Audience wants shorter games - Argonauts dev

By Robert Purchese Published 7 July, 2008

Can't spare "days and days on end".

Gamers have evolved and can't afford to spend "days and days on end" trawling through lengthy adventures, Rise of the Argonauts lead designer Charley Price has told Eurogamer.

"No longer are videogames almost exclusively played by 14 year-olds over summer vacations where they have days and days on end to play through these epic journeys," Price explained when we popped over to the US last month to preview Rise of the Argonauts.

"Every time someone invests 25 hours of their life into a game and then realises there's another 75 hours to go, they just can't stomach continuing and they walk away with a sour taste in their mouth - no matter how much fun they had with the game.

"They need to be doing something achievable with the end in sight; people's expectations are evolving for what they want to get from the experience," he added.

Liquid Entertainment has designed Rise of the Argonauts with this philosophy in mind, Price said, and has sought to discard many of the antiquated trappings of the RPG genre in order to do so.

"Games are the only medium where it's commonplace to say, 'you've got to struggle through the first hour or two and then it starts to get fun,'" said Price. "I think it's unacceptable for a lot of people, you know - if the game's not fun within the first half an hour to an hour then a lot of people are just going to take it back."

"So you've got to be going through and presenting the fun up front; you've got to be going through and presenting what you're game's about and what makes it compelling so that people can really get their hooks in and can really get in to what you're game's all about."

Rise of the Argonauts is due out this autumn on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Head over to our Rise of the Argonauts preview to find out much more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (79) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • bad09 #1 4 years ago

    "No longer are videogames almost exclusively played by 14 year-olds over summer vacations where they have days and days on end to play through these epic journeys,"

    When was gaming ever like that?

  • tobsen #2 4 years ago

    I agree with this guy 100%. There is nothing worse than a great game that you never got to finish due to lack of time.

  • X201 #3 4 years ago

    We can't afford/be bothered to wade through days and days of crap games, agreed.
    Days and days of something as good as Deus Ex is a different matter.

  • gmmonkey #4 4 years ago

    TES: Oblivion says otherwise to this article.

  • Silvervein #5 4 years ago

    It sounds like a bad excuse to spend less time making a game, coming with shorter game, but still charging full price.
    What does the length of game have to do with whether people play it or not? I'm working adult, and yet I like it immensely if game tells a story I can participate in for days. If it's good. If it's bad, 15 minutes is enough for me.
    Does he imply that games have to be played non stop from beginning to end? It's not like we don't have 'SAVE' option to take a break when it's needed.
    He's not making any sense.
    Unless he's a console person; those are notorious for making you play for as long as devs want, without ability to save where you want, only when game wants to save...
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/08 @ 14:10

  • itamae #6 4 years ago

    Death of the MMORPG: announced here.

  • kestral #7 4 years ago

    adaptive game length, the quicker you play through the game the longer the game becomes! if you don't play it for a week skip a chapter.

  • agparrot #8 4 years ago

    Part of me agrees with the sentiment, the other part of me put 140 hours into Burnout Paradise, lord alone knows how many days into COD4 and has spent two months dipping in to GTA IV, before more recently popping back into Oblivion where I've probably invested 60 - 80 hours

    I think there is room for long games in the market, and I don't think that just because Rise of the Argonauts is going to be, apparently, short, that Charley Price should make assumptions about how *all* gamers feel about this.

    More of a problem is the number of *good* games that there are to play - each new one is a distraction from the ones that have gone before - hence I ended up finishing Mass Effect and Ninja Gaiden 2 and GTA IV (storyline) before 'completing' Oblivion.

    I'm hoping for at least a pause before any new Great Thing comes along, to give me time to dedicate dozens of more hours to Oblivion and work through some of my other back-catalogue wanabees.

    If you don't have the time to dedicate to the games, don't buy them?

  • johnnybrn #9 4 years ago

    I'd go for quality over quantity anyday

  • Steroyd #10 4 years ago

    Not when this audience is paying more for games.

  • penhalion #11 4 years ago

    If they want to start making shorter and shorter games (just come off a project where they cut the last few levels due to budget concerns), then they need to start charging people less for those games end of story.

  • gooners2006 #12 4 years ago

    id rather have a game that lasts 20 hours and takes about 1 week to complete rather than a game thats not gonna last a weekend of playing, the GoW games are a good example of balance, its got a brilliant story line and lasts about 9 hours which isnt bad. but the Kingdom Hearts series is probably the best in terms of a great story line and length as KH 2 can be completed in 24hrs

  • chrisjm #13 4 years ago

    in the cinima you pay the same to see a 80 minute film as you would a 3 hour one

    this is non news though. there already are short and long games allowing people to chose. if you dont have time you dont complete it, big deal.

  • muscleblade #14 4 years ago

    "if you dont have time you dont complete it, big deal"

    Its like watching only the first part of a movie. Who would do that?

    Shorter games with higher quality is the way to go.

  • Collymilad #15 4 years ago

    translation: morons who play games once a week for 10 minutes can't be arsed learning the game, so we need to start making them dumb, quick fun.

    Don't these devs realise that *except in a few rare cases* simple games that are "fun straight" away get really ***ing boring after about 2 hours?

  • dr_faulk #16 4 years ago

    "No longer are videogames almost exclusively played by 14 year-olds over summer vacations where they have days and days on end to play through these epic journeys,"

    This man has *read my mind*!!

  • dr_faulk #17 4 years ago

    Hold on, the thing with Oblivion was that there were lots of small, 10-minute long quests. Oblivion, mission and gameplay-mechanic wise, could have passed on a portable!

  • wattoo #18 4 years ago

    Why do they have to be one or the other? There's enough games to satisfy both groups of people.

    Personally i won't go near a short game. I don't buy many games because most of them are shit, so the ones I do buy, i want to invest a lot of time in.

    And just because I like quantity, doesn't mean i dislike quality. Games can be long AND good. It just takes a good developer.

  • moggsy #19 4 years ago

    More games with the quality and length of Portal would be nice. I wouldn't pay £40 for them though.

  • Xerx3s #20 4 years ago

    Thanks for telling me what I want. Or is it just a poor excuse to hide that you had to scrap large sections of the game? I guess your games are not worth my money then.

  • Tweakmonkey #21 4 years ago

    I used to love being a student and being able to spend countless hours playing games.

  • Darren #22 4 years ago

    By gamers, I'm assuming that Price is meaning Wii owners, because that's the biggest selling console of the current batach also with the highest number of casual gamers and they're the ones who probably don't want long games?

    Personally, I like long games but at the same time I still like to mix them with the shorter ones as that means I can play more games. If developers are going to be making shorter games then does than mean the games will become cheaper? I bet they don't though. Making shorter games will be a dream for publishers as it means their developers can churn out more games and make them more money. It's no wonder so many third-parties are latching onto the Wii... it's instant money really.

  • Darren #23 4 years ago

    @gooners2006 - GoW? Brilliant story? :?

    Do you mean Gears of War or God of War? The former has a cliched, virtually non-existent storyline... I fail to see what was so brilliant about it myself. God of War on the other hand... well that WAS brilliant...

  • Stuz359 #24 4 years ago

    Two of the best games last year could be completed in five hours of less, Portal and COD 4. I get what this guy is saying and completely agree with him. However, I would be a bit pissed off if the next Zelda or Final Fantasy game was only ten hours long.
    There has to be a market for both, just like there is a market for Ratatouille being 80 minutes long and Lord of the Rings being around 12 hours total ( Extended editions and all three put together ), and I do really like both these films it just depends what mood I am in.
    But there are other games too, ones you can dip in and out of such as SMG or SMB where sometimes its just fun to go in and complete a few stars or levels but you can still have fun trying to get everything in the game.
    All of these types of game deserve their place and lets not forget WOW, how many subscribers does that game have?

  • Zelos #25 4 years ago

    I'd definitely agree with him. I think my desire to get completely obsessed with a game has dropped off as I get older.

    Take Oblivion: everyone raved about how many hundreds of hours they'd spent in it. 15 hours in I realised that it was basically a few hours of gameplay repeated many times over. That's fine for a while, but I just can't be bothered now.

    Luckily, I don't have to put up with that any more, so I went and bought Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, DiRT and Ratchet and Clank and played them instead.

    I'll probably go back to Oblivion at some point, but it's becoming increasingly unlikely.

  • Darren #26 4 years ago

    Price - ""Every time someone invests 25 hours of their life into a game and then realises there's another 75 hours to go, they just can't stomach continuing and they walk away with a sour taste in their mouth - no matter how much fun they had with the game.

    What an odd thing to say... if I like a game, I mean really, really like a game, as I did GTA IV (100+ hours) and Oblivion (300+ hours) then I don't want it to end but it's not like I know how long I have left to finish it anyway, how would I if it's only the first time I've played it!!! Do people really think "Oh I'm enjoying this game, it's fun, but I can't be bothered to finish it because it's too damn long!". I mean doesn't that mean that they're NOT finding the game fun...? :?

  • Medieval #27 4 years ago

    if this guy wants shorter games, then he should put his words where his mouth is and ask/make games shorter in price

    anyways, i lost all credibility in this developer and will not buy their game, will only rent it for a few hours, complete it and return it....i say that's fair :)

  • Zelos #28 4 years ago

    @Darren

    I think his point is that they play the game for 25 hours, get bored of the repetition and stop. Which means:

    - They don't get to see the whole story
    - They remember the game as "that boring game I stopped playing", not "that great game with the cool ending" and are less likely to buy a sequel
    - The developer has spent 75% of their budget on part of the game that much of their audience never sees, so the 25% the player has seen isn't as good

    Personally, the 25 odd hours that GTAIV took to complete was about 5 hours too long, by the end it was really dragging.

  • Darren #29 4 years ago

    @Zelos - Oblivion's main quest lasts 15-20 hours and if you want you can just do that and nothing else and still "finish" the game. The other quests and guilds are completely optional so you don't have to do them but they add an enormous amount of longevity and value to the game for those that do want it. Oblivion is a perfect example of a game that caters for casual and hardcore gamers alike and much like other sandbox games like GTA IV, it's perfect for dipping in and out of as you please.

    Which is better an 8 hour game that leaves you disappointed at its brevity or a 100 hour one that offers lots of gaming and value for money? There's no reason a game can't last you several years... I've been playing Oblivion on and off for over two years now. Surely if more games lasted longer then you'd need to buy less? Or is THAT the REAL reason for the industry leaning towards shorter games, i.e. they can make and sell more for the same price they do now thus maximising their profits? I mean prior to this generation we had publishers griping about development costs so it all seems to make sense that they'd be pushing for shorter games. Right?

  • yashin #30 4 years ago

    Great, they'll be offering a drastic reduction in the price of their games then. No? Didn't think so.

    Frankly it's appalling how much shovelware that sells for the same RRP as sprawling epics like Mass Effect, MGS4, GTAIV et al.

  • skillian #31 4 years ago

    Despite the fact I have clocked up well over 100 hours in Oblivion (and that's with just one character), I happen to agree with him.

    Some games lend themselves to hours and hours of playtime, and I don't think they should go away, but for me at least, the perfect length for an action/cinematic game is about 8-10 hours. That's plenty of time to tell your story, and enables developers to cut out the weaker parts that are usually only added to pad out the length anyway.

    edit: The developer has spent 75% of their budget on part of the game that much of their audience never sees

    I think this is the most important point. I imagine this happens far, far more than people might think.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/08 @ 15:29

  • Darren #32 4 years ago

    @Zelos - If someone stops playing a game part way through then that means it wasn't good or engrossing enough to keep people playing it. Thus it's the developer's fault for not making their game better not the gamer's. GTA IV is a wonderful game and if it wasn't for other games coming out that I wanted to play then I'd have completed it (I'm close to the end anyway). I do finish games but they tend to take a while due to the number of games I play. Oblivion took me about a year to completely finish all the main quests in and Kameo took me that length too!!! LOL

    I've played many long games and if I feel compelled to finish them then that means it's a really great game in my book. I can't think of a long game recently that I've felt has dragged but then I do tend to enjoy long single player games, mostly because I'm not really interested in multiplayer modes so I feel they offer me value for money.

    Anyway, don't some people play games like Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War online for dozens and dozens of hours? If you ask me, those are repetitive because stripped of the offline campaign's story mode they feel almost pointless to me.

  • Zelos #33 4 years ago

    @Darren

    But the main quest is fairly uninspiring so far: perhaps if they hadn't spent so much of their dev budget on the side quests the Oblivion dungeons wouldn't have to be copy-pasted so much.

    I'm fine with buying more games, I don't care about the 'value' I get out of my gaming pound that much. Hours of gaming per pound/dollar is pretty meaningless beyond a certain limit.

  • gingerlink #34 4 years ago

    It would seem hard to please both parties, those who don't have enough time and those who DO want an epic adventure, but it's my idea right now, soon we may see my precious, soon...

    Kameo only took me a week, but I had it on rental, so I probabbly couldn't afford to spend a year on it ;)
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/08 @ 15:38

  • Zelos #35 4 years ago

    @Darren

    "If someone stops playing a game part way through then that means it wasn't good or engrossing enough to keep people playing it"

    Not really. Even the best game can become dull if it's repeated too many times. Portal was great fun, but I wouldn't want to play slight variations on the levels 30 times over.

    IMHO, the GTAIV main storyline was about 5 hours too long, by the end it was really dragging.

  • Darren #36 4 years ago

    I'll also add that there's a tendency with many games for the developers to concentrate too much on the multiplayer IMO, seemingly at the expense of a short single player game, e.g. Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, Halo 3, etc. That's fine if you enjoy playing those games online but what about those people that don't care for them? Should they be expected to pay £40 for what is essentially half a game? I'm not saying that those types of games should be 50+ hours long but of those mentioned I felt that they could have been 33-50% longer if less emphasis was placed on online multiplayer.

    That's the reason that I love RPGs and sandbox games, both genres offer lengthy single player games and even if the latter has an online mode, like GTA IV and Saints Row, they don't feel like they've compromised the offline game.

  • Quint2020 #37 4 years ago

    NO WE DON'T!!

    Hello Mr Games retailer i paid £40 for this game and it's just too long, i'd like LESS content for the same price if you please.

  • Darren #38 4 years ago

    @Zelos - Portal is more of a puzzle-type game that doesn't require you to sit down and play it in one sitting or over the space of a week. Why couldn't it have 30 or 100 levels such that you could continue to dip into it for years? I've read comments from people who've finished the game and felt it was too short for example.

  • Zelos #39 4 years ago

    @Darren

    Because given their budget the later puzzles would be less and less inventive and the Glados voiceover would have been stretched out and less funny.

    Portal (and Heavenly Sword, Uncharted etc.) took their game mechanic and story and created great experiences. Another 30 chapters of all-but randomly-generated enemies would not have made Uncharted more fun.

    Edit: Thinking about it, wasn't Portal pretty much designed to be played it a few sittings? Stripped of the context of the story, the drive to escape and Glados it would just be yet another quirky puzzler, IMHO.

    Multiplayer games have social and competitive aspects that keep them fresh longer than single player games. There's also the fact that the community itself evolves, so you have to keep changing strategy.

    Edited by 1 at 07/07/08 @ 15:58

  • Coughthulu #40 4 years ago

    @skillian
    edit: The developer has spent 75% of their budget on part of the game that much of their audience never sees

    I think this is the most important point. I imagine this happens far, far more than people might think.

    I'm not entirely sure that's the case. Quite a few games I've finished recently seems to count the last 25-50% of the game where it can just shove difficulty ramping shit in to prolong how long a game takes, instead of giving you new content in the same proportions as the rest of it. Alone in the Dark is my recent bugbear:

    Putting in stupid timed puzzle and driving sections when you've been given control over a clubfooted man with twitchy arm syndrome does not a fun endgame make. Burning the Roots of Evil just turned into mindless drudgery, and the final "Race to the Museum" was bloody awful.

    Thinking about it, the only game I can recently think of where I think where they have invested consistently throughout the whole game is MGS4, where if you didn't get to Act4, you've probably only seen half it. The film, that is. :)

  • HiddenAway #41 4 years ago

    "Every time someone invests 25 hours of their life into a game and then realises there's another 75 hours to go, they just can't stomach continuing and they walk away with a sour taste in their mouth - no matter how much fun they had with the game."

    So wrong IMO. I enjoy 100 hour epics. If someone does that every time, they need more patience (unless they just don't really have the time, in which case fair enough).

    Also, longer games + enjoyment = value for money

    Oh and:

    Shorter games + Huge enjoyment + Cheaper price = even better value for money

  • dirtysteve #42 4 years ago

    lazy bastards, any excuse to charge more for less game.

  • homerramone #43 4 years ago

    Doesnt that depend largley on the genre ?

    Most old arcade games never had an end. you just kept going and going.... Even arcade games these days seem to have an end.
    Kids today .... tch tch.

  • mcwildcard #44 4 years ago

    I see both sides of this argument, on the one hand, I think it's an attempt to dodge the sharply rising dev costs, but on the other Naughty Dog unashamedly made a short game of the highest calibre with Uncharted and although it was only 8hrs worth, it was pure, perfectly refined enjoyment with no annoying fillers or lazy backtracking.
    If it's done right, then great, but in the most part it'll just be an excuse for devs to make shorter games with no extra quality.

  • Zelos #45 4 years ago

    @HiddenAway

    It's incredibly simplistic to equate the value of a game with its duration. Nobody does that with books or films.

    Why would anyone bother wasting 100 hours of their life on a game that's only kind of fun and requires lots of patience to trudge through?

    (oh, and hi fellow guardianista!)

  • Darren #46 4 years ago

    @Zelos - Re: Portal - From what I played of it, the game would work just as well as a series of puzzle rooms without a story or voice-over, that's the point I'm making when I said the game could have 30 or 100 levels for that perfect dip-in-and-play appeal. Jeez, the extra levels could be in the form of an additional mode to the "story" one. Anyway aren't the developers working on a Portal 2, i.e. they're just going to sell these extra levels at extra cost?

  • Darren #47 4 years ago

    @Zelos - "Why would anyone bother wasting 100 hours of their life on a game that's only kind of fun and requires lots of patience to trudge through?"

    The point is that they won't, surely? I mean if I'm not enjoying a game then I'll stop playing it, I won't persevere with it for 100 hours just for the sake of getting my money's worth out it. I doubt most other people would either, you only play a game for as long as you're enjoying it. But if a game only lasts 8 hours then it's surely poorer value than a 100+ hour one that you played for 50, even if you never finished it? ;)

    For every person that thought Oblivion was boring to play for 5 hours there'll be someone else who loved it for over 50 so it goes back to someone's earlier point that there's room for long and short games, it's up to the individual which they prefer. When games cost £40, you surely want more value for your money not less even if you don't complete them?

  • Zelos #48 4 years ago

    Sure, there's a market for both types of game, and I'll happily play a long game if it's good enough. But he's a commercial developer, so he has to target his games to the people who are going to give him the most money.

  • ZuluHero #49 4 years ago

    Well i kinda agree with him. Even if I’m enjoying a game immensely, if it drags on too long, i never find myself finishing them. I think it’s a combination of my now limited playtimes but still wanting to play the latest releases...

    I guess I'm in the minority though :)

    On the plus though, it keeps the trade-in value of most things quite high ;)

  • Silvervein #50 4 years ago

    Trying to squeeze more money from people is, sadly, common nowadays (or perhaps just more pronounced than usually).
    And making short games that gravitate towards five minute arcade game entertainment is worryingly common.

    Take mass effect for example. I got it, based on bioware reputation of making long, story based games.
    Truth to tell, while a decent game, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. That's for two reasons.

    1. While idea of the story was on the usual high level, execution was lacking. Characters in game were introduced in a
    sketchy way at best, giving me impression that one was not supposed to talk to team members, but focus on arcade
    shooter part of the game. Which is putting the whole concept of story game on its head, taking huge chunk of immersion
    and fun out of the equation. While characters were not at half life 2 rebel teammate level, they were close.
    Compared to Knights of the Old republic, it's oversimplified in character story department, to the point of being
    detrimental to the whole game experience.

    2. Game length. Having gotten it around friday, and knowing from reviews and forums that it's *not* long, I still didn't expect
    to finish it around saturday evening. Watching end credits, I've scratched my head and thought to myself:
    That's it?? Second time I did everything one can do in game, not even using taxis at citadel. Total game time, 40 hours.
    Too long for arcade game or a shooter, maybe, for for a story driven game, that's...sad.

    Bottomline. If different devs want to make shorter games, that's their right. No one out there to tell them what to make and
    what not to make. But when they make arbitrary judgements saying that this is good, and this is bad, while a lot of people
    disagrees, then I have a problem with that.

    PS. Whole argument about long games not being fun is flawed. Length of a game has nothing to do with enjoyment.
    If devs make a good game, people enjoy it, and being able to enjoy it for longer is certainly better than enjoying it
    for a few moments, right?

  • Stoatboy #51 4 years ago

    I'd much rather have a short game that I liked enough to play again, than one that I either don't finish or end up only finishing through sheer bloody-mindedness rather than because I'm enjoying it. Offer incentives for repeat play of shorter games, such as alternate styles of play or mission choices and I'm happy.

    Deus Ex is a great example of a game that was too long for me. I loved it, but it was starting to drag when I finally finished it. And yet, it had a load of really cool upgrade options that I'd never seen or used, and so were wasted on me. If the game had been half as long I'd probably have given it another go. As it was there was no chance. Whereas Bioshock was short enough so that I didn't mind having another pop to try harvesting the sisters instead of saving them (and using knowledge of events to come to set up elaborate traps and ambushes for the goddamned sploicers was great fun on the replay too).

  • Agent_Llama #52 4 years ago

    I can see the point of what he's saying. When I was a teenager and at uni, I had hours to burn on RPGs etc. But now I work full-time as a teacher I don't have that luxury, hence I never finish long games any more :(. BUT... it could too easily be used as an excuse to produce shitty, short games they couldn't be bothered to spend time on.

  • Zelos #53 4 years ago

    @Silvervein

    Game developers are companies, their whole reason for existence is to maximise profit. There's nothing sad about it.

    And you completed Mass effect in 2 days? Isn't that roughly 7-8 hours a day or something?

  • skillian #54 4 years ago

    Just look at the stats for Half-Life 2 Episode 1: [link url=http://steampower ed.com/status/ep1/
    ]http://steampower ed.com/status/ep1/
    [/link]

    It's 5-6 hours long, and you've have to be pretty cynical to call it a crap game, but only 38 - 50% of people had completed it 2 years later.

    I reckon the majority of games go uncompleted by most people, and that's a crying shame for developers who are trying to tell a story or give a big pay-off ending.

  • spazmo #55 4 years ago

    Can't remember the last game i finished??? Probably OOT. Even great games i absolutely love get to a point where i 'leave it'. I love the idea of MORE and BIGGER but in reality they just start to get too tiresome.

  • HermitArcader #56 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • makeamazing #57 4 years ago

    It is true it is difficult to play games like when I was younger, but that does not mean i want a game to only last three hours. Really they should be making their games more bitesize.. so the game might still last 10 hours for example but each act of the story is only an hour... etc. That way I wont feel robbed when i play Medal of Honor Airborne that was finished by the time the kettle had boiled (rip off).

  • mikeawmids #58 4 years ago

    Wunderbar, another four hour game at full retail price. PASS.

  • assache #59 4 years ago

    This guy has just cut millions in sales with one article. Am I going to pay full price for something I can rent over a weekend and finish?

    I bet the shareholders of his company are just thrilled!
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/08 @ 19:20

  • mkreku #60 4 years ago

    No, I am sure this SALESMAN would like us so buy ten 8 hour games instead of ONE 80 hour game.

    And whoever writes nonsense like "lack of time" when a game is too long for them.. Does that mean you will never, ever play another game again after you've finished that last 8 hour $60 generic FPS? Because, if you think about it, the only thing that happens is that you'll get another 8 hours game.. and then another.. and then.. you get my point.

    If you buy three 8 hour games and finish them, you've spent as many hours as one 24 hour game. Pretty simple maths, eh?

  • HermitArcader #61 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Silvervein #62 4 years ago

    @ Vertical Stand

    When I buy game advertised as story driven game, and yet what I get is a game that is, at best, a prologue to a story in game format, I tend to feel ripped off. As I understand it, different game types offer different kinds of fun. Shooters are good for 10 minutes between having breakfast and going to work, story games are good for several free evenings when you want to enjoy participating in the interactive story. Mixing different game types has to be done carefully, or the effects are not appealing to anyone.

    What you say about costs is true, of course, but that misses one thing: super expensive visuals are *not required* to make a game great. It's only PR gimmick. Look at Fallout 1 and 2. Great games, with great following still, after close to 10 years. Great graphic? No. Just great gameplay. On the other end of scale, titan quest. Great graphics, and gameplay as stale as bread from last year. Who's going to remember it after 3 years?

    And, what do you understand by 'unrealistic demands on the part of gamer?' I'm not sure I understood you. I'm a customer, gaming companies are provider of a product. I have specific expectations about the products I want to pay for, if my expectations are not met, I'm not buying the product.
    In this case, I'm not going to buy next mass effect if it's not more story driven, than graphics and action driven game. Of course, it's just my preference. Others might enjoy games that are much shorter/longer.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/08 @ 22:12

  • HiddenAway #63 4 years ago

    @ Zelos (Hello to you too fellow one!)

    Why would anyone bother wasting 100 hours of their life on a game that's only kind of fun and requires lots of patience to trudge through?

    That's true but look at the quote again. He's saying that we can't stomach 75 hours of a game after pushing in an initial 25 hours whether we really enjoy the game or not. If I'm enjoying a game after 25 hours, I'll continue playing. I'm in for the long haul - because I'm enjoying the game. They're saying something like (after their stipulated 25 hours):

    "Wow! This is brilliant. I'm really enjoying it! Wonder how long there is left? 75 hours?! There's no way I'm going to enjoy this for 75 more hours. Nah, better leave this and move on. Great game but too long..."

    Unless you have a time issue, why would anyone want to do this? You enjoy it so enjoy it for a bit longer and see how you get on. Still enjoying it, carry on. Keep going. Then you suddenly reach the point where you're either not enjoying it or have finished the game. Then you can stop. It makes no sense to stop playing just because you are enjoying it but the length of the game is huge (again unless you have a time constraint somewhere).

    I've gone round in circles so that's a good time to stop.

  • mkreku #64 4 years ago

    @Vertical Stand: No, it's not. I am just debunking the idiocy that is the statement, "I have no time to play long games". Unless you only have time for ONE eight hour game in your life, that's nonsense. If a long game demands that you sit through all 80 hours in one pass, then I'd understand it. But they don't! Just play fifteen minutes here and there and you'll have months of enjoyment out of ONE GAME. Exactly the same game you previously said you have no time for (before hopping on another generic Halo clone).

    Actually, I suspect most people are afraid of 80 hour games since they tend to be RPG's and some even tend to make you think. Safer to stick with Halo! It's it's too complex, at least it's over within 10 hours!

  • Stuz359 #65 4 years ago

    I think the point is with any game is the experience you get from playing it. A game is not automatically better because it is longer nor are you getting ripped off if a game is shorter. CoD 4 is around five hours long but it was one of the best games of last year. Mass effect ( at least for me ) was 25 hours long, yet for me I felt it was lacking as a game. To me, mass effect was probably five hours long artificially padded out to make an 'epic' game and it just did not work. CoD 4 was around 5 hours long and everything about the single player campaign was perfect. I would rather spend 5 hours completely enjoying and immersing myself than trying to slog through 25 hours just to try and complete a game.

  • Lamb #66 4 years ago

    Gamers want better games, end of story! (EOS) ;)

  • Pastici #67 4 years ago

    With the price of games nowadays length = value for me. I wouldn't go anywhere near COD4 even at pre-owned price simply because its a short game. But I managed to pick it up for £14 so I was happy, where on the other hand I had no problem buying FFXII as full retail price because I knew I'd get my moneys worth out of it. It's never let me down in the past. The only good thing about prices now is that they are cheaper than N64 games were at full retail price. Only £5 cheaper though mind you.

  • HermitArcader #68 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Dizz #69 4 years ago

    Soooooo...they're going to pull a Valve and Argonauts is going to be another game *at full price* that can be finished in like 3 hours?

    Thanks for the heads up! :)

    In all fairness, he does have a point but like others said, it's more a problem of pacing than it is a problem of total game length. Breaking up a longer chain into manageable pieces is key.
    Edited by 1 at 08/07/08 @ 12:42

  • Grayvern #70 4 years ago

    On average people watch around 2 and a half hours television every day, government statistics. Thats 17 and a half hours a week. Now I dont know about you but when I start playing a game I forgo my television watching.

    Yes 70 hours is probably too long but you cant say that mass effect could have done with another 10 to bring it up to 40. Half Life 2 was around the 20 hour mark.

    As has been said before game length is all about pacing. People will watch their soap every night for around an hour. The average run of a lot of tv series is 22 episodes of 40 minutes to an hour. People are perfectly capable of playing a long game for a long period of time. Many people will watch a tv series if they know from reviews that it gets a lot better later on.

    Besides if you try an extend the games target audience from the get go by making it action packed from the start especially in an RPG you make it even more genre alienating.

    Most games today do start off well. For RPG's this is perhaps not the case but slow does not equal boring. The start of oblivion was a brilliant, if only for the first time. Neverwinter Nights blended seamlessly.

    Finally the vast majority of written stories start off slow and so do many TV series.

    Also just saying oh id rather have a good replay value short game is like poking anyone with a good memory in the eye. Ive replayed less than a quarter of the 150+ games that I own and most of them are good quality.
    Edited by 1 at 08/07/08 @ 12:53

  • m0thr4 #71 4 years ago

    I agree with what he's saying, as I have hardly any time at all to play videogames (about 4 hours per week if I'm lucky), but when all I see right now (apart from the obvious exceptions) are shorter games that cost the same, it seems that a more accurate headline would have been: "Game Developers want to do less work for the same money".

  • craziii #72 4 years ago

    we can take this to mean that Argonauts will be a super short game.

    rent it guys, or wait for reviews. caution is advise when a dev says that. do you really want to spend 60-70 dollars for a game that lasts few hours?

  • Stuz359 #73 4 years ago

    To say developers want to do less work for the same amount of money is a bit naive. Modern games are far more complex than even the last generations games, in terms of technology and the complexity and time it takes to implement. Art assets are far more complex than the last generation and take more time to complete. A more accurate definition is that developers are putting in the same amount of effort, making shorter games than before for the same money.

  • bonker #74 4 years ago

    Well I think it's pertinent to point out that people with little time tend to be more intelligent too so fine, make the games shorter but how about something we can get our brains into rather than the usual shooting/fighting fests?

  • timberwolf #75 4 years ago

    ok... All i'm going to say is that noone ever says this of books do they. you buy a book you read an hour or two a day. my point being you leave it and read more the next time until you are finished. Noone ever says OHNO! this book is too long whatever will i do i can't read this whole thing in but a week therefore it's a crap book! That's all i'm saying. :D

  • Ghettomurph #76 4 years ago

    Sorry but this Charley bloke is talking out of his arse. I dont get a great deal of time to play on the 360 or Wii (mainly weekends or the odd hour at night sometimes), but since release ive played GTA for nearly 100 hours and at no point did i think that i couldn't stomach playing it anymore. Same goes for Oblivion (300+ hours spent on that in total including expansions) or any other long game that Ive finished in the past (Deus Ex, Final Fantasy VII & VIII, Mass Effect etc.).

    There's a market out there for both long and short games but my personal preference are games that have a lot of stuff to do and a good storyline to progress through. If a game doesn't have at least 20+ hours of gameplay in it then i probably wouldn't buy it. I don't want to spend forty quid on a game for it to be finished and have seen everything in it within 10-12 hours - that isn't value for money.

    Roll on spending 100+ hours playing Fallout 3.

  • Helios_CM #77 4 years ago

    Hi everyone, Helios from Codemasters here. Just been taking a look through some of your comments, and whilst there are some very interesting points made, I just wanted to clarify some things about Rise of the Argonauts.

    First of all, RotA is by no means a short game. A typical playthrough of the game, including some of the side quests should take the average gamer around 20 hours.

    Another point that I would like to make is that RotA is a game that emphasises quality over quantity. The game has not been artificially "bloated" with weak storylines and subplots in an attempt to lengthen the game and boost the playing time. RotA is playable in 1 hour chunks that will be full of intricate story telling, and powerful battles against lethal enemies, no longer will players have to kill rats for an hour before they are strong enough to get into the thick of the action.

    I hope the above clarifies a few points that maybe were not made clear in the article.

  • djed #78 4 years ago

    "No longer are video games almost exclusively played by 14 year-olds over summer vacations where they have days and days on end to play through these epic journeys"

    True, I'm 24 now. And the summer vacation should be moved to the other side of the calendar, the silly sun keeps reflecting off my monitor!

  • Rack #79 4 years ago

    I'd never heard of the game before this article but this philosophy instantly made me interested in it. Far too many games these days are artificially bloated, whether it's hunting down objects as wolf form Link, grinding mobs to progress in RPGs or going through suspiciously familiar corridoors in FPS. I feel games have no respect for my time, and I suspect it is because of people whining about value for money. Whether CM are good as their word and RotA is 20 hours of solid gameplay, or taking us for a ride and giving us 3 hours of game and 17 hours of filler remains to be seen but I certainly appreciate the sentiment.