Paddington Game Lengths

[Billy Idol]

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.

Hm, it seems that I cannot make my point clear!?!

Of course, when a game is bad...it is then better for it to be short. But we are not talking about bad games. And the longer a game does not automatically makes it boring.

If the grinding in shadows of mordor is boring, the question is: do I need the grinding to progress, do I need the grinding to unlock gameplay stuff. If one of these are answered with yes: bad game design...the devs should improve and spice up the grinding to make it fun. The length is in this case not the problem. If it is just for getting trophys...this is different than and not problematic.

I hope I make myself clear?

 

[Billy Idol]

Ok, one situation, where e.g. a short game is the way to go: if the game dev has a specific key gameplay idea and builds a game around it (like e.g. flower)...than, it is difficult to increase the length but still keep the essence of the game without getting boring after hours and hours.

But in this case, price (e.g. Flower) should be lower. And as I said, than it is ok.

It is of course subjective, which ratio of game length and price is good value. I guess, each of us has an own ratio value...

 

[MrFox]

Personally, TLoU winter transition and the zoo scenes are worth 60 bucks by themselves, but they needed the preceding build up, nothing more, nothing less, to be as potent as possible.

I'm thinking, if TLoU was half it's length, much less action but with the same story, I'd rate it 9/10 instead of a 10/10. I'd be saying it was incredible, but a bit short. I never played this game for pure entertainment, it was all story, immersion and characters. The reference to films and books is an interesting one.

 

[Billy Idol]

If we rate entertainment values as length per money, I get this:

A typical movie (1.5h) costs 11€ where I live. Longer movies cost even more. Thus, about 7.33€ per hour.

A new typical game costs 60€. So, if the game offers more than 8.18h of entertainment, it is in this measure a better value than movies.

A typical book costs 15€. Thus, if it takes more than 2h to read, it offers better value in this single discipline than movies and games.

Thus:

Books >>> standard games > movies

Books >>> movies > short games.


(Of course, this does not factor in which makes more fun and such thing...it is just one number, but still a funny one imo )


Btw, the prices are different in the US, right? How does it compare?

 

[HTupolev]

If one of these are answered with yes: bad game design...the devs should improve and spice up the grinding to make it fun.

That's very sum-of-parts. I'm not buying a pile of pieces, I'm buying a game. An experience, a whole.

Sometimes the best way to make the whole function more smoothly is to remove a part that just doesn't seem like it'll fit right.

Personally, TLoU winter transition and the zoo scenes are worth 60 bucks by themselves, but they needed the preceding build up, nothing more, nothing less, to be as potent as possible.

Whether I agree depends on what you mean by "the preceding build up." Personally I thought that TLoU's first half had very stagnant pacing. There's an introductory act, and then the narrative flow flatlines for a while where nothing much is happening but world-building.

It almost feels like they wove the narrative flow into the flow of seasons, which is a concept I'm a huge fan of*, but then just started duct-taping thing after thing to the tail end of summer.

*Tying narrative to a day cycle also works. And these sorts of things don't necessarily need to be literal.

 

[Arwin]

Well, it's like movies, when anyone feel it was too short at least it means it was fun and they wanted more, but when it was too long,it means it was boring or had pacing issues (the hobbit). There very few films that deserve a 3h+ treatment.

I'm puzzled by this infatuation with game length all of a sudden. It would make sense if the game was 3h, but even 8h isn't that big of a deal, there's so much more important stuff.

In the end it all comes down to replay value. At 60$, do you want to spend the full price if you're only going to play it once? If so, it has to be really worth it. At $30 it would be a no-brainer for me, but at full price, even I have to think about it. If there is a lot of story telling fine, but if there's a lot of story telling with QTEs that have a fail state, that distracts from the story for me personally. But it could also end up being a highlight game for me, if the gameworld is convincing, the story is good and the gameplay just right. I haven't played a lot of third person shooters, and I haven't finished any that didn't leave me want more (to be clear, the other ones I haven't finished, abandoning them quite quickly, and that includes among others Gears of War).

 

[London Geezer]

In the end it all comes down to replay value. At 60$, do you want to spend the full price if you're only going to play it once? If so, it has to be really worth it. At $30 it would be a no-brainer for me, but at full price, even I have to think about it. If there is a lot of story telling fine, but if there's a lot of story telling with QTEs that have a fail state, that distracts from the story for me personally. But it could also end up being a highlight game for me, if the gameworld is convincing, the story is good and the gameplay just right. I haven't played a lot of third person shooters, and I haven't finished any that didn't leave me want more (to be clear, the other ones I haven't finished, abandoning them quite quickly, and that includes among others Gears of War).

This.

 

[DrJay24]

I've replayed probably <2% of all my games, hell I'm lucky if I play them let alone finish them once. To me you pay for the experience, length is not super important. If you buy the disc, just trade it in if you don't want to hold onto it.

 

[Scott_Arm]

If a game came out that was $60 and 3 hours long, but you and every single other person that played it said, "These are the best 3 hours of gaming in the history of gaming, but has little replay value," do you think it would be worth the money?

To me, I don't really care. I'm paying for the experience, and whether it's worth it is not really based on some sum of hours or features. It's just a feeling you get from a game, whether it was worth the money or not. It's an experience. It's the same way I can't say a length book like The Stand provides better value than a great novel that takes 1/5 the time to read.

 

[BoardBonobo]

But surely, in arguing that price dictates the value proposition of the experience, we are mixing two separate things? The price of games has been rising continuously over the years (something to do with economics and stuff) which is an objective principal whilst our ability to derive enjoyment from them remains a subjective experience. You can't equate the two together. Sure our expectations of the experience are coloured by being falsely grounded in the physical price but that has a tenuous link to the actual enjoyment we reap from experiencing the game. It doesn't exist other than as a false principal we are stuck with because that's what we are told, and taught, to expect.

As the whole medium matures then the story telling must become a bigger part of the whole ecosystem otherwise there is no point in ever going beyond the point we have already reached.

 

[L. Scofield]

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.

Yes, padding is a form of gameplay.What's the relevance of that assertion? You're trying to take away attention from the fact that not being a completionist is not the same as rushing the game. A normal first playthrough is neither for most people, as is the case with this particualr youtuber.

 

[MrFox]

Rushing the game is somewhere between a normal game and a speed run.

A normal game time is the median result of a focus group of normal gamers. A reviewer is not a normal gamer. A click whore trying to be first to leak the entire fucking game on YouTube, causing gaming forums to become a spoiler mine field, is not a normal gamer either. He is an asshole.

 

[function]

"Speed run" is always going to be somewhat subjective. I think it's only a speed run if you're focusing on speed rather than pleasure.

Like sex, frankly. You could be rushing just to get it done, or you could be trying to drag it out to like three minutes or something.

 

[L. Scofield]

Rushing the game is somewhere between a normal game and a speed run.

A normal game time is the median result of a focus group of normal gamers. A reviewer is not a normal gamer. A click whore trying to be first to leak the entire fucking game on YouTube, causing gaming forums to become a spoiler mine field, is not a normal gamer either. He is an asshole.

So, he's an asshole for showing us the game. OK.

There was no rushing in his playthrough, he simply did what the game told him to do.

 

[London Geezer]

Pedantic.

 

[ArcticCircle]

If a game came out that was $60 and 3 hours long, but you and every single other person that played it said, "These are the best 3 hours of gaming in the history of gaming, but has little replay value," do you think it would be worth the money?

It wouldn't be worth it. It'd be great sub 5 euro experience for sure. Similar to many episodic games like Life Is Strange. I'm generally stingy bastard and only AAA(A) modern open world games like GTA or Watch_Dogs are worth full price. Rest are more or less Steam sale category, as long as I have massive backlog. Since I haven't played those games either, why would I buy 3 hour game at full price, no matter how good it is right away.

Also speedrunning is fun. I recently replayed Deus Ex for the n:th time. It's was even more ugly then I remembered but to spice things up, I did low kill ghost speedrun (realistic difficulty). I think I only killed both mechs with killphrases, stunned one guy at missile launch and got pretty good time. It ain't nothing as impressive as infamous absolute zero (with boxes) run, but that's bit too much, even for me

 

[function]

I spent lots of money on 8, 16, 32, and 128 bit games that could be completed quickly once you knew what you were doing.

Replayability is awesome. It's one of the areas where games have suffered recently. Replayability doesn't even need to deteremined by a developers explicit goal setting, it can be something that you choose for yourself in a sandbox or semi sandbox environment.

Too much focus on a linear playthough can actually lead to monotony IMO.

Short games aren't the enemy. Short, expensive games with little replay are the enemy.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

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

The Last of Us was also the perfect length for me but it was a necessarily a long game because the protagonists were both on a literal long journey across the country but also developing character-wise and bonding with each other, over the course of a game year. So the story supported lots and lots of varied locations and opportunities for the characters to get into different scrapes. There was much to do to make it feel like a real game year.

But not all stories will support such a long game, they just feel stretched and full of unnecessary game filler. It's the difference between the trilogy of Lord of the Rings, which felt great because they were long stories with lots going on and the trilogy of the Hobbit which was a short story dragged into 9 hours of movie and which suffered for it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, padding is a form of gameplay.What's the relevance of that assertion? You're trying to take away attention from the fact that not being a completionist is not the same as rushing the game. A normal first playthrough is neither for most people, as is the case with this particualr youtuber.

I'm trying to address your use of the word 'padding' as if it's something people should/do avoid. Lots of gamers will indulge in all the gameplay facets of a game, meaning they all contribute to the play time. If one person skips them, that doesn't make the game shorter. Like skipping desert in a fixed 3-course meal. One person skipping the desert doesn't mean it's not there for everyone else to enjoy.

There was no rushing in his playthrough, he simply did what the game told him to do.

If he wanted to be the first person on the world to get a TO playthrough on YouTube, and he set it to easy mode to enable this where he'd otherwise play it on a harder mode and savour the game more, then yes, it's rushing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If a game came out that was $60 and 3 hours long, but you and every single other person that played it said, "These are the best 3 hours of gaming in the history of gaming, but has little replay value," do you think it would be worth the money?

To me, I don't really care. I'm paying for the experience...

If you can afford to, that's great. For a lot of folk with limited disposable income, they need long-term entertainment from their game investments, so play length counts for a lot. Being a teen on a London estate, £50+ on a few hours is very poor economy. Better to buy GTA or COD and gets of replayability. Much like for food - for some people, $200 on a once-in-a-lifetime meal is worth it, whereas for many, the food is a means to stave of starvation and they wouldn't consider anything so expensive. For them, $200 would have to get an annual pass to an all-you-can-eat diner.

From a dev POV, I expect being able to serve both ends of the spectrum is the ideal, unless you are an Artist. Then you don't care about financial reward and just want to craft the best possible experience for the niche that'll buy it.