The Happy Medium Of Game Length

1up.com has a piece looking at the changing variable of game length, and current gamer tastes when it comes to time investment. From the article: "For better or worse, one of the main ways gamers size up a game's value is by length. After all, an RPG that promises 40 hours of gameplay must be superior to one that offers a mere 20, right? Not quite. The fallacies here are obvious enough. For example, what good is 40 hours of content if only 20 are worth paying attention to? Or what if a game takes ten hours to run through, but is eminently replayable? Despite these and other valid arguments, many gamers, especially in recent years, have subscribed to the 'longer is better' school of thought, without really considering what 'longer' actually means."

Short but sweet

[Chonguey]

Beyond Good & Evil was a fantastic game, but a short one. But I gladly take the 12 hours of BG&E over the 50 hour snore-fests that are Final Fantasy games.

Graphics before game

[alvinrod]

Personally, I think that consoles games peaked in terms of length around the 16-bit SNES and 32-bit PS era. Despite that fact that companies like Square started ramping up the graphics in their RPGs, they still managed to be somewhat lengthy.

After this it seems like a lot of games have chosen to focus more on improving the graphics before adding more game. I suspect that this trend will continue to increase in certain regards with the next generation consoles. Developement costs are expected to increase, meaning that more things will have to be cut to stay within the budget. Higher resulotion also takes up more space on game discs, reducing the overall amount of content a company can include in a game.

However technology like Sony's Blu-Ray allow for a lot more content to be put in a game. If the next Grand Theft Auto game uses this space to its fullest we could easilly see a 300 hour epic in the making. However, on the whole, games seem to have gotten shorter. Every now and again you'll find a 10 hour game that seemed like it had the right amount of content, but usually people are just left wanting more.

my RPG pet peeve

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I have 2...

First is a game implying there is time pressure (ie finish this chapter in time or else) when there is not. This makes it seem like you don't have time for all the side quests when actually you do (and in fact if you don't complete the side quests you don't have enough experience/equipment for the boss) which leads to my second peeve:

Having to gate in and out of the boss fight to recharge/get healed and gate back in to a boss who is still damaged. One should be able to deal with a boss without gating out 50 times... if a character isn't tough enough to take on the boss then either the boss is too tough for the game at that point or the character should get sent on a side quest to build some experience/get equipment before being allowed to face the boss.

I played to the end of Neverwinter Nights, couldn't handle the final fight (I get killed in seconds each time), I suspect because I didn't do enough of the side quests. Eh, it was fun while it lasted, but still, I think games should be designed with this sort of thing in mind.

Jack.

qaulity of time spent

[beowulfy]

I feel that if the game is fun and innovative enough, and appeals well to the fans of its genre, then if its long, it can be time well spent. Having a huge amount of content isn't gonna matter if the content itself isn't what the player was looking for in purchasing that title. For example, I've always enjoyed the final fantasy series, but it seems that with the last few titles, the people over at square are adding more and more of these annoying little mini-games that look like they would appeal more to a 7 year old kid, than they would a more mature RPG fan. Time playing these mini-games for me is time I would rather be doing something else, and decreases the replay factor for me as well. It begs the question: did square add all these puzzle style mini-games because they thought the FF fans truly would enjoy playing them, or to quench the demands of RPG fans that want a never ending amount of content? It would seem to me that most RPG fans, and fans of FF in particular are playing these games for the fantasy element, the mythical storytelling, and the satisfaction they get from developing their characters. It also seems to be the general concensus that these little puzzle games are nothing more than annoyances that must be done in order to advance the storylines. So sure, longer can be better if its the right kind of content thats making the game longer. But game developers should never try to add content that might be of questionable appeal for the sake of lengthening the game.

More information is needed

[samael]

I finshed Price of Persia: Sands of Time precisely because it told me how far through I was. When you hit 77% it seems silly to not plough through to the end.

Giving me a score to constantly improve is a _great_ way to push me onwards.