82 réponses à ce sujet

[lobi]

Who buys a game with Multi-player for the single player campaign? There is one of the reason your numbers mean nothing OP. Other reason is Red dead campaign sucks on your own. With other games like Resident evil how often do co-op friends get together.

Modifié par lobi, 18 août 2011 - 04:24 .

[Fishy]

I noticed this trend also . Most game are pre-ordered today and the sell happens in the first couple of day. Casual and mainstream gamer can jump at the next title and quickly forget about their previous expense. Video game are becoming like sitcom and those statistic aren't surprising at all.

It's really only portray how video game are becoming more and more mainstream. True developer that care about their fans won't end up l manufacturing us cheap and short game.

It's like porn . Porn is so cheap today.

Modifié par Suprez30, 18 août 2011 - 05:32 .

[Inquisitor Recon]

Companies using this as an excuse to make shorter 4-hour games in 3... 2... 1...

[Fishy]

ReconTeam wrote...

Companies using this as an excuse to make shorter 4-hour games in 3... 2... 1...

I`m not scared though . Bioware have very intelligent human working for them. A great cook don't want to work for Mcdonald. Sure you might get rich by creating the next big cheeseburger . But they won't give you the hamburger pulitzer either .

Modifié par Suprez30, 18 août 2011 - 05:41 .

[Sengoku no Maou]

1. Would you link to the article, Satyricon?
2. Have they ever released how they gathered this data?

[Boiny Bunny]

I remember the days where there were a limited enough number of good games to actually have time to finish them all. Nowadays, you really have to pick out the top ones and put your time into those - or buy 4,000 games and only put 4 hours into each one.

[Boiny Bunny]

Suprez30 wrote...

ReconTeam wrote...

Companies using this as an excuse to make shorter 4-hour games in 3... 2... 1...

I`m not scared though . Bioware have very intelligent human working for them. A great cook don't want to work for Mcdonald. Sure you might get rich by creating the next big cheeseburger . But they won't give you the hamburger pulitzer either .

I believe that EPIC games used a study similar to this to justify the incredibly short length of the Gears of War campaign - then announced that Gears of War 2 would be even shorter because GoW 1 completion rates were higher than the industry average.

I'm expecting the Gears of War 3 campaign to consist of roughly one level, then a boss.

[Satyricon331]

I seem to be the opposite of many people here.  I'm very picky and risk-averse when purchasing games, so my gaming-time-per-game is still relatively high.  If you exclude the games I don't intend to revisit, I don't have a backlog of games at all at the moment.

~~~~~~~~

lobi wrote...
Who buys a game with Multi-player for the single player campaign? There is one of the reason your numbers mean nothing OP. Other reason is Red dead campaign sucks on your own. With other games like Resident evil how often do co-op friends get together.

It's usually not the best idea to judge datasets or studies so conclusively on the basis of their write-ups in popular-news articles.  In this case though, the article actually discusses multiplayer with an expert who says " I know many people who buy the latest single-player/multiplayer shooter (game) and never even bother to load the single-player," so evidently it's an issue at least some ppl in the industry have contemplated. In any case, either way it seems to contribute to the same picture of the industry that is shifting away from the long single-player campaigns it used to have.

[Homebound]

i dont buy videogames very often.
but when i do
i finish them.

[Warheadz]

I always research the games I plan on purchasing before actually wasting any money. I don't have that much money to throw around. And I always finish the games I start, with the exception of few games I bought used as an impulse purchase.
I play through most of my games twice.

[Inquisitor Recon]

I make it my sworn duty to finish any game I buy eventually. I think I failed at this in one title and I regret it to this day.

[Deathwurm]

Warheadz wrote...

I always research the games I plan on purchasing before actually wasting any money. I don't have that much money to throw around. And I always finish the games I start, with the exception of few games I bought used as an impulse purchase.
I play through most of my games twice.

This is pretty much how I handle my Game buying decisions, which may influence my view on completing Games...that and the fact that I don't have a Console to game on, so I can't take advantage of places like Gamestop where you can pick up used games cheap and dump the ones you took a chance on and didn't like.

Naughty99 makes a really good point about how much fun you have being what's really important...actually it's the only thing that's really important, IMO. For me, finishing the game I'm playing is part of the fun though...but that's not the case for everyone.

I'm wondering how much we may see completion rates go up due to the present Economy...I think that a lot more Gamers will be buying fewer Games on a "take a chance" basis with money being so tight for everyone.

[grregg]

To be honest I wouldn't mind BioWare making shorter games. I am right smack in the middle of the demographic they describe and I just don't have time it takes to finish some of these games. Goes double if a game is nonlinear and should be replayed to see all of the content.

This year I bought DA2, TW2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops and guess which one I managed to finish?

Not to mention that BioWare games seem to be overloaded with filler combat. On my playthrough of DA:O I racked up 997 kills (I think that's just The Warden). Somehow I don't think so I would miss much if it was, say, 300. Killing 1000 of mooks just isn't as much fun as it used to be when I was 16.

[Lord Phoebus]

grregg wrote...

To be honest I wouldn't mind BioWare making shorter games. I am right smack in the middle of the demographic they describe and I just don't have time it takes to finish some of these games. Goes double if a game is nonlinear and should be replayed to see all of the content.

If they charged half as much for a game that was half the length, that might not be bad.  I don't think there was enough plot to hold DA:O together for the length it had myself.  However, you know if the campaign is half the length they're stll going to charge the same price as the longer campaign.  Wouldn't that leave you feeling a bit ripped off?  Hell, I know I would, that was the reason I didn't buy Awakenings; there was no ****ing way I was going to buy an expansion pack that cost as much as the game and by the time the price dropped and the reviews came out I was glad I didn't waste my time and money.

Modifié par Lord Phoebus, 19 août 2011 - 12:57 .

[grregg]

What Luc0s said. Not to mention that I think DA:O would actually be better if they threw away half of the combat it had. By the time I made it to the endgame in Denerim I almost forgot what the plot was about.

Also, I don't really see that a 5-hour movie is necessarily better than a 2-hour movie, or a 1000-page book is better than a 200-page book, so why 80-hour game is supposed to be better then 10-hour game?

[Lord Phoebus]

grregg wrote...

Also, I don't really see that a 5-hour movie is necessarily better than a 2-hour movie, or a 1000-page book is better than a 200-page book, so why 80-hour game is supposed to be better then 10-hour game?

Most long movies I've seen have been better than the average movie, the reason being that they cost more to make but charge the same amount per ticket, so the studio has to be reasonbly sure that the movie will do well before they finance it.  I think most of my favorite movies are at the 3 hour mark.  You will also likely pay more for a 1000 page book than a 200 page book because of printing costs.

With a game though, you're paying primarily for gameplay.  Assuming you enjoy the gameplay, a longer game presents the gameplay in more unique scenarios, in essence you get more variation on gameplay with the longer game than the shorter one.  I would say that makes the longer game generally better than the shorter game. 

[grregg]

Lord Phoebus wrote...

grregg wrote...

Also, I don't really see that a 5-hour movie is necessarily better than a 2-hour movie, or a 1000-page book is better than a 200-page book, so why 80-hour game is supposed to be better then 10-hour game?

Most long movies I've seen have been better than the average movie, the reason being that they cost more to make but charge the same amount per ticket, so the studio has to be reasonbly sure that the movie will do well before they finance it.  I think most of my favorite movies are at the 3 hour mark.  You will also likely pay more for a 1000 page book than a 200 page book because of printing costs.

With a game though, you're paying primarily for gameplay.  Assuming you enjoy the gameplay, a longer game presents the gameplay in more unique scenarios, in essence you get more variation on gameplay with the longer game than the shorter one.  I would say that makes the longer game generally better than the shorter game. 

I don't agree that I'm paying for gameplay, just as I don't agree that I'm buying "movieplay" when watching a movie or "bookplay" when I read a book. I don't want gameplay, I want a quality gameplay. And it seems to me that in order to ensure quality, a story, a puzzle, or whatever else has an optimal size. Obviously your personal mileage (aka optimal point) may vary.

So, to give a puzzle size example, would chess be better if instead of 32 pieces on a 64-field board, it used 256 pieces on a 512-field board? Or would it be an unmanageable mess?

Same goes for stories, if you have a 300-page story, blowing it up to 800 pages does not make it better. Ditto for games, if your story, combat system, world, characters, and most importantly budget can only support a 25 hour gameplay than adding hurlocks to make it 50 hours will not help.

I enjoy an occasional epic that really can fill 10 hours of movie time or 200 hours of gameplay. But let's face it, most movies/games are not even close to that and they only pad to achieve the length they have. When BioWare is ready (creatively and financially) to create an truly epic game, by all means let them go ahead. But I'd rather have a shorter game than a game padded with 900 mooks, if for no other reason that there are really not that many things that are still fun after you do it 1000 times.

[Lord Phoebus]

Luc0s wrote...

It's not only gameplay that drives the player to keep playing, but also the narrative of the game. This does not apply to online multiplayer games (not really), but for singleplayer games this is totally true.

That depends a bit on the genre, for RPGs the narrative tends to be important, but games like Diablo, Doom, and pretty much any sports game don't have much in terms of narrative.

What a game needs is story development and/or an internetsing learning-curve that keeps the gameplay interresting through the whole game.

Yes, but if a game is too short there isn't sufficient time for that story to develop or for the gameplay to develop beyond the tutorial stage.

When you make a longer game, you are making it harder to keep your game interesting. Its way harder to keep a long game interesting from start to finish than a short game.

I disagree, because with a short game you aren't giving the player enough time to get attached to the characters or become emotionally invested in the setting.  If the game is short, you're limited in the complexity that you can offer the player because they won't be playing long enough to learn that complexity.  Simply put you could never create a game with a 4 hour campaign I would enjoy, because in 4 hours you couldn't present a system that was complex enough that I would want to replay and try different tactics. If I think about the games where I've enjoyed the gameplay, they've all been complex and made use of most of the keys on a standard keyboard, you can't expect someone to learn that system to the degree that it feels natural if the campaign is short.  It takes a while for muscle memory to form.

I suppose this is a topic where we'll have to agree to disagree.

[Spatia]

I don't have much to add really but I agree with everything Luc0s has said. It's all about quality over quantity; a great but short game can have a more memorable experience than a good but long game. If it's long and samey the chances are I won't finish it or just find the game a chore to finish, which really isn't what gaming is about.

I've actually got much better at completing games in recent years as it got ridiculous the amount of games I was buying that I barely played. Now I try to only have a couple of story/campaign based games on rotation at a time, maybe while I also play a sports or racing game or other multiplayer game. Not sure I'll be able to stick with to that with the sheer amount of must buy games over the next 6 months.

Modifié par Spatia, 19 août 2011 - 03:02 .

[Lord Phoebus]

grregg wrote...

So, to give a puzzle size example, would chess be better if instead of 32 pieces on a 64-field board, it used 256 pieces on a 512-field board? Or would it be an unmanageable mess?

I wouldn't mind it at all.  I've played double chess and wargames because they add additional levels of complexity to the game.  By the same measure would you rather play checkers or chess? You can learn checkers pretty quick and it doesn't take long to master, chess takes a bit longer to learn and considerably longer to master.  I was master ranked in chess in University, but my skill level has atrophied since then.

Same goes for stories, if you have a 300-page story, blowing it up to 800 pages does not make it better. Ditto for games, if your story, combat system, world, characters, and most importantly budget can only support a 25 hour gameplay than adding hurlocks to make it 50 hours will not help.

By the same token, you can't tell an epic story like the Odyssey, the Aneid, the Lord of the Rings or Dune in a couple hundred pages.

I enjoy an occasional epic that really can fill 10 hours of movie time or 200 hours of gameplay. But let's face it, most movies/games are not even close to that and they only pad to achieve the length they have. When BioWare is ready (creatively and financially) to create an truly epic game, by all means let them go ahead. But I'd rather have a shorter game than a game padded with 900 mooks, if for no other reason that there are really not that many things that are still fun after you do it 1000 times.

Yes, but why should I pay the same amount for a short story as I do for the epic when they're released.  You wouldn't pay the same price for a magazine as you would for a book or buy a single for the same price as an album.  Similarly I'll always have price per hour of gameplay metric in my mind when I'm assessing the value of a game.  E.g. I liked Assassin's Creed at the 5 dollar price tag I payed for it, if I'd paid 60 dollars my opinion of it would have been less flattering.

Modifié par Lord Phoebus, 19 août 2011 - 03:27 .

[Lord Phoebus]

Spatia wrote...
 a great but short game 

A great short game is an oxymoron.

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Lord Phoebus wrote...

Spatia wrote...
 a great but short game 

A great short game is an oxymoron.

Portal.  Rebutal refuted.