Too Short?!

[vede]

I'm kind of sick of you people saying that I can't "enjoy the game" and complete it quickly at the same time.

Perhaps some people like to actually play a role in games, instead of playing as a player playing a game. Would Gordon Freeman really spend hours throwing stuff at walls with the gravity gun? I think not!

Perhaps some people pay more attention to the story than the physics or graphics engine, and don't spend time foregoing storyline for admiring the shinies. A short story is not worth fifty or more dollars simply because of a pretty font face.

Perhaps people have pretty much already seen everything most games can throw at them. Whoop-dee-fuckin'-doo, they have physics and bump-mapping!

(I did like that the round plastic jugs in HL2 made that hollow bumping noise when they hit stuff, though.)

 

[Dr Spaceman]

If you want to look at gaming length from an economics perspective, we can compare games to other comparable forms of media. Since length is the only factor we're considering, let's compare video games to movies.

To see a movie once when it comes out, we pay around $10. Assuming that the average movie is two hours long, that's a cost of $5 per hour. To play a video game once when it comes out, we can rent it for around $5. So therefore, even a 1-hour video game can provide a better cost-benefit than a movie.

What about purchasing a game? Well, to purchase a movie, usually one sees the movie first ($10) then purchases the DVD, which we'll establish as costing $15. So, we reach $25 for the right to own a two-hour movie. This comes out to $12.50 per hour. By this notion, a five-hour game provides a greater ratio of content to cost than a movie. (The game costs $12 per hour if the game is $60).

This is, admittedly, a very loose analysis. But the point is that people never complain that movies are too short, and rarely complain that they are too expensive.

I want to point out that despite all the bellyaching about game length, we're still buying these "short" games. Free market economies are more or less built around the idea that producers make what people want. We can lament all we want about the brevity of newer games, but a market for them clearly exists or else companies wouldn't make them, because it wouldn't make any sense.

EA is out to make a profit. But so is Valve. They have families to feed and clothe. So when you buy Tekken XXII, don't be surprised that "they" crap out Tekken XXIII. Just remember, buying a product is just like voting, only your voice is stronger and it can directly result in more of what you like.

 

[The Potato Lord]

I don't have a problem with short games if they have replayability/Have a proportional price.
Which is why i loved Fable(first reason), and later, Portal(second reason).Also I don't mind if the main story is short if there's more to do on the side(Oblivion if you don't count the tedious gate destroying slog in the middle)

 

[Aerakade]

Some long games can be really ass though because it gets repetitive or doesn't keep you wanting to go on. I'm REALLY putting my faith that Fallout 3 will not suffer from the Oblivion curse where I finally said "I don't give a f*ck about these portals anymore. DAMN YOU!"

 

[GCM]

Short? Like, Portal short? Because I haven't played many current games lately.

Anyway, it depends on your viewpoint. If the developer is shortening a game to improve graphics, then people would have a valid point.

 

[Knight Templar]

8 hours is too short.

Games are geting slightly shorter but cost the same, thats the issue. It takes more effort to make a game but on our end we can't see that.

 

[Dommyboy]

I just don't find games that are too short to be worth the money. Final Fantasy games which offer huge hours of playability are great but unfortunate not much re playability. Pokemon games can be great in these situations, so much to do.
Sucks to have lives in the 80's and been a hardcore, games could be finished in one sit down easily but that's if you value long games at all.

 

[BlackZero]

yea thats why i play games like disgaea or FF tactics they take along time to get through the main storyline alone and with the customization you can do it's fun to play through again by giving your characters a different skill set

 

[Cyberspaced]

No game is too short. Several are too long, however.

Recently I bought Albert Camus' L'Etranger for £6.99. I read it in ninety minutes. My first thought was not "Wow, I didn't get value for money" but "Wow, what a fucking amazing book". Why don't people apply the same logic to games?

Really? Your actually asking that question??? Seriously you can't apply a thought process like that between 2 mediums especially as I haven't seen a book that was gonna cost me £50 and I've never played a game that keeps me as entertained as reading a good Terry Pratchett book, unless I was playing "Discworld Noir" which basically was a book.

ANyhoo back to the point in hand, the reason games are "too short" now is because most games designers realise if there making a game for console, there making it for people who want to run around blowing stuff up and so require no storyline or particularly coherent plot. I mean look at Star Wars : The Force Unleashed and compare that to say KoToR 1 or 2...

Sure it looks a bit prettier, but it took me 9 1/2 hours to beat... on the hardest setting, I've collected everything, the game is finished 100% nothing left to do... except maybe play it thru with my eyes shut or something. I played KoToR for weeks and still am not sure I finished it entirely. I am going to get it for my PC again and play it, might even trade in TFU for it.

This is just one example of a games industry who are getting lazy and do you know who is to blame for this... US my friends, you and I, the consumer who is happy to pay whatever price they charge for the sh*t they make...

I say we take a stand and say no to inferior quality games at higher prices. Maybe we could all just buy a book or something!

 

[Destromas]

Backtracking is an awful idea. I played Devil May Cry 4. I thought it was terrible how you work your way out as one character and work your way back as another. I had never played any of the previous DMC games, so once I got used to Nero, who could jump all around the place and smash stuff around like there's no tomorrow, I got stuck with a sticky camera-damaged Dante, who can't move very well, and isn't as good, and all of the entire way back was drawn out even more than it was to get through the first time.

 

[Syphonz]

I know this is a really old game but. If anyone wants to play a really short game, pick up Resident Evil Survivor for PS1. My first play through ended in 52 minutes.
Actually so is Dino Crisis 2 if you really know what you're doing, I beat that just under an hour as well

 

[wewontdie11]

I'm not too sure where I sit on this issue. I did love Portal and I honestly didn't feel it was too short at all. I suppose that is because it had lots of replay value to me and did come with the rest of the orange box which may have sweetened the deal.

But just recently I bought The Force Unleashed and, having heard it was a fairly short game, decided to take my time about it and still got finished in under 5 hours! I did lots of playing around with the physics and exploring as much as the game would allow on the medium difficulty and I felt like I had been somewhat ripped off because it was so short.

The difference in opinion there comes from the style of game I think. Portal is puzzle and gameplay based, whereas The Force Unleashed, while still having great gameplay, was very much a story driven game for me. As a result of this TFU also lost a lot of it's replayability and I simply didn't feel like playing it any further because I knew what happened, and there was no such problem with Portal.

Also I think subconsciously I have some kind of fun:time ratio going to see if a game ways up as worth it. If the gameplay is exceptional and innovative, and it's only like 4 hours long I wouldn't mind, but if there are no compensating features for the shortness of the game then it is incredibly frustrating.

 

[Father2u]

Backtracking is an awful idea. I played Devil May Cry 4. I thought it was terrible how you work your way out as one character and work your way back as another. I had never played any of the previous DMC games, so once I got used to Nero, who could jump all around the place and smash stuff around like there's no tomorrow, I got stuck with a sticky camera-damaged Dante, who can't move very well, and isn't as good, and all of the entire way back was drawn out even more than it was to get through the first time.

I agree with you that the backtracking sucked, but there is no way that nero is better than dante.

Here is how I play games:
1. Play through to learn the story.
2. Play through again, this time stopping and admiring the scenery/messing with the physics.

 

[ThaBenMan]

Ok, I guess I should have made my statement more clear: If a game actually is really short, yeah, that definitely sucks (although that also depends on the quality of the game, I guess). But what bugs me is that I don't think alot of these games are actually as short as people are making them out to be. Like my original example, Bioshock - everybody says it's really short, like 10 hrs at the most. When I finish it, I'm sure I'll have spent at least 30 hours doing it. Are people just blindly rushing through? And I know that not every game is as detailed and absorbing as Bioshock, but still.