Shorter campaigns: Problem or improvement?

[ForensicYOYO]

It has come to my attention that more and more games being released nowadays take less time to beat the campaign then previous games. ( or it seems that way to me ). Now I generally like having a campaign I can come back to when Im just in the mood for it and beat in a single play through, but then again Im also not getting my moneys worth if they didn't at least take the time to put enough in it.

So what's your thoughts? Are shorter campaigns a good thing or a bad thing?
Also just throwing this out there but short to me is generally 3-7 hours of game play. A fair amount is 8-15 hours. 16 hours and so on doesn't matter because we aren't talking about FF.

EDIT: Maybe it just boils down to whats better reply value or more game time in one playthrough? Just a thought.

 

[Souplex]

Shorter campaigns would be fine if they charged less.
CAPTCHA: archalso you'll

 

[Mr Thin]

Baaaaaaad.

Though I hate it even more when a short campaign is padded out with tedium to seem longer.

CoD:MW 1 & 2 may have painfully short campaigns, but at least they're intense and don't let up with the action.

 

[Miles000]

Anything I can finish in one sitting I consider a disappointment.
For example the most recent Call of Duty games. I got them at midnight launch and was finished before sunrise.
Single player games need at least 10+ hours solid game play before they are worth it.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

It's weird how professional reviewers spend virtually no time talking about game length. Movie reviewers will always make specific mention when a film is either too short or too long. Why don't game critics do the same?

Sometimes a game is just pathetically short; 4-6 hours for $60 is plain unacceptable. On the flip side, some games pad their playtimes with obvious filler content that isn't much fun at all. I think that's a pretty big black mark.

In response to the OP: I don't think 3-7 hours is ever worth $60. I expect at least 8+ "meaty" hours (no obvious filler) for that kind of money.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

i don't understand the mentality of "short campaigns are the bane of gaming." if a game is awesome, it shouldn't matter if it only lasts 2-3 hours. Portal is about that length, and it feels like it's just the right length. i don't mind longer games, but i also couldn't care less if i can beat the game in one sitting, as long as i enjoy playing it.

 

[Krion_Vark]

If the story is good and not drawn out it is fine. If the story line is shit and it hinges on the multiplayer *cough*COD*cough* its bad.

 

[Mr Binary]

I don't like this at all. I love stories in a game,any game that sacrifices story for multiplayer is a bad game in my opinion. If I'm playing a game I want to be interested in what's going on, not just "He's the bad guy! Kill him!" like most of the Call of Duty games. Let's see some intriguing motives and back story. Those are what make a good game.

 

[Wayneguard]

Paying the same price for less game? This seems clear....

 

[mjc0961]

Well, it depends. If the game is full of filler nonsense to be 8 hours long, that's just as bad as if it ended in 2 hours. Just make a campaign that's a decent length without putting in nonsense filler stuff and that's fine. I'd rather have 4 hours of awesome than 4 hours of awesome and 3 hours of garbage. Of course, I'd rather have 8-10 hours of awesome.

Oh, and they could stop locking out the hardest difficulty setting too. Making us beat the game on an easier difficulty before we get the hardest one is just padding the play time too. Making us play a 5 hour campaign twice if we want the biggest challenge is not the same thing as one 10 hour campaign.

i don't understand the mentality of "short campaigns are the bane of gaming." if a game is awesome, it shouldn't matter if it only lasts 2-3 hours. Portal is about that length, and it feels like it's just the right length. i don't mind longer games, but i also couldn't care less if i can beat the game in one sitting, as long as i enjoy playing it.

Portal also doesn't cost $60, and never did.

 

[Fightgarr]

A short campaign is perfectly fine with me if I'm willing to replay that short amount of time many times. There are very few games that I buy new on launch day, and those I do tend to be around the 25+ hour range of games. But let's take a look at some games as examples. Castle Crashers you can beat in a couple of hours, but I've replayed it so many times that it matters not that it's incredibly short. Same goes for games like Portal. I'm not one for multiplayer, but relatively short campaigns have never bothered me a whole lot if they're shooting for the multiplayer market. To be honest, the FPS genre is the only one I've really noticed has this huge problem with short campaigns. Since I tend to steer clear of FPS games, now, I really haven't encountered this short campaign problem people seem to go on and on about.

 

[Frotality]

well if they all had brilliant award-worthy stories that make you cry in joy than 3-7 hours would be fine...but they dont. for the majority of games, shorter campaigns are very much a problem because there is never anything to justify it other than the developer didnt want to/ couldnt work on it any longer. im with yahtzee 100%; a AAA game needs to stand up on single-player. multiplayer is a feature, a bonus, not the core of the game; and if it is the core of the game, then it damn well better not be 60$. team fortress 2 was an awesome game and it was only multiplayer; if it were full-priced though, that shit would not stand.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

Well, it depends. If the game is full of filler nonsense to be 8 hours long, that's just as bad as if it ended in 2 hours. Just make a campaign that's a decent length without putting in nonsense filler stuff and that's fine. I'd rather have 4 hours of awesome than 4 hours of awesome and 3 hours of garbage. Of course, I'd rather have 8-10 hours of awesome.

Oh, and they could stop locking out the hardest difficulty setting too. Making us beat the game on an easier difficulty before we get the hardest one is just padding the play time too. Making us play a 5 hour campaign twice if we want the biggest challenge is not the same thing as one 10 hour campaign.

i don't understand the mentality of "short campaigns are the bane of gaming." if a game is awesome, it shouldn't matter if it only lasts 2-3 hours. Portal is about that length, and it feels like it's just the right length. i don't mind longer games, but i also couldn't care less if i can beat the game in one sitting, as long as i enjoy playing it.

Portal also doesn't cost $60, and never did.

i would've paid $60 for Portal. it's definitely worth the money. if we're going to price these games ourselves, let's do so based on how good they are, not how long they are.

 

[Elamdri]

It has come to my attention that more and more games being released nowadays take less time to beat the campaign then previous games. ( or it seems that way to me ). Now I generally like having a campaign I can come back to when Im just in the mood for it and beat in a single play through, but then again Im also not getting my moneys worth if they didn't at least take the time to put enough in it.

So what's your thoughts? Are shorter campaigns a good thing or a bad thing?
Also just throwing this out there but short to me is generally 3-7 hours of game play. A fair amount is 8-15 hours. 16 hours and so on doesn't matter because we aren't talking about FF.

It really depends on what kind of story you're trying to tell. Some stories require a longer campaign, others don't.

BAD campaigns happen when a campaign is either cut short or padded out past what it needs.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

Paying the same price for less game? This seems clear....

Exactly. When i hear a quote like saluraropicrusa's, i'm thinking, he must not be paying for these games..

Either that, or he's rich.

though i personally don't always pay for my games (i don't have a job yet), i can assure you that i would pay full price for an awesome game no matter how long or short it happened to be. if Okami had ended when you beat Orochi, i would've been completely satisfied. and i would definitely pay $60 (or more) for Portal if i didn't already own it. i enjoy these games because they're GOOD, not because they last more than 3 hours.

 

[Zhukov]

Do not try and sell me less content for the same price. I won't buy it.

- If you are going to make a short-as-shit campaign then lower the damn price.
- If you are going to make a purely multiplayer game then lower the damn price.
- If you are going to make a mostly multiplayer game with an afterthought short-as-shit campaign then make sure that is reflected in the marketing. And then lower the damn price.

 

[MarcFirewing]

I would prefer two discs of nothing but action-based campaign. Just because developers stuff their games with cutscenes doesn't mean that campaigns are equivalent to 24+ hours of game time. (Calling FFXIII on this one here) If you're going to make a game, don't make us sit through twenty minutes of cutscenes (MGS4 on this one) to explain a backstory and a damn point about one single subject.

Games are...well...GAMES. We play them. If we wanted to watch them, they would be movies.

So yeah. Lower the god damn price if you're gonna make a game stuffed full of cutscenes after every turn.