Audience wants shorter games - Argonauts dev Comments by Robert Purchese

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).

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.

@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?

Just look at the stats for Half-Life 2 Episode 1: http://steampowered.com/status/ep1/

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.

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.

Wow just wow are some of the views expressed herein, while I think this article is yet another EG bait to draw in website hits, the issue of time that people have to play games is a valid one, and designers do need to keep in mind the pacing, not the length, but the pacing of a game.

I mean all these so called great long games, are padded out with repetitive mind numbing random battles or repeat the same few ideas so they can claim to offer value for money. We need to get away from that, and encourage developers to make well designed games which we want to enjoy, and explore to the full.

Price is about what consumers are willing to pay, if you don't want to pay, then originality is what will suffer, and smaller companies will be even harder of, which will directly affect the quality, depth and yes perhaps even the length (sigh) of the games available for us gamers to play.

Bollocks.

I prefer games that last for ages. Any game that lasts less than 6 hours but costs £35 to buy is automatically flawed in my view.

I know not everyone has ages to spend playing games, but still, that's not to say that those people should be the only ones heard. I want longer games, and I'm sure other RPG-loving folk do too. I mean Mass Effect... 40 hours... what!?!

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).

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

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!

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?

@mkreku and others - is that all you care when you consider what games you play - adding up the time you spent on them, sheesh...no wonder creative thinking is dying in the industry, having to pander to such mind boggling dogmatic gamers in order to make a buck.

@Crofto, as opposed to dismissing alternative views to your own I presume? Complaining about Mass Effect ONLY being 40 hours is funny, but rather than insult you I'll offer a reasoned explanation as to why. Unrealistic demands on the part of the gamer are harmful to all the largest (and most corporately, rather than creatively minded) of developers, great graphics, it'll cost ya, huge games, again it'll cost ya, and more importantly it costs trhe developer too, both in terms of moneyu but also in time, time spent on visuals, time spend padding out games in order to meet these unrealistic expectations, result in compromises to appeal to the masses, to recoup those large investments, often at the expense of good game design, and implementing initially well thought out ideas effectively and fully into the game itself.

@ 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.

@ 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.

@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!

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.

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

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.

Silvervein - of course games differ in length according to the type of game, like I said pacing is what matters, I also dislike games which rush endings of feel incomplete, precidely why I feel they should be tigher and more refined, rather than bloated and unable to tie up loose ends due to time issues, but I disagree that there is a certain criteria set in stone, that developers must meet, one of the reasons I think Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a great game is that it confounds preset expectations from fans, others didn't agree of course, a shame.

Regarding unrealistic demands, I'm talking money, and development time and how designers spend that time - and how much is needed to meet the expectations of gamers, and how these expectations are harmful to creativity in the long run, forcing designers to make games which adhere to a strict set of bench marks that are too high for most. Maybe visuals don't matter to us, but they do to many, far too many of course, but again developers have to respond to this if they wish to survive on particular formats which almost require it. It also hints at the widening gap between types of gamers, and how developers like those are Argonauts are trying, maybe clumsily to cross that divide and appeal to both sets. I suspect, what is more likely to happen is, as with Bioshock and Mass Effect you will alienate certain sections of your audience, and gain others in return, but it would seem most developers believe this is worth it, in order to be able to deliver even some of their ideas (and make mucho mulah of course!).

I'm saying that for most developers, not tied into a large multi-national corporation, heck even those that are tied into companies, such as Clover pretty much killed themselves off with Okami, was it too much, was it too long? Meeting the demands that gamers have these days is all but impossible, so I'd rather people were more understanding, and more willing to accept more focused games, which put their energy into exactly what counts, the core mechanics of their game, which set it apart from other games, focus on that and do it well.

@Mkreku - again I feel that our gaming habits, those of us who frequent sites of these, do not represent the majority, and designers who wish to tap into other markets, want to make games that are played and enjoyed by a wider variety of people. That doesn't and will not prevent games catering to us being made, which require, over time a substaintial amount of time invested, but at the same time I welcome designers who wish to bridge that gap, as in the long term, if more 'casual' whatever gamers, cross the line so to speak, try out these games which aren't mass market then that is a good thing, it'll sustain rather than kill off the interest in deeper, longer and niche titles. Besides while Argonauts are talking about changing gaming habits broadly, I suspect people are overreacting, I doubt this game will depart hugely from preconceived notions of what they want from it...

@Pastici - maybe you're not into the online side of things, but it is worth considering that perhaps the price of Call of Duty 4 and other games with significant online options, but no monthly fees, that the cost of these modes, to create, test and maintain is included upfront in the cost, now if you don't like of play these modes, your choice but I feel it is an important part of games such as COD4 and Battlefield.

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.

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.

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".

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?

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

"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!

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.