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[eXistor]

Once you see through a game's mechanics it usually stops being fun to me. A game like Skyrim, any Ubisoft open-world "attempt" or Shadow of Mordor just doesn't work for me because I see through them very quickly and you see what the game's gonna be like for the most part.

People get excited for AC Unity or FC4, but I just know they're gonna be more of that same shitty design of past games, I don't care how pretty you dress them up, if the gameplay sucks the game sucks and I don't see any significant changes in either game.

 

[Lé Blade Runner]

I think I can pin-point the reason why I don't finish most games these days: I am just not that much into single-player narratives ( right now, at least ). The Last of Us is the most recent exception - it was so gripping and amazing from start to finish that I just had to complete it. Now, I find myself playing Destiny a lot - and only because most of my friends play that, too. For me, gaming has become more of a social thing - I play the games my friends play, and stick to those. I still buy the major releases, but even now I have Bayonetta 2, The Evil Within and Shadow of Mordor waiting to be finished. I like all of them, especially Bayonetta, but I just keep going back to Destiny.

 

[terrisus]

I think get exactly what you're saying, what you're saying is that if a game isn't good, it's because the game mechanics aren't good enough to keep up with the length the game needs to be. That about right?

Well, there's much more to a game than just "mechanics" (which seems to be all you keep focusing on, while what I'm saying is much more than that).

Remove the word "mechanics" from that quote, and also reword "needs to be" with "is" and have it just say "because the game isn't good enough to keep up with the length the game is" and it would work better for what I'm trying to get at.

 

[GalacticGravy]

I totally agree about trimming the fat. I stopped playing a lot of games for this reason. My habits have shifted. Now I play games that are either all fat (Destiny) or little-to-no fat, like some of the very short narrative experiences that have come out. I'm tired of my good story being tied up in bad gameplay, and I'm tired of my good gameplay being tied up in bad story. The very few games that hit both points are masterpieces to me, but there are very few. It seems that lately I either want to blankly stare at a screen and mash buttons, or dim the lights and get immersed in a story. I can't stomach anything in the middle anymore.

 

[BrainZEROX]

Well. People says it's OK to trim the fat but if a 0% fat and 60$ game is 6 hours long from start to finish, we will get angry gamers calling out devs and publishers once again. Sure, the people calling out for blood probably won't be the same as those who are claiming to trim the fat but the result will be the same: angry gamers yelling at the sky. It's a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation.

 

[The Albatross]

If articles on The Verge, Polygon, and Vox had an option to "Trim the fat" then they would go from 6 - 10 paragraphs to 2 sentences. The website is the worst example of high school level article/essay padding.

 

[Stiler]

While I fall into this same problem, I have a huge backlog of games I played but never "finished," I do not agree about TLOU and similar games.

In fact TLOU is the type of game that will grab you and make you want to make it to the end, I played the hell out of it and finished in within a week, it didn't feel "padded out" or anything of the sort like many games do these days where they have you constantly doing the same fetch type of missions over and over or have you backtracking over earlier levels to "collect" items.

Also games like Gone Home, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, those are games I Find it to be enjoyable to beat.

Heck I played through Gone Home in one sitting because I found it so captivating and enjoyable and wanted to see how the story unfolded.

I think a lot of developers these days are starting to "mmo-ify" their games, padding them out with similar designs that mmo's have been using for over a decade to try and keep players "playing" the game (to keep paying the sub fee), with nonsense fetch quests that really add nothing at all to the game.

I mean does it make ANY logical sense when you're supposedly some great "hero" and you're on an extremely important quest to then go off track to help some "farmer" cull the local rabbit population? No, yet that's the kindof "Quality" quest and writing you'll find in a lot games these days, just serving to make it "longer."

 

[QaaQer]

Well that's his point, and kind of what this whole thread is about. Bad games. Specifically games that are bad because they are longer then they are enjoyable. No one here is saying they wouldn't replay a good game. They're saying they're not willing to finish a game that isn't even enjoyable from start to finish the first time you play it. He's not saying that once someone "Gets" everything in the game they don't feel like they ever have to replay it again, his point was if you "Get" everything about the game and there are still 5-10 hours left before the game is finished, it makes people want to play the game less because then it's just you doing the same things over and over for hours just so you can see the ending.

Yes, my post was about bad games, but what made the game bad was the fact that there weren't enough interesting mechanics to fill the length of the game, so a lot of the game felt like filler. If the game was shorter and relied on the same amount of mechanics, the game probably would have been more enjoyable, because it wouldn't have overstayed it's welcome by making me do the same things over and over to the point where it wasn't fun anymore.

Maybe the intended audience doesn't see it that way; like when younger kids watch the same movie over and over and over again. They don't see it as annoying and aggravating, they see it as fun. So yeah, making games for critics is kinda silly except insofar as MC scores affect sales, because the people buying these games are of a different demo than average game critic.

...the pressure to move on and work on the backlog.

I used to be that way. Now, I find a game that holds my attention, and I don't bother even looking at other games. I guess I'm kind of like those people who just play DOTA2 or WoW and don't really care about other games.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

"respect my time" doesn't mean "all games must be under 10 hours to complete." It means "don't pad length by adding in needless repetition."

I have very little free time to play video games, but I am fine with a game that takes 20 or 30 or 100 hours to complete, as long as it respects my time and makes me feel like it is worth playing for 20 or 30 or 100 hours.

 

[inm8num2]

I used to be that way. Now, I find a game that holds my attention, and I don't bother even looking at other games. I guess I'm kind of like those people who just play DOTA2 or WoW and don't really care about other games.

All that matters is that you enjoy what you're playing.

 

[Y2Kev]

Well that is my perspective. I feel very strongly that in general, shorter games "in genre" are better than longer games "in genre." Of course you have your exceptions: RE4 is massive and wonderful throughout; God of War II is massive and wonderful throughout. But in general? It's much harder to design a 6 hour game that stays tightly paced and original and inventive the entire way through than a bloated game that has serious pacing issues and repetition.

Vanquish is one of the best TPS because it just doesn't stop with the new ideas. It's also very short.

Parasite Eve is one of my favorite RPGs. It's 15 hours and yet it feels complete.

Conversely, do people really enjoy all the bloat in today's open world games?

 

[terrisus]

If articles on The Verge, Polygon, and Vox had an option to "Trim the fat" then they would go from 6 - 10 paragraphs to 2 sentences. The website is the worst example of high school level article/essay padding.

Indeed.
The complete lack of self-awareness on multiple levels is mind-boggling.

"respect my time" doesn't mean "all games must be under 10 hours to complete." It means "don't pad length by adding in needless repetition."

I have very little free time to play video games, but I am fine with a game that takes 20 or 30 or 100 hours to complete, as long as it respects my time and makes me feel like it is worth playing for 20 or 30 or 100 hours.

Agreed completely.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I complete around 99% of my games, that 1% has to try really hard to get me to not finish.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

The older I have gotten, the more I have learned to love short games. Like 6 hours is my thing these days.

 

[Brandon F]

Doesn't happen that often for me as I have a pretty high threshold for patience and my overall curiosity can keep me engaged through the most tedious sections of games.

But man, I dropped Mordor around 70% complete and have zero interest to boot it up again. Not very surprised to see I am not alone on that one.

 

[Rising_Hei]

Castlevania: Lords of Shadows is a game i couldn't finish because of the quantity of fillers it had and because any enemy had so much hp...

I felt like if the game lasted 40 % of what actually did it would be much better

 

[Joni]

Well. People says it's OK to trim the fat but if a 0% fat and 60$ game is 6 hours long from start to finish, we will get angry gamers calling out devs and publishers once again. Sure, the people calling out for blood probably won't be the same as those who are claiming to trim the fat but the result will be the same: angry gamers yelling at the sky. It's a damn if you do, damn if you don't situation.

Indeed. But there are two categories in there, you have one group with a lot of money and not a lot of time; and a group with little money and a lot of time. A 6 hour game means I can actually finish it in one week.

 

[alr1ght]

I complete around 99% of my games, that 1% has to try really hard to get me to not finish.

Yves, your company is the biggest offender of what the OP is talking about.

 

[Aiustis]

I'm so picky with my games now a days that I can easily finish them all.

 

[Etnos]

A gaffer once posted a perfect summary why I don't finish games. I mean, there comes a point where you just "get it" and have experienced everything the game is going to give you gameplay-wise and just don't feel like bothering to finish the actual game.

I felt this way with Shadow of Mordor, great game yet after I branded my first warchief I was like you know what I'm ok, no need to keep playing.

 

[notoccupanther]

Transistor, Journey, Two Brothers, Fez...I'm by no means an indie freak..(I've not even played Journey)...But these are cases in point for this topic methinks.

FarCry 4 just round the corner too. and already have doubts about its completion...oh Ubi...

 

[SURGEdude]

I likely beat less than 10% of the games I own. Sure most of that is Steam sales, but a lot of it has to do with no learning curve or growth after say the first 2 hours. If you combine that with a crappy story or boring level design then I don't feel ashamed to walk away.

As soon as I feel like I'm waiting for it to end I turn it off and I'm done. Same applies to movies or books. Maybe that makes me fickle, but we have so much out there to choose from. Why shackle myself to something that doesn't resonate with me or seem worth my time?

 

[NewGame]

If I can't skip text or cutscenes I usually stop playing.

Rare exceptions to this though like with Kingdom Hearts where the gameplay was so compelling I could not help but watch Donald and Goofy squabble before using all my potions and dying in combat.

 

[BlackBanditSho]

I like this line 'In film, the screenplay is a blueprint. In games, the screenplay is a glue stick.'

This. The story, no matter who is added as a writer, often feels like an afterthought.

Honestly - and I know that this isn't popular on GAF - but the only games that i tend to finish lately are David Cage games and Telltale games.

EDIT - the last non-TellTale/Cage games that I actually finished was probably Dead Space 1 which was VERY tightly done, and MW 1 and MW2.

 

[robotrock]

This. The story, no matter who is added as a writer, often feels like an afterthought.

Honestly - and I know that this isn't popular on GAF - but the only games that i tend to finish lately are David Cage games and Telltale games.

EDIT - the last non-TellTale/Cage games that I actually finished was probably Dead Space 1 which was VERY tightly done, and MW 1 and MW2.

Yeah, I enjoy my narrative focused linear games the most as well. Assuming they are well done, of course. I found Dead Space 1 and 2 super tight, but 3 got all weird and loosey goosey

 

[Haunted]

Once you see through a game's mechanics it usually stops being fun to me. A game like Skyrim, any Ubisoft open-world "attempt" or Shadow of Mordor just doesn't work for me because I see through them very quickly and you see what the game's gonna be like for the most part.

I feel similarly, though I must add that there are answers to this.

Variable content. Procedurally generated content. RNG and randomness - if your base mechanics are strong enough to support these, they're enough to mix it up and keep a game going long after you've "seen through it".


Take something like Dota 2 - same map every time, three lanes, 5v5, a limited pool of heroes and you'll have seen all of its core mechanics after 10 games or so. Yet the amount of variables (in match progression, in builds, in hero makeup) is so unfathomably complex and deep that it feels fresh and interesting even after hundreds of hours.

Take something like Spelunky. Simple mechanics, limited levels, items, short individual playthroughs. Yet the brilliant procedural generation and the way all of its elements interact with each other, continually throwing you into new situations, testing your flexibility, adaptibility and quick thinking keeps players coming back long after they've "seen" most of the game's content.

Or, to directly adress one of the games you mentioned - something like Shadow of Mordor, which manages to keep things fresh for far longer than its base mechanics would, through its nemesis system, which shapes up differently depending on what you do in your individual playthrough. It will be molded and influenced in certain ways (an important point: by your successes and your failures) yet also finds ways to throw wrenches into your plans and manages to surprise even after longer play. It made a game that should be fun for 5 hours based on its content and base mechanics last much longer.

And to cap it off with a popular failure (in this regard) - Skyrim tries to keep players engaged with a wealth of content, but it doesn't do enough to differentiate its core mechanics while doing so. Even if you experience different content for a long time, it all ends up feeling similar. It's one of the hardest, most sudden crash landings I've had with a game in recent memory. The second I really saw "behind it", it ceased being fun or interesting. Dropped it like a hot potato.



So in summary - it's not just "respect my time" that's important, but it's also "surprise me".

 

[SURGEdude]

These games are made for teen boys, just like summer blockbusters. Yeah, sure adults can enjoy them. But they aren't the main target, and if one is looking for something more than a simplistic power fantasy, retail AAA games are the absolute wrong place to look.

Further, the idea that hiring talented writers and doing things 'differently' will sell more copies is wrong. There is a reason aaa retail, like summer blockbusters, are formulaic: the formulas sell. Teen boys like guns/swords/knives/fists, simple stories, and feeling badass.

Indeed. I'd add that this demographic has lots of free time, but little money. Not to suggest that only teens play everything to 100%. As this thread shows many people just really like to ace every game, and thats fine. But teens are certainly a huge market that is happy to play filler or repetitive crap (Ubisoft) when many of us would rather get less "value" and play something fresh even if it means spending a bit more and not always getting our money's worth.

 

[Novocaine]

It's definitely a game worth playing.

Absolutely. I plan on playing it eventually, but not when it's full price. Aside from the nemesis system I have played this game type before, and I just know it wouldn't hold my interest right now.

 

[The Dennis System]

The older I have gotten, the more I have learned to love short games. Like 6 hours is my thing these days.

That's fine, but I definitely don't want to pay $60 for a 6 hour game. If a game only has 6 hours of content, it shoule be 20 or 30 bucks at the most.

 

[Phediuk]

A gaffer once posted a perfect summary why I don't finish games. I mean, there comes a point where you just "get it" and have experienced everything the game is going to give you gameplay-wise and just don't feel like bothering to finish the actual game.

yep.

 

[soy.]

Once you see through a game's mechanics it usually stops being fun to me. A game like Skyrim, any Ubisoft open-world "attempt" or Shadow of Mordor just doesn't work for me because I see through them very quickly and you see what the game's gonna be like for the most part.

People get excited for AC Unity or FC4, but I just know they're gonna be more of that same shitty design of past games, I don't care how pretty you dress them up, if the gameplay sucks the game sucks and I don't see any significant changes in either game.

and then there's monster hunter; a game that u can't ever master without hardcore understanding about the deep mechanics

it's repetitive; u kill the same monsters over and over again
but with better and deeper understanding about the mechanics, your run are getting better and better. overall, ur hunts -and the game, are getting more fun

 

[PetriP-TNT]

That's fine, but I definitely don't want to pay $60 for a 6 hour game. If a game only has 6 hours of content, it shoule be 20 or 30 bucks at the most.

Oh yeah, I only play on PC these days so I

anyway

 

[DiscoJer]

I thought I was getting burned out on gaming, but honestly, they just stopped making games I liked to play. I stayed glued to Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 until I finished. But those games don't get made anymore (or wouldn't, if not for Kickstarter)

 

[Seanspeed]

A gaffer once posted a perfect summary why I don't finish games. I mean, there comes a point where you just "get it" and have experienced everything the game is going to give you gameplay-wise and just don't feel like bothering to finish the actual game.

Thats me in a huge amount of games.

Video game stories are *very* rarely an actual motivator for me to continue with a game.

 

[Phear]

I don't play games for the story. If gameplay is good, i'll finish it. If gameplay is bad, i don't buy it.

 

[george_us]

A gaffer once posted a perfect summary why I don't finish games. I mean, there comes a point where you just "get it" and have experienced everything the game is going to give you gameplay-wise and just don't feel like bothering to finish the actual game.

I sold Shadows of Mordor for this very reason.

 

[Laconic]

Arcade game difficulty curve, arcade game length, please.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

I think a lot of it is tied up with the pricing structure of games. They're stuck at a $60 price point so there's a need to bloat it up to avoid getting hammered for a lack of content and value. But if they were to go short and sweet and price it lower, consumers assume the game is garbage because they've been trained to see $20 or $30 games as inherently low quality. It's kind of a catch-22.

Make games shorter and consumers don't think it's worth $60 anymore. Make games cheaper than $60 and consumers don't think your game is worth owning. Consumers might say they want shorter and smaller games, but I don't think they're willing to pay the same price for that kind of experience as they do longer games, even if the actual budget to make them remains around the same.

 

[CadetMahoney]

They're stuck at a $60 price point so there's a need to bloat it up to avoid getting hammered for a lack of content and value.

Make games shorter and consumers don't think it's worth $60 anymore.

Pretty much.

 

[Zeyphersan]

I think people are too obsessed with how long a game is, instead of if that time is worthwhile. Obviously this amounts to different things for different people, but I have a friend who is very much into the idea of streamlining a lot of games: trimming the fat is a good word for it. I've heard a lot of people complain about casualization and the like, but in reality, a lot of what games do just serves to waste my time. Make it all meaningful or don't make it

 

[Lord Phol]

I think a big part of the problem why I don't finish every game (or stop enjoying the last parts of them) is because I got OCD. In almost every game I need to do all the side missions, collect the things and explore every corner. This makes the gameplay and game feel alot more reptitive alot faster, so once I get back on track for the "main misson" or similar I'm pretty bored of the actual game.
Assassins Creed Black Flag and Shadows of Mordor are good example of this. Skyrim on the other hand I could play forever. Took me years to finish the main story because I kept getting caught up with side things. I still play the game and enjoy it.

Then of course there are games that just overstay their welcome and should have ended alot sooner.

 

[mickcenary]

I don't finish many games, but I disagree with the writer in that I don't think games should simply be story-delivery vehicles. If I wanted that, I'd read a book or watch a movie

This.

Games as story vehicles is borderline preposterous to me. It's a misuse of the medium.

Brilliant narratives are available within plenty of other mediums - video games included, to be sure - but the day games start prioritising story over tactile, satisfying feedback/mechanics is the day I lose interest.

 

[Nerix]

Go finish it. You get cool gameplay mechanics in the last 25% of the game. It is not about the story.

This. The gameplay gets better and better with the development of the character.

 

[dhlt25]

it's pretty simple for me. I stop playing a game when it stop being fun. Story certainly helps with the fun factor like providing a quirky back story to a side quest but gameplay is most important for me. As long as I'm getting enjoyment from the game I'll keep playing, as soon as I don't enjoy the game anymore I stop. This works out pretty well consider how much back log I still have on steam.

 

[texhnolyze]

I feel it in most of my games. There's always this "been there, done that" feeling after I reach a certain point of a game, and I just leave it unfinished.
For the example, I never finished Skyrim. I never uninstall the game though, as I play it occasionally.

 

[Turin Turambar]

"respect my time" doesn't mean "all games must be under 10 hours to complete." It means "don't pad length by adding in needless repetition."

I have very little free time to play video games, but I am fine with a game that takes 20 or 30 or 100 hours to complete, as long as it respects my time and makes me feel like it is worth playing for 20 or 30 or 100 hours.

Yeah, but what's "needless repetition"?
Is it filler combat encounters? But... in an action game the core part is the combat, so how many combat encounters is ok to have, 10, 20, 50? Any more is "needless"?

I feel like lots of times when people don't finish a game or they complain of filler what's happening really is they don't like the game, and they didn't even know it. They shouldn't wish for a shorter game, they should drop the game and play another thing.

 

[adamsapple]

I'm actually the other way.

Even if the game is a piece of shit ... if I've begun it .. i feel like there's an obligation for me to finish it. Like FFXIII-2. Had to PUSH through it.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Conversely, do people really enjoy all the bloat in today's open world games?

Really just depends on the world that I'm playing in.

If I love and enjoy the world of the game (and the actual act of playing the game, naturally) I sometimes never want the content to end.

I always put off finishing the last dungeons of 3D Zelda games because I just love those worlds so much, exploring, finding new things, etc. I've played through Wind Waker TWICE, but stopped both times before concluding the story.

Elder Scrolls games are other ones that I love doing the exploration and little missions that facilitate that exploration.

But games like Assassin's Creed are a little more complicated. Sometimes the world is fun enough and the "bloat" is engaging enough to keep me going (Restoring the monuments and buildings in Brotherhood, for example), but other times it can be a chore (the sheer ridiculous amount of collectible items on the map in AC:4, or the forest areas of AC:3).

As long as that kind of bloat is easily ignorable and I don't feel like I'm missing out on content (like better weapons, or little story moments), then I'm usually pretty ambivalent towards it.

 

[Burgess_101]

I am really bad at finishing games, I put it down to me being very bad at them. The games I have finished this past year were:

Wolfenstein
Yakuza 4
South Park

Whilst a lot of games are padded nowadays I think that isn't the problem, in my case anyways I need an engaging story to drag me along, I can forgive gameplay foibles if the story is interesting enough. I have just found though that the story in games a lot of the time just doesn't agree with what I like.

Now I just like to watch my wife play through games, she's just better than I am (at most genres anyway).

 

[trogdorddragon]

A game should be succinct and have brevity.

If it's a big story with lots of extensive gameplay then it can be long. It has to earn its length though like a movie.

People rightly criticize movies that are too long because the story and pacing could be more succinct. They don't criticize long movies that need to be long.

It should be the same with games. Pacing is a really important part of entertainment and the game industry is terrible at it as a whole.

Filler is another way f saying wasting time.