Gamers "apparently" want shorter, better games

[Tan]

from Gameindustry.biz

Gamers no longer want to play games that last 60 or 100 hours according to Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack.

"Legacy of Kain had about sixty hours of play, but games have changed. People don't want that any more. I don't care how good the game is, I don't want to play something that's one hundred hours long," Dyack told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview published today.

For more of Dyack's views on the current state of the games industry, including his belief that consoles must converge into one format to become mass-market, read the rest of the interview

What do you think? Personally I like having variety between the two. I love the 40+ hour games equally as much as the 10 hour ones. Sometimes I like to get sucked into a 100 hour story, other times I want to beat somethng in an afternoon or a day. You can't look at the sales numbers of games like Oblivion or DQ or FF and say nobody wants games like that anymore.

I only wish the prices reflected the amount of entertainment contained within. I remember when Black came out. Nice games, awesome physics, action, fun all around, but it could be beaten in like 6 hours or so. If it had been half the price it would've sold considerably better than it did.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Has logged over a month of playing time in WoW.

[Tondog]

I like both of them. Give a variety.

[shoes23]

Yeah we need some variety in length.  I'll agree that some games feel way to drawn out and could end a few hours earlier.  But who is going to argue that Fable shouldn't have been at least twice the length that it was? 

Edit: Clarification

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Fable easily could have been at least twice the length that it was.

Short game was short, I was like "This is a hero's lifetime?!"

[Tynstar]

I like shorter games so i can actually beat them. I get bored of games real fast for the most part.

[Speedy_NES]

I can see why people nowadays want shorter games...the supply of games is constantly increasing.  RTS fans have tons of games to choose from, whereas back in the day when it was just emerging, there was just WarCraft and Command & Conquer (and a few cheap knockoffs, but those were easily dismissed) that had any real appeal, so a RTS fan could play both for hours on end...whereas nowadays there are tons out there, making it hard to choose which to play and hence gamers may want to play more than one or two of them (while keeping their daily/weekly/etc game-time constant). 

[phoenix1967]

Fable was a short game if all you did was treat it like a hack and slash. If you took the time to find the hidden keys, solve the riddles of the demon doors, buy and sell property, do the boast quests, etc. it would take much more time.

Also, Fable: tLC added much more content to the main quest.

Granted, it's no Oblivion. But for what it is provides a good amount of entertainment.

I don't mind short games, but if it's at the expense of quality or if there's little to offer in the way of replay value, then I have an issue.

Replay value is a huge factor when judging how much you'll want to play a game. If I look at my time playing Guitar Hero 2 and compare it to how much time I've played Call of Duty 2, basically I've played GH2 a TON while I've only tested CoD2 to ensure it's in working order.

Further, how do you judge the length of a sports game? By how long it takes to play a season? Game length then becomes more subjective.

For games like Black which only offer a 6-8 hour campaign and nothing else, I can see where many gamers would opt for a rental on it unless you can own it for $10 or less. Which is where we then get into the discussion of gaming value for one's dollar.

It's really up to the individual. No one is going to say they just like one or the other.

I just hope that Dyack's commentary is not a hint that Too Human is going to be an intentionally short game.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I did like everything in Fable in like 10 hours tops. This was indeed thanks to some weird glitch that gave me unlimited money but still, it was pretty short for an epic fantasy story.

Oblivion I couldn't get into, mostly this was because I had to use a mod so that it would work on my video card but also it just got a bit boring running around alone in this giant world.

I did log a mass amount of time into Morrowind though.

[shoes23]

Fable is a great game (I'm playing through it now for a second time), but when I initially looked at a FAQ for some tips, and saw that I was almost through half of the main quests already (I had taken my time the first time and was still only a little above 3 hours), I grew discouraged.  This time I'm taking it VERY SLOWLY, and trying to find and do everything I possibly can.

For the record however 50=100+ hour RPG's instantly turn me off, as I just don't have the time to play through them.

[Tan]

I did like everything in Fable in like 10 hours tops. This was indeed thanks to some weird glitch that gave me unlimited money but still, it was pretty short for an epic fantasy story.

Oblivion I couldn't get into, mostly this was because I had to use a mod so that it would work on my video card but also it just got a bit boring running around alone in this giant world.

I did log a mass amount of time into Morrowind though.

It's funny I was going to start a Morrowind versus Oblivion topic but then I figured most people in this forum don't seem to be into western rpg's much. IMO Morrowind is far superior to Oblivion. The fact that each of these games has a journal where you can keep track of what you've done without feeling obligated to spend all of your time on it so you don't forget anything is very handy.


As phoenix1967 has said gaming value for one's dollar is a discussion onto itself. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on it. Myself I look at it from a $/hr perspective. If I pay $60 and get 6 hours that's $10/hr, pretty steep I think, $60 for 40-100+ no prob. $20 for 6 hours well there's no problem with that too, even $40 for 6 hours if there's enough gameplay to pick it up again and play all over. It's the same thing I do with movies. If I'm only going to watch it once or twice it's not worth $20 for 1.5-3 hours.

I have a feeling Too Human will be a shorter game than expected. This is one of the problems I have with digital distribution. If a dev team knows they will release content via download soon after release then they are less likely to cram the disc.

Episodic content is a clever name for "instead of $100 for two 25-30 hour games, they'll end up paying $120 for 1 25-30 hr retail game and two 15 hr episodes". Half-Life2 anyone?

[Ando]

I think it really depends on the game. If you've got a near-storyless FPS, sure, a quick 10-20 hour run could work. But if you've got a really epic and awesome RPG, 100 hours is what I want. There are many games that I wish were longer (Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time, Majora's Mask, etc.), and some that could be shorter (Children of Mana is just too repetitive; or maybe I just don't like dungeon crawlers?).

[phoenix1967]

As phoenix1967 has said gaming value for one's dollar is a discussion onto itself. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on it. Myself I look at it from a $/hr perspective. If I pay $60 and get 6 hours that's $10/hr, pretty steep I think, $60 for 40-100+ no prob. $20 for 6 hours well there's no problem with that too, even $40 for 6 hours if there's enough gameplay to pick it up again and play all over. It's the same thing I do with movies. If I'm only going to watch it once or twice it's not worth $20 for 1.5-3 hours.

I have a feeling Too Human will be a shorter game than expected. This is one of the problems I have with digital distribution. If a dev team knows they will release content via download soon after release then they are less likely to cram the disc.

Episodic content is a clever name for "instead of $100 for two 25-30 hour games, they'll end up paying $120 for 1 25-30 hr retail game and two 15 hr episodes". Half-Life2 anyone?

I agree with the $/hour evaluation. That's why I'm holding off on some purchases until they reach the $20 mark (Viva Pinata, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Lost Planet, and CoD 3 are on that list).  I'm also in the camp of if it would cost me $6 to rent this game, why not just buy it if it's under $10 if I wanted it? And again, that dollar amount goes up if I feel the replay value is there.

From what I'm hearing about the progess of Too Human, I seriously hope that they can give us at least an 10 hour campaign. For awhile, it wasn't even on my radar as a title that I would be interested in, now my curiousity is piqued by what it may be able to offer. I just hope they don't go the cheesy "episodic content" route...

[Tondog]

Phoenix, I think renting games is probably the dumbest move you could make. It costs me $7 if I were to rent a PS3/Wii/360 game at Hollywood Video for 5 days. Why rent something for that price when I could pick up a cheap, used PS2 game or two for that price? Makes no sense at all.

[phoenix1967]

That's my point, Tondog!