People complain about short games.

[Trivun]

Short games aren't bad. As long as they contain some good, different levels/environments, I'm happy.

Games that are too long kind of piss me off a bit. I love Oblivion but it's just too jam packed full of fun little side quests. I am too much of a completionist not to do them.

Same here, completely. I loved Halo 2 and Halo 3 despite the short campaign lengths, and I still love Oblivion but found it a bit of a long, hard slog through the side quests. I actually stopped playing through the story before going to the first Oblivion Gate just to do the Dark Brotherhood and Thief's Guild quests, though gave up when I fell afoul of a glitch on the very last Thief mission. Then I got the RRoD so I didn't play for ages, then deleted my save file to start over. But you get the picture.

Basically a game that's too long isn't quite as good as a game that's too short for me. Obviously longer games are good, but there's a limit. Generally shorter games are either those with multiple endings, meaning you should play through again, or they have really good side events and mutliplayer and so on. Halo 2 and Halo 3 are short, but have excellent multiplayer which justifies the cost. Likewise, Mirror's Edge is really short, but has DLC and Time Trials modes that make the overall game much better and worth the cost of paying for it. As long as games continue to follow that, then I'm happy no matter what the length of the main story happens to be. Within reason, of course.

 

[veloper]

Actually now that I said this, I think it's just me. There probably are alot of gamers who want weak entertainment for few $/hr.

And there we come back to that straw man argument...

Please point out where I said I want long crappy games? Hell, who in their right mind would want all games to be long and crappy? And since when does a game being short make it good by default?

Why can't it be both? Is it so much to ask that a game be both good AND reasonably long before I decide it's truly a great game? Why do you insist that a longer game must be bad?

Maybe I should've put that a bit more carefully. I'm not saying that it is you, who wants long and crappy games.

I do think that long and great really is TOO MUCH to ask of developers nowadays. If they give you a long game you can safely bet a 100, it will be long, because of pointless filler or because it's all equally crap.

So suppose hypothetically, a talented developer would listen to me, I would not ask for a long game, but instead the opposite, ask to make a short game, but great.
I'd ask the developer to not spend any zots on filler, but to make those few encounters very different, to fully explore the possibilities of their innovative gameplay, but to never do the exact same thing twice.

 

[Kinguendo]

The only game I deem too long is Finl Fantasy 12, I mean come on! I was 50 hours in and I had no idea which mission was going to lead me further down the story or which were just side-quests. Dont get me wrong it was an good game (Vaan can suck my nuts though), it just needed more direction. I got the feeling the story-writers sort of forgot where they were trying to get to in the middle, went around a couple fo times and then remebered and carried on their way. The thing that made the hours increase drastically was the hunting, I wante to hunt... even if I did have to see Vaan... Balthier is where it is at!

 

[Kinguendo]

Oh and Fable (the first) obviously, I was seeing how quickly I could do it... under 3 hours, its bloody ridiculous for a game to be that short! Thats 1 LOTR movie.

 

[Same River New Water]

Some games you play to enjoy the experience; some you play for the thrill of beating the challenge (fiero). Not all games are clearly in one camp or the other, of course, but it provides an interesting starting point for how to look at the length.

Some games that are challenge-based are intentionally short, so you can replay them many times. The tradition is strong in arcade games, most obviously games based on short matches or challenges like Street Fighter, but sometimes popping up in more recent games like The Club and, in a sense, racing games. If it has an online leaderboard it probably falls into this category.

Experiental games benefit more from being long. The extreme of this is long-form RPGs (or maybe some MMOs?) that allow you to live in the game world and continually experience new things.

See also the Insult Swordfighting suggestion of categorising players by whether they prefer a wholesale or premium [http://insultswordfighting.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-taxonomy-of-gamers-supply-and.html] gaming experience.

 

[boholikeu]

Actually, I think long games are one of the biggest problems of the medium these days. Nearly every single-player game I've played for more than 20 hours has been boring or repetitive at some point, and I think many more developers are guilty of "padding" content than not providing enough. Even games like Bioshock and MGS4 (both of which I believe were under 20 hours) could have benefited from a few cuts.

Of course, I'm one of those people that would've actually paid full price for Portal, so I'm probably in the minority here. Sadly more people seem to be willing to pay for heaps of mediocrity than a solid, well-edited game.

 

[wgreer25]

This is an intersting issue. I will point out some games that have been called too short and tell you why you are wrong.

COD4, the single player was short timewise, but I have played through it multiple times... because it is that damn good. Now you tack on multiplayer and you have a game that is definately worth the money.

Mirror's Edge, also has been called too short, but this is also a "racing" game and the challege events add a whole lot to the gameplay outside of the story. Now this is not a game for everyone, but calling it too short is not taking into account all it has to offer.

A game (that is truly single player) that I though was the right length was DMC4 (if you don't include re-fighting every boss at the end, god I hate it when they do that). The campain was just long enough and if you wanted more playability, harder difficulties and the Tower challenge.

Also, Dead Space (~15hrs, depending on if you power through or not), perfect length (doesn't seem too long or too short)... and so damn good I have played through it twice now and am on a third playthrough on insane difficulty.

So where I am going here is that a game is only too short if you feel you didn't get value out of it. COD4 was short time-wise, but it was time well spent. Plus amazing multiplayer. So value for money is high. Conversely, Terminator Salvation - Short, crapy campain - value for money is low. So if a game has a short (<6 hour IMO) campain and has nothing else to offer, it is too short.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

I still contend that when the decision has to be made, the game length should be dictated by the story, not the gamePLAY.

Otherwise you end up with games where you have lost your way, and begin to feel pointless and bloated.

Again I point to GTA IV. At some point I forgot what I was doing or why I should even care. I just found myself sitting around in my apartment watching tv with little to no desire to go out and drive a bunch of idiots to yet another warehouse to kill a bunch of dudes for the 15th time.

Honestly sometimes I feel that a great story is what MAKES a game seem so short... you keep playing to get to that "next cutscene" and you are so engrossed that when the game DOES end, it seems like it ended way too fast, mostly because you ignored a ton of side content (usually tacked on mind you), just to progress the story line.

For example MGS4, I didn't spend hardly any time trying to 'explore' around or accomplish anything beyond the EXACT parameters required to get me to the next in-game movie (I dont even refer to them as cutscenes anymore because of their length)..

 

[boholikeu]

I still contend that when the decision has to be made, the game length should be dictated by the story, not the gamePLAY.

Otherwise you end up with games where you have lost your way, and begin to feel pointless and bloated.

Again I point to GTA IV. At some point I forgot what I was doing or why I should even care. I just found myself sitting around in my apartment watching tv with little to no desire to go out and drive a bunch of idiots to yet another warehouse to kill a bunch of dudes for the 15th time.

Honestly sometimes I feel that a great story is what MAKES a game seem so short... you keep playing to get to that "next cutscene" and you are so engrossed that when the game DOES end, it seems like it ended way too fast, mostly because you ignored a ton of side content (usually tacked on mind you), just to progress the story line.

For example MGS4, I didn't spend hardly any time trying to 'explore' around or accomplish anything beyond the EXACT parameters required to get me to the next in-game movie (I dont even refer to them as cutscenes anymore because of their length)..

Completely agree with everything you said except the MGS4 thing. While most games seem to suffer from repetitive gameplay, MGS4 suffered from repetitive cut-scenes. There were plenty that could have been cut out (or at least edited down).

 

[HyenaThePirate]

I still contend that when the decision has to be made, the game length should be dictated by the story, not the gamePLAY.

Otherwise you end up with games where you have lost your way, and begin to feel pointless and bloated.

Again I point to GTA IV. At some point I forgot what I was doing or why I should even care. I just found myself sitting around in my apartment watching tv with little to no desire to go out and drive a bunch of idiots to yet another warehouse to kill a bunch of dudes for the 15th time.

Honestly sometimes I feel that a great story is what MAKES a game seem so short... you keep playing to get to that "next cutscene" and you are so engrossed that when the game DOES end, it seems like it ended way too fast, mostly because you ignored a ton of side content (usually tacked on mind you), just to progress the story line.

For example MGS4, I didn't spend hardly any time trying to 'explore' around or accomplish anything beyond the EXACT parameters required to get me to the next in-game movie (I dont even refer to them as cutscenes anymore because of their length)..

Completely agree with everything you said except the MGS4 thing. While most games seem to suffer from repetitive gameplay, MGS4 suffered from repetitive cut-scenes. There were plenty that could have been cut out (or at least edited down).

I agree with you on MGS4 on that point too. The point I was making was that if you really think about it, MGS4 was a very short game. The only thing that really extended it were the seemingly endless cutscenes. But in the end, I was more concerned with the story than the actual game play because it seemed like the game play was limited. There were portions where I just booked it through areas without even BOTHERING to stealth, just sprinting for my life and was "rewarded" with a cutscene to progress the story. That I have to admit was kind of lame, but in the end, even though the game wasn't a 20 hour epic, I had a fun enough time and was engrossed enough in the story to keep me well entertained and pleased that I went through the experience. To me it ended up justifying it's $60 price tag, but not many games are this lucky.

A good example of a game that did it 'wrong' was Xenosaga I. I swear, I moved down a corridor, opened a door and got ANOTHER CUT SCENE. I wanted to scream after I realized I was 15 hours into the game and it felt like I was still meeting members of my crew on the starter ship.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Short games can be very good and I highly prefer a great short game above a good but repetative long game. At least, as long as the short game is cheap, I wouldn't want to have spend ?60,- on Portal for example. It was a great experience, but it was over very quickly.

In my opinion The Legend of Zelda: Twillight Princess is the best recent example of a game that is both long (my first playthrough took me 40 hours, I did a few sidequests and some exploration but never went hunting for heart pieces or bugs) and never felt boring or repetative. I loved every second of that game.

 

[not a zaar]

My definition of a game that's 'too long' is one which artificially extends its length with tedious and unfun actives, in other words jRPGs.

 

[j1nx]

Too short games are considered "too short" because they fail to deliver what was expected from them, or fail to 'end' decently.
COD4 was short, like 5hours max, and left me with a 'well what now' feeling.
Kinda like Halo3, which did deliver an AWWW YEAAH feeling on the last mission, but its over all of a sudden.
basically anything without a definite ending in fact.

unlike Portal, which was fun for a short (the 'chambers') game, but you could escape giving the game a real ending, making it feel more complete.
Plus anything that ends with singing or dancing cant go wrong

 

[boholikeu]

A good example of a game that did it 'wrong' was Xenosaga I. I swear, I moved down a corridor, opened a door and got ANOTHER CUT SCENE. I wanted to scream after I realized I was 15 hours into the game and it felt like I was still meeting members of my crew on the starter ship.

Ugh, I totally agree with you on this. I love Japanese games, but sometimes they seriously need to cut down on the exposition vomit (or at least find a way to make it more interactive).

So yeah, usually shorter games = better editing in my experience.

 

[squid5580]

If I can get 5 bucks per hour of entertainment I am fine (12 hour game give or take). When a game rolls in at 2 or 3 hours and no replayability other than extra difficulty (which usually means enemies have more HP while you have less) then ya I think people should *****. Especially when they dropped 60 bucks. Devs should know people can rent these games for 5 bucks and if they can beat them by the time the game needs to go back (used to be 2 days) they are losing $$$$. And them losing $$$$ is not a good thing for us gamers.

 

[GoldenRaz]

The obvious answer is that new, current-gen games are much more expensive than new books or movies (unless you're taking your whole family out to see the movie).

This.
Allow me to do some bullshit math using what is probably probably incorrect information:

Average game = 60$ for 8-10 hours of entertainment.
Average movie = 6$ (1/10 of that price) for 2-2.5 hours of entertainment.
Price/hour of entertainment for video games: about 6.5$/h
Price/hour of entertainment for movies: about 3$/h

That is just my (extremely stupid and misinformed) analysis of the problem.
However, if the average game has replay value then the "price/hour of entertainment" ratio improves quite a lot, so if the game(play) is so interesting that it'll make want to play it again, then it is pretty much equal to the movie.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

I dont mind shorter games myself. Not everything in my library has to be 20-40 hours worth of gameplay. Especially being a dad myself it's cool to be able to only dump an hour or two here and there and end up beating a game in a month. Sometimes if it's to in depth i either lose interest or just never end up finishing it.

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

Actually, unless the action/storyline is fairly intense I prefer short... but that's possibly because I swear I must be ADD or something because if I'm not either plugged into a tear-pulling machine or fighting for my life with a pistol against seven super-mutants I'm quickly getting bored.

EDIT: I'm serious on the ADD thing, I looked it up and I seem to fit most of the symptoms.

 

[ohgodalex]

I believe it's because there is no consistency between game titles. Games that take 40 hours to complete might cost the same as a game that takes 5 or less. Gamers get their expectations set high, and then something comes along and falls short of that pre-determined bar.
Books, meanwhile, vary widely in prices.