermore, the quality of the game is closely tied to length but not wholly dependent on it. Short games with high quality content are better than long grindfests with a lot of filler content.
But these two things are not always mutually exclusive. There are plenty of really short games that have no quality at all, and plenty of long games that consistently provide high quality entertainment. There is no objectively superior option, even if you could have the same quality experience but for longer, that doesn't make it better. Nor does necessarily having a higher quality experience for a shorter time make the game better than a long one that is more mediocre and even. Different people like different things and purchase games for different reasons. Some people want a game that will provide a blistering two hours of pure fun on a plane journey, others will want something that will stretch out for three months playing every day on the metro for half an hour during a commute. Other people will want a game that provides a solid, meaty chunk of entertainment for a solid week and will excite them like a good movie or book will. While others don't mind a somewhat fractured experience that might have one or two good ideas amid a sea of filler content and padding.
Sometimes that satisfies because it provides curiosity and innovation. To quantify this discussion is impossible. There are as many right answers as there are people to offer them. Personally, I prefer a longer experience. The way I play games is in short bursts over longer periods. I don't have the spare time to put in a solid weekend of playing, nor do I have enough of a chunk of time to play through an entire shorter experience in one sitting. So no matter what kind of game I choose, it's going to be splintered, so normally I go for the more robust, larger scale performances. I'm not ashamed to say that I like a more blockbuster type game.
I have nothing against smaller, indie titles that condense quality and purify it. I just appreciate the professional presentation of so called triple A titles more. And they fit better into my schedule. But that brings me onto the second point. Game length can be irrelevant for some genres. Have you ever quantified how long a game Battlefield 1942 is? It's endless. I've been playing Quake 3 in various forms for over a decade. I'm still playing it. Does that mean that Quake 3 has more 'content' than something like Bastion, or Portal? I think it is disingenuous to say so.
All you can say is that both games have an appropriate amount of content, which I think is the important metric here. Games can either be too long or too short for what they are, not what they could or should have been. There are no short games or long games, in that sense, just shorter games and longer games. It's a sliding scale that relates directly to the game itself, not to games around it. Battlefield 3 costs the same as Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. But they are entirely different experiences with entirely different lengths. No-one could ever say BF3 was a short experience, because it is exactly the length that they get out of it. Similarly, if you play Uncharted 3 for eighty hours, enjoying every minute, even if you repeat content, does that not count? Can you only count the amount of game length on a first play through, or a new game plus at a stretch? What's the limit here? Who decides what the artificial cut-off point is?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that only you can decide if the game is of an appropriate length. Mass Effect 2 is much longer than Modern Warfare 2, but to say that ME2 is better because of that is silly. And it is sillier too to say that more is more. Sometimes less is more. The minute to minute quality of the MW2 campaign is higher than in ME2. It is a tightly focused linear rollercoaster of cinematic beats. There is absolutely no filler, not by comparison. No backtracking, no fetch quests. No dialogue sessions. It's pure content. But that is what it was trying to do. That's the point of that game. So to criticize it for having less length than ME2 is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as saying that ME2 is better because it has more content. Even if the content is of the same quality.
Case in point: look at Portal 1 and Portal 2. Take any puzzle room between them and the quality of the content is exactly the same; very high. But Portal 2 is double the length. It has twice as much content. Does that make it inherently better? Identical levels of quality, double the length? No it doesn't. All you can say is that both are good in different ways. And neither is too short or too long. See that's the point I'm trying to get across. Game length is not absolute, you only ever notice it when it is wrong. There is no objective scale of good to bad. An eight hour game is not twice as good as a four hour game. You have to take each game individually and consider them on their own merits. Some games have certainly been too short. Some have been too long. But no game has ever been bad because it was short. Bastion is an eight, nine hour game. At no point did it feel too long, like it was being artificially stretched, or too short, like a lot of content was cut for time or budgetary reasons. It was the right length for what it set out to do. Lots of games have the right length but are still bad because the content itself is flawed. And lots of games have the wrong length but still end up being good because the content shines through. Mass Effect 1 is an incredible twenty hour game stretched to forty hours. Does that make it a bad game? No. It makes it too long. You can absolutely say the game length was out of place. But you can't say the game is bad.
So I guess in the end, game length is completely irrelevant. It won't improve a game in any meaningful way, nor really harm an experience either. Quality content padded with lots of filler material is still quality content. And you may feel some regret and annoyance but I don't think for anyone it will be a deal breaker. Similarly, a game that is too short but full of stellar gameplay is going to interest a lot of people, and maybe turn a few away. But it's not going to radically change the overall impression of a game. Unless it is priced inappropriately. You see, games are quite expensive and I think it is entirely fair to expect a certain amount of value in a game. Too many people have expressed this as a qualitative measurement of content. Mass Effect 2 is two dollars per hour of content. Thirty hour game. Sixty dollars. Two dollars an hour. Half-Life 2 was only an eight hour experience. So does that mean HL2 is seven dollars fifty an hour? That's a higher rate, is the game of less value? This is far too personal an opinion to make any overarching statement about. Because a game is not providing time to you. It's providing fun. And games can deliver fun at different rates. Take my last example. While ME2 might be cheaper as a direct cost to session length comparison, some might argue that HL2 provides more fun per hour. If fun could ever be quantified (it can't).
See what I'm getting at is that when you start getting into economic fallacies over something as subjective as entertainment experiences, you end up in a black hole of misery and regret. You ignore the purpose of the game entirely and treat it as a utility, rather than a luxury good. Developers are not heating your house, there is no fixed rate of commerce here. Only you can decide if a game is too long or too short and there are no right or wrong answers. This entire discussion is moot, a waste of time. A waste of my actual time. It is about as useful as discussing which colour is best, or whether green grass is better than purple elephants. It's madness. It's a mess of an argument. It's completely irrational. Game length is as subjective as game quality, or game content. Shorter games are not any better or worse than longer games. And games with higher quality content that are shorter are not to be considered of more value than longer games with perhaps less value over time but shorter experiences on a per fun metric scale over time. What I mean is that long games that have a lower rate of quality because it is stretched a bit thinner are not worse than shorter games which maximize fun rates.
It's like when you go to a theme park. Sure, some people like the roller coasters. That two minutes of exhilaration and excitement. But some other people like the river rapids or the log flumes. The rides which take much longer but provide a different experience. It would not be appropriate for a log flume to last two minutes. It would be too short. But it would also be ridiculous for a roller coaster to last twenty minutes now wouldn't it. They're not appropriate lengths for these experiences. So you have to gauge whether the game is at an appropriate length before you even go beyond that and talk about overall quality. Of course I guess that some people would want a twenty minute roller coaster. Some people achieve that aim by going on a two minute roller coaster ten times in a row.
That's perfectly analogous to how many people play video games. I've played Uncharted 3 perhaps three or four times. So in that respect, I've gained as much value from the purchase as someone who bought The Witcher 2 and played it once? Have I though? It's too complicated an issue to simplify in that manner. It depends on what you want as a whole. Some people abhor repetition, I know people who will never even watch the same movie twice, let alone play a game again. So for those specific people, a longer game is probably better, even if the quality is slightly less. It's that or keep buying short games, over and over. Lots of small ones. Lots of little tiny games, every week. Episodic in nature. But the tools you need to produce to make games don't allow developers to really do this on a regular basis. Look at the Sam and Max episodes. They were good but they had to all use the same underlying mechanics. For many people, the mechanics are the game itself. So the repetition comment still holds. They're playing a slightly altered version of the same game.
I've never met any of those people though, most people I know who play games prefer a more monolithic experience. A totemic game for every three months of the year. When Christmas rolls around, they have to choose one of many and pick up the others months or even years later. But they're going to go into the thing knowing what to expect. Few people blind purchase anymore. I mean, I've already bought Mass Effect 3, it's on pre-order. And while the specifics of story and content are a mystery to me, I have a good idea of what the experience is going to roughly be like. And how long it will take.
You see, that's what I want from a game I buy. A solid chunk of content that will satisfy me over time for a couple of months. That I can dip into like a TV show every couple of days between working. Other people might want something they can get done in a weekend. A solid weekend of like 12 hours days playing games. You could probably get Portal done in a day. In an afternoon. That doesn't mean it's inherently better or worse. Then you have to consider games are not in a vacuum. Some people want to augment a bigger title with some smaller, more innovative indie ones. Like, as a breather between sessions of triple A game number one, they might want a two hour blast through indie title number two. That's reasonable. And in that sense, the games and how their lengths are perceived by their owners changes because they form part of a pantheon of titles they currently own.
To someone who just buys one game and one game only, the relative consideration of game length is going to be a completely different choice and experience than for the person who buys two or three at once. The latter might want two short ones and a long one. Maybe. The style of game would also change. Look at MMOs. They have huge quantities of content, hundreds even thousands of hours. But it's all mediocre. All very grindy by it's nature. That's the kind of game you play slowly over a long period. Maybe an hour a day, two at most. So it's reasonable to periodically put in a shorter, more blistering experience among that ocean of content just to change the tempo. In that respect, a shorter game increases in value for that person because of the wider circumstances of their gaming habits. That's what I mean by everything being flexible, everything having context. It's crazy isn't it?
I love a concise gameplay experience where it is suitable. I almost welcome the inevitable introduction of whatever technology kills the second hand market entirely so game makers won't be punished with rubbish sales for getting to the fucking point.
The price thing is totally about expectations, though. I mean, I have a hard time paying 60 bucks for 5-6 hours too, but it's not like that is some hugely disproportionate outlay of entertainment spending compared to other media. Most people wouldn't bat an eye at a $20 sticker on a two hour movie.
I have a strong suspicion that most of our (i.e., gamers between 20 and 30 years of age) expectations are shaped by an adolescence full of superficial but mechanically difficult games. Our expectations about quality of content have changed as we've aged, but expectations about dollar/entertainment time have not (mostly.)
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I love a concise gameplay experience where it is suitable. I almost welcome the inevitable introduction of whatever technology kills the second hand market entirely so game makers won't be punished with rubbish sales for getting to the fucking point.
Yeah, not really welcoming that change. I'll just be buying/playing far less games should this come to pass... or I'll just have to start pirating again.
Yeah anything much past 5-6 hours anymore is pushing the envelope of keeping it fresh. I like to complete a game over a few days and move on, not weeks. For example I couldn't really tell you anything that happened throughout the Mass Effect games (Shepard, big frog warrior, you could get laid, big Terminator), but I can remember ridiculously small details and plot devices about this weird little 5 hour game called Singularity that nobody played. They just kept it moving and kept it fresh for those 5 hours while Mass Effect had me mining planets for no good reason.
I love Singularity. The gatling gun was hella broken in the best possible way.
I think it is important to differentiate between "filler" and parts of the game that are slower paced. Obviously, there are times where extra content is clearly just thrown in to pad out the game length, but there are also parts of the game that just take place in between major action segments. These slower parts are very necessary for maintaining good pacing and flow, as they prevent the player from getting burnt out and desensitized to the action. I can excuse a little of the content recycling and such if it is being used to create better pacing for the game overall (and it isn't overdone). The slow parts of a game, while important, probably don't receive the same attention and budget as the big action sequences and set pieces, so perhaps developers can be forgiven for cutting a corner or two. Now, that doesn't excuse games that just throw in backtracking, redundancy, or half-finished content just to draw out the game, of course.
I'm really sorry I need to explain the magic...
Guys, Scarab's post length IS the point he wants to make. It's big and repetitive and roundabout and devoid of paragraphs because he's showing us how crappy a large but padded game is. Sheesh.
You tit! I was gonna point that out!
His post was too long to quote in the Vanilla mobile browser. Kept crashing it
Just echoing other peoples' opinions: I don't mind a short game if its 1)cheap and 2)is actually...fun.
Something like a bullet hell game is short, but also really hard. I won't beat it in 6 hours and then never play it again. Its also a true test of skill. I'll never beat the hard difficulties, but if I practice, I might just beat the normal mode and get the true satisfaction of defeating a challenge.
I don't pay 59.99 US dollars for some easy, boring game that I'll beat once and never touch again. Its preposterous. Complain all you like about old games being short/artificially difficulty, but I certainly got more than 6 hours out of Super Ghouls and Ghosts. Would I play it for more than 6 hour today? Fuck no. But it also probably costs like 5 bucks for a cart.
yes, its a problem when the developer feels that their game has to be a certain length and they fill it with filler, but that problem does not really lie with the length of the game, does it?
I love a concise gameplay experience where it is suitable. I almost welcome the inevitable introduction of whatever technology kills the second hand market entirely so game makers won't be punished with rubbish sales for getting to the fucking point.
I can't actually imagine someone having this opinion unless they are actually a game publisher.
I will never, never shell out $60 for a game that's <12 hours or so. I will either rent it, or wait for it to come down in price.
People who are hating on these longer games really baffle me, especially those who won't even play a game because it's lengthy, because some appear to think that the point of playing a game is to get to the end of it and then move on to something else. How does that figure? Take Skyrim as a grand example here. Is there filler? Sure, there's lots of pointless quests people send you on that are just 'collect this, kill that', but that's not the majority of the game. Skyrim is a game about exploring and experiencing the world as much as it is about your character being the Dragonborn and saving the world (again).
Seriously, if a game is good there is no point in not playing it because you won't finish it. If the game is fun you can enjoy playing it for that much longer, and... so what, maybe you don't finish it. Maybe you put it down, play other things, and come back later, or maybe you don't. But if you had fun playing the game for many hours, it's money well-spent.
I love a concise gameplay experience where it is suitable. I almost welcome the inevitable introduction of whatever technology kills the second hand market entirely so game makers won't be punished with rubbish sales for getting to the fucking point.
I can't actually imagine someone having this opinion unless they are actually a game publisher.
I enjoy a short and to the point game which doesn't have to limit its production budget (eg ICO, eg Shadows of the Damned). I see the second hand market as a large factor in why such games quickly drop in price, thus offer less return in investment to developers, thus are less likely to be made. It's not hard to trace an isolated line of logic reasoning there.
Also the word 'almost' is not without meaning.
I also see the masses quite happily embracing Steam.
Yeah, not really welcoming that change. I'll just be buying/playing far less games should this come to pass... or I'll just have to start pirating again.
You will never 'have to start pirating again'. We're not talking food, water and shelter here. Games are a leisure entertainment activity and a business, not a human right. You may choose to break the law but nobody at any point will have forced you into it. You will choose to reap the rewards of another's effort without offering any recompense quite fully of your own free will.
I will never, never shell out $60 for a game that's <12 hours or so. I will either rent it, or wait for it to come down in price.
People who are hating on these longer games really baffle me, especially those who won't even play a game because it's lengthy, because some appear to think that the point of playing a game is to get to the end of it and then move on to something else. How does that figure? Take Skyrim as a grand example here. Is there filler? Sure, there's lots of pointless quests people send you on that are just 'collect this, kill that', but that's not the majority of the game. Skyrim is a game about exploring and experiencing the world as much as it is about your character being the Dragonborn and saving the world (again).
Seriously, if a game is good there is no point in not playing it because you won't finish it. If the game is fun you can enjoy playing it for that much longer, and... so what, maybe you don't finish it. Maybe you put it down, play other things, and come back later, or maybe you don't. But if you had fun playing the game for many hours, it's money well-spent.
I don't think anyone is hating on long games that are high quality throughout the experience. Imagine a 6 hour game that is perfectly paced, well crafted, and honed to provide a satisfying and engaging experience. If a developer added another 6 hours of meaningless, dull filler to the game would it be better or worse as a result? For many of us, that game would be badly damaged as the flow and structure of the experience are very important parts of enjoying a game.
I will never, never shell out $60 for a game that's <12 hours or so. I will either rent it, or wait for it to come down in price.
People who are hating on these longer games really baffle me, especially those who won't even play a game because it's lengthy, because some appear to think that the point of playing a game is to get to the end of it and then move on to something else. How does that figure? Take Skyrim as a grand example here. Is there filler? Sure, there's lots of pointless quests people send you on that are just 'collect this, kill that', but that's not the majority of the game. Skyrim is a game about exploring and experiencing the world as much as it is about your character being the Dragonborn and saving the world (again).
Seriously, if a game is good there is no point in not playing it because you won't finish it. If the game is fun you can enjoy playing it for that much longer, and... so what, maybe you don't finish it. Maybe you put it down, play other things, and come back later, or maybe you don't. But if you had fun playing the game for many hours, it's money well-spent.
If you only have say between 2-3 hours a week to play video games, playing a game like Skyrim is a daunting task. By the time you reach the end, if you reach the end, unless you just went through the main story and skipped all the side content you're probably going to have forgotten plotpoints. On top of this, the amount of time it would take to complete it in this way, you'd be forced to skip playing other games.
I don't want to make any false assumptions here, but it seems like you haven't reached that stage of your life yet. Eventually there comes a point where you have limited free time for video games and you want to maximize it as best as possible. When I do have free time to sit and play for hours on end, those long games are great... but that's rarely the case these days
When it literally can take months to complete a game it's hard to keep your focus... especially when dozens of new shiny games come out in that time. Besides that, it's rewarding to actually complete a game. To be honest, if given a choice, I'd rather play and complete a couple games than play through a very long one that I may never actually finish. This was not always my point of view, but it's funny how life changes you.
Yeah, not really welcoming that change. I'll just be buying/playing far less games should this come to pass... or I'll just have to start pirating again.
You will never 'have to start pirating again'. We're not talking food, water and shelter here. Games are a leisure entertainment activity and a business, not a human right. You may choose to break the law but nobody at any point will have forced you into it. You will choose to reap the rewards of another's effort without offering any recompense quite fully of your own free will.
Spare me the talk about morality. I love the video game industry and have invested 10's of thousands of dollars into this hobby already. I currently don't pirate right now for those reasons and more... but if corporations want to take away MY choice to buy used and save money, sticking it to my wallet, then I'm going to stick it to the man.
Wanting corporations to have 100% control of the market is borderline insanity. Having less choice as a consumer is very bad. Competition for our dollar can only be good for consumers. If we don't have a choice, then companies have little incentive to provide us quality products. There's good reason why we have antitrust laws.
I will never, never shell out $60 for a game that's <12 hours or so. I will either rent it, or wait for it to come down in price.
People who are hating on these longer games really baffle me, especially those who won't even play a game because it's lengthy, because some appear to think that the point of playing a game is to get to the end of it and then move on to something else. How does that figure? Take Skyrim as a grand example here. Is there filler? Sure, there's lots of pointless quests people send you on that are just 'collect this, kill that', but that's not the majority of the game. Skyrim is a game about exploring and experiencing the world as much as it is about your character being the Dragonborn and saving the world (again).
Seriously, if a game is good there is no point in not playing it because you won't finish it. If the game is fun you can enjoy playing it for that much longer, and... so what, maybe you don't finish it. Maybe you put it down, play other things, and come back later, or maybe you don't. But if you had fun playing the game for many hours, it's money well-spent.
If you only have say between 2-3 hours a week to play video games, playing a game like Skyrim is a daunting task. By the time you reach the end, if you reach the end, unless you just went through the main story and skipped all the side content you're probably going to have forgotten plotpoints. On top of this, the amount of time it would take to complete it in this way, you'd be forced to skip playing other games.
I don't want to make any false assumptions here, but it seems like you haven't reached that stage of your life yet. Eventually there comes a point where you have limited free time for video games and you want to maximize it as best as possible. When I do have free time to sit and play for hours on end, those long games are great... but that's rarely the case these days
When it literally can take months to complete a game it's hard to keep your focus... especially when dozens of new shiny games come out in that time. Besides that, it's rewarding to actually complete a game. To be honest, if given a choice, I'd rather play and complete a couple games than play through a very long one that I may never actually finish. This was not always my point of view, but it's funny how life changes you.
I'm not sure which 'stage of life' it is where I won't have time to play games, but I respect the decisions of those who have dedicated themselves to other pursuits besides gaming, leaving fewer hours to sit down with a game and get deep into an epic. These people also will miss many great books I fear, for those take some time to get through and they'd inevitably lose the plot.
All I'm saying is that, while I understand a disdain for something like an MMO that is padded by design (to keep people paying), I don't get the hate (or dislike, for those who find 'hate' too strong) for long games that might include activities other than solving the main dilemma it presents. I don't hate short games, but there's just no way I could find it worth my while to pay $60 for a game that takes me 6 hours to complete, no matter how fantastic those 6 hours are. Thanks to the used game market as well as outlets such as Steam, I don't have to.
If you reduce the padding in a game, you reduce the production costs, which could lead to decreased sales prices. It would take an industry-wide change to do it, but it's not completely outside the realm of reality.
Personally I think the problem is we've entered blockbuster-movie territory and now anything without a $10 million budget doesn't see the light of day on the sales charts. Indie gaming has carved out a nice little place for itself that is generally much more money-friendly, but I haven't seen any noticeable influence on the mainstream yet. Perhaps soon.
Just because a game is shorter doesn't mean it took less money and effort to make. Saying that shorter games should be priced cheaper is kinda silly. Game length should not be what decides price. Arkham Asylum isn't worth less than Disgaea because it's an 8 hour game.
I never got the complaining about game price to begin with, honestly. Video games have barely been hit by inflation over the years. Were actually pretty damn lucky that games are still as cheap as they are to buy, while dev costs just get more and more ridiculous.
I can understand wanting to wait until a price drop, but I kind of feel like the idea that games are overpriced is pretty untrue the vast majority of the time. Sometimes it seems as though people confuse "I'm not willing to pay this price" with "they are overcharging for it".
I personally would never say that shorter games should cost less money. What I have said is that I am not going to pay that much money for them. I am a capitalist, and if the market can sustain the 6-hour games at $60 new, well good on them. I, meanwhile, will patiently wait until they come down to have my fun, and save my money for the games which will fit my perceived level of value for that price.
This is why I can state with confidence that MMOs, while decried by many for forcing players to keep paying for a game they already bought, have saved me tons of cash over the years.
Funny thing is I often get more time with short games in the long run, because it's much easier to sit down and do a quick replay of the game than it is with ones that span dozens of hours. Easier to fit in between new games, too.
Are games like Disgaea full of content, or full of filler?
Well, the grindy stuff you hear so much about is mostly bonus content. The game gives you mostly amusing stories before every main mission and the battles are usually not boring. I wouldn't say it has much filler. It just has full autism mode, for those who LOVE grinding. Some people like it, and have the time to do it, but its not mandatory.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Are games like Disgaea full of content, or full of filler?
Well, the grindy stuff you hear so much about is mostly bonus content. The game gives you mostly amusing stories before every main mission and the battles are usually not boring. I wouldn't say it has much filler. It just has full autism mode, for those who LOVE grinding. Some people like it, and have the time to do it, but its not mandatory.
Yeah, even if you never touch the post game super-grind content, the base game is usually a good length with a good, funny story and likeable characters.
i think some games could stand to try to be cheaper in prices, as steam sales have shown that low prices = big sales.
obviously there's a market for new games at $60 but there's no reason they all have to sell at that point.
Its not a black and white issue. I couldn't wait to toss another $30 down for another 30 hours of dragon age origins with its expansion pack, but da2's 30 hours overstayed it's welcome by about an act.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Are games like Disgaea full of content, or full of filler?
Well, the grindy stuff you hear so much about is mostly bonus content. The game gives you mostly amusing stories before every main mission and the battles are usually not boring. I wouldn't say it has much filler. It just has full autism mode, for those who LOVE grinding. Some people like it, and have the time to do it, but its not mandatory.
I actually did some of this grinding for disgaea 4 and it's nothing like grinding in other rpgs. Going from 1 to 400 in one battle is pretty rewarding.
It does have a lot of unlockable stuff tied up in the item world though, which is a matter of luck. The highest tier weapon skills also require a very rare spawn in the character world. I didn't like that.
I hate grinding but found Disgaea very addictive up until I hit the being unlucky part.
In fact the unlockable extra levels which are basically alternate version of all the main story levels are really really well thought out and interesting geo puzzles that take a fair bit of thinking to get through.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
One thing I've noticed is that with indie games, people tend to value quality over quantity. Many of the most popular indie games can be completed in 3-6 hours and yet that doesn't stop people from spending $10-$15 on them.
One thing I've noticed is that with indie games, people tend to value quality over quantity. Many of the most popular indie games can be completed in 3-6 hours and yet that doesn't stop people from spending $10-$15 on them.
plus, those are fun unique games that are also extremely affordable! i can go into indie games on XBLA and buy ten to fifteen games for the price of one arcade title! now they don't have the production values of a triple-A game but man, i've put more time into T.E.C. 3001 than i ever did into dragon age
I will happily pay $60 for 5 hours of AAA content, but would be much more reluctant to pay the same $60 for the same 5 hours plus 15 hours of filler. My time has value. I'm looking for maximum enjoyment density.
When we reach $20 or less, all my concerns with length disappear. In fact, I go out of my way to buy short, quality games new when they reach that price.
Just because a game is shorter doesn't mean it took less money and effort to make. Saying that shorter games should be priced cheaper is kinda silly. Game length should not be what decides price. Arkham Asylum isn't worth less than Disgaea because it's an 8 hour game.
I never got the complaining about game price to begin with, honestly. Video games have barely been hit by inflation over the years. Were actually pretty damn lucky that games are still as cheap as they are to buy, while dev costs just get more and more ridiculous.
I can understand wanting to wait until a price drop, but I kind of feel like the idea that games are overpriced is pretty untrue the vast majority of the time. Sometimes it seems as though people confuse "I'm not willing to pay this price" with "they are overcharging for it".
You're putting words in my mouth. What I'm saying is, if games get shorter, there is also a chance that overall they also become cheaper. It costs more to make a longer, content-filled game (and anything that's just padded out is going to get hammered critically for it. in this day and age, filler is not considered acceptable in the mainstream).
See but it doesn't necessarily cost more. It depends on a lot of things.
And even if shorter games are cheaper, that doesn't mean they are so much cheaper that they should be sold for less. I mean, you could say that the longer ones should be more expensive instead, when you get right down to it.
Consider that even short AAA games often cost a shitload to make, I don't think asking for sixty bucks is unreasonable. Especially when the overall cost of buying a new game has barely risen over the years.
I actually did some of this grinding for disgaea 4 and it's nothing like grinding in other rpgs. Going from 1 to 400 in one battle is pretty rewarding.
It does have a lot of unlockable stuff tied up in the item world though, which is a matter of luck. The highest tier weapon skills also require a very rare spawn in the character world. I didn't like that.
I hate grinding but found Disgaea very addictive up until I hit the being unlucky part.
In fact the unlockable extra levels which are basically alternate version of all the main story levels are really really well thought out and interesting geo puzzles that take a fair bit of thinking to get through.
I haven't played 4, no PS3. The grinding in some of NIS' earlier games is pretty heavy, but, as I mentioned, entirely optional. I never got Demon Overlord Prier's ending in La Pucelle for that reason. Such a grind with little variety. You grind the same level over and over again until you get the required level to cheese the system. The base game is only like...30 hours long or so though.
Honestly, it has nothing on MMO grinds, in any event.
Strategy RPGs are very friendly about pick up and play, too, since the levels are clearly defined. I haven't played Disgaea on my psp in a few months, but I could tell you exactly what level I was on and where I left off.
Some devs need to learn the difference between filler and bonus content. Disgaea gives you the option of grinding to no end, while Final Fantasy Tactics requires it to not get your ass kicked (unless you learn how to game the system, which doesn't count). Skyrim lets you do as much or as little as you like, and has a TON of great sidequests, while GTA 4 requires that you be bothered by friends and dates and crappy missions to progress the story.
On the other hand, bonus vs. filler is definitely not the end-all-be-all. FFT is 10x better than Disgaea, if you ask me.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
For the majority of my gaming purchases I don't even look at "length". I only look at depth. The two are rarely correlated.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Sometimes, it's not about game length so much as achievements/trophy. I own a 360, and I played through Ninety Nine Nights. With Each Character. I enjoyed the game, and the story. What I did not enjoy was having to play each of those characters to their max level (usually grinded out on the last stage of their areas, playing through it many, many... many times) then having to replay every one of their stages as a max level character.
I went from loving the game they had created for me, to never, ever wanting to touch it again. Ever. EVER. I did this all in the name of achievements, because I feel that if I miss a bunch of achievements, that I haven't really completed a game.
It's different if it's a difficulty thing. Like I hear my SO complaining about trying to get the ones in Mass Effect that require you to play the game on the hardest difficulties. Achievements like that, if I can't get them, and I feel I've gotten as good as I'm able to with a particular game... I'll just let them go. N3 was not hard, it was just tedious and they made me hate the game by the time I was done. I almost wish the game had been too hard, it would have saved me precious hours of my life.
So, game makers out there, don't fuck us around with ridiculous achievements. Yes, we like achievements. In fact, I love them, *too much*, but, don't make us go from loving your game to hating it just because you think it'll be fun for us to play a game to death for shits and giggles. Or make them so impossible to achieve that I hate your game for making it seem so impossible, and hating myself because dammit, I just can't get that 1 last achievement.
I guess the point is, don't drag the game along and make us play it again and again and again and grind the shit out of it just for a few achievements. I'll do it... but I'm never going to get your sequel if it comes out. (How is Ninety Nine Nights 2 btw?)
(End of early morning rant)
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
I totally admit I'm part of the problem here.
I just won't pay full price for a short game, generally speaking. (I did buy Portal 2 at launch, and I don't regret it one bit)
I'm not even going to try and rationalize it, because there are plenty of super excellent games that are really short, and shit games that draw things out to an absurd degree just to pad that timer. Maybe it's because there are so many venues these days to get games much cheaper than full price.
A big part of what I look at when buying a game brand new is replayability. If it's something I can see myself playing through more than once than i'll drop $60 on a brand new game that has a somewhat short campaign.
Or something with solid multiplayer that I will get more than my $60 out of over time.
I do what i'm sure most of you do. I define what's worth the money to me and what's not as I stand there and look at a wall of games.
A small sample of game I purchased at full price and that I feel were well worth it are BF3, Dead Space 2, Portal 2 and The Orange Box.
Now I recently found Aliens vs. Predator for $12 brand new. I had been wanting to give it a go but anything over $20 just didn't seem worth it. And as I try to play it...$12 doesn't even seem worth it.
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Nah man, I don't sense an attack or hositility here. S'all good.
Of course I'd rather play the 12 hour version. I value my time. The problem being they're going to charge me $59.99 regardless of whether or not it's double the length so the point is rather moot.
The industry's pricing scheme is completely relevant to the thread topic. It's not my fault they think their game is worth sixty bucks. The consumer is not the one to blame for their pricing scheme. They can price their game however they want, but ultimately it's up to me to decide it's worth.
Were it up to me they'd simply reduce the games retail price rather than pad it with a bunch of shit... but y'know, logic isn't exactly the corporate world's strong suit. Profit is all they care about.
Oh, sure, if you're a casual reader.
I have a strong suspicion that most of our (i.e., gamers between 20 and 30 years of age) expectations are shaped by an adolescence full of superficial but mechanically difficult games. Our expectations about quality of content have changed as we've aged, but expectations about dollar/entertainment time have not (mostly.)
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yeah, not really welcoming that change. I'll just be buying/playing far less games should this come to pass... or I'll just have to start pirating again.
I love Singularity. The gatling gun was hella broken in the best possible way.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
You tit! I was gonna point that out!
His post was too long to quote in the Vanilla mobile browser. Kept crashing it
Something like a bullet hell game is short, but also really hard. I won't beat it in 6 hours and then never play it again. Its also a true test of skill. I'll never beat the hard difficulties, but if I practice, I might just beat the normal mode and get the true satisfaction of defeating a challenge.
I don't pay 59.99 US dollars for some easy, boring game that I'll beat once and never touch again. Its preposterous. Complain all you like about old games being short/artificially difficulty, but I certainly got more than 6 hours out of Super Ghouls and Ghosts. Would I play it for more than 6 hour today? Fuck no. But it also probably costs like 5 bucks for a cart.
yes, its a problem when the developer feels that their game has to be a certain length and they fill it with filler, but that problem does not really lie with the length of the game, does it?
I can't actually imagine someone having this opinion unless they are actually a game publisher.
People who are hating on these longer games really baffle me, especially those who won't even play a game because it's lengthy, because some appear to think that the point of playing a game is to get to the end of it and then move on to something else. How does that figure? Take Skyrim as a grand example here. Is there filler? Sure, there's lots of pointless quests people send you on that are just 'collect this, kill that', but that's not the majority of the game. Skyrim is a game about exploring and experiencing the world as much as it is about your character being the Dragonborn and saving the world (again).
Seriously, if a game is good there is no point in not playing it because you won't finish it. If the game is fun you can enjoy playing it for that much longer, and... so what, maybe you don't finish it. Maybe you put it down, play other things, and come back later, or maybe you don't. But if you had fun playing the game for many hours, it's money well-spent.
I enjoy a short and to the point game which doesn't have to limit its production budget (eg ICO, eg Shadows of the Damned). I see the second hand market as a large factor in why such games quickly drop in price, thus offer less return in investment to developers, thus are less likely to be made. It's not hard to trace an isolated line of logic reasoning there.
Also the word 'almost' is not without meaning.
I also see the masses quite happily embracing Steam.
You will never 'have to start pirating again'. We're not talking food, water and shelter here. Games are a leisure entertainment activity and a business, not a human right. You may choose to break the law but nobody at any point will have forced you into it. You will choose to reap the rewards of another's effort without offering any recompense quite fully of your own free will.
I don't think anyone is hating on long games that are high quality throughout the experience. Imagine a 6 hour game that is perfectly paced, well crafted, and honed to provide a satisfying and engaging experience. If a developer added another 6 hours of meaningless, dull filler to the game would it be better or worse as a result? For many of us, that game would be badly damaged as the flow and structure of the experience are very important parts of enjoying a game.
If you only have say between 2-3 hours a week to play video games, playing a game like Skyrim is a daunting task. By the time you reach the end, if you reach the end, unless you just went through the main story and skipped all the side content you're probably going to have forgotten plotpoints. On top of this, the amount of time it would take to complete it in this way, you'd be forced to skip playing other games.
I don't want to make any false assumptions here, but it seems like you haven't reached that stage of your life yet. Eventually there comes a point where you have limited free time for video games and you want to maximize it as best as possible. When I do have free time to sit and play for hours on end, those long games are great... but that's rarely the case these days
When it literally can take months to complete a game it's hard to keep your focus... especially when dozens of new shiny games come out in that time. Besides that, it's rewarding to actually complete a game. To be honest, if given a choice, I'd rather play and complete a couple games than play through a very long one that I may never actually finish. This was not always my point of view, but it's funny how life changes you.
Spare me the talk about morality. I love the video game industry and have invested 10's of thousands of dollars into this hobby already. I currently don't pirate right now for those reasons and more... but if corporations want to take away MY choice to buy used and save money, sticking it to my wallet, then I'm going to stick it to the man.
Wanting corporations to have 100% control of the market is borderline insanity. Having less choice as a consumer is very bad. Competition for our dollar can only be good for consumers. If we don't have a choice, then companies have little incentive to provide us quality products. There's good reason why we have antitrust laws.
I'm not sure which 'stage of life' it is where I won't have time to play games, but I respect the decisions of those who have dedicated themselves to other pursuits besides gaming, leaving fewer hours to sit down with a game and get deep into an epic. These people also will miss many great books I fear, for those take some time to get through and they'd inevitably lose the plot.
All I'm saying is that, while I understand a disdain for something like an MMO that is padded by design (to keep people paying), I don't get the hate (or dislike, for those who find 'hate' too strong) for long games that might include activities other than solving the main dilemma it presents. I don't hate short games, but there's just no way I could find it worth my while to pay $60 for a game that takes me 6 hours to complete, no matter how fantastic those 6 hours are. Thanks to the used game market as well as outlets such as Steam, I don't have to.
There is no "ed".
It was bugging the crap out of me.
Personally I think the problem is we've entered blockbuster-movie territory and now anything without a $10 million budget doesn't see the light of day on the sales charts. Indie gaming has carved out a nice little place for itself that is generally much more money-friendly, but I haven't seen any noticeable influence on the mainstream yet. Perhaps soon.
I never got the complaining about game price to begin with, honestly. Video games have barely been hit by inflation over the years. Were actually pretty damn lucky that games are still as cheap as they are to buy, while dev costs just get more and more ridiculous.
I can understand wanting to wait until a price drop, but I kind of feel like the idea that games are overpriced is pretty untrue the vast majority of the time. Sometimes it seems as though people confuse "I'm not willing to pay this price" with "they are overcharging for it".
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
This is why I can state with confidence that MMOs, while decried by many for forcing players to keep paying for a game they already bought, have saved me tons of cash over the years.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Well, the grindy stuff you hear so much about is mostly bonus content. The game gives you mostly amusing stories before every main mission and the battles are usually not boring. I wouldn't say it has much filler. It just has full autism mode, for those who LOVE grinding. Some people like it, and have the time to do it, but its not mandatory.
Yeah, even if you never touch the post game super-grind content, the base game is usually a good length with a good, funny story and likeable characters.
obviously there's a market for new games at $60 but there's no reason they all have to sell at that point.
I actually did some of this grinding for disgaea 4 and it's nothing like grinding in other rpgs. Going from 1 to 400 in one battle is pretty rewarding.
It does have a lot of unlockable stuff tied up in the item world though, which is a matter of luck. The highest tier weapon skills also require a very rare spawn in the character world. I didn't like that.
I hate grinding but found Disgaea very addictive up until I hit the being unlucky part.
In fact the unlockable extra levels which are basically alternate version of all the main story levels are really really well thought out and interesting geo puzzles that take a fair bit of thinking to get through.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
plus, those are fun unique games that are also extremely affordable! i can go into indie games on XBLA and buy ten to fifteen games for the price of one arcade title! now they don't have the production values of a triple-A game but man, i've put more time into T.E.C. 3001 than i ever did into dragon age
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You're putting words in my mouth. What I'm saying is, if games get shorter, there is also a chance that overall they also become cheaper. It costs more to make a longer, content-filled game (and anything that's just padded out is going to get hammered critically for it. in this day and age, filler is not considered acceptable in the mainstream).
And even if shorter games are cheaper, that doesn't mean they are so much cheaper that they should be sold for less. I mean, you could say that the longer ones should be more expensive instead, when you get right down to it.
Consider that even short AAA games often cost a shitload to make, I don't think asking for sixty bucks is unreasonable. Especially when the overall cost of buying a new game has barely risen over the years.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
I haven't played 4, no PS3. The grinding in some of NIS' earlier games is pretty heavy, but, as I mentioned, entirely optional. I never got Demon Overlord Prier's ending in La Pucelle for that reason. Such a grind with little variety. You grind the same level over and over again until you get the required level to cheese the system. The base game is only like...30 hours long or so though.
Honestly, it has nothing on MMO grinds, in any event.
Strategy RPGs are very friendly about pick up and play, too, since the levels are clearly defined. I haven't played Disgaea on my psp in a few months, but I could tell you exactly what level I was on and where I left off.
On the other hand, bonus vs. filler is definitely not the end-all-be-all. FFT is 10x better than Disgaea, if you ask me.
Sometimes, it's not about game length so much as achievements/trophy. I own a 360, and I played through Ninety Nine Nights. With Each Character. I enjoyed the game, and the story. What I did not enjoy was having to play each of those characters to their max level (usually grinded out on the last stage of their areas, playing through it many, many... many times) then having to replay every one of their stages as a max level character.
I went from loving the game they had created for me, to never, ever wanting to touch it again. Ever. EVER. I did this all in the name of achievements, because I feel that if I miss a bunch of achievements, that I haven't really completed a game.
It's different if it's a difficulty thing. Like I hear my SO complaining about trying to get the ones in Mass Effect that require you to play the game on the hardest difficulties. Achievements like that, if I can't get them, and I feel I've gotten as good as I'm able to with a particular game... I'll just let them go. N3 was not hard, it was just tedious and they made me hate the game by the time I was done. I almost wish the game had been too hard, it would have saved me precious hours of my life.
So, game makers out there, don't fuck us around with ridiculous achievements. Yes, we like achievements. In fact, I love them, *too much*, but, don't make us go from loving your game to hating it just because you think it'll be fun for us to play a game to death for shits and giggles. Or make them so impossible to achieve that I hate your game for making it seem so impossible, and hating myself because dammit, I just can't get that 1 last achievement.
I guess the point is, don't drag the game along and make us play it again and again and again and grind the shit out of it just for a few achievements. I'll do it... but I'm never going to get your sequel if it comes out. (How is Ninety Nine Nights 2 btw?)
(End of early morning rant)
Wii U Topazfalcon (yes I play MH3U, preferably with a headset/mic usage)
Let me know if you add me on either.
I just won't pay full price for a short game, generally speaking. (I did buy Portal 2 at launch, and I don't regret it one bit)
I'm not even going to try and rationalize it, because there are plenty of super excellent games that are really short, and shit games that draw things out to an absurd degree just to pad that timer. Maybe it's because there are so many venues these days to get games much cheaper than full price.
Or something with solid multiplayer that I will get more than my $60 out of over time.
I do what i'm sure most of you do. I define what's worth the money to me and what's not as I stand there and look at a wall of games.
A small sample of game I purchased at full price and that I feel were well worth it are BF3, Dead Space 2, Portal 2 and The Orange Box.
Now I recently found Aliens vs. Predator for $12 brand new. I had been wanting to give it a go but anything over $20 just didn't seem worth it. And as I try to play it...$12 doesn't even seem worth it.
/rambling