Poll: Can you play a game based on the promise that it will get interesting later on?

[Meinos Kaen]

This comes from a discussion I just finished having with a friend of mine, centered on the game Persona 3. I bought it, played it three times and then dropped it because the high school atmosphere didn't appeal to me, the social links felt like a chore and the gameplay was too easy. He said that I should continue playing because later on it becomes challenging and more plot-interesting.

While that may be true, the point is, why should I go on playing something for a promise? Books don't have that luxury. Either they keep you entertained all the time, or you just drop them. Why should I give the benefit of that to something that takes away even more of my time when there are other games out there that manage to hook me and never let go?

My ideal game -my ideal everything in entertainment, actually- it's something like a bonfire that keeps you warm all the time while slowly getting bigger and hotter and ends up in a RAGING INFERNO OF AWESOMENESS!

My friend's answer was: 'go back to SNES, then'. He may be right. But if I have to choose, I prefer an entertaining game/story with a WTF?! finale that I'll hate to something that'll bore me most of the way for the sake of one third of interesting things.

What about you?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yes. I have a friend who can't, though. If he's not enjoying a game in the first hour or two he'll dump it, regardless of how much promise it has or whether or not he is assured it will eventually get good. Drives me nuts.

 

[TehCookie]

If I can see that it's building up to something and it's a slow introduction, I have no issues with it. I would say other media have that luxury as well. When you start reading a book do you expect there to be action right away? Or are you okay with it showing a boring normal life before everything goes to shit? Besides if you start off big it's harder to keep topping it as it goes on.

Of course that's also assuming the beginning is meh or okay, not bad.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Excuse me, how come "books don't have that luxury"? You're telling me there's no such thing as books getting interesting along the way? I think it's moreso the case with literature. In games the core gameplay hardly ever changes. Unless it's some Final Fantasy bullshit where the tutorial lasts 5 hours then the first hour or so should give you a pretty good taste of what playing will be like for the rest of the game.

 

[Xeorm]

It depends entirely on the game and how bad the introduction is. I can usually stomach some, but it definitely wears thin pretty quickly. Worse if it feels like a negative experience, rather than merely dull.

But I wouldn't at all call this unique to games as a medium. There've been more than a few books that start out tremendously dull as they establish the world or whatnot, before actually getting into the meat of the story. Whedon's tv shows are even known for doing this, as he'll spend quite a few episodes establishing the story and setting before actually making the real episodes that can take what he's constructed and build something really worthy of all the setup.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

If I can see that it's building up to something and it's a slow introduction, I have no issues with it. I would say other media have that luxury as well. When you start reading a book do you expect there to be action right away? Or are you okay with it showing a boring normal life before everything goes to shit? Besides if you start off big it's harder to keep topping it as it goes on.

Of course that's also assuming the beginning is meh or okay, not bad.

And that's the point that I had to explain to my friend too. When I mean 'entertainment', I don't mean ACTION. I mean, an interesting main character, something funny, something witty, a little subplot, something! Books are supposed to hook you in the first fifty pages, or they're a failure. For games, it's the same. If they can't keep your interest with something, be it gameplay, plot, characters, music, after the first few hours of game I'll just put them down and get to another game who can. Is that a sin?

Edit: And I just found out from my friend that in the portable version of the game they cut down the parts that I found boring to the bone. XD

 

[skywolfblue]

If you have to wade through boring stuff to get to the good stuff, something's wrong.

I'd much rather something I enjoyed from beginning to end, then something that is 2 hours boredom 1 hour excitement.

If I can see that it's building up to something and it's a slow introduction, I have no issues with it. I would say other media have that luxury as well. When you start reading a book do you expect there to be action right away? Or are you okay with it showing a boring normal life before everything goes to shit? Besides if you start off big it's harder to keep topping it as it goes on.

Of course that's also assuming the beginning is meh or okay, not bad.

And that's the point that I had to explain to my friend too. When I mean 'entertainment', I don't mean ACTION. I mean, an interesting main character, something funny, something witty, a little subplot, something! Books are supposed to hook you in the first fifty pages, or they're a failure. For games, it's the same. If they can't keep your interest with something, be it gameplay, plot, characters, music, after the first few hours of game I'll just put them down and get to another game who can. Is that a sin?

Edit: And I just found out from my friend that in the portable version of the game they cut down the parts that I found boring to the bone. XD

Precisely. Even books that "start slow" can provide entertainment in many forms other then action, such as amusing or tragic character events that make you love the characters. But if it's boring, then it's all for naught, it failed to make the audience care about the world, the characters, and so on. A good book/movie/game should never be boring, not even at the beginning.

 

[Lucyfer86]

I _CAN_ but the question is, do i want to? But okay, i quess i could in most cases if the promise is credible.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I take it on a game-by-game basis...I really liked Persona 3 Portable but most of my time in that game was spent in the human world, working and doing school stuff. Then there are games like Ni No Kuni and, Final Fantasy XIII which failed to engage me from the beginning and I just stopped playing with. I can play games that "get better later" but I prefer games like Dark Void: Where you start out with a solid premise (3rd person shooting) and then things get awesome (jetpack).

 

[Foolery]

Nope. There's a few exceptions, but most games, nope. It if fails to engage me within the first 3 to 5 hours, fuck it, I'm out. Persona 3 is terrible by the way. And I played it for at least 12 hours. Just a bland dungeon crawl.

 

[TehCookie]

If I can see that it's building up to something and it's a slow introduction, I have no issues with it. I would say other media have that luxury as well. When you start reading a book do you expect there to be action right away? Or are you okay with it showing a boring normal life before everything goes to shit? Besides if you start off big it's harder to keep topping it as it goes on.

Of course that's also assuming the beginning is meh or okay, not bad.

And that's the point that I had to explain to my friend too. When I mean 'entertainment', I don't mean ACTION. I mean, an interesting main character, something funny, something witty, a little subplot, something! Books are supposed to hook you in the first fifty pages, or they're a failure. For games, it's the same. If they can't keep your interest with something, be it gameplay, plot, characters, music, after the first few hours of game I'll just put them down and get to another game who can. Is that a sin?

Edit: And I just found out from my friend that in the portable version of the game they cut down the parts that I found boring to the bone. XD

I can't think of a single game that doesn't have something you listed there, whether or not you find it entertaining is your opinion. I don't mean action as strictly fighting, but rather things other than dramatic or expositional events since many people do find stuff like that boring.

P3's opening is more about mystery and suspense than trying to be funny or witty. It's a slowly paced game with that relies heavily on foreshadowing to keep drawing the player deeper into the story. It's not going to lay everything out and tell you everything in the beginning. Besides the social links pretty much are the subplot to keep you entertained between the full plot, but again it's drama not action. It sounds like it's a game you'd find boring even if you kept playing it. People have different taste and it's not for you. I on the other hand love the shit out of that game and found the highschool sim part to be the most immersive thing I've ever played that nothing can compare to. Now excuse my as I cage up my inner fangirl.

It's not a sin to have different preferences. That makes it sound like there's a right or wrong answer or you need people to agree with you to validate your opinion. Do whatever works for you and don't worry what others think.

 

[tippy2k2]

Nope.

All items of media have an amount of time to hook me somehow (games usually get a few hours) but the promise of "it gets better later" means jack to me. If you can't handle keeping me entertained now, why should I trust that you'll entertain me later?

Final Fantasy VIII gets awesome 20 hours into it you say!!!
I don't care. Why would I spend 20 hours to get into the game when I can put in Crysis 3 or Saints Row or Call of Duty or "insert your favorite game" right now and have fun?

World of Warcraft gets awesome when you get to raiding!!!!
...don't care. I've used up a month of my life and I have to keep paying money for the privilege of getting to the good part eventually? Yeah...how about no?

It's rare that I dump a game because most games I do go with have some entertainment or redeeming qualities but those two just took WAAAAAY too long to get their hook into me. I'm not going to sink dozens of hours into a game to "get to the good part". I'm an adult; I've got shit to do.

 

[z121231211]

I answered "no", not because I need an explosion in the first 5 seconds or another "in medias res" intro so I know shit's going to go down, but because good pacing should always leave you wanting to know more and move forward throughout the story, even if in the beginning the story seems trivial. And of course depending on the genre the first hour of gameplay should be representative of what's in store, even if you add a few more mechanics later.

 

[Coakle]

This is extremely dependent on who's saying this line. I'll ignore them or ask them to describe or show me a moment that occurs when the game has reached the 'fun zone.' I'm suspicious, but not dismissive.

I take it, that to get different gaming experiences, I'll have to occasionally deal with a boring start. That's not a problem for me. I feel like I would miss out, if I require all my games to instantly engage me and keep me that way throughout.

KOTOR II extremely boring until I got off Peragus.

Europa Universalis isn't any fun until you invest the time to get a handle on all the mechanics.


I will not always choose to read Dan Koonz novels, or their ilk, over 'Anna Karenina' or 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' just because those books have some slow, boring parts. I'll overlook flaws, if the rest of the book is worth it.

EDIT: Well, I sound like a snob. Just replace Anna Kerenina with 'The Mirrors of Merlin'. Yeah, that'll do.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Yes, and some of my favourite games of all time only really get good later on (The Witcher 2, KoTOR II, Mass Effect(to a degree at least)).

I have learnt to persevere through a game's intro if there is a promise of greater things, but I do not begrudge people who give up on a game about 2 hours in, as people have varying tastes and perceptions of patience.

 

[white_wolf]

To a point I can do that but sometimes no it just isn't getting to the good parts fast enough or what the player who said play this cuz it gets good later's version of good is my version of yawn.

 

[Drummodino]

Definitely, some of my favorite games started out with less than good first impressions. Persona 3 was pretty meh for me at first (playing it after 4) but that game just got progressively better and better and finished spectacularly. Also games with steep learning curves (e.g. Dark Souls) may start out with you cursing and throwing your controller, but if you stick with them for a few hours you learn the gameplay a bit better and all of a sudden you're having a blast.

Also books don't have this luxury? I could not disagree more, plenty of novels I've read started out slow or had long sections of boring. Ever read Lord of The Rings or The Wheel of Time? Those sections are worth pushing through though for the epic parts and when you look back you may even realise that they were needed for the story to work. You can't have 100% action all the time, you'll get fatigued.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I can, but there are limits. I can stomach the first 2-3 hours of Final Fantasy XII before it gets good, but I won't go through the (apparently) 20 hours it (apparently) takes Final Fantasy XIII to get good, for instance.
I don't need instant gratification and can accept a slow boil, but I don't have all day. If I'm bored three to four hours into your game, don't blame me for saying it's garbage. It's your damn fault, not mine.

 

[Vivi22]

Yes. I have a friend who can't, though. If he's not enjoying a game in the first hour or two he'll dump it, regardless of how much promise it has or whether or not he is assured it will eventually get good. Drives me nuts.

See, I'll dump a game after a few hours if it's not interesting because every single time I haven't it didn't actually get better.

I'm a big believer in not wasting time with a game you don't like. So what if it gets better five hours in, or ten hours, or whatever? You're still playing a game you hate until then so is it really going to make up for the time that you're just plodding through completely uninterested to get to the good parts? Will you even find the good parts that good? You aren't liking the first few hours and those were made by the same people. And why should I pretend it's acceptable for a company to make a shitty first half of the game just because the second half is good? I don't want half of a good game, I want an entire good game.