The Myth of the 40 Hour Game 428
Over at Wired, Clive Thompson talks about the myth of the 40 hour game, the typical length of time listed on the side of a game box nowadays. Mr. Thompsons discusses the ways in which that estimate fails to jive with reality. From the article: "This game offers about 40 hours of play. This is precisely what I was told by Eidos — and countless game reviewers — when I picked up Tomb Raider: Legend earlier this year. As I gushed at the time, Legend was the first genuinely superb Lara Croft game in years... I was hooked — and eager to finish the game and solve the mystery. So I shoved it into my PS2, dual-wielded the pistols and began playing... until about four weeks later, when I finally threw in the towel. Why? Because I couldn't get anywhere near the end. I plugged away at the game whenever I could squeeze an hour away from my day job and my family. All told, I spent far more than 40 hours — but still only got two-thirds through."
Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I demand my crappy games back that I beat in a week.
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I posted just a little while ago how disappointed I was with Myst. I played the game for two evenings. The first evening I just messed around with it for about an hour, getting a feel for the territory. The second evening I ran the game in a few hours, and I'm not even what you could call a puzzle game player. I wanted my money back. I wanted it back a lot.
I understand
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a snipe at the Final Fantasy series, since at least those two were great. But it's defintely better to underestimate than overestimate.
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-Get 7 more economizers from the dinosaur forest. More if you screw up at the coliseum.
-Full set of Genji Armor (monsters in Owzer's house drop tabby/chocobo suits, gamble them up at the coliseum)
-Turn a useless character into Kappa the Imp (rename card, full set of Imp gear from the dinosaur forest)
-Get all of Gau's rages at the veldt
-Use the right combination of equipped espers at level ups to max each character's stats as much as
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Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, why it matters is because it's nice to be able to finish games before you run out of time or interest.
I'm reminded of Lagaan [imdb.com], a movie I saw a while back. It would have made a decent 90 minute flick, but at 224 minutes (nearly 4 hours!) it was a chore to watch.
Like overly-long movies, overly-long games are usually bloated, repetitive and tedious.
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just buy a new game only once the current game is finished? If I'm going to go for story-based games, I'd much prefer one completed story than two half-completed ones.
ok, so the game gives him MORE than promised (Score:3, Funny)
Someone call the waaambulance.
Re:ok, so the game gives him MORE than promised (Score:5, Interesting)
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He's complaining about Tomb Raider Legend being so tough that it takes over 40 hours... I finished the game in substantially less time than that. Perhaps 20 hours at most. On the hardest difficulty level. I thought the game didn't have enough content to be worth the $60 price (which is why I'm glad I was able to borrow it). So I have a hard time appreciating the point.
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Haven't played it since the first one, but wasn't it alot of block puzzles (like Soul Reaver?) Sure you couldn't really die, but there were plenty of places where you just had to give up and look up where to move the shit so you could save.
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Go try out Ninja Gaiden: Black on the XBox and you'll see what hard is [penny-arcade.com].
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Re:ok, so the game gives him MORE than promised (Score:5, Funny)
Consoles & PC Time Estimates (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Consoles & PC Time Estimates (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Consoles & PC Time Estimates (Score:3, Insightful)
If little Jimmy throws the game in the corner after 2 days, mom's going to be a bit hesitant about buying another game. If mom sees that Jimmy is still playing Violent Attack Punch Quest IV two months after purchase, she's going to feel that her purchase was justified.
You can poo-poo this all
Unreal 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
That comment reminded me of Unreal 2. It was slated quite a bit by reviewers as I recall, but I really enjoyed it, yet it was one of the shortest games of it's type I've ever played because it wasn't repetitive and threw up new enemies, new weapons, new environments and provided a showcase of challenges that kept me entertained all the way through. It was slated for all of those reasons.
It took me maybe 12-14 hours where as most games take me 40 or more - typically I finish few of them - I often play about 70-90% of the way through, then come back a few months later and god mode my way through the final stages, if a game gets too difficult or is tediously repetitive early on (Rising Dead I'm looking at you) I am likely to ignore it and play something else entirely, because I just don't have that much free time that I want games to feel like 'work'.
In case of this happening 'literally', I gave up on Shenmue (one of the best games I've ever played, and I regret not finishing it now) after it got to the stage where your character gets a job and has to move crates around the dock every day to make money to get through to the next stage of the story. While it had some really innovative gameplay and I appreciate that it did add to the telling of the story (like a lull in a movie, between the high action sequences) I just lost interest because it was too tediously repetitive.
Perhaps one way to satisfy more users is to make games shorter but cheaper, with episodic content (I guess this is what Valve are trying to do now). It certainly seems a logical approach, particularly with the ability to deliver content electronically. I can see publishers not being so keen on this though as they'd have to release and promote each title separately which would eat into profits, and they'd run the risk of people spotting the turkeys more easily (I can't see many people playing the first half of Doom 3 and going "ooh I've got to get more some more of that stumbling around in the dark action!").
Not all shooters are first-person (Score:2)
Any kind of shooter? Including non-first-person manic shooters [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Consoles & PC Time Estimates (Score:2, Funny)
Fixed.
Skill (Score:3, Insightful)
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Longer? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's been a long, long time since I've seen a game, especially in my preferred genre (FPS) that carries anywhere near the playtime promised.
So, isn't this more of a problem that the estimates are just totally wonky across the board, and vary wildly between genres and the players playing the games, and not a singular "40 hour myth?"
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Yes, especially the "vary wildly between players" part.
The only ways every person who played a game could complete it in an equal amount of time are if every gamer has an identical skill level, or if the game is so stultifyingly linear that it basically plays itself like a movie, and the player is just along to observ
Opposite. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Opposite. (Score:5, Interesting)
Those time estimates are totally bogus anyway. Who even looks at them?
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That, and kids nowadays seem to have almost preternatural reflexes on video games.
I've watched my nephews play, and both of them can process more screen information and do mo
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I can still wipe the floor with those kids today but that's probably because I grew up with videogames, have always played videogames, and haven't *ever* gone more than two weeks without playing video games.
I think kids who have always had video games are *way* more skilled at game play than most
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Well, I guess there was that -- I seem to recall shredding my hand on some sports game which needed a fast back-and-forth operation. And pong didn't have any buttons which were part of game-play as I recall. Most of my youth gaming was on coin-ops, so most of them had two buttons.
Re:Opposite. (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's what makes it hard for casual gamers to enjoy story-based games with quests.
If I read a long novel say, one chapter at a time, then I get busy at work and have to put the book down for two weeks, I can pick it up two weeks later and start from where I left the bookmark. I might not remember all the details of the intrigue at the moment, but the story will continue one page at a time, and eventually I'll remember and continue to enjoy the book.
If I start a long story-based game, then I get busy at work and have to stop playing for two weeks, when I come back, I might be totally unable to progress because I forgot that I need to deliver a plucked blue chicken to a one legged chiropractor three villages away in order to trigger the rest of the story. That is what turns a nice 40 hours game into a boring 60 hours game, because you wasted 10 hours running around and talking to every villager you met (most of them saying useless things, and not even "What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?") until you figured out what you forgot.
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So what you're really saying is that more games should have a quest-log which tells you what tasks you've completed & what tasks you can choose to do.
Sounds to me more like a design flaw than a prob
40 hours is great (Score:2)
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Playing it reminded me of rock climbing, where you approach each face a different way depending on the difficulty. But by the time I'd got the 3rd or 4th coin from each level it was getting more than a little dull.
I still finished it, if only to satisfy my OCD, but I can't help feel that Nintendo robbed me of some time, just to make the game feel longer
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As for modern games, I think I put at least 30 hours into my Oblivion character before getting bored. And I wasn't even half way through, I suspect.
-matthew
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I'm STILL hooked on Fallout and Fallout 2, there's just so many different ways you can go about playing it.
IMHO, these two offered a decent balance between open ended play and linear play.
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How long is a piece of string? (Score:5, Insightful)
I play games because i want to immerse myself in another world, and play with some interesting stuff. Its not a race. I dont keep a clock going as I play (although oblivion does that for me for some reason).
Whats important is FUN, nothing else. People can't easily define fun, so they try to come up with other metrics.
how many unique units does it have?
How long is it to complete?
How many DVDs does it come on.
I had someone complain about one of my games once because it was "only 23 MB". Apparnatly they didnt want a "good" game, a "fun" game or an "original game" or even a "game with depth", they just wanted one with a bigger filesize. I played Elite for most of my childhood. it was 48k. Was I ripped off?
whats the time to complete for Chess anyway? I'm still working on that one.
One day maybe game reviewers and publishers will shut up about how much bump mapping the game has, shut up about what hollywood actor did the voiceover, shut up about how long they *think* it takes to complete it, and just sell their game on the basis of it being a GOOD game.
King Kong is a long movie. Its also shit (in my opinion, YMMV). Applying the metric to books and movies is clearly nonsense, so why apply it to games?
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You can get an exact lenght of the time of the movie it's usually printed somewhere probably in the same small print as the lenght of a game. It's really hard to define the length of a game though. Even the expected/average game time. Especially for a game like Tomb raider. It didn't take me 40 hours to beat Legends. It sure as hell took me alot
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Re:How long is a piece of string? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, what have you managed to unlock so far?
Let's all jive now (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, exactly (Score:2)
WoW does, in some ways, accommodate us "soft-core" players, but at the same time what often motivate
Re:Yes, exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Rep grind with various factions.
Battlegrounds -- faction rep, PvP rank/honour.
Raid instances.
Crafting professions (aka "The Auction House game").
And of course, you can skip all of those like I did and start another alt -- different race, different faction, different zones. IMHO the tiered questing is Wow's greatest strenght, coupled with rest bonus for inactive characters.
I played Baldur's Gate II to finish the game. I play WoW for the experience, knowing there's always going to be something new around the corner. The online social aspect is a huge benefit too.
You say tomato... (Score:3, Insightful)
Rep grind with various factions.
Battlegrounds -- faction rep, PvP rank/honour.
Raid instances.
Crafting professions (aka "The Auction House game").
I read this as:
Grind for faction points (which can get you cheaper/special loot).
Grind for honor (which can be traded for loot).
Grind for loot.
Grind for crafting materials (whch can be turned into loot).
It's really no wonder that WoW is far and away the most popular MMORPG ever created. Purple items--gotta catch 'em all!
40 Hour Games according to whom? (Score:2)
Man, I can relate (Score:2)
I have spent the last five years trying to finish Descent3.
I'm not exaggerating. Every now and then I'll slog through another half a level or so, invariably getting killed a few times. What with its full 6-degrees of freedom and insanely squirrely foes, it has got to be the most difficult FPS game I've encountered.
Well, I'm certainly getting my money's worth.
Same here with Unreal (Score:2)
Odd complaint. (Score:5, Interesting)
But more than that, he mentions a long list of unfinished games. Sounds like a quitter to me. Two thirds of the way through Tomb Raider: Legends, halfway through Kingdom Hearts II. I don't think it would've taken him any longer to actually finish Kingdom Hearts than it would to get that 2/3rds of the way through Tomb Raider.
This person has made a conscious choice to play more games and leave them half-finished, rather than playing fewer games and finishing them. I'd certainly take a few good games (the Half-Lives, the Halos, the Final Fantasies) over many, many bad ones (the Dooms, the Quakes, Final Fantasy X-2). So, he has two related, possibly valid complaints: It's hard to actually find a really good game, so he wishes he could play more games, in order to find that one -- except that games take a long time to complete, so he can't actually beat as many as he'd like to.
That, or it's a problem of attention span. But he mentions finishing War and Peace, and a Tomb Raider game is too much?
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I'm 28 as well and I found Doom 3 to be a boring rehash of obvious jump scares and scifi environments. At every turn I could predict where the "surprise" attack was and where it was going to come from. It brought back the nostalgia for the original Doom for a bit, but that quickly faded.
Depends on assumptions (Score:2)
Do they assume that you are on your own? Do they assume that you bought the strategy guide that was right next to it? Do they assume that it is 6 weeks after the game was released and there are hints/cheats/walkthroughs on the Internet?
All of these can greatly affect the total playtime.
It can even matter how you want to play a game. For example, in Neverwinter Nights, it takes a lot longer to play through the game as a wizard than as a fighter. Why? W
Dude! (Score:5, Funny)
That's because you're old and you suck. I can state that with confidence because I also am old and suck. It's a young person's world, guy.
Re:Dude! (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite honestly, however, I did agree with the author more often than not in this piece. But at the same time, I completely agree with your funny, yet intelligent thought, that games aren't made for us. Sure they want to sell to us, but we're not the "core demographic". They want someone who's going to play the game fiercely, talk about it to all their friends and gamers online, spread the gospel, and therefore sell more copies to more hardcore gamers, and so on and so on....
We're a dollar cog in the million dollar machine, so the fact that save points don't come frequently enough is an "old people" problem. It's more important to have the intensity of "will I survive until the next save point" than "I can really only play for about half an hour... will I have a chance to save?"
And I think as the gaming generation ages, it's something people have to really think about. Because while the young, brash minds producing calls of "So U R upset about a longer game? N00b!" are annoying and grammatically...odd, they have a point. But the gameplay has to be structured in a way that it can be crystallized and played in smaller nuggets, and yet still flow. This makes a game that takes forever to be fun. Because if you have to figure out where you are, and what your inventory is, and where your next "checkpoint" is from memory of when you played the game three days ago, you're more likely to not pick up that game. But if the system flows and keeps you where you were, and helps you remember these things, and is structured in such a way as to encourage you to play even when it's been a while, then that's gaming for the adult set. (No, not THAT adult. With the job and the money and the wife and such, we get that stuff for free now. No need to see it in the games.
Re:Dude! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be interested to see the actual median player age for various types of games. I suspect that it's probably higher than game companies typically target in many categories and it's likely getting higher over time as first-gen gamers grow older.
But the gameplay has to be structured in a way that it can be crystallized and played in smaller nuggets, and yet still flow.
Exactly. See my comment about PC games vs. console games elsewhere in this topic. This is also why I hate when games are simultaneously developed for a console and PC, as they tend to both be "dumbed down" to suit a younger target audience and more limited hardware interface, and often eliminate most of the technical features that make PC games more appealing (save anywhere, progress logs, etc).
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Why would you complain that a game was taking you longer than advertised? surely this is a feature of it, unless you just play games to say you beat them as an old person or whatever would. Perhaps its the same mentality that forces many 30 somethings to buy books that they never read so they can have bookshelves...
I don't really understand the elderly because whenever I try to talk t
Clearly... (Score:5, Funny)
Strategy Guides (Score:5, Insightful)
As a former EB Games employee, I remember being frustrated at the large number of customers who would purchase the strategy guide along with the game at release, and then have the nerve to complain that the game was "too short". It's since been my opinion that the growing strategy guide market has encouraged developers to use "cheap" methods to increase the average gameplay time.
Games were much more satisfying before the popularity explosion of guides and cheats =/
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On the other hand, the guides appeared when games that were too hard appeared. Too hard? Yeah, some people are too weak to actually figure out the game. But then, there were some really hard games too...
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Strategy Guides are sometimes a requirement (Score:2)
Pacman (Score:2)
Complaining it's too long? (Score:2, Redundant)
Huh? He's complaining the game is too long? Hey, I understand the desire for quick fun games, which is why I still enjoy Pacman and Galaga (or even minesweeper and solitare). But complaining about something like this is asinine.
Between two kids and only having (maybe) two hours of free time from 8-10pm each day (and when I'm not spending time with the wife, reading, or just vegging out), it took me six months to complete HL2. Do I deserve a refund?
Why would you put it down after only 2/3rds? (Score:2)
Tomb Raider Legend is a long game. Lots of puzzles, and when you are trying to get all the rewards it takes a bit of doing to get to everything.
When the games are too short, that is whe
Is the game intuitive? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are the 40 hours good? (Score:2)
Yeah, I'd like more 40 hour games. As long as they offer good, semi-non repititive gameplay.
There's just no pleasing some people (Score:2, Redundant)
At some point, I sadly realized I just couldn't afford any more time. I've got a life to lead: Books to read, a day job, my infant son to hang out with, other games beckoning. That's why I've collected a shockingly
Tomb Raider is not an American game (Score:2)
Tomb Raider is a British game, and British game designers seem to be more akin to Japanese designers - they make games that are challenging and which require a modicum of skill to complete. I have to confe
That's what he gets for getting Tomb Raider (Score:2)
Reviews Said... (Score:2)
But everyone plays at their own pace. There was a section of Half Life (the original) that my friend was telling me would take a good two hours to get past. Fifteen minutes later, I was done with that area. I was a run & gun type...he was a sneaker, always looking for the best spot to shoot from, etc.
Seriously? (Score:2)
The only games I ever expect to take 40+ hours are RPGs.
My game buying theory (Score:2)
I'm not sure sure this is completely related to the article in question, but it is somewhat similar to the comments. Fact of the matter is that for the most part, when you get older, you start having less and less time to play games. Work, workouts, relationships, responsibilities, errands, etc., all have a tendency to get in the way of sitting on your ass for a couple of hours playing games. So, I've created a pretty simple rule that I try to follow when determining my game purchases, and that is, if you c
Any game that advertises hours... (Score:2)
Since the game advertises 40 hours, it seems quite obvious to me that there is no redeeming value in the game aside from how long I can be kept busy playing it (or they surely would have adver
I have NEVER used "time to beat" as a metric: (Score:3, Interesting)
Certainly we remember the people who could run through single player Quake in 24 seconds: does that mean Quake sucked (or, was that fact WHY Quake sucked?)
I am older now, and have a stack of unfinished games like the author of the article. I have had to become more discriminating in my choice of game to purchase; I just can't invest the time or mental energy to complete a Final Fantasy anymore. I did get through Star Wars Lego with my 6 year old daughter.....
I actually don't mind the shorter hours. (Score:2)
This is lame (Score:2)
2) If the game takes too long, play it on an easier setting. If you enjoy playing the game, then you would want it to take a long time. If you don't enjoy it, then the time it takes is irrelevant. Either way, there is no reason to complain about it being too long.
3) If the game is too short, play it on a harder setting.
I find most people play games on the easy/medium settings. That always se
Most of the posts here miss the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the posts here are completely missing the point ("You suck D00D!"). As someone who's put down more than one game that I was enjoying partway through, I can tell you the main reason why: because something new comes along. Humans enjoy novelty, and many long-play games are long play because of a continual repetition of the basic game mechanic. After your fourth session sitting down doing essentially the same thing you've been doing for the last month, you get intrigued by the latest & greatest. Add to this the fact that you may have multiple irons in the fire (I'm currrently in the middle of 3 different books and 4 different single-player games)
Why is this a problem? Because there are a lot more "soft" gamers out there than hardcore ones, and they make a lot more money. As a developer, what would you prefer you market to be: 3% of the population or 30%? If you're spending tons of effort to produce a narrative game that can only be reached by 3% of the population, why are you bothering with a narrative? Hard games are fine, but perhaps they should be restricted to genres that are inherently more repetitive (e.g. classic arcade games), allowing people that bail on the title to go away feeling they had fun, as opposed to abandoning the narrative.
Ultimately, there are many more people out there that only want to commit 6 hours to some interactive entertainment as opposed to 40.
-BbT
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Some games, I finish, even though it may take a month or two. Others, I don't. The common denominator? The ones I finish are usually good. The ones I don't are usually boring. If there's a difference, it's that older people with less time are less likely to put up with a mediocre game.
Mental Comittment (Score:2)
Of course, I've also gotten about 160 hours of play out of Chromehounds so far so I'm getting my money's
Game Time vs Cost vs Fun (Score:2, Interesting)
OK, figure a movie by yourself in my area is going to run you roughly $9 for a 1.5 hour movie (granted you pay the same for a 60 min or 300 min movie). Then you buy soda ($5), popcorn ($3 for a small), and maybe candy ($3) and your out another $11. So for roughtly 1.5 hours of entertainment which may or may not be good, you're willing to pay $20. All bases on my area, market, a
Apparently some people don't get the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
However on the other hand the 40 hours game claim are almost always wrong. I now work in the game industry but still found a way to play 40 hours into disgaea. I have about 24 hours in Samurai warriors (only been out a week).
I believe the real myth is "40 hours" games or games like Xenosaga that promise 100 hours where they hardly deliver half to people who ACTUALLY play the game. If you pick it up and drop it over and over and keep dying then yeah 100 hours is possible. However if a game can be completed 100 percent in 20 hours by knowing what to do in it, then it's a 20 hour game.
What the industry needs is games like Katamari damacy, or multiple non-forced (suikoden 3 way? bad) story lines. Imagine if you could change your character, and get a different story. Imagine playing through games that have "good" and "evil" story lines. They might be 20 hour games that you play through once, but if it's fun the first time and good the second time that's fine. Kotor started on this path but how you acted never really effected future gameplay too much until you get to the final temple. This allows the "hard core" gamer to get two unique experiences, and the casual gamer to get one solid experience that they decide.
Some game companies are making "40 hour games" by making the game so obscure you won't know what to do in it for the first 30 hours, or giving you puzzles that will make you work on them 5 hours to find a little dot. I'm all for hard games, or difficult achievements but pretending obscurity makes your game longer is a joke.
I've put at least 100 hours into FFX when I was able to devote that time to it just because I loved the level grid/capture system. But it's not a 100 hour game. It's a 30-40 hour game which a few people could put 100 hours in.
The problem we are running into is game companies who won't or can't make scaleable games. Lego Star wars 2 has a good start, on the 360 there's the regular game, and then "never die" achievements which is quite hard for the player. They are completely optional but everyone is willing to try for them. If more games used "achievements" systems like the 360 to give optional quests like so it would enhance the length of most games.
it's supposed to be fun (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the packages could make the point a little clearer: "This game should provide you with at least 40 hours of entertainment."
Of course, if the game takes you 60 hours to complete because it's badly designed, then you can legitimately complain about the game. But the problem there isn't the 60 hours, it's the design.
Hardcore gamers vs. gamers with jobs. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is only true if you have loads and loads of free time on your hands like a high school or college student might. Otherwise, when you get out into the real world and get a job or start dating someone, you find out that free time disappears and a game that gives lots of goodies for little effort or that can be dropped for weeks and months before being picked back up without losing you is a great thing.
Long games are good for certain people and bad for others. However, the problem isn't really that the game is giving him a lot of gameplay so much as it's making it's gameplay so hard that it's unnaturally prolonged by failure. That's another split between the hardcore and casual gamer markets.
As a fan of console RPGs, I run into this all the time. Some games keep the fun continuous. Others require a lot of old-school level grinding to wring out the rewards. Some games make it easy to pick the game up and remember where you were if work intervenes for a week or two. Others leave you feeling like you need to start over.
It should be pretty easy to guess which type I prefer.
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A suggestion for game designers (Score:3, Interesting)
I have alway
Re:So what's the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, these days I have money for games but not enough time to play everything as much as I'd like. In my college days, I had plenty of time but no money, so I played fewer games for longer. I think I get more out of gaming now, though.
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Re:Uh huh... and... (Score:5, Informative)
His points (as a person with a job, life, kids) are:
- puzzles many times take him much longer than kids in the 6-17 range he compares himself to.
- he compares in-depth games to his job, dumping information in and out of his mental RAM doesn't get him very far. See: late-night or off-shift coders who work to avoid users/meetings/interruptions.
- he understands the hardcore vs casual design problem.
TFA isn't even that long but his really good point (imho) aren't in the title (which is Gamer not Game). But if you just read the title, then you miss the point. Great read, critical hit close to home.
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I'd say you're better today that you were back then. Try the C&C game again, and see if it takes a year to complete. Back when I was 6 and Super Mario Bros. was all new and shiny, it took months before I finally finished it. Today, 30 minutes could do it. Did the game get easier? N