Support NeoGAF

[BossLackey]

I see it's time for the monthly (or is it weekly?) "games are too long, they need to be shorter" topic on GAF.

Kudos for using more interesting terminology ("gameplay density") instead of saying "games are too long", though.

I was going to open with "yes, this is another 'Games are too long' thread".

This horse has been beaten into the core of the earth at this point, but man is it something that still annoys the shit outta me.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

I want both.
Skip short single player only games at retail prices.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

I like to immerse myself in a world so the longer the better granted that it's always fun or the vast majority is.

For example, I adore RE4 Remake....I would have taken 100 hours of it.

 

[OrangeSun77]

The industry and trends are not going to adjust to your personal life, no one cares if you are an adult with little time to play video games, that is your problem. The games are fine as they are.

 

[Fbh]

While on first impulse I agree, when I think back at some of my favorite games of the past decade like The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, Yakuza 0, Hollow Knight, Nioh 2, Hades, etc... almost all of them are actually 30+ hours long.

As long as the game has solid core gameplay, decent pacing and a good variety of content I don't really mind them being 30+ hours long.
Elden Ring was still a blast after 60+ hours because I was still reaching new locations, fighting new enemies, getting new gear, facing cool new bosses, etc
The Witcher 3 was fun because after 60+ hours I was still encountering unique quests with interesting characters and meaningful choices.

Long games are bad when they feel stretched out or like they ran out of new content for the player, but somehow keep going on and on.
Tales of Arise gets boring after 30 hours because the story is boring and the last few dungeons are full of recycled bullet sponge enemies.
FFXVI can get boring after a while because it feels like it forces you to play through boring filler to get to the next proper story mission
Ghost of Tsushima gets boring after 15 hours because like 60% of what you do in the game is follow footsteps and fight the same 5-6 enemies (I know most people here love it though)

 

[T-0800]

I'm getting really tired of these stretched out games. Time is precious to us all, yet we continue to have publishers and developer that think of "dollars per hour" as a saleable bullet point on their products.

For younger players, I understand that to a degree. Bang for your buck is something to consider when you have ample time and limited funds, but the inverse as an adult is almost more annoying. So many games I could play, but how many of them are padded to the gills with boring stretches of bullshit?

The games that keep coming to my mind that are nearly perfect when it comes to pacing and gameplay density are the Resident Evil games. They're well balanced with tight, dense campaigns that offer more in New Game + if you like, but are just as good as a one-shot. And they're just the right length.

I get it. Video games are expensive to make and a lot of people don't want to drop $70 on something that's over in 6 hours, but that doesn't mean I want a 60 hour game either. Legitimately, who the fuck has time for that!? If it were just a few games per year, that'd be one thing, but my backlog if counted in hours would take lifetimes.

I want the polish and mechanical complexity of AAA games and the quick hit and shorter campaigns of a lot of indie games. Is that so much to ask!?

 

[BossLackey]

Guess who plays shumps and is already a fan of The Electric Underground?

 

[BossLackey]

While on first impulse I agree, when I think back at some of my favorite games of the past decade like The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, Yakuza 0, Hollow Knight, Nioh 2, Hades, etc... almost all of them are actually 30+ hours long.

As long as the game has solid core gameplay, decent pacing and a good variety of content I don't really mind them being 30+ hours long.
Elden Ring was still a blast after 60+ hours because I was still reaching new locations, fighting new enemies, getting new gear, facing cool new bosses, etc
The Witcher 3 was fun because after 60+ hours I was still encountering unique quests with interesting characters and meaningful choices.

Long games are bad when they feel stretched out or like they ran out of new content for the player, but somehow keep going on and on.
Tales of Arise gets boring after 30 hours because the story is boring and the last few dungeons are full of recycled bullet sponge enemies.
FFXVI can get boring after a while because it feels like it forces you to play through boring filler to get to the next proper story mission
Ghost of Tsushima gets boring after 15 hours because like 60% of what you do in the game is follow footsteps and fight the same 5-6 enemies (I know most people here love it though)

That's what I didn't quite articulate. Outside of The Witcher and Yakuza, you just named most of my favorite games from the last 10 years.

It's not long games I despise. It's long games that that have the content of short games spread over too much toast.

 

[majorgamer10]

People love wasting time. It's like currency.

 

[Griffon]

You're wrong. It's not the longevity that matters, its the variety, quality and depth of the gameplay that matters. Are you saying Elden Ring , Persona 5 or Baldurs Gate 3 are bad games for taking 100+ hours? No, they're not. A game can be 300 hours long for all I care as long as the gameplay is incredibly satisfying and fun to play.

I think both P5 and ER are both too long and would be better games at half their length. Lots of useless padding and repetition in both.

Chrono Trigger takes barely more than 20 hours to complete, an it's still the GOAT. I wish devs would remember that.

 

[Generic]

I probably played Fortnite for 5000 hours.

 

[LordNerevar76]

I think it's too reductive to ask why a big title like rebirth can't have every hour of gameplay be equal in 'fun' as every hour in a short game like RE2 remake (which was one of the comparisons mentioned).

Though I haven't finished it, I agree that like many open world games, there is some bloat and downtime in rebirth. However, a large piece of media designed to be epic in scope needs periods of downtime and space to build the world, the atmosphere, and to heighten and support the truly epic moments. A shorter, more focused piece of media has a different approach to creating fun and excitement that will have less downtime overall. We don't do this comparison between TV episodes or shorts and big movies, or short stories and epics like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones.

Lord of the Rings doesn't need every moment to be the battle of pelennor fields; it's ok to have a chapter about the shire, or lothlorien, or the politics of Rohan. On the other hand it's also OK for the Great Gatsby to be told briefly enough to be under 200 pages.

Games are greater than the sum of their parts, or individual fun-per-hour ratings. Longer games with some downtown and bloat can be build up to moments that could never happen in shorter games. For a recent example I recently played about 15 hours of the deck builder Balatro and adored it. Were those 15 hours objectively better than the first 15 hours of a number of larger games I played? Probably. But many of those larger games built up into an unforgettable experience that really left a mark on me more than Balatro ever will (as much as I really like that game!).

TLDR: Games are greater than the sum of their individual parts or hours. Downtime can build up other parts of a long title into something epic. I do agree that not all bloat is good and I especially think not every game needs to be so long... I'm willing to invest in FF7 Rebirth, Zelda, red dead, etc but Ubisoft (for example) doesn't have the quality to justify the length.

 

[PleazureDome]

I probably played Fortnite for 5000 hours.

 

[T-0800]

I probably played Fortnite for 5000 hours.

Didn't take you 5000 hours to finish one game though did it.

 

[sigmaZ]

The thing with those games is that, even if very long, most of the time is spent engaging with the game mechanincs, like engaging in combat in ER, building your character or role-playing in BG3 or fusing demons, battling them and chasing waifus in Persona.

But on the other hand, there are games like Cyberpunk 2077 where most of my play time was spent in the car driving from point A to B. This might have been my fault since I could have used fast travel but, if the open world isn't fun then why the fuck make the game open world in the first place?

Ironically after adding fast travel mods I spent way more time playing Cyberpunk AND exploring the world. The whole philosophy of limiting fast travel is wrong imo. Players should just simply need to unlock the travel points. Games like BG3 and FF7 Rebirth get this well. If people can easily access game areas their much more likely to do so.

 

[Guilty_AI]

What's the black hole of gaming?

I'm gonna guess Factorio?

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

I'm getting really tired of these stretched out games. Time is precious to us all, yet we continue to have publishers and developer that think of "dollars per hour" as a saleable bullet point on their products.

For younger players, I understand that to a degree. Bang for your buck is something to consider when you have ample time and limited funds, but the inverse as an adult is almost more annoying. So many games I could play, but how many of them are padded to the gills with boring stretches of bullshit?

The games that keep coming to my mind that are nearly perfect when it comes to pacing and gameplay density are the Resident Evil games. They're well balanced with tight, dense campaigns that offer more in New Game + if you like, but are just as good as a one-shot. And they're just the right length.

I get it. Video games are expensive to make and a lot of people don't want to drop $70 on something that's over in 6 hours, but that doesn't mean I want a 60 hour game either. Legitimately, who the fuck has time for that!? If it were just a few games per year, that'd be one thing, but my backlog if counted in hours would take lifetimes.

I want the polish and mechanical complexity of AAA games and the quick hit and shorter campaigns of a lot of indie games. Is that so much to ask!?

Every game is not made for you. Simple. End thread.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

This probably deserves its own thread, but Mark breaks down the reasons why gameplay density is so important and the underlying reasons why developers have been weaseling away from these core game design fundamentals. I have been saying what this man is saying for over a decade. The departure from arcades has had a profound impact on video game design, for worse.

People. Watch this video! This guy knows what he's talking about.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

A fun 300 hours is 20x more valuable than a fun 15 hours.

Yup.

I must had put in 100s and 100s of hours playing Heores of M&M 3 and then the Complete Edition simply playing random maps. I remember buying these games cheap in the late 90s or 2000.

Some can say I'm playing the same kind of shit over and over again and they are right. It's the same gameplay mechanics, monsters and items, just randomized. But among my most fav games of all time.

 

[IAmRei]

I'm getting really tired of these stretched out games. Time is precious to us all, yet we continue to have publishers and developer that think of "dollars per hour" as a saleable bullet point on their products.

For younger players, I understand that to a degree. Bang for your buck is something to consider when you have ample time and limited funds, but the inverse as an adult is almost more annoying. So many games I could play, but how many of them are padded to the gills with boring stretches of bullshit?

The games that keep coming to my mind that are nearly perfect when it comes to pacing and gameplay density are the Resident Evil games. They're well balanced with tight, dense campaigns that offer more in New Game + if you like, but are just as good as a one-shot. And they're just the right length.

I get it. Video games are expensive to make and a lot of people don't want to drop $70 on something that's over in 6 hours, but that doesn't mean I want a 60 hour game either. Legitimately, who the fuck has time for that!? If it were just a few games per year, that'd be one thing, but my backlog if counted in hours would take lifetimes.

I want the polish and mechanical complexity of AAA games and the quick hit and shorter campaigns of a lot of indie games. Is that so much to ask!?

but actually, not only content who are expensive, but visual is expensive as well. i like longer game, but as long as not under 5 hours game, i think shorter game is fine. my personal is 10 - 20 or maybe 25h.

 

[three_muffins]

All three I own and all three are fantastic games. But for each game like this, I can name 10 that don't respect your time.

That's why I started with gameplay density. Elden Ring is dense. There's stuff to do constantly. I put 150 hours into it in 3 weeks. Something I very rarely do.

And despite it being so long, it's an exception to the rule.

Dont play the games that, in your opinion, dont respect your time. Problem solved.

Not every game needs to cater to your needs. Variety is king.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

I powered through BG3 and most of TOTK in their month after release.

If it's good enough, time becomes relative.

 

[gaming_again]

That's the way it's going with AAA games. Just stop playing them. You aren't missing a great deal.

 

[djjinx2]

Should have been first post

 

[hyperbertha]

The idea that short games are a higher quality than long games doesn't shake out. The market trends say otherwise.

It's not that short games are higher quality, it's that they generally have far better designed and varied gameplay. And market trends is a stupid thing to being up when it says cod is the best game ever made, when it's among the worst.
Most people want simpler games because they don't have energy/time for actual investment. Normie game choices mean nothing.

 

[Guilty_AI]

This probably deserves its own thread, but Mark breaks down the reasons why gameplay density is so important and the underlying reasons why developers have been weaseling away from these core game design fundamentals. I have been saying what this man is saying for over a decade. The departure from arcades has had a profound impact on video game design, for worse.

Eh, i don't think his points are all that good though.

For starters, difficulty is something devs still take very seriously, after all easy games get boring and hard games gets frustrating, they still need to find a good balance. This idea that they just have to make the game as easy as possible isn't true at all.

I think his points on timers and score kind touch one of the main issues games have nowadays but fails to truly understand it. What you see many games lacking today are proper reward and punishment system, which don't necessarely need to be score or time related. You fight a boss, you die, you just start over from the checkpoint. The "punishment" here is having to fight against him from the beginning but it feels lacking somehow.

Doesn't mean games that do this properly don't exist though:

>Souls games for example, dying also means losing all the "xp" you garnered and prompting the player to go take it back without dying again. Its not perfect and can be exploited in some ways, but it's still better than the pure checkpoint/save system.

>Management, builders, RTSs or other similar types of games. The consequences of poor player decision-making unfold through the game systems themselves, where "being bad" at the game means making your life harder later on.

>Mission based games a la Left 4 Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, Monster Hunter, etc. Missions are basically self-contained game rounds, where punishment is dying and reward is completing the mission, with some going even further by granting the player extra rewards for a well played round in the form of equipment, new missions, money to be used to get new stuff, etc. Maybe punish them further with the loss of money and equipment in case they don't play well enough.

One other issue i have with what he says is that i still see a lot of games that addresses the "problems" he speaks of, not big AAA games sure (then again there's a myriad of issues with those) but still quite a number of them. A good rogueli(k/t)es is the epitome of what he's describing as the "proper" design.

>In Risk of Rain 2 for example, fairly popular roguelike all things considered, there's both a "timer" and a "score", and interestingly enough they're both put against each other. The longer you stay in a map the higher the score you can get by killing enemies, and this score can be used to improve your character's strength during that run. However the game is also on a timer that increases the difficulty the longer you play, so the player has to balance these two things to get through the game. A fairly modern interpretation of both systems that doesn't rely on the quarter economy.

>Another type of game i can think of are timer racers like Trackmania, where the time and the score are both the same. The idea behind those kinds of games is always get the best time possible in a given track, at least enough to get all medals if you're not interested in competing. In other words, be good at the game.

 

[thefool]

It's actually one big scam.

 

[Toots]

What's the black hole of gaming?

Im guessing Mario or Zelda ?
As much as it pains me to admit it it has to be a nintendo game.

Of course my heart's black hole will forever be Sonic 2

 

[Hudo]

Im guessing Mario or Zelda ?
As much as it pains me to admit it it has to be a nintendo game.

Of course my heart's black hole will forever be Sonic 2

It's wild that Yuji Naka is in prison.

 

[Guilty_AI]

It's wild that Yuji Naka is in prison.

It's karma for creating Chris-chan.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Eh, i don't think his points are all that good though.

For starters, difficulty is something devs still take very seriously, after all easy games get boring and hard games gets frustrating, they still need to find a good balance. This idea that they just have to make the game as easy as possible isn't true at all.

I think his points on timers and score kind touch one of the main issues games have nowadays but fails to truly understand it. What you see many games lacking today are proper reward and punishment system, which don't necessarely need to be score or time related. You fight a boss, you die, you just start over from the checkpoint. The "punishment" here is having to fight against him from the beginning but it feels lacking somehow.

Doesn't mean games that do this properly don't exist though:

>Souls games for example, dying also means losing all the "xp" you garnered and prompting the player to go take it back without dying again. Its not perfect and can be exploited in some ways, but it's still better than the pure checkpoint/save system.

>Management, builders, RTSs or other similar types of games. The consequences of poor player decision-making unfold through the game systems themselves, where "being bad" at the game means making your life harder later on.

>Mission based games a la Left 4 Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, Monster Hunter, etc. Missions are basically self-contained game rounds, where punishment is dying and reward is completing the mission, with some going even further by granting the player extra rewards for a well played round in the form of equipment, new missions, money to be used to get new stuff, etc. Maybe punish them further with the loss of money and equipment in case they don't play well enough.

One other issue i have with what he says is that i still see a lot of games that addresses the "problems" he speaks of, not big AAA games sure (then again there's a myriad of issues with those) but still quite a number of them. A good rogueli(k/t)es is the epitome of what he's describing as the "proper" design.

>In Risk of Rain 2 for example, fairly popular roguelike all things considered, there's both a "timer" and a "score", and interestingly enough they're both put against each other. The longer you stay in a map the higher the score you can get by killing enemies, and this score can be used to improve your character's strength during that run. However the game is also on a timer that increases the difficulty the longer you play, so the player has to balance these two things to get through the game. A fairly modern interpretation of both systems that doesn't rely on the quarter economy.

>Another type of game i can think of are timer racers like Trackmania, where the time and the score are both the same. The idea behind those kinds of games is always get the best time possible in a given track, at least enough to get all medals if you're not interested in competing. In other words, be good at the game.

You couldn't be more wrong about difficulty curve in today's games! Everything he said about modern difficulty is true. Sorry but have you only been gaming for the last 15 years by any chance? That's ok if you're young it's not your fault but the trend of making games easier and easier is stronger than ever. Every aaa game ive played is stupidly easy right now. You have companies like Nintendo that used to make accessible games that anyone could play, but they put great effort into the curve aspect of difficulty. Now, they're making games like Mario Wonder, the easiest 2d Mario ever made. Even Japan has adopted this "we'll make everything easy because we want everyone to be able to complete our game". Japan used to be the primary arcade devs. Now, stuff like Like a Dragon, FF16, FF7 Rebirth- games that are designed for a more hardcore gamer, even those are painfully easy. Hell, even Elden Ring is far easier overall than anu Souls game made yet ...and look how successful it was. There are still challenging bosses, but the open world consists of easy as pie trash mobs.

The man us 100% correct about what he said about everything, literally everything today, being made easier.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

He made a great point about the loss of in game timers, something most good arcade games had. Mario Wonder- removed the in game timer! Gave us ability to hold an extra power up at all times. Never any threat of failing as a result. This could've been a great game but it was just ruined by not having any stakes. Nintendo has gone completely overboard in making their games so ridiculously easy today it's very sad after being gaming since the early days of Nintendo up to the Gamecube era where they still made games with a good challenge curve.

 

[Guilty_AI]

You couldn't be more wrong about difficulty curve in today's games! Everything he said about modern difficulty is true. Sorry but have you only been gaming for the last 15 years by any chance? That's ok if you're young it's not your fault but the trend of making games easier and easier is stronger than ever. Every aaa game ive played is stupidly easy right now. You have companies like Nintendo that used to make accessible games that anyone could play, but they put great effort into the curve aspect of difficulty. Now, they're making games like Mario Wonder, the easiest 2d Mario ever made. Even Japan has adopted this "we'll make everything easy because we want everyone to be able to complete our game". Japan used to be the primary arcade devs. Now, stuff like Like a Dragon, FF16, FF7 Rebirth- games that are designed for a more hardcore gamer, even those are painfully easy. Hell, even Elden Ring is far easier overall than anu Souls game made yet ...and look how successful it was. There are still challenging bosses, but the open world consists of easy as pie trash mobs.

The man us 100% correct about what he said about everything, literally everything today, being made easier.

He specifically said there's incentive to make games as easy as possible, and like i said that isn't true at all. No matter how much you think something like Elden Ring is easier than previous games (i've seen people saying the exact opposite though, showing its much more subjective than you're painting it out to be), you can't say it was made "as easy as possible".

It's also important to note that, while devs definitely try to strike a good balance with difficulty, not all of them will achieve that appropriately. I'd also like to add that a lot of older games difficulty are rather artificial (yes, i played plenty of those unlike what you're trying to assume), a lot of it comes down to harsher punishment systems rather than the games being actually difficult. Many modern games would feel much harder to play if there was a life counter in the corner ready to wipe your entire progress if you died enough times.

 

[Guilty_AI]

He made a great point about the loss of in game timers, something most good arcade games had. Mario Wonder- removed the in game timer! Gave us ability to hold an extra power up at all times. Never any threat of failing as a result. This could've been a great game but it was just ruined by not having any stakes. Nintendo has gone completely overboard in making their games so ridiculously easy today it's very sad after being gaming since the early days of Nintendo up to the Gamecube era where they still made games with a good challenge curve.

Eh, my experience with classic nintendo games were always rather lax ones. But this feels more like you're ranting about nintendo specifically rather than games in general.

Go play Noita or Outward and try preaching again on how "easy" modern games are.

 

[DonF]

quality over mandatory walking sections.

I want to grab a game and have a game session and feel good about it after. Sometimes I can only play for half an hour, and I feel better playing two rounds of the finals over walking in the dino museum in the last of us part 2.

My all time classic game for commute is still the OG battletoads on Nes. I have that game on my psp (yeah I still sometimes use that thing, its awesome for emulators and the only place I can play Maverick hunter X) and I would say that that game is close to perfection. I can replay it forever, I love it. Same thing with megaman x and maverick hunter x.
Those games are DENSE, every second is action.

 

[Jaybe]

The games that keep coming to my mind that are nearly perfect when it comes to pacing and gameplay density are the Resident Evil games. They're well balanced with tight, dense campaigns that offer more in New Game + if you like, but are just as good as a one-shot. And they're just the right length.

Agreed. I loved RE4 Remake. Playing GoW Ragnarok after that, and it was such a slog. Then I think back to firing up AC Odyssey and considering avoiding open-world games from then on. Give me a fun linear or wide-linear game with tight gameplay, limited walk and talk/cutscenes, and some way to have NG+ be a different or enriching experience. That’s the perfect formula for me.