Gamernode: News - Are games getting shorter?

That's BS. When I throw down $60-80 I want something that's going to last a good long while. If I only want 10 hours of entertainment I'll use that money to go see five movies. Now if they price games to reflect the ridiculously short time it takes to finish them, then maybe I wouldn't avoid those games like the plague.

I've noticed that games are getting progressively shorter. This is bad. BAADD!

Still haven't finished GTAIV, no time, however I finished Portal, Bioshock, Mass Effect, CoD 4 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I enjoy the 6-7 hour game a lot more than the 40-50 hour game these days and if the new Rare game is going to be shorter then that is awesome in my little book. Sometimes less is more and some of these new games are on a cinematic and emotional feel that those 40-50 hour games can achieve due to the basic structure of any story; beginning, middle and end. Beginning and End are fine in games, it is that middle area of the story that is difficult to fill. Most games just offer you a heap of side missions; like in GTAIV's case.
I hope there are more shorter games, and as we focus more on tightening that same basic 3-part story structure in games we will see a shorter middle and thus a shorter game experience but also, hopefully, a more focused story and more refined story-telling ability.

How conveeeenient! I'm sure having to spend less on development has nothing to do with that trend. They just want to please us with shortness. While they're at it, maybe they should help us out at the movies too. Who wants to spend 2 hours in a dark room where you're not supposed to talk? How about 40-minute movies! Oh, but don't make the games or movies any cheaper. We like paying all that money for less entertainment.

@Cobra951 How are they spending less on development? The average Playstation 1 game cost under $1 Million to develop. Grand Theft Auto 4 cost over $100,000,000. Mass Effect cost over $50,000,000. Stranglehold cost over $30,000,000. If you mend spending less time then that wouldn't be exactly accurate either, Call of Duty 4 took over 2 years whilst Call of Duty 1 took less time. Bioshock took over 2 years whilst System Shock took less.

Games are costing more to develop, taking more time to create and are ending up shorter.

I could and have written an entire college paper on this topic, got an A on it if anyone is curious. Case in point; this is why I crack my systems and download games. For $60+ console / $40+ portable if I don't get what I feel is an acceptable play clock I WILL NOT BUY IT.

Downloading has its advantages. The biggest, try before I buy. I only collect the best, so only those who make the best should get my money.

So... when there is a new energy drink or soft drink, you open it up and drink it to see if you like it or not before purchasing it? Trying to rationalise piracy will never work, it is piracy, if something is not worth the price point; don't buy it and sure as hell don't pirate it. There will always be a case of a pirate that when he has the ability to pirate he will pirate not only the stuff 'not worth buying' but also the stuff that is; such as GTAIV, Oblivion, Crysis.
Try before you buy; that is what a demo is for. That is what movie trailers are for. That is what music videos are for. You can not honestly just simply download something; take your time to do it, install it, try it for an hour and then go purchase something that you already have; albeit pirated? No, you'll try before you buy and then simply not buy it.
Again, rationalising your piracy habits is very low, mayhap guilty conscience.

If they want to make smaller games, that's fine... So long as they make the prices smaller along with it.

Some games should be long, but I think most games should be shorter. Too often they try to stretch the game out, becoming repetitive and, frankly, boring. I think it's absurd to expect all games to be at least X hours long. Games are an incredibly diverse medium and great games can be any length, they should be whatever length is right for that particular game, not held to some artificial standard.

I've played some excellent shorter games and I've played many games that would have been improved by some serious editing. It's better for games to leave you wanting more than for them to turn into a grind.

Games should be longer KindGalaxy, and you can't justify that developers make them shorter by saying that they spend more money on them. Yes, quality>quantity but what's wrong with getting even more quality?

What I'm trying to say here is if the game isn't as great with more levels, the game wasn't really great to begin with.

KindGalaxy, wow, way to kill credibility on this topic. Countering my input with an apples to oranges comparison and putting words into my mouth by generalizing piracy when I used piracy as a special circumstance to picking what goes on my shelf. I was not making a case for piracy here, but stipulating that I USE piracy as a means to try a game in its entirety before I judge it worthy to buy and replay. Congratulations sir you proved you need to relearn reading comprehension.

El I agree. shorter games are just a cop-out by developers to make a quick buck from the ADD generation that the Sony Playstation era brought in. Just because games are shorter does not mean that they are great games. There need to be a balance. IE God of War (perfect 6-10 hour game) FF7 (perfect 40-120 hour game). There are not enough of the latter to balance out the load anymore.

I have noticed games seem to be getting shorter, which is not good. I want long games (assuming they are good of course.

Take Zelda, for example. TP seemed much shorter than OoT, but that might be because I am a much better gamer now (I was 8 when playing Ocarnia).

I miss Baldur's Gate's 300 hours of play time :(
Sadly I can't get it install on vista :(:(

You use piracy to play a game, ENTIRELY, to see if it is worth buying? Yeah, I'm sticking to my belief that you don't buy anything.
However, I do agree with that last statement, the God of War and FFVII statement, and I was not ever saying that all games should be short; just that there should be more tightly focused stories so that the 3 part formula they use for stories tends to drag on in the middle, the most talked about games of 2007 were also some of the shortest games in over 15 years.
I don't think we should be actively searching for a balance, the worst thing a game developer needs to have in their mind is 'okay, we need to create 30 more hours of gameplay or our consumers will hate us', let them create the product they want to create and if it turns out to be 5 hours so be it, if it turns out to be 50 hours then so be it.
As developers delve further into delivering a more cinematic experience we will see shorter games, many factors are there for this reason. Story constraints, time, intensity of subject matter.
I seriously doubt we'll see any price drop either, it makes no sense to drop the price just because it is shorter, movies don't do it for an 80 minute movie compared to a 180 minute movie, people still are buying at the $49.99-$59.99 price point; in record numbers, or just wait around a few months for a game to hit the bargain bin but really, what gamer does that for a game they really want to play... unless you happen to be into piracy.

"@Cobra951 How are they spending less on development? The average Playstation 1 game cost under $1 Million to develop. Grand Theft Auto 4 cost over $100,000,000. Mass Effect cost over $50,000,000. Stranglehold cost over $30,000,000. If you mend spending less time then that wouldn't be exactly accurate either, Call of Duty 4 took over 2 years whilst Call of Duty 1 took less time. Bioshock took over 2 years whilst System Shock took less."

Funny you should mention GTA4 and ME. Both of those are long games. I've sunk 80 hours into GTA4 and I'm still not done with the story. COD 4 I wouldn't even consider until it drops into the cheap tier of 360 games. I don't pay $60 for a 5-hour campaign, and multiplayer has no bearing for me.

The fact is that regardless of the skyrocketing cost of *everything*, including game production, it would cost even more if the quantities aren't scaled back--smaller candy bars, burgers and videogames.

I'm losing my interest in single player games because there's just not enough to do in them anymore. Shorter = weaker, and I like my games like I like my men: Long, hard, and sexy.

Whooo Baldur's Gate. If ever there was a game that went past my limit it was that game. 1 time was definitely enough for me.

FF 12 is a perfect example of what I love about longer games; 50 hours to do the story 80+ to fully explore the universe created for the story line itself.

KOTOR was short, at about 34 hours to complete. However, the replay value is so high that I find it hard for anyone who liked the game to not have replayed it at least one more time to try a different path. This is another fine example of extending a game's lifetime.

Does a game need to be 40,50,80+ hours to just enjoy the story, no. What a good game designer knows is that there ARE those of us who love the idea of knowing everything there is to know about a game's world, or to have everything offered by that game. Those people like myself I like to call completionists. We have to find everything and do everything in a game we buy. Disgaea (evil grin) took me two years at about 2 hours a day (averaged out) to final completely unlock, a labor of love.

Shorter games have their place. What I do not like to see is developers actively persuing this avenue in order to turn a quick buck because it is better on their fical reports.

Let the RPGs and sandbox games (like GTA) be long. Shooters should be shorter, something that I can finish in 10 hours or less. I simply don't have the time to fight through a 20+ hour shooter. CoD4, Gears of War, and Bioshock were great for length. I can play them over a month or so and get to the end, rather than slogging through hours of tedium without actually accomplishing anything.

A shorter, intense experience is more replayable too. I'm definitely not going to start over on a massive game after I've finished it. I just don't have the time. Give me coop so I can go through a second time with a friend, or an extra-challenging difficulty level so I can take another crack if I want more from the experience.

There's also the multiplayer factor. CoD4 and GoW may have only taken 8 or so hours to finish, but I played the multiplayer for hours more (which is easier to do in shorter bites when I only have half an hour or an hour to play).

All games do NOT need to be epic monstrosities. RPGs are generally designed to be longer with lots of dialog to read to bring out more depth to the story, and levels to grind. But that doesn't apply to all genres. The shorter shooters being made today are a great development for anyone who has a family and a job.

Oh, and game length is a weak rationalization for piracy. If you don't like the value, don't play the game. Stealing is stealing, end of story.

Who says you need to finish it in one sitting (or 2, or 3)? It baffles me that anyone would ask for less of something for the same money. It does not compute.