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Why I don't finish most video games (Article in TheVerge.com)

cantona222

Member
An interesting article in The Verge. The title says is all.

I love the below paragraph from the article and I really want developers to look into this option. I consider most games to be longer than they should be:

I just wish there was an option to trim the fat. Just as I can switch gore on or off in some shooters, I'd like the ability to turn off the filler missions or the story written by a talented writer who was given no time to tie everything together. I wish games better respected my time. Or even better, I wish more studios spent the time and money to develop more interesting methods of storytelling, to include their talented writers at the beginning of the development process. If my caring about a game's story is vital to its enjoyment, then a developer should show the same care in its creation.

Sorry if this is a repeated topic but the article Is well written and had new good points. So what do you guys think?
 

GHG

Gold Member
Actually I stop playing games if the gameplay and missions/levels stop being compelling enough. More often than not games can fall off a cliff in this regard and the game can start to feel stale or go off on a tangent (gameplay wise) halfway through.

The story isn't that important to me as far as finishing a game is concerned.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
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.
 

robotrock

Banned
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 haven't finished Shadow of Mordor yet for this reason.
 

Brofist

Member
It's the repetition that kills most games for me. Watch Dogs, Shadow of Mordor are 2 games recently that I enjoyed but couldn't beat due to repetition.
 
I can understand people who stop playing games when they don't enjoy them, but when you feel that way about most of the games you buy, you really have to start questioning your buying habits. There are absolutely lots of games available worth playing from start to finish.
 
Thankfully I don't feel that way. When I buy my games, I make sure to play and finish them or else I won't feel a sense of closure with said game. I found out that if you bought one game at a time or played one game at a time if you bought many at the same time, helps alot. All you need is focus.
 

Calabi

Member
Yeah I'm getting fed up with Asscreed 4 Black Flag because of this. I'm about half way through and its all just fillers. Your doing the same things over and over, just in different places, the stories rubbish nothing interesting has happened, its mostly in the form of tell dont show. Not sure if will complete, I'm certainly not collecting all the bullshit.

Its a minority of people that completes games now. I mean if developers took this into account they could save there own money and time. But no the Alien Isolation developers had to pad the hell out of there own game, ruining it for some people, for reasons unknown.
 
Aside from time limitations or life stuff I always finish the games I buy... because I buy the games I want to play. I can see this being a problem if you're a serial purchaser, though.

My real life friend from high school buys like every game that comes out and beats like maybe 20% of them all and moves on to the next.
 

Joni

Member
I would love that option. Shorter, stronger games over long drawn out games that become a bore.
 

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
I completely agree.

People complained about 10 hour games so developers took that and bloated the fuck out of their games to meet some mythical 25 hour campaign mark, quality be damned.

It comes down to this:
I wish games better respected my time.
 

Pachimari

Member
I never finishes games and it makes me realize that gaming might not be my number one interest anymore.

I even bought Bayonetta 2 SE and The Last of Us Remastered but haven't even opened them. I'll buy GTA V and Smash Bros but that'll be it for some months.

Hopefully I can connect my desktop close to my bed and play more.

The last game I beat were Max Payne 3 and it was so not worth the pain going through.

Whenever I hear games have so many hours worth of gameplay I sigh. I want way shorter games. Around 5 hours would be fine.
 

Sophia

Member
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 think this is actually semi-related to what the author is talking about in the article, although for different reasons. Shadows of Mordor is a fantastic example of this. The gameplay has an excellent idea (The Nemesis System) that's poorly tied into the main story. A better interesting story that was more closely tied to the system, alongside fleshing that system out, would result in players hitting that point where they just "get it" and don't want to play anymore. Certainly, this was my experiences with Shadows of Mordor at any rate.

Also the reason why I loved finishing Wolfenstein to the end, because they kept mixing it up and throwing new things at you every step of the way. The campaign never hit that point where you felt like you saw everything. It was gloriously refreshing.
 

taizuke

Member
Thankfully I don't feel that way. When I buy my games, I make sure to play and finish them or else I won't feel a sense of closure with said game. I found out that if you bought one game at a time or played one game at a time if you bought many at the same time, helps alot. All you need is focus.

This.
 

Asgaro

Member
I complete around 90% of my games.

If you have a low completion rate you should question whether you aren't simply burned out on gaming.
Stop 6 months with gaming and then come back. You will appreciate each and every game again.


Thankfully I don't feel that way. When I buy my games, I make sure to play and finish them or else I won't feel a sense of closure with said game. I found out that if you bought one game at a time or played one game at a time if you bought many at the same time, helps alot. All you need is focus.

Agreed.
 
I completely agree.

People complained about 10 hour games so developers took that and bloated the fuck out of their games to meet some mythical 25 hour campaign mark, quality be damned.

It comes down to this:

Are there that many games released now that are that long, besides the Ubisoft games? I know I beat games like Bioshock: Infinite and Wolfenstein: The New Order in about 10h each. Broken Sword 5 was 10h also, and South Park: The Stick of Truth was 12h for me.
 

Lucumo

Member
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.

The reason I quit every MMO ever.
 

Dunbar

Member
I don't finish most games because:

- Between work and social commitments, I don't have much free time, and playing games isn't the only thing I do with my free time.

- Most games that interest me are at least 15-20 hours long, and some are much longer, like RPGs. Very few of those games actually need to be that long, and most have their length padded out for no better reason than to keep customers from beating the games and selling them used.

- It frequently happens that I have to go 2-3 weeks (or more) without playing anything, and when I do have time to get back to a game, I usually have to spend a chunk of time remembering what I was even doing, and also how to actually play the game. And it's not like games have manuals any more to help me with that last part.

For these reasons, the last game I beat was Shovel Knight, and it's taken me about 6 weeks to beat 2 chapters in Danganronpa. I usually end up putting games down for so long that I would have to restart them completely, and I end up selling them or giving them away. This is probably going to happen with Shadow of Mordor, because I just sat down to play it again after not touching it for a month and I've completely forgotten everything.
 

Vizzeh

Banned
I believe its disingenuous or indeed selfish to soley blame the game on the need to be shorter. "respecting my time" is a completely invalid reason to force your available time on others.

I agree that some games could trim the fat from a 12hr game to a 8hour game, possibly the final few chapters of Alien isolation could have been trimmed A little. Other games like TLOU spanning 10-12hours ish, is the sort of game you just do not want to end. Therefore "time" becomes completely an unreasonable excuse.

Some games can be fun played 10-12 hours, some are fun even after 30+ hours (darksouls, skyrim etc)

It boils down to the quality of the writers and game pacing, which should be highlighted by Tester + QA. The devs/Producers can choose episodic games like "The walking dead", which has been a success, condensed storytelling, or decide that their game needs more depth or cutting.

It depends on the game model/design choice when it comes to story/length, just like choosing if its an FPS, RTS or 30fps vs 60fps with more eye candy. Players also need to take responsibility in pacing themselves too.
 

Jb

Member
If you don't have time to play a certain game just don't play it?

Creators should be able to make the game they want to make, not bend to the desire of an audience that's only marginally interested and doesn't have the time to invest in them, when in fact a lot of people are willing to manage their schedule and personal finances around a certain game they're anticipating.

And if it means that not everyone can play every hot new release? That's fine.
You don't hear literary critics complain that writers "don't respect their time" (how dare they waste your higness' precious minutes) by writing 500+ pages long books.
At a certain point you have to accept you're not going to be able to consume every piece of media in existence, just look up a game on HLTB and if it's a 50+ hour RPG guess what? It's not made for you.
 
I like this line 'In film, the screenplay is a blueprint. In games, the screenplay is a glue stick.'

Which is fine I feel, games are games of course. Yet, I do wish that the videogames, particularly the AAA space, at least tried to do the opposite. Diversity is always good, in a medium that is so flexible.

I'd like to see the gameplay serve the story more. I think it was youtuber Errant Signal who made a good point where in The Last of Us, that final mission, he failed a lot at the section and it just made the pacing at the end effed for him. Would the game had been better served if ... say
the guy who was told by Marlene to guard you, get's killed by the player, instead of a cutscene of Joel doing it ... and then you just walk into the room with Ellie and the surgeon

I had fun with the final area, but to say it was better because of it ... at least on my first experience ... I wouldn't know if cutting it out would have been better -- but it may have been. Though if that is debatable, there are many other instances where this is also the case such as Spec Ops: The Line, which I felt the relentless gameplay, bogged down the games star, the story.

If that means videogames get cut in half in length, or even more because of this, I don't think is a bad thing, quite the opposite actually. We don't always have to be a gamey game, sometimes we should be whatever is simply good.
 

taybul

Member
Go finish it. You get cool gameplay mechanics in the last 25% of the game. It is not about the story.
I'm pretty sure I'm past this point and have everything the game has to give me
I assume you're talking about branding
. The main storyline is having me do that same things I've been doing on my own for a while with the only difference in that there's a cut scene or quick dialogue preceding it. I don't care about the story and I've tried everything. I think I'm done with the gam .
 
Too much filler is the biggest issue.

I understand that people like value, but value for me is not having to perform fetch quests or dealing with enemies you can only do minimal damage to just to drag out encounters and all games are guilty of it.

If I can shoot an enemy a handful of times and the game provides cover, then that encounter stops being a challenge and starts becoming a chore. I shouldn't have to unload entire clips of ammo into a single enemy.
 

Joni

Member
If you don't have time to play a certain game just don't play it?

Creators should be able to make the game they want to make, not bend to the desire of an audience that's only marginally interested and doesn't have the time to invest in them, when in fact a lot of people are willing to manage their schedule and personal finances around a certain game they're anticipating.

And if it means that not everyone can play every hot new release? That's fine.
You don't hear literary critics complain that writers "don't respect their time" (how dare they waste your higness' precious minutes) by writing 500+ pages long books.
At a certain point you have to accept you're not going to be able to consume every piece of media in existence, just look up a game on HLTB and if it's a 50+ hour RPG guess what? It's not made for you.
I don't think you understand the problem. I had no problem finishing a game like Final Fantasy X. It gripped me from start to finish. Then there are 10 hour games, littered with filler there just to lengthen the game time which I just can't finish because it is just filler and not worth my time. They're already bending to the audience by adding all that filler. It is not part of the game they want to make, but they need it to check a box to say their game is X length.

It is the same with books, you can have books which waste your time. See Moby Dick.
 

sangreal

Member
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
 

imae

Member
I think consumers just need to be smarter about the games they purchase and I think many people almost feel an obligation to purchase a particular game simply due to marketing hype, or due to some nice visual feature that doesn't necessarily make actually playing the game more fun.

I have purchased games in the past where I found finishing them was just not worth my time, but not for years now.

These days I know what I like to play, and I don't fall for trailers selling games based on cinematic clips with dramatic and broody VA's.
 

Yopis

Member
It's the repetition that kills most games for me. Watch Dogs, Shadow of Mordor are 2 games recently that I enjoyed but couldn't beat due to repetition.

Watch Dogs had cool ending. Seems like a waste to never finish.

Not always the games fault. Some people want games to be the same as 2 hour movies glad this is not the case.
 
There's rarely enough of a learning curve or depth in modern games to not have them get old before the end.
Lately I just tend to stick to a couple of games I can continue to enjoy playing rather than buy new ones that aren't good enough gameplay wise to be worth their money.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
It's interesting. Personally I don't think many games these days have replayability value. If a game doesn't have replayability value then I assume that the campaign is going to get boring before the end.

The second thing for me is control schemes. Sometimes at our age you don't get time to sit down for a couple of weeks and games that have loads of controls and assignments pretty much mean you can't just pick up where you left off from on difficult levels without getting accustomed to them again. And then you end up restarting various games and hit the four hour block - the start of the game you play through so many times that you can't force yourself to put the game in again and experience all the other content the game has.

Lastly, games are starting too slow and spending too much time on exposition within the first quarter of the game.
 

eot

Banned
If I really like a game then finishing it is no effort, it just happens naturally. So I think the problem is not enjoying the game enough.
 
Filler is the worst.

I want JRPGs to be nothing but boss fights that test your skills and push the game mechanics to the limits. Random trash enemies serve no purpose.
 

Arklite

Member
Ok Verge, its an article about some dude justifying why he didn't finish a sandbox game. Lots of people dont, they're the most frequently abandoned genre out there. Don't buy them if theyre stressing you, they always overstay their welcome even when you like them because it's so easy to get burnt out.
 
When I was young (I mean the 8|16|32 bits era) I would never have dared to start another game before finishing the one in progress.

Now, there are a lot of games I don't finish, but I'm not proud of it and I'm not making excuses for that by blaming the game's quality or structure. That's too easy.

The real reasons I play a lot of games without having the respect to complete them anymore are :

1] Every single fucking PSN sales, I can't resist to add one or two games to my library. I don't ever imagine if I was gaming on PC and Steam.

2] PlayStation Plus and Games With Gold. About 10 more games to download every month. This is a joke. Heaven and Hell at the same time.

3] Work. Not enough hours to play each day, but it's not like I'm the only one.

I'm also in this situation since I buy every console on the market (fortunately I don't play PC or mobile) as opposite to focus on ONE platform when I was young. Master System THEN Megadrive THEN PSone THEN N64 THEN Dreamcast, etc...

I don't like very much the gamer I became, and I'm happy when I read here there is still some people who takes time to fully enjoy their games one by one.
 

Donos

Member
For developers, it's a bit of a dilemma. On one side people say "trim the fat" or "no filler mission pls" but then cry one the internet when the playtime of the game is revealed as "only" 10 hours. So they fill the game with fillers to have a "15 - 20 hours" playtime.

When in school or as a student, i wanted the games to be as long, complicated and deep as it gets but now with work i apreciate when i can finish a game like e.g. Uncharted 2 which gives me 10 hours of solid gaming and still has MP if i want more. Love the Fallouts and Skyrims but after playing all the sidequests first i'm overpowered most of the time and finishing the game is not desireable anymore. Or i rush just through to finish it.
 

ConceptX

Member
I might be strange, but if I buy a game, I generally complete it.

It might even be over the course of years, but if it's in my library, I almost always make it to the end.

Exceptions being broken games and if it becomes a grindfest I'll usually just put it down for a few months, and then return again to finish it off, especially side content, which is exactly what I'm doing/done with FFX HD.

Usually in the case of games with excessive post-game content, I have a save for post-game and a save that I go straight to the last boss/mission and complete the game, leave the game for a while, then go back to the save without the last boss and do the whole grind/optional/ultimate equipment stuff etc.

HumbleBundle and Steam sales are really increasing my uncompleted game count though...
 

ThatMattZ

Member
I complete around 90% of my games.

If you have a low completion rate you should question whether you aren't simply burned out on gaming.
Stop 6 months with gaming and then come back. You will appreciate each and every game again

I totally agree with this. I took a few years "off" - I still played some major releases but for the most part I wasn't gaming. Then last summer I got a Wii U and I really started appreciating the experience of gaming again. It felt new and fresh. I was finishing most if not all of my games. Fast forward a year and a half later I have a healthy library for my Wii U and Xbox One and I've finished a vast majority of those games. Before the break from gaming I was known as the guy who never beat games.
 

Mr. X

Member
This is an issue of replayability IMO. A lot of games opt for the "summer blockbuster" feel and it's mostly spectacle. If they doesn't resonate, people begin to notice shallow gameplay, gameplay that doesn't really engage players or they notice story is shallow and stopped caring about the characters/world.

I disagree it's an issue of available free time or games being too long. Think about games you replay or just throw back in your system every now and then. They are fun, something hooks you. You already beat it, you're not like "when is the ending, I want this to be over already" because you already finished it. You're going back to it because something about the game resonates with you.

Brand, IP and size/content of the game don't keep someone's interest. We get articles like this because the developer succeeded in making the player want to buy/play but failed in making them want to keep playing. They just want to hurry to end now, at some point it started feeling tedious and like a chore which I think could've been avoided if you just made the game fun to push buttons and move and explore around it.

My perspective is someone who enjoyed just swinging around NYC in Spider-Man 2 Movie game for hours and enjoyed the tons of hours put into multiple fighting games, Bayonetta, DMC4 and Streets of Rage.
 

SerodD

Member
I can understand people who stop playing games when they don't enjoy them, but when you feel that way about most of the games you buy, you really have to start questioning your buying habits. There are absolutely lots of games available worth playing from start to finish.

This is what I think, I don't buy games that I won't finish, it makes no sense that so many people buy games to play them for a couple of hours and put them on a shelf, this things are expensive.
 
Ok Verge, its an article about some dude justifying why he didn't finish a sandbox game. Lots of people dont, they're the most frequently abandoned genre out there. Don't buy them if theyre stressing you, they always overstay their welcome even when you like them because it's so easy to get burnt out.

Pretty much. Besides the sandbox games, which are these games that are too long for their own good?
 

Jb

Member
I don't think you understand the problem. I had no problem finishing a game like Final Fantasy X. It gripped me from start to finish. Then there are 10 hour games, littered with filler there just to lengthen the game time which I just can't finish because it is just filler and not worth my time. They're already bending to the audience by adding all that filler. It is not part of the game they want to make, but they need it to check a box to say their game is X length.

It is the same with books, you can have books which waste your time. See Moby Dick.

I understand, but what you consider filler in a game I might find genuinely enjoyable and vice-versa. Probably because we might not find the core gameplay loop equally interesting in the same games. For instance a lot of people might think a lot of the combat in a game like SMT: Strange Journey or Persona 3 is filler, while I and many others consider it as an integral part of the progression system and the sense of continuous struggle the characters have to go through. The same goes with open world games like Red Dead or AC.
There is no universal agreement on what does or does not constitute filler in a game, or indeed in a book or movie. Why should the designers listen to you in particular when there is a (presumably) larger part of the audience that actually very much enjoys that content?
 
Then there are 10 hour games, littered with filler there just to lengthen the game time which I just can't finish because it is just filler and not worth my time. They're already bending to the audience by adding all that filler. It is not part of the game they want to make, but they need it to check a box to say their game is X length.

That's assuming that nobody likes filler. Or, more precisely, what you perceive as filler.
You mentioned Final Fantasy X. There are probably many people who think the game has too much filler content for their tastes (someone already stated in this thread that it should cut at least all the non-bossfights for example). Yet you weren't bored at all.
So, what should the developers do? What if they enjoy that "filler" themselves, and are not adding it in order to bend to an audience that mistakenly demands more play time (while supposedly not enjoing it anyway)..?
 

Shaneus

Member
This is why I prefer titles like Driveclub over titles like Horizon 2. No story, no bullshit filler or instructions or layered themes or whatever. Choose a car, choose a track, choose a mode and just fucking drive.
 

Vizzeh

Banned
There is no right or wrong. There is a target market. A slice of the gaming industry can be had depending on a game developers "choice" in game design/storytelling delivery method that will not be a 1 size fits all. There will always be the "horses for courses" method used with genres, story, fps/rts/game length.

A large amount of people will enjoy each type of game and choice made, there is a market for everything. If you do not find something interesting/compelling/short/long enough, find something you do like, it is that simple. There will be something out there for you, you cannot pigeon-hole every game to suit your own needs.
 

Alx

Member
This is why I prefer titles like Driveclub over titles like Horizon 2. No story, no bullshit filler or instructions or layered themes or whatever. Choose a car, choose a track, choose a mode and just fucking drive.

I agree. Well, I'm not into racing games, but lately I've been more into games that are just meant to be played for the sake of playing, and not things you're supposed to "finish".
 

Freeman

Banned
I feel the same, I don't feel most games respect my time. I don't mind a big game at all as long as it doesn't feel that its length has been artificially inflated.

I much a game that only has what it needs to and that I'll be willing to replay.

There are too many options to be stuck with a game that is just trying to waste your time.
 
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