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[DaGwaphics]

Depends on what you mean by completion.

If it's a narrative-driven game and seeing credits means completion then those developers should care. I've dropped a bunch of games like that where the gameplay was just a repetitive slog required to move the story forward. And if the gameplay is great but they keep interrupting it with a mundane story that's just as frustrating. In either case I'm less likely to buy their next game.

If it means doing all of the side quests and collecting all of the trophie/achievements then who cares? Developers bloat their games with stuff like that because people moan about their games being too short. That's an attempt to placate people who need to play a game for 80 hours to feel like they got their money's worth.

For pick up and play games I don't think it matters.

I always just look at whatever the achievement is for the last level as the indicator. Very true that only a select few are going to complete all the collectable hunting that gets thrown in around the main story.

 

[AV]

But the industry is changing. Low completion rates means low investment in the massive amount of work put into games. Live service games on the other hand give publishers what they want. A guaranteed return on investment.
There are alternative sources of income now and more options for people who don't want to go through the trouble of playing a game (hah, trouble) like twitch. Do you remember when Bethesda had a whole marketing push to declare that singleplayer games aren't dead? Obviously that still isn't true, but a lot more publishers are paying serious attention to the live service sector. Twitch is far more popular for people to enjoy games without playing themselves.

I don't think even half the people who bought one of Elden Ring's 20,000,000+ copies finished it. It doesn't matter to them when it's still a commercial and critical smash hit. I know someone who started three characters on ER, played 20 hours on each, but never finished the game. He still had a whale of a time. Seeing credits on a game is only one small factor in engagement and as long as copies are selling, they don't care if somebody plays the first ten minutes or beats the game six times, it's the same amount of money to them.

The industry might be "changing" (it's literally always changing, this isn't really saying anything) but people have ALWAYS stopped playing games partway through and still had a good time.

 

[Portugeezer]

Even in a story driven game, what keeps me playing is the gameplay. If I've played 20 hours of a 40 hour game and feel like I got my fix, then I'm happy.

I think most people like the idea that they can keep playing a game for so long, if they choose to. Making games shorter or removing content wouldn't make the situation better, it just reduces content for the people who do complete games/play very far.

 

[stickkidsam]

I'd say the reception of the game is more important since everyone pays the same, completed or not.

I'd say that games need to scale back. I mean god damn, Breath of the Wild was universally praised despite being behind graphically. Graphics don't fucking matter that much and apparently they are driving development costs through the roof. If you have solid gameplay and good art direction, people will dig what ya got.

"Open World" also should never be treated as a trend. It is a very difficult genre to do well and most people aren't even going to finish the good ones.

 

[aclar00]

Now that I think about it, it's like buying that lettuce mix that you said you were going to eat, but instead spoiled in the fridge. Then you bought another with the same intent...then again.

No one cared you didn't eat it, as long as you bought it and bought it again.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Gamers get stuck in games and trade them in its over, gamer Tom he could go to YouTube for tutorials that’s normal today that was a huge problem during the 80s, 90s and 00s.

 

[xpresstuning]

No, a lot of people never finish what they start, that has always been the case. Those are really good numbers for video games, they aren't low at all. And they also are not accurate.

 

[Bernardougf]

The good games I finish .. the amout of shit bugged games has increased also.

 

[SteadyEvo]

Yes. Making shorter games. Get to the point. Cut all the fat. No unnecessary open world or hubs.

 

[March Climber]

A lot of 80 hour games need to be 40 hours.

A lot of 40 hour games need to be 20 hours.

A lot of 20 hour games need to be 10 hours.

Not all of them, just a lot of them. We screwed up as a collective years ago when we demanded that hours played should equal money spent. A lot of devs got the message loud and clear.

 

[acm2000]

on xbox at least, Gamepass greatly deflates the completion rate due to games being part of quests, bing rewards and simply being free so why not try it?

i just finished Ghostwire and the end game achievement is only at 1.32%

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Why is everyone crying for shorter games? Do we really want to play 5 hour games and pay $70 a pop for them? I don't.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

At some point they stop playing it for the fun of playing and start playing just to see what happens next, and If a site just gives you what happens next, why not just go there instead.

This is a big one for me. So many games I get to the point where I feel like I’ve seen everything the game has to offer gameplay-wise (e.g. in an RPG, I’ll have gotten all the party members and unlocked all the stuff in the skill trees I’m interested in). It’s hard to force myself to play another 10 hours using all the same abilities/tactics just so I can see how the story resolves. Especially considering most video game stories are, at best, on par with an average Marvel movie.

 

[kicker]

Games are a luxury good, you buy them for enjoyment. As long as you enjoy what you buy, what you do with them is up to you. Finishing the story mode is just an optional goal the game developer put it, but that might not be a player's goal.

For example, i finished Skyrim's story exactly once, and then never again despite still playing it long after. And I litterally never finished Oblivion despite spending 2 years playing that and had fun. Sometimes the plot just isn't what the player was after.

I understand. I just think from the point of view of developers, it's strange that they put in so much crunch work and it's pretty much expected the vast majority of players will just not care enough to complete it.

"From the player's persepctive, yeah, games could be shorter, but from the dev's perspective, is it an issue?" Is more what I was asking.

 

[kicker]

Can't really reply to everything, but the point is that people are buying the game. Live service is another animal in that it's a continual monetary source. That's more of an argument for publishers to move to those types of games than completion rate.

Often times people have a backlog of games too and just never get around to them.

Also, live service Games are not without risk either. Those games generally have to be interesting and havlelomgevity....otherwise devs abandon them within a year, possibly losing more than a SP game because the product was dropped entirely and the return on investment was reliant upon in-game purchases that would obviously not be happening anymore. This is compounded even more if the game was F2P or had a low entry cost in order to make up on the back-end.

It's a huge gamble but could pay off in the long run if (big if) the game is a hit.

Market is definitely changing, but I don't see doom and gloom for SP games. If anything, publishers are attempting to push the industry toward live service games given the unfettered revenue source....got shareholders to take care of you know.

Yes, people are buying the games regardless, and yes, it has been this way for decades. The industry even reached where it is now either because or in spite of it so to players it shouldn't matter.

Put your mind in the place of developers though. How messed up is it that they crunch for things 80% of the people buying won't see?

The push for accessibility options and difficulty options in the past few years has been based on the fact that everyone should be able to play games and yet, it's taken for granted that they design gamss that don't do much to encourage completion besides throwing a bunch of content at you.


And yeah, doom and gloom wasn't really my intention (besides the obvious industry shifting tide that is live service) but just to discuss whether developers could do more to improve completion

 

[kicker]

No, a lot of people never finish what they start, that has always been the case. Those are really good numbers for video games, they aren't low at all. And they also are not accurate.

Good numbers for videogames? I don't know, man, opinions and all, but the fact that the industry has thrived despite those numbers doesn't make them good numbers to me. It means games are bloated beyond their ability to consistently entertain.

I have no data but I am almost 100% sure books have a higher completion rate. People who don't finish books

Movies almost definitely, 80% of people who buy a ticket aren't going to suddenly leave after a fourth of the movie is done.

Tv shows maybe.

Or are we all just assuming the 80-20 rule also applies to videogames and not other forms of media?

 

[RoboFu]

People just want to finish a game and could care less about the useless filler.

 

[kicker]

I don't think even half the people who bought one of Elden Ring's 20,000,000+ copies finished it. It doesn't matter to them when it's still a commercial and critical smash hit. I know someone who started three characters on ER, played 20 hours on each, but never finished the game. He still had a whale of a time. Seeing credits on a game is only one small factor in engagement and as long as copies are selling, they don't care if somebody plays the first ten minutes or beats the game six times, it's the same amount of money to them.

The industry might be "changing" (it's literally always changing, this isn't really saying anything) but people have ALWAYS stopped playing games partway through and still had a good time.

Doesn't it matter that games seem to be bloated beyond their ability to consistently entertain?

I'm not asking about players having a good time. I understand that players will feel good about their time regardless of whether they finish the game, I'm one of them. I'm asking about devs and their game design.
You look at those numbers and then say 'well, since the industry has survived this long without an issue, it must not be a problem'. And I just see wasted effort, time and money. Might just be a me issue, but again, I'm asking about devs not players.

Speaking for myself, when I was younger I had access to far fewer games. I didn't have twitch or youtube to look for playthroughs if I couldn'tget past a section. There were magazines and such but these days people have far more access to games and gaming content. These days, I have seen my friends look up commentary free playthroughs to follow because they have too many games to play and don't want to spend 40 hours going through slightly similar gameplay loops.

I don't know, man, it's just a weird reality to me

 

[Wildebeest]

Dark Souls series has such a low completion rate, so surely that means that Elden Ring is DOA. No, it doesn't matter. If people cared about a game being not completable for some reason, then you would hear more complaining about it. It is only a problem for the ego of people who think that it is important to see a certain part of a game or for others to play a game correctly. People with sticks up their bums.

 

[22:22:22]

Yeah 3 200+ SP games in a few months. Go figure

 

[The artful mincer]

Well, when your games are combat arenas interconnected by hallways with characters that won't shut the fuck up, completing a game becomes an easier affair than completing good games.

Wow so now bad games are getting completed more than good games.

That is certainly a take....

 

[aclar00]

Yes, people are buying the games regardless, and yes, it has been this way for decades. The industry even reached where it is now either because or in spite of it so to players it shouldn't matter.

Put your mind in the place of developers though. How messed up is it that they crunch for things 80% of the people buying won't see?

The push for accessibility options and difficulty options in the past few years has been based on the fact that everyone should be able to play games and yet, it's taken for granted that they design gamss that don't do much to encourage completion besides throwing a bunch of content at you.


And yeah, doom and gloom wasn't really my intention (besides the obvious industry shifting tide that is live service) but just to discuss whether developers could do more to improve completion

I get it, but I don't believe the publishers themselves care. Developers maybe, particularly if they see a game as their baby and want people to experience their vision.

Unfortunately, publishers have their hands in games just as much as the developers themselves, with the end goal being to get people to buy a game as much as they can. Right now, having more or longer content seems to be the current goal to get people to buy more.

I'm not sure what developers could do. Unfortunately, gaming is an interactive type of entertainment that requires a person's undivided attention. This alone would make it difficult to get even a 70% completion rate.

Only a guess here, but I doubt movies even have a 90% completion rate, even though technically just falling asleep watching one would count as a completion. You have people who decide they don't like a movie and then walkout/stop watching it and you have others who pause it with every intent to go back to it but then just forget or moved on to something else that is new and interesting.

Also, with the advent of digital downloads and tracking metrics, it has been easier to track completion rates, but I doubt they're any different than 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I also wonder if digital sales deflate the completion rates. For example, if I buy a game, but never even start it, would that count against the completion rate? Pre PS3 Era I doubt there an adequate rate to measure given the lack of internet and internal drives.

 

[Thief1987]

It’s all about the audience. If your audience has mountain dew adderall infused in their veins, I wouldn’t expect them to have an attention span higher than a goldfish.

Elden Ring

And people wanted easy mode.

It's a stat from the trophyhunter site, it's not representative. ER has much lower completion rate on PS, around industry's average 30-35% for the big bloated games.

 

[rofif]

Yeah, kinda.
Games are too long and too big.
We would need a completion rate for shorter games like uncharted trilogy (4 was longer) or half-life 2.
Maybe it's only big open world modern games not being finished.

 

[kicker]

Dark Souls series has such a low completion rate, so surely that means that Elden Ring is DOA. No, it doesn't matter. If people cared about a game being not completable for some reason, then you would hear more complaining about it. It is only a problem for the ego of people who think that it is important to see a certain part of a game or for others to play a game correctly. People with sticks up their bums.

Of course people don't care. If you had fun with it, who cares that you didn't finish it.

I'm asking about the developers who design these games (usually with the idea that people who buy will try to finish). Are they just bad at designing for completion?
Ars short games the answer?
That's what the discussion is about, not chastsising anyone for not completing games.
It's never the player's fault or issue

 

[AV]

Doesn't it matter that games seem to be bloated beyond their ability to consistently entertain?

I'm not asking about players having a good time. I understand that players will feel good about their time regardless of whether they finish the game, I'm one of them. I'm asking about devs and their game design.
You look at those numbers and then say 'well, since the industry has survived this long without an issue, it must not be a problem'. And I just see wasted effort, time and money. Might just be a me issue, but again, I'm asking about devs not players.

Speaking for myself, when I was younger I had access to far fewer games. I didn't have twitch or youtube to look for playthroughs if I couldn'tget past a section. There were magazines and such but these days people have far more access to games and gaming content. These days, I have seen my friends look up commentary free playthroughs to follow because they have too many games to play and don't want to spend 40 hours going through slightly similar gameplay loops.

I don't know, man, it's just a weird reality to me

I think the problem seems worse because it's big games that do this where the reality is that they make up a tiny fraction of available games on the market, and not all bloat is created equal. You can platinum like 3-4 Sony blockbusters in the time that it takes to platinum AC Valhalla, a game that is very intentionally designed as junk food that very very few people will actually see everything in. They're well aware of that, but it gives the minority something to grind away at should they choose to.

Just look at the platinum % on PSNProfiles between Valhalla and Ragnarok, it's something like 8x smaller in Valhalla - yet a lot of people would consider 50+ hours to see all of Ragnarok bloated. Swings and roundabouts. Ultimately it really doesn't matter, it's not an industry-wide issue, it gives players choice and that's almost always a good thing. AC is just an easy example to pick out because that game is quite literally designed to sell XP boosts to people who find it too grindy.

It's not a "these days" thing. Final Fantasy VI was 40 hours of doing the exact same shit on a loop in 1994, but it was still great. I'm sure there's plenty of earlier examples.

All of this is a long-winded to say it's not an industry problem, it's a fraction of specific games and it's up to the developers and publishers to determine what their audience wants. For Assassin's Creed that's probably hugely overstuffed games that casual gamers can buy once and play for months on end to squeeze value from, where people like me will take one look and immediately turn away. That's fine, they know they aren't getting my money, but they'll get a lot from others.

 

[kicker]

I get it, but I don't believe the publishers themselves care. Developers maybe, particularly if they see a game as their baby and want people to experience their vision.

Unfortunately, publishers have their hands in games just as much as the developers themselves, with the end goal being to get people to buy a game as much as they can. Right now, having more or longer content seems to be the current goal to get people to buy more.

I'm not sure what developers could do. Unfortunately, gaming is an interactive type of entertainment that requires a person's undivided attention. This alone would make it difficult to get even a 70% completion rate.

Only a guess here, but I doubt movies even have a 90% completion rate, even though technically just falling asleep watching one would count as a completion. You have people who decide they don't like a movie and then walkout/stop watching it and you have others who pause it with every intent to go back to it but then just forget or moved on to something else that is new and interesting.

Also, with the advent of digital downloads and tracking metrics, it has been easier to track completion rates, but I doubt they're any different than 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I also wonder if digital sales deflate the completion rates. For example, if I buy a game, but never even start it, would that count against the completion rate? Pre PS3 Era I doubt there an adequate rate to measure given the lack of internet and internal drives.

No-one really knows. And since sales keep growing regardless, I imagine it isn't brought up much even amongst developers.


re: movie completion rate, normally I would agree that it's probably not 90% (it's definitely up there though), but movies have their own modern issues since cinema attendance is reportedly down worldwide due to the rise of streaming.
So the people who would be going to the trouble of watching in cinemas would most likely be there to watch the whole thing.

Movie streaming completion though? Yeah, almsot definitely something lower like 50-60%

re: tracking completion rates. Yeah, It's definitely easier on the dev side, but the general public usualy doesn't see those figures, hence we're all guessing based on achievement and trophy figures

 

[Wildebeest]

Of course people don't care. If you had fun with it, who cares that you didn't finish it.

I'm asking about the developers who design these games (usually with the idea that people who buy will try to finish). Are they just bad at designing for completion?
Ars short games the answer?
That's what the discussion is about, not chastsising anyone for not completing games.
It's never the player's fault or issue

In my opinion, it is a wrongly phrased question. You do not design a game for "completion" but for players who have an opinion on completing games. Some really care and will complain if a game has too high a barrier to 100% it, but others will just not care at all. Why would you make games for people who only care about being a hardcore "completionist" when it is a smaller group than people who are indifferent or actively dislike the idea of completing something to 100%? It is true that games that have a per session narrative arcs are becoming popular. The stories in long single player games are often unfollowable garbage anyway, where you can barely remember what is going on or who is who.

 

[iQuasarLV]

People's impulse control issues are not a concern of the developers. Just sales of their products.

 

[killatopak]

It's a stat from the trophyhunter site, it's not representative. ER has much lower completion rate on PS, around industry's average 30-35% for the big bloated games.

37-40%

higher on PS5, lower on PS4 based on the system percentage. Also this isn’t just some bloated game. It’s a souls game which supposedly need an easy mode for more people to complete. I’m just surprised it averages higher than far “easier” games.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

I simply do enjoy video games.

 

[kicker]

In my opinion, it is a wrongly phrased question. You do not design a game for "completion" but for players who have an opinion on completing games. Some really care and will complain if a game has too high a barrier to 100% it, but others will just not care at all. Why would you make games for people who only care about being a hardcore "completionist" when it is a smaller group than people who are indifferent or actively dislike the idea of completing something to 100%? It is true that games that have a per session narrative arcs are becoming popular. The stories in long single player games are often unfollowable garbage anyway, where you can barely remember what is going on or who is who.

I don't mean completion in terms of 100%ing with all achievements, I mean designing with the idea that people will simply get to the end of a campaign. That's the potential issue here.

20% of peopel completing games on average means that the vast majority of people never see the endings of their games. Not 100% completion. Just the basic story ending.
I understand that it isn't *really* an issue, but it's just weird.

 

[kurisu_1974]

In the 8-bit times finishing games was hardly something we could even do. I mean I recently found out the Last Ninja on C64 is a 22 minute game and I have been trying to get past the first river for 45 years.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

This is an article from 2012

If it is something to be concerned about, they're taking their time over it.

 

[mitch1971]

It will only get worse with the likes of sub services giving you hundreds of games on a plate every year.

 

[01011001]

I think having a strong story helps.

People like to shit on Sony's "cinematic games" but they have very high completion rates.

Last of us 1 and 2, God of war/ ragnarok and spiderman all have above 50% completion rate.

Spiderman even had a platinum trophy rate of 10+ % at one point.

they have high completion rates because they are extremely simple, there's not much to them and every single thing is basically dumbed down to a point where the player literally doesn't have to think.

if you then play these games on anything below normal, you don't even really have to put effort into combat, it's just braindead button mashing at that point.

that's why the completion rate is so high.
you don't need skill, you don't need to think for a second, it's like watching a movie, you just go through them. you don't "beat" them, you play them long enough to reach the credits.

many other games are more taxing to the player. you have to think, you have to have a certain level of skill, they might be less linear etc.


Spider-Man's platinum throphy rate is as high as it is because you literally need zero skill to get it, it's just marking something on the map, going to waypoint, finish extremely easy task, repeat until you have the trophy.

 

[Neilg]

You need to look at the completion rates as a ratio of the people who get the first achievement - you'd be surprised how massive the jump is.
The sheer number of people that buy / try games for less than an hour, if that, and never play it again is astonishingly high.

Picking one at random - DMC5, only 67% got to mission 3, but 46% of people got to mission 18 - so of the group that made it past mission 3, that's a 68% retention. fewer people dropped the game between hours 2-20 than they did hours 0-2
That's not a pacing issue, some people just have a crazy short attention span and buy too many games. Or it was on PS+, or they borrowed it from a friend, and with subscription services now, this number is more meaningless than ever. The only interesting stat is what happens to players after the first 2 hours, not before it, because there are too many variables to get anything meaningful from that.
Something I always appreciate - the number of players who make it past the first boss in a souls game who then also go on to plat is way, way higher than i'd have expected.

 

[Felessan]

OP imply that 50% completion rate is a problem. But is it a problem really?

I don't mean completion in terms of 100%ing with all achievements, I mean designing with the idea that people will simply get to the end of a campaign. That's the potential issue here.

20% of peopel completing games on average means that the vast majority of people never see the endings of their games. Not 100% completion. Just the basic story ending.
I understand that it isn't *really* an issue, but it's just weird.

It's not really weird if you step back from mentality of hardcore gamer:
1. Some people will not like particular game or become bored extra quickly, even though game looked promising.
2. Some people will switch halfway to another piece of entertainment (not necessarily a game) that grabs their attention in the moment, and will not return back.
3. Some people doesn't "play to win" or even "play to finish". They play games "for fun in the moment" that gives no obligation to finish them.
4. Some people dosn't play for story, for them story is just annoying, often unskippable, interference to gameplay. And they will leave as soon as they are satisfied with gameplay.

And it's not relate only to games - number of people who watched last episode of The Last of Us show would be around half of those who watched first episode. And such falloffs is inevitable, no matter what you do, some people just drop in the middle if they lost interest.

 

[Fbh]

As long as games keep selling well I don't think so.
I think the initial reaction is "they should make games shorter since most people aren't finishing them" but I don't think it's that simple. Length and amount of content have long been used as a primary metric to determine the "value" of a game, and even people who don't usually finish games are probably more likely to spend $70 on something that's perceived as offering good value for the money.

Also things like Ps+ and Gamepass have thrown the completion rate metrics out of the window.

Why is everyone crying for shorter games? Do we really want to play 5 hour games and pay $70 a pop for them? I don't.

Why does shorter have to mean 5 hours?
AC Valhalla could have been HALF as long and doing the main story with some side quests would have still taken you like 45hours
You could have cut a third of Forbidden west and you'd still have a 40 hours game
Most JRPG's released over the last 10 years could have cut down 30 hours of bloat and repetition and still offered a fun and well paced 25-40 hours experience

 

[nemiroff]

I remember discussing this in forums twenty years ago.. So I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that this is a new phenomena.. It's always been like this. People are different. I don't think it's as simple as saying devs should make better games, things are more nuanced than that. I mean I've even left a few classic books unfinished because I lost interest for various reasons.

I'm completing any game I feel engaged in. Sometimes the game's fault, sometimes not. I wouldn't say it's shocking that some people don't have time to finish The Witcher 3. But I did, and I felt the game engaged me, so I'm happy that the game was long. If I play a two hour long simple game that's shit, I'll end it in under five minutes.

This matter is contextual, subjective and not even always easy to predict. It's not something I'll spend much time worrying about so-to-speak. Let the developers design, and then I'll just judge by how and for how long the game last me.

 

[TGO]

I mean the games listed.
Assassin's Creed - need we say more?
Call of Duty - fuckers go straight into MP mode anyway.
And the list goes on with similar examples.
With games like Arkham & Bioshock being higher.
Shocking...
But not as shocking as this.

And this is Xbox big exclusive

 

[nemiroff]

I mean the games listed.
Assassin's Creed - need we say more?
Call of Duty - fuckers go straight into MP mode anyway.
And the list goes on with similar examples.
With games like Arkham & Bioshock being higher.
Shocking...
But not as shocking as this.

And this is Xbox big exclusive

Hellblade wasn't exclusive was it..? Anyway, Hellblade I can understand. It had some pretty big hurdles that people like myself felt was hard to bother to overcome. The combat and puzzles was kinda cumbersome.

 

[ReBurn]

Why is everyone crying for shorter games? Do we really want to play 5 hour games and pay $70 a pop for them? I don't.

I remember when 5 hours was long for a game and we paid the equivalent of $70 or more for them.

 

[bender]

With services like GPU and PS+ Premium/Extra, game giveaways on all platform and inexpensive bundles on PC, completion rates are going to fall even further. I'm not sure there is much to glean from the statistic unless it can be correlated to game/DLC sales.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

The answer is no. Why should they care If you finish the game or not?? They already got your money and give a f*** If you finish the game or not.

 

[LordBlodgett]

Nah, people have different tastes. Sometimes a game that clicks for you isn't going to click for me. It's nice to see people trying games, even if they don't finish them. At the end of the day gaming is supposed to be fun, and if you aren't having fun with a game, stop playing it. I used to be a absolute completionist, but that attitude actually drove me away from games for years. Learning to play and not care about completion renewed my love of gaming with much less time available for my hobby now.

 

[nemiroff]

I remember when 5 hours was long for a game and we paid the equivalent of $70 or more for them.

Story campaigns perhaps. But I remember playing RPGs and other genres for weeks with up to twelve hour sessions on my Amiga back in the days, and I wasn't the only one.. So people had at least nuanced expectations already a long time ago. Which I guess is why this is already an old topic of discussion.

 

[March Climber]

Why is everyone crying for shorter games? Do we really want to play 5 hour games and pay $70 a pop for them? I don't.

Because everyone quickly realized that the alternative, on average, equals copy + paste quests and filler.

If those are the only two choices, I’d rather finish a short game remembering it fondly and wanting to play it again, than finishing a long game thinking “I never want to play this again.”

A perfect example is Metal Gear Revengeance. It was worth the full price to me.

 

[AndrewRyan]

We need to breakdown the reasons why games are abandoned then discuss each one to see if it's a problem. The one I find interesting for SP games is difficulty and do think developers should care.

 

[DaGwaphics]

AC is just an easy example to pick out because that game is quite literally designed to sell XP boosts to people who find it too grindy.

The pay to avoid playing model is probably the single worst trend in gaming, it's sad that it is as effective and profitable as it is.