Paddington Game Lengths

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Short games tend to attract controversy, period. There just aren't many of them. Short games are always viewed negatively, regardless of the platform, unless it's a $40 game or something.
 
Scott_Arm said:
Short games tend to attract controversy, period. There just aren't many of them. Short games are always viewed negatively, regardless of the platform, unless it's a $40 game or something.
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A short game is indeed something inherently negative, especially when the price is not adjusted. There is nothing to argue about it imo.
 
I'll have an opinion once I played it, I fully agree it's important, but it's a bad trend to judge play time as an absolute metric above more important thing. It's what forces studios to add grind and "look around until you find the blue key" stuff. Was it short and did it feel short are two different things.
 
MrFox said:
I'll have an opinion once I played it, I fully agree it's important, but it's a bad trend to judge play time as an absolute metric above more important thing. It's what forces studios to add grind and "look around until you find the blue key" stuff. Was it short and did it feel short are two different things.
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Yeah, I agree. Being a long game is not automatically something positive. But being a short game is negative (when the price is not adjusted: I don't mind Blood Dragon to be short...but it only costed 20€ or so).
 
Billy Idol said:
Why? When is a short game something positive?
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When the game is really good and it doesn't feel too long, like it's dragging. The length of a game isn't inherently good or bad. It's just what it is.

When people review books, to they count the number of words and assume that if there are too few words that the book isn't as good as it could have been? Writers have editors for a reason. The same is true for movies. You can have a great movie that's 1:40, which is a little short nowadays, but you can't assume the movie would be better if it were 2:30 instead, or that the running time is a negative.
 
Scott_Arm said:
When the game is really good and it doesn't feel too long, like it's dragging. The length of a game isn't inherently good or bad. It's just what it is.

When people review books, to they count the number of words and assume that if there are too few words that the book isn't as good as it could have been? Writers have editors for a reason. The same is true for movies. You can have a great movie that's 1:40, which is a little short nowadays, but you can't assume the movie would be better if it were 2:30 instead, or that the running time is a negative.
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You cannot compare games to movies imo wrt to length. And books are different as well.


Furthermore, it is often implied that long games are dragging and boring at some point and the gamer is happy when it is over. Only in this case, being a short game is a good thing: when it is a bad game.

But there are long games that offer a substantial long SP experience (TLoU, BS Infinite, Wolfenstein) without being boring or dragging (might be subjective).

A short game is not automatically good and non-boring. Neither is a long game.

In light of this, it still holds imo: being a short game is negative for the consumer. Only the price can correct this negativity.
 
Can we slip in a discussion about the difference between art and entertainment?
 
L. Scofield said:
We're discussing what counts as rushing a game, not whether people like or dislike engaging with the padding.
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No, finding collectables is a form of gameplay. It's a secondary mechanic, where in this case shooting is the primary. But exploring the world and finding trinkets can bring value to the game. Hence, it's gameplay. To others, like yourself, it's not of value, hence it's padding. Heck, given the story nature of the game, one could claim the shooting is just padding for the cinematics. Or the cinematics are padding to stretch out the gunplay. But 'padding' is subjective to one's tastes.

Plus we're talking about what's likely an easy-mode play-through. Does hard mode count as padding because it just elevates monster hit-points?

And finally, whether one calls it padding or not, we have comparable games with comparable times showing that for most folk, whether they are engaged in padding or not, it takes them much longer than the shortest play time to complete. Hence for most people, whether they engage in 'padding' or not, The Order isn't going to be 5 hours end to end. Just as all those other short games weren't as short as feared for most people.

Similar views on Gears 3, post release. Too short and easy, because he didn't change the difficulty setting.

There's no discussion. Can the game be completed in five hours on a first play through. Yes, there's video evidence of this. Does this make the game 5 hours long? No, it'll likely be much longer for most players going by every other game of this ilk having both short possible times and much longer times.
 
Scott_Arm said:
Why can't you compare them?

Also, if a game is 30 hours long and starts to drag after the 20 hour mark, do you not think that game could be better if it were 20 hours long instead?
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Yes, of course. But in this case, the game is boring. The gamedesign is flawed and in itself a negativity, that overshadows the length. It is the responsibility of the dev to ensure that the game does not get boring imo.

Again, assume the game does not suck and is boring, assume it is good: when is it positive that the game is short.

Assume the game is shit, there is imo no need to discuss its length.

Assume the game is good for 20h, and boring the last 10h...it is not the fault of the 'game length'...it is the fault of bad game design.

A game does not automatically turn boring when it is long. Thus, it stands: short length is an objective negativity.

You cannot compare movies and books: they only deliver a story, no sort of interaction (gameplay). And the price is also different.

And, where I live, the movie length indeed is reflected in the price you pay for the ticket: if it is a long movie, it costs more.

The problem is imo the ratio of typical expected length to price. It seems that the order (apparently 8h long or so for 60€) is not very good in this regard.
 
Just to add: if a game feels boring to me (actually a lot of games do), I never say: I wish it was shorter. I say, I wish the devs made a better game.

If a game is good, I also don't say: I wish the game would be shorter!

In which cases do you say: I wish the game would be shorter?
 
Zelda is 40h and it's about right.
TLoU, is 12h, and also feels about right.
I clocked 72d so 1700h in Everquest 2, it feels about... No It doesn't. There's something wrong with me.
 
Ok, we're derailing, but what you're saying does not make sense. You're essentially arguing that any game that's good would not be boring if it were a longer game. You think I could take The Last of Us, add 10-20 hours of combat and stealth and there's no chance that it would drag at times? If someone did that, they only flaw in the game design would be how long it is. Good games are good because they don't overstay their welcome. You can have a great gameplay mechanic, and the trick is fitting it into a game of an appropriate length, so it won't become tired.

I don't understand why you can't compare a book to a game in this particular case. The only "metric" that matters is if you're enjoying it. If a game were 8 hours long, and the best game I ever played, then I don't see what's wrong with it being 8 hours long. Compare that to a game that's 100 hours, and I only really enjoy 30 hours of it, and I'd say overall the 8 hour game did a much better job of keeping me entertained. I have no patience for games where I have to grind to get to the good parts.
 
Billy Idol said:
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In which cases do you say: I wish the game would be shorter?
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As I already said, in the cases where the game has parts that are a grind. Keep the good parts, take out the bad parts, you have a better game. Shadows of Mordor is a good recent example for me. Great game, awesome combat, pretty good main story arch, but it started to wear a little long and I had to force myself to finish the end. It would have been better if they trimmed the fat.
 
No, I don't say this.

TLoU is for me about 17h. It was perfect for me. Also, a very good value (it only costed 50€ btw and has MP!).

But, ND did a lot to make a game this long, which doesn't feel boring. It is their accomplishment and game design (e.g. they have combat against humans with clever AI sandbox style, the have stealth parts against the fungus zombies, they had short show of scenery calm parts, the had story parts...and then they even changed up gameplay a lot approaching the end. As I said, ND put a lot of effort to make sure this game is long and not boring).

If we add now 10-20h to TLoU, ND would need to work very very hard on the gamedesign (add new aspects) to make it fly imo.

Edit: holy shit!!! Where are all the posts...spoooky!

Edit2: here they are :)
 
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