Poll: Games are getting far to short for the money we pay nowadays.

[Battenbergcake]

I understand that a game in today's climate takes a lot of effort and funds to make and some games definitely feel made to a budget, and this is my own personal opinion on the matter.

I appreciate the different currency and part of the reason for the upped price in the games industry is to try and even that out.

But for me achievements and trophy's are or no real value to me, having a little message blip up and tell me i've completed level 1 is indeed compelling but i'm not sold, it's a somewhat arbitrary attempts to make me play a game more.

 

[Jamash]

Waaay too short.

People are always swooning over whatnot like Fable 2.

I finished that game over one flu-filled afternoon.

That's funny, I spent at least 60 hours on my first play through of Fable 2 (and still load up that 100% complete game to play some more), but I actually savoured the game world and enjoyed aimlessly wandering around, exploring and picking unnecessary fights.

I think the problem is that nowadays gamers think the measure of a game is how quickly it takes you to completed it or get all of the desired achievements, and see games as a task or chore to be completed, rather than an experience to be enjoyed.

I could go into a 5 star restaurant with the munches and, if all the food was laid out in front of me, demolish a £500 4 course meal in under 20 minutes. That doesn't mean that the meal was unsubstantial and not worth the money just because I squander it.

 

[Punisher A.J.]

Two things:

• Many shorter games have multiplayer, that increases play time so don't *****.
  Go buy Dragon Age if you think games are too short.

A response to that...
1. If it has a campaign, make it worth the effort.
2. Dragon age was not long, it may have been one of the longest games for the year but it was not long. I beat the game and completed a majority with all party members in 25 hours.... the reason it felt too short is because it was sooo addicting.

I thinks its the length that makes and breaks the game.
Short game - COD MWF 2 = short but sweet tons of replay value
Medium sized game - dragon age = played it through 5 times
Assassin's creed 2 and fall out 3 - I played it once and will probably never start a new game.

 

[GameGoddess101]

I agree. Game developers are relying on their multi-player to make up for a lack of campaign time. I mean, I expect that kind of crap from a fighter, but jeez! Like Halo 3 for instance- I got through the campaign in less than 10 hours, but they were basically charging me 60 bucks for the multiplayer! It's criminal I say!

And are we forgetting trophies/achievements now?

Not everyone cares about those, though.

 

[Battenbergcake]

Two things:

• Many shorter games have multiplayer, that increases play time so don't *****.
  Go buy Dragon Age if you think games are too short.

First off not everyone in the world (only most people) is a hopeless addict to Modern Warfare's wonderful multilayer system, but it's not a fallible defense for a short campaign, Multiplayer should be a good addition to a game with a single player campaign, not an substitute, if you want that there are plenty of online shooters specifically tailored for such a purpose, see Valve's sublime Team Fortress 2, with regular game play updates and achievements for those who must strive towards 100%.

Good point, although not owning a PC man enough to live that as Atlas lifts the world kinda kicks me in the shins a bit as the PC version's a far smoother ride control wise.

 

[bcponpcp27]

I'm the only one who voted for "I play online Multiplayer?" When I buy games like Halo or CoD, I mainly do it for the multiplayer. I always play and finish the single player first (on medium usually, I'll go back for achievements later if I feel motivated), but I really get the game for the multiplayer. If I want a kick ass single player that lasts a long time and has replayablity, I'm probably going to get an RPG. There are exceptions (like Half life), but this is usually the case.

 

[GameGoddess101]

In the cartridge era games were often shorter and most of the times most expensive than the games now.

Modern Warfare 2 was too short for my taste, though...

Cartridges were short because most of them didn't have save-points or code systems.

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

Two things:

• Many shorter games have multiplayer, that increases play time so don't *****.
  Go buy Dragon Age if you think games are too short.

First off not everyone in the world (only most people) is a hopeless addict to Modern Warfare's wonderful multilayer system, but it's not a fallible defense for a short campaign, Multiplayer should be a good addition to a game with a single player campaign, not an substitute, if you want that there are plenty of online shooters specifically tailored for such a purpose, see Valve's sublime Team Fortress 2, with regular game play updates and achievements for those who must strive towards 100%.

Good point, although not owning a PC man enough to live that as Atlas lifts the world kinda kicks me in the shins a bit as the PC version's a far smoother ride control wise.

I never mentioned Modern Warfare 2, I merely stated a fact. I prefer Team Fortress 2 to Modern Warfare 2 and have sunk far more time into it.

 

[captainwolfos]

And this is exactly why I wait a year or two for the price to fall for any game. Usually from eBay or Gamestation; two stores I hold dear to my heart.

Either that, or retrieve it from a friend/bin/other unlikely place to find a decent game.

 

[Shadowfaze]

Two things:

• Many shorter games have multiplayer, that increases play time so don't *****.
  Go buy Dragon Age if you think games are too short.

I heard that. Brilliant game, and sooo long.

 

[Battenbergcake]

Me, I'm more concerned with quality than quantity. Yes, Mass Effect was way shorter than RPGs used to be, but I still think it was worth the money. And Portal was, what, four hours long? I certainly wouldn't object if games were longer (especially since I have never and will never give a flying shit about multiplayer--I play games because I don't want to deal with my fellow man, goddamnit), but it hasn't quite gotten to the deal-breaker point for me just yet.

EDIT: Oh, and whoever up there suggested Dragon Age? I second that.

That's another point i'll probably make, games aye taking a bit of a dip in the story department, i have no problem with games that are brilliantly told but a bit lacking in length.
Portal. oh portal, that though a 2 hour game, was a perfect length for what it was, the challenge mode UNLOCKED AFTER completing the game is a nice addition.
Portal is a charming gem that has more character and and hell of a load of creative idea in such a short space of time.

 

[hermes]

In the cartridge era games were often shorter and most of the times most expensive than the games now.

Modern Warfare 2 was too short for my taste, though...

Cartridges were short because most of them didn't have save-points or code systems.

And little memory for assets... yet many of them were over 100 $.

 

[Chipperz]

Ahh, I remember the good old days of Sonic 1. That took me in excess of 30 minutes to complete. Once though, I did a speed run and it still took me in excess of 20 (most of that was on the final boss, though, so I guess I did it in 15).

Now, I've only got 39 hour's playtime on Dragon Age : Origins! What the fuck!? And they want another £20 in March (who am I kidding? We're going through another "American developers hate England" phase, so it'll be closer to £30) for another 15 hours gameplay!

I'll give you Team Fortress 2, though. That single player mode is shit...

 

[FFMattCR]

I totally agree... I mean, campaigns and story modes and even "zombie" and challenge modes are getting shorter.
And yet the average price of new games these days is something around £35-£40 i'm sure

I felt that Batman: As (which i just completed story mode on) took a fair amount of time for me to do, but the story of it still felt kinda lacking, quite a bit of random running around to fill in time.

I don't know, the last game I played where the story really took me any significant amount of time was Red Faction and I moved on to other games before I finished it. So sometimes its not all that great if games are too long (also why I quit World of Warcraft and I'm in two minds about CCP's EVE,
Planetside still cool though )

Edit: although the last 3 are MMO's so i guess its not the same

 

[DoctorObviously]

I'm not really happy about it, but I'd rather have a short but sweet, well planned, excellent thought out and thoroughly polished campaign (with the perfect length) rather than a long and boring grind. Examples of the above are Metal Gear Solid 4, Heavenly Sword and Modern Warfare 2. Examples of the latter are Final Fantasy XII, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Borderlands.

 

[IamQ]

They are not.

Do you know the money that has to be blown on making games?

Evolution in gaming takes a price, of course games have to cost more.

And stop complaining about the price, we in Sweden pay much more than you in England or USA.

And are we forgetting trophies/achievements now?

This man speaks the truth. A normal game that's newly released costs around 699 SEK usually, and if we change that to dollars, it's exactly 98.28 dollars.

This counts for consoles too. Old PS3 before the price cut was 4000 SEK, that's 562 dollars.

The new one, PS3 Slim, is 3600 SEK, that's 506 dollars. So don't you dare complain about the price of anything!




Just wanted to get that out of my system.


OT: No, I don't think games are becoming too short. It all depends on the difficulty. Batman Arkham Asylum took me 4 days to beat on hard.

Assassins creed took me 8 months to beat (Although that was more because I couldn't bother to play it, rather than anything else)

 

[Battenbergcake]

Two things:

• Many shorter games have multiplayer, that increases play time so don't *****.
  Go buy Dragon Age if you think games are too short.

First off not everyone in the world (only most people) is a hopeless addict to Modern Warfare's wonderful multilayer system, but it's not a fallible defense for a short campaign, Multiplayer should be a good addition to a game with a single player campaign, not an substitute, if you want that there are plenty of online shooters specifically tailored for such a purpose, see Valve's sublime Team Fortress 2, with regular game play updates and achievements for those who must strive towards 100%.

Good point, although not owning a PC man enough to live that as Atlas lifts the world kinda kicks me in the shins a bit as the PC version's a far smoother ride control wise.

I never mentioned Modern Warfare 2, I merely stated a fact. I prefer Team Fortress 2 to Modern Warfare 2 and have sunk far more time into it.

Sorry for jumping to MW2striaght away but you can probably understand why i jumped to it since it's meant to be the best thing since sliced bread.
We're both different people with different play style, my point if, i feel as someone who buys games for the single player i feel that game designer's nowadays are skimping on the single player in favor of online multiplayer due to the success of Halo and MW, though PC shooters like Counter Strike have been around for yonks, the console market i feel is suffering story wise because of the boom in online popularity.

 

[Coaxill]

I prefer shorter games. You can feel it going along and it helps hold attention. I never finished deus ex because each section was so fucking big. Fallout 2 was the perfect length for an rpg, Halo 2 was the perfect length for a shooter, and sandbox games should be no longer than GTA4.

 

[GameGoddess101]

In the cartridge era games were often shorter and most of the times most expensive than the games now.

Modern Warfare 2 was too short for my taste, though...

Cartridges were short because most of them didn't have save-points or code systems.

And little memory for assets... yet many of them were over 100 $.

I don't remember any cartridges being over $100... Then again, I was really young when they were popular... so whatever I guess.

 

[hazabaza1]

Go buy Dragon Age if you think games are too short.[/list]

/thread

Seriously, get Dragon age now.