In Defense of Short Games

[Kelegacy]

Originally Posted by Spigot

That kind of length is only acceptable if the game is a masterpiece.

Maybe. I still wouldn't buy it at $60 though. No matter what.

Thankfully games drop in price so fast these days. $60 is something impulsive people pay. I'd be upset paying that much and being done in a day.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Kelegacy

$60 is something impulsive people pay. I'd be upset paying that much and being done in a day.

Not at all. Impulsive is something you do when you walk into the store and see it and just say "hey I am getting it" or fall for stupid steam deals at 99 cents. Because yes 99 cents can be too much to pay for something if you are impulsive.
The price of a game and impulsive are not connected in any way. The buyer and impulsive are what is connected. A price isn't impulsive a person is.
I buy a ton of 60.00 games and probably know more about the game BEFORE I buy them than many people do after buying them and beating them.

And just to make sure we are clear. I am talking about the 60.00 comment, not about any game in particular.

[Kelegacy]

Alright then maybe impatient is a better word. Most games come out for $60 the first week and I can score them for less not much later. But its easy for me to wait that bit of time because of my tight gaming schedule. I also don't NEED any one game on day one since high school probably due to the disappointing and throw away nature of most games today. And if you have a backlog or wont play the game for weeks, letting it sit around depreciating while you play another its foolish to pay full price. Two Worlds 2 will be the first game in years I buy full price and luckily that comes with an amazon credit.

But in regards to the OT, TWII will offer me a ton of content for my money. Some games just are worth their asking price but unfortunately most aren't.

[MagGnome]

I would rather buy 20 "decent" games for .99 each than one "good, but short" game for $60. If I only play those cheap games for a couple of hours I don't feel so bad, but if I buy a $60 game and get bored 1/4 of the way though (Fable 2 is a great example), then I feel like I've wasted my money, and every time I see the game I get annoyed.

For example, I bought Bad Rats: The Rat's Revenge on Steam for something like $1.50. The game is TERRIBLE. One of two terrible games I own on Steam (the other being Risk). I'll never play the game again, but the amount of money I spent on it is so small that I really don't care. However, when I bought Fable 2 for $60 and got tired of farting on people after a couple hours, well I felt like I'd been ripped off. Thankfully I no longer spend $60 on games, and I only spend $50 on games I know I will get a ton of mileage out of, such as Civ V.

On the other hand, I did buy Majesty on Impulse for $5, and the game was broken. I felt pretty ripped off about that.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Kelegacy

Alright then maybe impatient is a better word. Most games come out for $60 the first week and I can score them for less not much later. But its easy for me to wait that bit of time because of my tight gaming schedule. I also don't NEED any one game on day one since high school probably due to the disappointing and throw away nature of most games today. And if you have a backlog or wont play the game for weeks, letting it sit around depreciating while you play another its foolish to pay full price. Two Worlds 2 will be the first game in years I buy full price and luckily that comes with an amazon credit.

But in regards to the OT, TWII will offer me a ton of content for my money. Some games just are worth their asking price but unfortunately most aren't.

Oh I agree on all your points. It's all up to the person and how much they game, what they like(genre of game can have a large impact on playtime) and such. Having bought a couple dollar games recently I felt more ripped off than I have in years. However, I am new to that subgroup of game prices and what they offer. I won't be throwing another dollar any anything until I look into it more from now on.

Here is to hoping you like Two Worlds 2 as much as I. Fantastic game.

[Spigot]

I'm talking about things like REZ or ICO or Shadow Of The Colossus when I talk about things that are short but easily worth the $60.

[Deadend]

Originally Posted by Kelegacy

I beat Kane and Lynch 2 in a PART of an afternoon. I don't know about TFU2, because i beat it in three days, but that was because my son was sick and I actually had to leave the machine on pause at least triple the amount of time that I was playing. So it is a comparable length at least, maybe 5 hours. That is unacceptable to me.

But here is the thing about those two games.

They would have still been shitty if they were 3 times longer.

I personally think that Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is too fucking long with levels that have no story events going on in them, just.. walking and killing monsters. Pretty backgrounds and all, but fuck.. at some point ANOTHER EPIC VISTA OF RUINS IS OLD.

K&L 2 was really boring, as it somehow never felt that tense or exciting after the crazy camera effects wore out, had boring level design and a plot that managed to be boring.

I didn't touch TFU-2 after playing the demo which was more of the same shit from the first game.

I think games should be however long they need to be a complete experience.
For some games, like Braid.. that is just a few hours, as doing heavy repetition on those puzzles would be lowering the quality of the game.
While Mass Effect 2 could take between 8 and 40 hours it felt like. I am cool with that. I just want games to stop before they get boring.
10 hours of mainline content (with extras) seems about perfect without having lots of half-baked mechanics thrown on top.. or in the case of Red Dead Redemption.. Mexico.

[Spigot]

That's the thing too. There are games that are being released as full retail games (at full retail prices) that seem to be shorter and of lesser quality than many downloadable games that retail for $10-15 or so. That's making it a little harder to just jump up and pay top dollar for whatever is pressed on a disc.

Padding is padding though and I think we're getting to the point where we are savvy enough (most of the time) to know what is good level design and what is just padding.

And I liked Mexico

But the games that seem to be really doing it right are the ones that give you the option of deciding exactly how much you want out of them. Games like FO3 and ME2 can be bulled through and finished around 12-20 hours but you can pile another 40-80 hours on top of that if you want to fart around in the world. That lets everyone have lots of fun without feeling ripped off.

But if a game is refined enough, like a REZ or SotC, I stand by the fact that I have no qualms paying full price for that even though the experience is by most standards ridiculously short. Hell, you can play through the entirety of REZ in an hour, but it's definately one that is more mechanics based than story based, so that's ok. SotC clocks in at around 7-8 hours but I never once felt like I didn't get my money's worth out of it.

[Ravenlock]

Patrick Klepek's tumblr has a quote from Tom Bissell (from his excellent book Extra Lives) that sums up my feelings pretty well, which I suppose is why that guy is paid to write.

Using a book analogy, if a book starts awesome, and then abruptly ends, the response isn’t “I only spent 4 hours reading it!”. It would be “the story wasn’t fully developed, and I felt it ended abruptly.” Similarly, if a book drags on, people don’t say “it was kind of boring, but at least it has a lot of pages in it, so it’s great value.” They say “it dragged on, and I got the message in the first half of the book.” Time spent reading just isn’t mentioned, and indeed, isn’t the point.

A game's length should be appropriate to the game and what it's trying to do. It can be part of why the game succeeds or part of why it fails, but by itself it shouldn't justify calling a game a success or a failure.

EDIT: As someone mentions in the comments over there and by some people here, price correlated to length can be a valid complaint about a game as a consumer product, but I feel a bit dirty leveling that against the developer, provided they made a good game. The guys designing the game and writing the code are rarely the ones setting the price point, for non-indie games.

[Karak]

Lots of opinion as fact here. Basically some people's idea of boring, or idea of fluff is 100% other people's idea of WHY they like the game. And thus the circle continues. Movies with stupid fade to black no endings and no conclusion are what some people adore, games the same. In addition many games if they are in any way open ended can be completed with a very weird climax as things that could be discovered or found out don't need to be witnessed to win, thus one person thinks the game is awesome, one thinks it sucks, another feels like its just right. ME 2 is a good example of a game that can be defeated in a variety of ways. The ending being completed with an incredible amount of story data never located.

Sadly our opinion of it doesn't matter or at least doesn't make an impact because we are at the end of the fact, we have to hope the developer themselves likes to make a game we like and that we research enough to know what kind of game they make or are making. Sadly then in the end its the publisher who decided the price. Sometimes, a publisher who has no real idea of the games real contents.

When I like or dislike a game I always write to the dev with a very detailed, very polite impression of what I got from the game. Alpha Protocol, Advent Rising, ME 1, and Men at War are all games I have written the dev's about and received personal responses from people on the team with information, most assuredly not form letters. I suggest everyone do that. But that's just me.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by Ravenlock

Patrick Klepek's tumblr has a quote from Tom Bissell (from his excellent book Extra Lives) that sums up my feelings pretty well, which I suppose is why that guy is paid to write.



A game's length should be appropriate to the game and what it's trying to do. It can be part of why the game succeeds or part of why it fails, but by itself it shouldn't justify calling a game a success or a failure.

EDIT: As someone mentions in the comments over there and by some people here, price correlated to length can be a valid complaint about a game as a consumer product, but I feel a bit dirty leveling that against the developer, provided they made a good game. The guys designing the game and writing the code are rarely the ones setting the price point, for non-indie games.

While I understand and agree with what that guy is saying, for me it all comes down to price point. I would never buy a book that was $60 and only 100 pages long, with the possible exception of some really high-quality collector's art book or some such. I'm certainly not going to buy multiple $60 books a year.

I would have no problem with short games with little replay value if the price is right, as I said previously. If games cost the same as most books this entire discussion would be moot. Thankfully indie developers have come to the rescue and are putting out dozens of great titles at fantastic price points. Last night's IM podcast was a great example of this. The future is bright indeed.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

While I understand and agree with what that guy is saying, for me it all comes down to price point. I would never buy a book that was $60 and only 100 pages long, with the possible exception of some really high-quality collector's art book or some such. I'm certainly not going to buy multiple $60 books a year.

I would have no problem with short games with little replay value if the price is right, as I said previously. If games cost the same as most books this entire discussion would be moot. Thankfully indie developers have come to the rescue and are putting out dozens of great titles at fantastic price points. Last night's IM podcast was a great example of this. The future is bright indeed.

Just remember, and my wallet can vouch for this, indie's release horrible shit as well and just as often. Luckily their pricepoint makes it a grimace instead of a scream of hatred when you discover this

[Spigot]

Originally Posted by Karak

Just remember, and my wallet can vouch for this, indie's release horrible shit as well and just as often. Luckily their pricepoint makes it a grimace instead of a scream of hatred when you discover this

And that's just it. It's part of why most of the really interesting stuff is happening on the indie scene and then slowly incorporated into the mega-game monoliths once it is proven.

Doesn't change the fact that most people aren't willing to repeatedly scream with hatred when they get burned with short/crappy games. I'd be happy to toss a few bucks at a dev that does something neat but broken if it's looking like it could amount to something. I won't keep coming back to a series or a developer with a proven track record of crap.

[Crowe]

It's all about price for me. If a game is 5 or 6 hours long with no real multiplayer than I will rent it and be done.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Spigot

And that's just it. It's part of why most of the really interesting stuff is happening on the indie scene and then slowly incorporated into the mega-game monoliths once it is proven.

Doesn't change the fact that most people aren't willing to repeatedly scream with hatred when they get burned with short/crappy games. I'd be happy to toss a few bucks at a dev that does something neat but broken if it's looking like it could amount to something. I won't keep coming back to a series or a developer with a proven track record of crap.

Man not me. A dollar is a dollar no matter how you lie to yourself to justify it. I didn't research the couple cheap games I bought and got fucking gutter sniped. I am going to put the same thought into 99 cents as I do 60 bucks. Hell I could have bought a jolly rancher and been happier
It's an ogre choice. Die quick or die slow. 1 dollar or 60 your still getting fucked.
Don't I sound like I hate all games I don't I swear.

[Spigot]

I look at it as the cost of a coffee. If I drop a buck on a game, I might love it, I might hate it or I might fiddle with it for a day and never touch it again. But unlike that cup of coffee, I still gave it after 10 minutes.

I have been burned by cheap, crappy games, rest assured. But I'm still a lot more willing to take a chance on a cheap, interesting looking game that may or may not live up to expectations and be willing to let that few dollars essentially be wasted than I am to feel like my money was well spent spending $60 on a game I finished in an evening and that did nothing remotely interesting. And don't get me started on short games that end on a cliffhanger, especially if they cost $50-$60.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by Karak

Just remember, and my wallet can vouch for this, indie's release horrible shit as well and just as often. Luckily their pricepoint makes it a grimace instead of a scream of hatred when you discover this

Honestly, I can only think of a few indie games I've bought and really wish I hadn't. Bad Rats: The Rat's Revenge comes immediately to mind, as it is seriously awful.

However, I can think of several $40+ games I bought and wish I never had. Again it all comes down to perspective, but I've personally been burned by the big publishers many more times than I have the indies.

For $60 I can buy anywhere from 4-10+ indie titles, and it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll get quite a bit of enjoyment out of most of them. That same amount of money buys me one new console game (or a new PC game and a burrito). There's a much higher risk that I'll get a stinker when I'm only buying one game versus several. Just another way of looking at things I suppose.

Really in the end this entire argument is moot. Some people enjoy short games, some don't, and some only enjoy them when they don't feel cheated out of their money. No matter which camp you fall into, there are games out there for everyone, and that's what's important.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Honestly, I can only think of a few indie games I've bought and really wish I hadn't. Bad Rats: The Rat's Revenge comes immediately to mind, as it is seriously awful.

However, I can think of several $40+ games I bought and wish I never had. Again it all comes down to perspective, but I've personally been burned by the big publishers many more times than I have the indies.

For $60 I can buy anywhere from 4-10+ indie titles, and it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll get quite a bit of enjoyment out of most of them. That same amount of money buys me one new console game (or a new PC game and a burrito). There's a much higher risk that I'll get a stinker when I'm only buying one game versus several. Just another way of looking at things I suppose.

Really in the end this entire argument is moot. Some people enjoy short games, some don't, and some only enjoy them when they don't feel cheated out of their money. No matter which camp you fall into, there are games out there for everyone, and that's what's important.

Oh I agree sir. I just happen to put a good deal of research into the expensive games. I MADE a mistake and didn't with the cheaper ones and some stupid Steam sales that burned me. I just had to change my thinking and now I am back on track to make as few purchasing mistakes as possible.

And yes I agree, as I have preached from my altar from the start Games that are worth it are up to YOU the buyer. Not anyone else. Time, content, and whatever else is all up to you. I know people who have enjoyed the hell out of games that are very litterally broken. That was something they liked. Nothing wrong with it at all. They enjoyed it. So it was worth it to them.

[Arphahat]

Honestly, I can only think of a few indie games I've bought and really wish I hadn't. Bad Rats: The Rat's Revenge comes immediately to mind, as it is seriously awful.

I am glad to see that I am not the only one who despised this game.

Gameplay-wise, it might have been ok, but the graphic depiction of the cruelty to the cat was so over the top that it completely repulsed me.

[MagGnome]

I thought the game was broken. Honest to goodness broken.