News Shorter games are the future?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/03/26/shorter_games_are_the_future_/1

Erik Wolpaw, writer for Portal, has been speculating about the length of games recently and wonders if games these days are too long.

 

I liked the length of COD4, if it came in epidoseds every 3 months or so, they'd be onto a winner for sure.

But the price would have to drop.

 

I can see where he's coming from, I can't count the number of times I've planned on going back to a game to complete it and not finished it.

This is my third attempt at Half-Life 2, I've installed it twice on my PC got so far and left it without knowing where I was when I attempted to get back into it, I've now started playing it on the 360 and got a hell of a lot further over the last 2 or 3 days than I had previously on the PC.

Condemned is another one. I played the first 2 levels after I bought it with my 360 just after release along with Kameo, I moved on to Kameo and didn't look back at Condemned until recently - nearly 2 and a half years after I bought it.

...and there's countless other games I've bought, played for a while and then moved onto something else, always planning to go back, but not getting round to it.

 

I would rather games were longer. I dont want to pay 40 to 60 bucks on a game for a few hours of enjoyment. make the game worth buying and maybe more people will buy them.

 

The only reason I don't finish games is when they're crap. In fact I think I've only ever not-finished 3 games: Bioshock, STALKER and MOH: Airbourne.

Personally I always crave longer games, STALKER was a good length, and you could stretch it out by completing all the quests, but CoD4 was too short (imo).

 

My main pet peeve is having short games which are "compensated for" by multiplayer. Multiplayer rarely interest me unless a game is designed from the ground up to be multiplayer, like TF2. Having a short but decent singleplayer game instead of a long and decent one but saying it balances out because of multiplayer winds me up no end.

 

I don't mind some games being shorter, such as games like portal, but as long as RPG games stay as they are, or last even longer.

I loved the 100+ hours of Oblivion, but obviously 50 hours of portal is insane.

Bioshock had a huge story, and i couldnt wait to get through all of it, but CoD4 needed to focus on its multiplayer.

 

Oh but i still want longer games like Mass Effect and others that you really can immerse yourself in.
Still i can understand what they are thinking about, some games are better short (like portal) but some games need to be longer.
Imagine an RPG the length of portal, that would have been kinda boring, there is nothing wrong with shorter games in theory but every game cant be short.

 

Completely valid points. While I was in school and even just a few months ago I had enough free time to finish the really long games, but it's rarely the case anymore. Between the day job and various freelance projects, I'm lucky to get any time to turn on the Xbox or load up a PC game, let alone play it through to the end.

QFT.

 

Drop the length, drop the price.
Some cames are fine if they're shorter.
But if I'm shelling out $40-$60 a title, I want more then 5 hours of gameplay.
I personally thought Half-Life 2 was short.
And episodic content is a joke.
Take one year to make one REAL game,
instead of 9 months for 3 crappy installments.
Plus I don't want to have to suspend my story for 3 months.
Don't get me wrong. I work part time, and college the other,
and my girlfriend the other. And still try and get some WoW-time in.
I get not having alot of time.
If I tried to go back and play Final Fantasy 7 now,
I don't think I'd complete it faster then 3 months. (80 hours first time I played.)
Still even after saying all that, I hate seeing developers
making shorter games no matter the reason:
Laziness, Society, etc.
You just don't see things like the first Half-Life, Fallout, or anything like that anymore.
(Maybe Bioshock's an exception, I've never played it.)
Command and Conquer 3 is the most recent title I've bought--
and that was a nice surprise.

Anyway, these are my thoughts--
pick them apart as you wish.

 

Short games work for me- COD4 was perfect. It left me wanting more, which i'm getting from the multiplayer. I have never compelted half-life or oblivion, and loads of others. I don't have that much time for games.

 

Episodic games are only usefull if they actualy cost about 10-20 euro and come every 2 to 3 months. With at least 3-5 hours of gameplay. If i have to pay (and i have hundereds of times) 40 to 70 euro for a game, i expect to last it like forever, not 5 hours tops. And I am a slow player because i love to see the details of the graphics and architecture, aka i'm not rushing through levels like a madman. The only game last year that 'ok' in game play time was Bbioshock.

I loved HL EP3, but it was waaay to short for the given timeframe of development it had taken. And now there is a lot of time passing by and still no signs of EP4. I thought Valve would develope new levels blindfolded in de source engine by now, they known the genre and HL engines for 10 years for christ sakes! IF i would be the fat man in charge I pumped out 2 hour episodes every month. But who am i...

 

it all depends what length suits the game, intense action games like cod4would be very drawn out and frustrating if they were any longer, but story based games are more immersing and for lack of a better word easier to play thru and therefore shud be longer

 

I dislike the idea of shorter games. I finished HL2 around 5 or 6 times. I always get some Ultima Online going, and never get tired of it, it lasts forever! Episodic content is annoying. I finished HL2 EP1 in one go. Still haven't bought EP2 :S. Bring me bigger action packed games please!

 

shorter games better be cheaper or they ain't getting my money.......even if they're "good" games.....

 

The length of the game really depends on the genre... RPG games can easily be long and have a grand depth, but shooters don't have to take as long time

 

I feel like we are slowly being conditioned to accept shorter (but proportionally more expensive) games. 20hrs for £25 down to 10 hrs for £19.99 perhaps?

There are legitimate benefits to shorter games both for us and for publishers, but there are drawbacks too. Regardless of any ill-intent, you are going to pay more for your games because (distribution) overheads are higher - there are less economies of scale. And it seems like the easy way out for publishers - develop a short game and call it Part 1; if it sells, continue to Part 2. If not, ditch it.

There is also the issue of dumbing down... in the same way half-hour tv program can't have the same plot complexities as a 2hr film, shorter games will tend to have less scale and ambition than larger (epic) ones. Imagine Oblivion with a third of the game-world... let's face it - you're not going to build a huge game-world if you can't be sure there will be a next installment to make use of it.

People have mentioned CoD4; I enjoyed the single player game as well, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on length - but that's because I didn't like the fact that it was entirely on rails. I would hate for that to be the role model for future games.

If I think back to recent single-player games that I've enjoyed, CoD4 was by far the shortest. Better examples were Oblivion, Crysis & Bioshock were better examples, and part of their appeal was the scale.

As for episodic content, for every HL2 there is a Sin Episodes...

I'm skeptical.

 

Every game should be too short, though. A game is good if it lasts long enough but ends just a bit too short. If I'm playing I want to be left wanting more. It's a nice feeling to be clinging on the edge of the seat watching the credits whip by. Much better than sinking in on your chair, fancying doing homework to finishing the game.

 

Yep, I agree

 

Many games I play are open-ended or I can set my own pace in, like Fallout or Planescape, so that isn't a huge problem for them. I agree though. The last game that definitely left me wanting more at the end of it was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The end of it came around so beautifully and the game was so brilliant that, despite the flaws, I wanted to play it all over again straight away.

Other games I've played have come close to that, like Beyond Good and Evil or Deus Ex or Episode Two, but they've always come round in such a way that I felt that I was being lead through a story that was coming to the natural conclusion and was perfectly done.