News Shorter games are the future?

I tend not to finish longer games, to this day I still haven't completed Final Fantasy IX, a game that I've had for 7 or so years. Not because I don't like it, but because it's just too long to hold my interest. I still haven't gotten very far in Fallout and Deus Ex, again, not because I don't like them, but because some new game will come along to distract me.

I forget where I am, what I've done, and what I'm meant to be doing, so it takes me about half an hour to figure out what's going on again. I remember I went back to Vampire the other day to finish it off, I had one quest I had completed but didn't hand in. I had to go back to someone to hand it in, but I had no idea who this person was and where they were.

JRPGs I tend to play in bouts, random encounters and the save point system just annoys the hell out of me after a while, so it often takes me a very long time to play through them.

Because I often forget where I am I restart games so often, I've started Fallout about 10 times already, and never got past the hub, but not only that, but because I'll find out I've missed something good previously.

It's not just something I've done now I'm older and have less time, I've always done it.

 

I had never finish Half Life, is so nasty long. but is great.
I short game concentrate more action in less space/time. I enjoy a game not just because is enterteaning and funny, but also because i love to see the graphical desing and the advance of the computer graphics. So a "short" game can give me the two things at the same time, and also can give me time for remember that i have to be a productive person into the society

 

Fair point - if there is no more story to tell, then it's the right time to end. Or in the case of Ep2, the chapter ended, but the story will continue.

 

Totally agree.

I never finished Oblivion, or STALKER. Games with more than 8 hours of gameplay are too boring for me. Of course, there are some exceptions.... KoTOR 1 and 2, for example.

 

Shorter games sorry if it took me around 2hrs to beat Portal then I wouldnt pay for it, I think a decent game that I would consider short would be at a min. 8hrs, I would prefer the average 15hr games to be whats considered short anything longer would probably get really drawn out like Oblivion but if it has a really good storyline then I guess that wouldnt be the issue but thats hit and miss most of the time.

 

Would people have been able to stand Portal if it was a longer game? It worked as a short game because it was such a simple game that there really was no logical way to stretch it out. I personally prefer the longer games (Oblivion, taking my time to do everything in BioShock) but since I guess I'm only a University Student I probably fall in to the market segment that has too much free time on their hands apparently.

 

The price should reflect the length. Without a price drop on shorter games then its not fair to the consumer. Shorter games generally cost less to make so should expect a lower cost to purchase.

 

Portal was too short period, a game as epic as that and produced by Valve could easily captivate for many more hours than it did. Honestly though the whole thing was pretty much a teaser and a tech demo, I can imagine it would be hard to elaborate on that stuff for much longer than it did. But then again look at the HL2 series, things just keep getting better, but it's notable that the only one's I've had the time to play through twice are the episodes and four times for EP1. If a game can continually captivate a player then it should be made to be very long.

 

I have around 85 PC games (no lie, just counted most of them). Out of those games, I have finished less than 10% of them. I recall beating Lords of the Realm 2, Return to Krondor, Might and Magic VI, Diablo, Diablo II LOD on Hell Difficulty, Dungeon Siege (never finished the DS2), Titan Quest Immortal Throne Expansion through Epic Difficulty (getting close to beating on Legendary). Out of those 85, I have about half a dozen or more that I purchased last year that I have either not taken out of the box, or barely gotten past installation. Some of those game are relatively new like The Witcher, while others are older such as Oblivion, KOTR2, Black and White 2.

Maybe I am just a game addict. Sometimes I buy a game, but don't play it till a year or so after the purchase. I find that I enjoy longer games, however, they take so much of my time that I don't get around to playing the shorter games. I'd say only about 10% of my games are casual games that I can pick up and play for a couple hours one week, then pick it back up months later where I left off.

 

Does that include CoD4? I'm not sure if that multiplayer was designed from the ground up etc, but I do enjoy it as much as TF2. Also the single player was the perfect length for me, short but decent (and it ran well enough on my 7600gt, which is always nice).

I definitely think that the fps genre is hitting the sweet spot in terms of length. I'm usually left wanting more at the end of it, instead of feeling like im working my way through parts of the game. Like in FEAR, I think that game would have really benefited from being cut in half and released at half the price.

I complete about 1/3 of the games I start. Some games I really want to finish, I've started Beyond Good & Evil + Psychonauts a few times now, I will get them done one day xD
Also I prefer RPG's to be about 30hours rather than the JRPG of 90. Kotor and Kotor 2 I managed to complete, but generally when I have an hour to spare I jump into a multiplayer game, and when I get the rare full day to play games I don't remember where I was in my most recent single player experience/ have a new game to try D:

 

I think the main reason people don't finish games is that they aren't good enough to play for so long. For example I didn't finish FEAR, because about half way through I just got sick of shooting the same people over and over and the complete lack of any interesting story didn't help either. I basically just went "stuff this I am going to play some CS instead".

 

it depends mostly on the game, as someone said: 50 hours of portal would be bat s*** crazy, but a 5 hour RPG is almost as insane.....

 

length wont be an issue to me either, as DXR_13KE mentioned, depends on the game, or how the developer made the game, you could develop any game either be it long or short as long as it fits the game's gameplay, and COD4 would be a good example of a short game like this (though I was really wishing for more in the end )

 

CoD couldn't end quick enough for me, while there many bits I loved, I spent most of the time smacking my head against my desk in frustration. I don't know how infinity ward thought respawning enemies were a good thing after the first time they tried it.

I also thought Portal was just the right length, any longer and it would have gotten stale. There's no point making a game long if it gets boring, the value of a game for me isn't on how long I play it for but how much I enjoyed playing it.

When I get a game, I'll usually play it for the first week quite frequently, then after that I'll play it on and off depending on how much I enjoy it.

 

Bejeweled 2 is the way to go. I find these games more fun nowadays. Maybe I'm slowly losing interest in the PC mainstream games market.

 

There are 3 words i absolutely hate: To be continued

 

Getting old... you're turning into my mum. Next you will be telling me you are up until 2am playing Spider Solitaire.

 

Spiderman: Friend or Foe arrived on Tuesday for the 360 I got to the last level last night. It's a pretty good, if simple game which reminds of the old Streets of Rage mega drive games. I've really enjoyed playing it but at 5 levels (split into 4 chapters each) it is extremely short, but if you want the achievement for maxing out all the stats on your (14) characters you'll need to replay some levels to get enough chips to do it.

 

Agreed!

I play RPGs, mostly. That says the sort of length games I like. Although to be fair, recently I've fallen behind in actually playing them for more than an hour, never mind completing them.

 

I think sandbox-y type games, with clear goals, are the order of the day. I.e. games where you can wander about, take your time, but have a task to do to progress the story on. GTA3, or more recently Burnout Paradise are examples of this. I can spend ages just cruising around, enjoying the gameworld.