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The attitude that more content means a better game is dangerous for games

LoL and Dota only had 1 map and 1 game mode, but people still play them for hundreds and thousands of hours.

Content in multiplayer games is different with singleplayer games. Each session will be different & fresh for each player, because other players is the best opponent a gamer can have. No matter how hard a Dark Souls boss is, after you've finally beaten him once you'll be able to beat him over and over again because there's a limitation and pattern in AI enemies. However, it's totally different with a human player enemy, you can't beat one over and over again with the same strategy because a human player is random and adaptive. That is the content of multiplayer only games, besides the vast amount of heroes, classes, etc which add more complexities of each session.
 

danmaku

Member
But nobody is saying that. More content doesn't mean a game is better does not mean that less content makes a game better.

Nobody is saying more content = better game, either. People are just complaining when a certain level of content is not "enough". If you feel it's "enough", reward the devs with your money.
 
If your game is worthy of $60 that does depend on the amount of Hours I get out of it against the amount of enjoyment. I was more than willing to pay for Star Fox Zero and Guard and I got a great deal of enjoyment out of both during that time. Games like Doom's single player also slot into this category for me as I have no interest in any of the other content the game offers.

Experiences like Gone Home on the other hand, would likely be very enjoyable for their full playtime, but I probably still would not be satisfied with the money I spent if it were $60.

I tend to replay games a lot and try to get the most out of the games I do buy like I have since I was young. Most of the games I give impressions on are actually from my friends so monetary value usually doesn't factor into them.

More Content is not always good but it can be if the level/game design doesn't bring out the potential of the core mechanics enough. Once there can be no more development of the core mechanics, the content should end. That way, ideas do not grow stale.
 
Yup, claims of 50, 100, 150 hours of content makes me roll my eyes. I don't want padding in my games for you to be able to say you have loads of content.

Just make a tight, refined experience.
 

cireza

Banned
Arcade games.

See the credits in 15 minutes. But so much fun you will replay it hundreds of times.

I prefer a game that gives everything it's got from 15 minutes to 10 hours, and that I will want to replay again and again, than a game that tries to last too long for its own good with repetitive and/or tedious game-design.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I agree but I think the weirdest ones are the 'what happens in 150 years when the servers go down!? No buy' reasons.
That one is my all-time favorite concern.
"If it had offline bots, I would have been able to play this game in 2028"

This is a bit of an exaggeration. More realistically:

  • Someone brought up being able to play if their internet goes down. This can be done, for example, with TF2 bots. TF2 custom maps can also be used to practice certain techniques such as rocket jumping or aiming on the run.
  • EA, for example, has taken down online game servers in as little as 1.5 years. This is a lot less than 12 years. Blizzard has a better record, but consumers have a right to be wary in my opinion.
 

Eumi

Member
The amount of content =/= how long the game will last you.

Between beta and retail, I think I've put about 25 hours into Overwatch. Every match still seems fresh and new, and I can easily imagine investing hundreds of hours into the game over the next five years. I know plenty of people that invested literally thousands and thousands of hours into DOTA. I know it has dozens and dozens of characters and items, but the total amount of content, relatively speaking, is not much.

Compare that to the average single player game, which you can usually finish in 10-20 hours and then you'll probably never replay.

If it's well-made and you enjoy it, online-only multiplayer games offer some of the best value for the money. By far.

It is true that if you play an online game for hours on end you'll probably be satisfied with it, but thats not really my point. Pointing out examples of games that you've played a lot of doesn't really help anyone. Overwatch isn't even a good example anyway as its a game that hasn't been designed with a playtime in mind.
 

IvanJ

Banned
This is a bit of an exaggeration. More realistically:

  • Someone brought up being able to play if their internet goes down. This can be done, for example, with TF2 bots. TF2 custom maps can also be used to practice certain techniques such as rocket jumping or aiming on the run.
  • EA, for example, has taken down online game servers in as little as 1.5 years. This is a lot less than 12 years. Blizzard has a better record, but consumers have a right to be wary in my opinion.
It's not an exaggeration, people really write that "what about when servers go down in 10 years" and "I can still play Breakout on my Commodore 64"
OK, that is an exaggeration :)
 
This attitude came around with Titan fall, battlefront, evolve, battle born, halo 5, street fighter 5, and now Overwatch.

The attitude that content is king and if a game falls short in that way, any other successes or any of its own goals that it met are secondary and the game fails as a whole.

I think the people who take this attitude are wrong and are doing harm to good developers attempting to put good products out in most cases.

None of the games listed above were cheap to make or cheaper than what those teams made 7 years ago.

None of them were able to reuse content in any meaningfully budget cutting way.

And none of those games lied ahead of launch about what content was in their game. On launch day potential buyers could be informed about what the game was.

Taking this attitude that Overwatch isnt worth money because it doesn't have single player or Titan fall isn't worth it because it doesn't have campaign or halo 5 isn't worth it because it's missing some mode that was in halo 3 8 years ago is doing a lot of harm to titles that are really well made and worthwhile purchases.

Now there's the case of evolve, which had numerous other issues around dlc and game balance, and I fault no one for skipping that one. (I never bought it) and of course people can skip a game for whatever reason they want. It's this wave of outrage and snark that certain games get because a certain group thinks they are low on "content" and the people buying them are somehow eroding the value of games and they're just dumb sheep paying $60 for a multiplayer or online game.

I think it's much worse to expect every game to spend another 7 or 10 million to develop a halfway decent campaign or Co op or cobble together something from multiplayer assets.

I just think that this "content concern" attitude needs to be dialed back and let's focus on quality of game play and how much fun is the game. It's a very old way of looking at games to me or a childish way. I remember being a 13 year old looking for Playstation rpgs that were 50 hours and being so impressed by that. But thats no what every game can or should do anymore.

Why as a consumer, should I be putting a developers needs above my own?

Why are we ignoring the role of the publisher in all this, who is mandating the developer remove content to hit shipping deadlines?

Why is content in itself not considered an aspect of gameplay?

As a consumer I want a robust offline single player aspect of any game. If you as a dev/pub cannot provide that, fine. But don't expect me to give you my money. Your concerns are not my concerns, my concerns are not yours.

Give me the product I want or I will go to the person who does instead. It's that simple.
 
Hear this a lot in regard to MGS V's maps, and that the maps being primarily for tactical purposes only (scouting and approach or otherwise logistical time sinks) a la ARMA or Ghost Recon opposed to content (random events, quest givers, rewards, 'dings') is a flaw and negative quality rather than just a matter of preference.

Preferring the latter or even arguing the former is a poor choice given the series is one thing, but the argument is rarely framed that way. Instead it's simply, the word is empty and that's bad -- there's not enough ? quest givers and ! content all over the map, and that's bad. While I'm not sure what it means "for games," debate on the matter would likely be more constructive if the sort of 'tactical battlefield' ARMA esque nature of the maps was at least recognized as being a viable design choice that at least fans of MGS V (myself included) appreciate.

There is an argument of course for content in open world, but I also enjoy open environments that lack content a la MGS V and instead use that design to either emphasize the broad goal (e.g. scouting and approach, or travel as a time sink -- which, while admittedly having niche appeal, is a legitimate design). Or, alternatively,instead of focusing on numerous pieces of content, focus on fewer pieces of content with more creative replayability.
 
Sure. But if someone paid a full $10-15 for a movie that turned out to only be 20 minutes long, they'd probably be more than a little upset.

It's about balance. Yes, the people who demand that every game provide 100+ hours of entertainment are ridiculous, but no more so than the people saying that it's perfectly acceptable for a game to lack the absolute bare minimum of game modes and still charge full price.

its more like i'd rather watch an episode of classic simpsons 100 times than ever watch mortal kombat annihilation once
 
None of them were able to reuse content in any meaningfully budget cutting way.
I don't understand this point.

How do you know that content reuse wasn't/isn't an option with the games you listed?

Regardless, if a dev paints themselves into that kind of corner they only have themselves to blame.

And "more content" can mean so many different things that I have a hard time knowing how to answer this. Does it mean padded content like random missions or Ubisoft icon bloat? Does it mean a single player mode in a multiplayer focused game or the opposite? Does it mean needing Battlefield levels of weapon and item unlocks as opposed to Titanfall's much smaller arsenal? Does it mean an RPG that has to have hundreds of hours of quests to be taken seriously? All of those?

its more like i'd rather watch an episode of classic simpsons 100 times than ever watch mortal kombat annihilation once
Like most things its about expectations.
 
A good game will satisfy with the level of content it provides, if it can't then it's simply not designed properly. Common sense.

Here's a fact, for every video game that comes out, about a 100 screaming gamers are there to be dissatisfied with it or find it lacking in some way. There is no such thing as the game that sattisfies everybody.
You should stop expecting every game to pander to you. If you don't like multi only, don't buy it. I'll buy it!
If multi-only doesn't have an audience big enough to support it, I'd rather see it die naturally then have games shipped with tacked on, resource devouring, singleplayer modes.
 

gypsygib

Member
I didn't buy SWBF or any mp-only competitive FPS because I value a good SP campaign far more than the MP.

I like the MP too, of course, but only after I've finished the the SP a couple of times. Even if I get 10 times more hours out of the MP, it would never reach the enjoyment I'd get from good SP. For me it's like the SP is the main course and the MP is dessert. I like dessert but when I'm hungry for a game, I'm have no interest in getting just dessert..that cost as much as a full course meal...even if the dessert is excellent.

Now, if that dessert was markedly less expensive then maybe I'd consider getting my meal from somewhere else and going out for some of that excellent dessert.
 

Chao

Member
Online multiplayer game mode should always be a bonus or separate thing , not the main focus of a game IMHO.

I would like to be able to play the game when the servers stop working/the community has moved on and there's no one to play with.

It's not a matter of the amount of content , it's how willing are you to spend 70€ for an ephemeral experience.
 
Disagree, the only thing dangerous for a game is when it is not finding it's audience. It doesn't really matter if it is single player or multiplayer only. There are tons of games on both sides that sold millions or tanked hard and the perception if it didn't provide enough quality content was never the reason for their success or failure.

The reason Overwatch will outsell a game like Street Fighter V or Battleborn by a large margin is not because they got labled by the enthusiast group with a lack of quality content and they would have sold like crazy otherwise.
 
I tend to purchase games that are on the longer side, but content itself does not make a game. A high quality six hour game is much more replayable than a thirty hour borefest.

The games listed in the OP have a lot of mechanical depth to keep people hooked. Ultimately, fun factor is much more important than the number of modes.
 
The true answer to games with campaigns is finding a balance between padding content and story content. My personal preference is to focus on story content (cutscenes, dialogue, main missions, side missions that have cutscenes/dialogue), for if I want to spend $60 on a game, I expect to have about 30 hours of story content if I rush it.

Games with campaigns that have 4 hours of story content or less should be ashamed.
 
Games with campaigns that have 4 hours of story content or less should be ashamed.
My general rule of thumb is that a game should either be filled to the brim with content, or else highly replayable. A game that does both is legendary. A game that does neither better be damn cheap.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
The amount of playtime I get out of a game directly influences how much I'm willing to pay. I don't care how good your game is, if I can finish it in an evening then I value it differently than something I can sink my teeth into for a week.

That being said, devs are free to develop whatever the fuck they want (are allowed to by their publisher overlords?). With the barrage of games coming out every quarter I'm sure some of them will meet my expectations.
 
This attitude came around with Titan fall, battlefront, evolve, battle born, halo 5, street fighter 5, and now Overwatch.

The attitude that content is king and if a game falls short in that way, any other successes or any of its own goals that it met are secondary and the game fails as a whole.

I think the people who take this attitude are wrong and are doing harm to good developers attempting to put good products out in most cases.

None of the games listed above were cheap to make or cheaper than what those teams made 7 years ago.

None of them were able to reuse content in any meaningfully budget cutting way.

And none of those games lied ahead of launch about what content was in their game. On launch day potential buyers could be informed about what the game was.

Taking this attitude that Overwatch isnt worth money because it doesn't have single player or Titan fall isn't worth it because it doesn't have campaign or halo 5 isn't worth it because it's missing some mode that was in halo 3 8 years ago is doing a lot of harm to titles that are really well made and worthwhile purchases.

What's with the attitude that some people think they know better than me what I should spent my money on ?

I judge the game on the amount of content and quality of content. If quality is there but there's no enough quantity I leave the game till it's price is reduced to the point I find acceptable.

And speaking about multiplayer only games - I can get World of tanks/ AW/LOL/DOTA2/Hearthstone/MWO etc. for free and not spend a single dollar in them for hundreds of hours of entertainment. Why would I pay 40-60$ for bare bones multiplayer with 10 or so maps compared to those titles?
 

duckroll

Member
Lots of games could really do with less content if it meant more focus and polish on the content that really works. The jack of all trades sort of design philosophy feels very marketing driven, where the developers try too hard to cater to every popular thing people might expect a game in such a genre to have, even if it doesn't fit or if the developer isn't great at it. In the end, I think no one really appreciates half-assed content even if they might like that sort of content, so going out of the way to try and attract an audience that way tends to backfire since people will just complain about how crappy the feature is instead.

It would be great to have a game with tons and tons and tons of high quality content, every feature we can think of implemented in fantastic ways, but cmon, that's not realistic.
 

StoveOven

Banned
The posts that get me the most in these threads are the ones that say they won't buy a game without singelplayer content. That's totally fine as you can do whatever you want with your money. But that just means you aren't part of the audience for that game, and that's okay. The small minority who won't buy Overwatch without a singleplayer campaign aren't going to stop that game from selling incredibly well.

I think a lot of this line of thinking comes from this weird thought some people have that every game needs to cater to their individual needs. There are plenty of quality games with huge fanbases that I just don't give a shit about. But I wouldn't want the developers to change their game just to appeal to me. The fanbases of those games really like what's there, and that's what matters. There are plenty of other games for me to enjoy.

Expressing personal frustration or ambivalence is one thing, but this ambiguous "lack of content" is not some objective damnation of a game's quality that some people make it out to be.

That being said, I do think developers should start messing around with different pricing models. It pisses me off that the $40 version of Overwatch is only available on PC,
but I still bought the $60 PS4 version because I'm a sucker.
.
 
What's with the attitude that some people think they know better than me what I should spent my money on ?

I judge the game on the amount of content and quality of content. If quality is there but there's no enough quantity I leave the game till it's price is reduced to the point I find acceptable.

And speaking about multiplayer only games - I can get World of tanks/ AW/LOL/DOTA2/Hearthstone/MWO etc. for free and not spend a single dollar in them for hundreds of hours of entertainment. Why would I pay 40-60$ for bare bones multiplayer with 10 or so maps compared to those titles?

Because those games either charge you money to be good at the games or to get more than a basic experience with it or they're the most popular games in the world and make plenty of money on optional microtransactions and don't need to charge.

Overwatch and SF5 are neither of those situations.
 

Melchiah

Member
Well, I wouldn't buy a game without single player campaign, as playing online, particularly PVP, is not my thing. Hell, I played even Destiny mostly by myself.

I do think, that people, particularly reviewers, have put far too much emphasis on the amount of open world content over the more linear experiences. When a large portion of it constitutes of trivial fetch quests. I'd rather have a great 15-hour linear experience, than a 80-hour open world one with a ridiculous amount of padding. And I'd rather have a good level design, than unvaried locations for the sake of having more of them.
 

azyless

Member
All I'm getting from all these Overwatch threads is that the issue isn't as much lack of content as it is "how dare these games have content that doesn't interest me".
 

choodi

Banned
It's all about the relative value of the game.

A $60/60 hour game that i play for 20 minutes before getting bored does not have the same value as a $60/4 hour game that i play over and over.

As an adult with a family, I want games that i can finish in a single sitting (2-3 hours), but that offer me replay value that will keep me coming back again and again (not just for multiplayer either).

In a perfect world, a developer would give me an open world game with multiple objectives/storylines that each take a couple of hours to finish, but are independent of each other. Each would be a self-contained story within a living world, but i would be free to choose which story/ending/objective i want to pursue.
 
All I'm getting from all these Overwatch threads is that the issue isn't as much lack of content as it is "how dare these games have content that doesn't interest me".

right, and that's fine if you're not interested. but just acknowledge that and don't whine about not having a campaign or not having this or that. Just move on to the games that do have content you enjoy and let people who enjoy learning a multiplayer game or even people who love fetch quests in fallout enjoy that. Games don't all have to be the same.
 

Roufianos

Member
Exactky. Look at MGSV and Fallout 4, a shit load of quests but almost all of them repetitive and uninspired. I'd have taken games 1/4 of the length if it led to better design.
 

Famassu

Member
Any kind of arbitrary qualifications that games are supposed to exceed for whatever reason are dumb. I.e. "Telltale's games aren't games because they are less interactive than some other games in the genre."
 

Mohasus

Member
Why are we ignoring the role of the publisher in all this, who is mandating the developer remove content to hit shipping deadlines?

As a consumer I want a robust offline single player aspect of any game. If you as a dev/pub cannot provide that, fine. But don't expect me to give you my money. Your concerns are not my concerns, my concerns are not yours.

Give me the product I want or I will go to the person who does instead. It's that simple.

Remove implies that the content was ready, it isn't the case. Blizzard didn't rush the game or whatever, just look how long it takes for them to release a game. They just didn't think a single player campaign was necessary (and it isn't). Just accept that the game isn't for you instead of trying to change it (I mean, you kinda did it, but then you said that you think every game should have a single player campaign). I don't like shooters very much, but you won't find me complaining that Halo should be a kart racer.
 
Few individuals are saying more content = better games. Most are saying more content = better value for games. Selling a $60 game for the MP seems very lacking. Overwatch is $40 on PC, so why is it $60 on consoles? Lack of content = less value.
 

deadduck

Member
If we marked it down for what it doesn't do, it would barely register.

What it does do, it does great and it is so polished the reflections in waifus latex covered suggestive posteriors will make you'll forget it cost £60.

10/10
 

antonz

Member
I honestly think that whole mentality is just a hangover from a period where Call of Duty dominated the market. We'll get out of it, and it doesn't seem like it's anything more than a vocal minority of people complaining. Battlefront's sales certainly didn't suffer much from the warnings given before it released.

Battlefront may have sold well but its all but been abandoned by players so obviously the lack of content and features had a serious effect. Battlefield 3 and 4 have many more players. Battlefront on PC cannot even break 4500 users peak in a day anymore. Meanwhile Battlefield 4 is pushing almost 30,000 at peak
 

*Splinter

Member
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Battlefront was low on content even for an MP only game?

Evolve's problem was more about the dlc.

Titan fall / SF5 where I guess less content than expected, but complaints over those always came across a bit entitled to me so I guess I agree there.

Overwatch has had such a ridiculous amount of praise though. If you're noticing the tiny minority of complainers over that then your jimmies are too easily rustled.


So on Battlefront I disagree, the rest seem like bad examples except maybe Titanfall/SF5


Speaking more generally, there is a minimum amount of "content" needed for a game to feel worthwhile, I don't think people are wrong to complain if they feel that minimum hasn't been reached
 

Aters

Member
If you sell your game at $40, $30, sure I don't care about less content. If you are using the $60 price tag, then I need enough content to justify it.
 
Sure. But if someone paid a full $10-15 for a movie that turned out to only be 20 minutes long, they'd probably be more than a little upset.

It's about balance. Yes, the people who demand that every game provide 100+ hours of entertainment are ridiculous, but no more so than the people saying that it's perfectly acceptable for a game to lack the absolute bare minimum of game modes and still charge full price.

But if the trailer and reviews said the movie was 20 minutes long, and you had the choice to buy that ticket or not then what's the problem?

And on your second point, it's pretty clear that many will get 100+ hours of entertainment out of this game with limited modes. So again, what's the problem?

It's not as if there's any deception here.

Not every game has to appeal to every single person.
 

dex3108

Member
For me it is not about more content it is about content i want to play. For example Overwatch has really interesting characters and lore that i would like to see in real story driven experience instead of walls of text and hidden lore. Same goes for Star Wars Battlefornt. I am waiting for a good SW game with battlefront visuals and sound for a long time and i will still wait because EA will push Battlefront 2 before their first SP game.

Some of us enjoy in story driven games and single player campaigns and when we see potential for good and interesting story we express our opinion how we would love to see it.
 
Actually whats dangerous is thinking its not a problem to release games that are short on content for a premium price.

The more people support and buy these games the less content develolers are putting in future releases to save money and sell more dlc.

Certain games should have a healthy singular player campaign and certain games should be priced less than 60 and certain dlc should be in the game not sold separately.

Its like going to mcdonalds and there is one cashier and there are 50 people waiting. If no one complains, mcdonalds wont change, they are saving money
 

antonz

Member
What bothers me the most with Overwatch is the whole marketing campaign for it by Blizzard.

The ads etc hype up a huge massive story about heroes an villians, global wars and the team needing to save the world.

Then you get to the actual product and its basically a standard shooter/moba with none of the actual cool shit the marketing hypes.
 

RexNovis

Banned
For me it is not about more content it is about content i want to play. For example Overwatch has really interesting characters and lore that i would like to see in real story driven experience instead of walls of text and hidden lore. Same goes for Star Wars Battlefornt. I am waiting for a good SW game with battlefront visuals and sound for a long time and i will still wait because EA will push Battlefront 2 before their first SP game.

Some of us enjoy in story driven games and single player campaigns and when we see potential for good and interesting story we express our opinion how we would love to see it.

There is a big difference between saying "oh man these characters are great I really wish the game had a fully featured story mode!" and "Pfft no story mode? Only 2 multiplayer modes?!?!? $60?!?!? This game is a rip off" which is exactly the sort of response that is made whenever one of these games come out.

You're saying it's not what you want and that's perfectly fine but to tell everyone that a game is not worth the money they paid for it because it doesn't meet some arbitrary content quota is absurd. I hope you can see the difference.
 
I rather have people expect more. The "I don't have time for this hobby, make short games!" argument is much more damaging imo.
 
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