I hope that in the future game designers start designing short games with a higher content/time ratio with the intent of targeting them at adults. Adults in general have more money than time, and are not going to feel cheated paying money for a short game. On the contrary, they'll be happy that they had the time to enjoy it, and that the experience during that time was the best it could be.
Unfortunately, there is a very vocal minority of gamers who scream this idea down. These are the people from which the "game-playing loser" stereotype comes from - the people that really do spend nearly every waking moment churning through long game after long game.
They flood forums and Amazon reviews, screaming at how a fantastic 6-hour game was a "rip off".
I think there are a lot of adults who lead productive lives and would love to be able to play games that are finishable in a normal person's available free time. But they're not nearly as visible.
The problem isn't the vocal minorities. The problem is that if a game is too short it actually hurts sales. The game is rented for a weekend, or returned to the store to be resold as pre-owned.
An unfinished game is far less likely to be returned. You know, maybe some day you'll get around to finishing it.
Try looking at more indie games: Cave Story, Spelunky, Hero Core, and N all present polished gameplay experiences for the convenient price of free. There's plenty more where those came from, and as you branch into the multi-person studios who have the gall and audacity to charge a nominal fee, you find mid-length games in more and more genres. (I'd point out Aquaria, World of Goo, and Knights of the Chalice.)
To add: Desktop Dungeon with Derek Yu's tile set. Short-form "roguelike" that is actually more of a puzzle game. Takes less than 10 minutes to play a complete game.
I am on mobile right now, but search TIGsource for full links.
And to add to the discussion: games that I play the most are either online, procedural, or score-based. But games that I have enjoyed the most have all been highly focused, incredibly polished single player experiences. 10 years ago, these were long (30+ hour) games. But the cost of producing content has risen so much lately that you can only obtain this level of polish if you keep it short.
The games I've enjoyed recently are mostly indie for this reason. Braid, World of Goo, Osmos, Lugaru. I'll check out the free ones you mentioned. I've heard of Cave Story but not the rest.
Yes. I hope in the future there are more games of a similar length to portal & braid. Thats about the maximum I want to play a game. I'm in the middle of GTA4 at the moment, and the game is completely fantastic, but I'm getting to the point where I am hoping it will start wrapping up and giving me closure, but I just unlocked the whole map and don't even have all the weapons...
Some massively long games like GTA really need more 'skip' options available. I've played through the first 25 intro chapters a handful of times (different xbox systems). The first time they were annoying, and the third time they were absolutely tedious. I don't want to hear the long dialogue for a third time. I don't want another 'instructions' mission if I already know how to pick up a gun or deliver a car.
Game designers have created this logic that you must do X before you can see Y. If you haven't done X then you don't deserve to see Y. Yes, it can make it 'too easy' if you can skip anything, but I'm the one here making my own entertainment. If I've already read a novel and want to skip a chapter that was boring, I can skip it with the turn of a page. No author tries to stop you from doing that. Same with a movie. Just press Fast Forward.
What really bugs me is driving games. I used to enjoy driving games, but nowadays it seems that every driving game wants me to start off by doing dozens of laps in some crappy car to save up enough in-game cash to buy a slightly less crappy car, with which I repeat the process over and over until eventually I've saved up enough to buy the shiny supercar on the game's box which I wanted to drive in the first place. No thanks: been there, done that.
If you ask me, the best driving game of all time was Outrun. It plonks you in a Ferrari at the start line of a race, and you drive as far and as fast as you can in the time allotted. The more you play the game, the better you get, and you're rewarded by being able to see more of the world, but it doesn't reward you for just slogging through.
Exactly. If I have paid for a game, it doesn't make sense to prevent me from accessing large portions of it. At least provide cheat codes to unlock "undeserved" content.
I would have no problem with shorter games if the games were also reduced in price to compensate for the reduced amount of content.
Since that is not going to happen, I have a hard time agreeing with your wish that developers make shorter games. I mean, I'm not exactly in the poor house, but I'd balk at paying $60 for four to six hours of gameplay, even if that was a pretty amazing four to hours.
Well, those games are definitely the exceptions to the rule and I don't think they were the types of games that poster I was referring to was talking about.
This is exactly what is happening now for mobile devices like the iPhone - lots of casual games where you might play for a few minutes while waiting for the train. I find myself playing these quite often, and I haven't played video games in years.
This is exactly why I stopped playing video games too. I would love to see more episodic presentation in games. Something where the plot and gameplay elements are neatly arranged into 30m-1h chunks with a little recap before each episode. I'd also like the option to skip these episodes. When I did play games I'd often hit an area that just wasn't fun to me anymore. Without resorting to looking up cheat codes there isn't much you can do but suffer past the boring parts. This seems like a relic of coin-op video games to me. I already gave you $60 -- why can't I just skip to the next major plot or gameplay point? Smaller chunks would possibly allow for more reasonable prices too. I'm just not interested in spending $60 on a game that I may stop playing after 2 hours.
Agreed. I think this is why I incline toward online racing games, and multi-player tactical like Modern Warfare 2. You can play a "round" in 10 to 15 minutes, and fit the number of rounds to the time you have available. I found Elder Scrolls:Oblivion (as an example) to be hard to get back into if I had to take a week off because of other demands on my time.
So true. I played a lot of games through because of the story, but it was actually annoying and boring "work". Solving "real" game puzzles is unforgettable in contrast.
I often hear about adults buying games but not really playing them. As long as this is happening, there isn't any economic incentive to aim for quality over quantity in gameplay. Game reviewers play a big part in this since adults tend to buy games based on reviews, but reviewers consider length to be a good thing. Only when games that are shorter sell better will publishers' perspectives change.
A good game should be enjoyable regardless of how long you play it.
I mean, how long was Pac Man? A few minutes, perhaps, but people would play it for hours.
How long was Sonic The Hedgehog or Super Mario Bros? Maybe half an hour once you got good at it, but you'd have to play it a fair few times before you got good enough to beat it -- even once you had though, it was fun to play through again.
Modern games are mostly just one long hard slog that you play through once and forget about. Nothing wrong with some games being like that, but it'd be nice to have the other type of game back as well.
I used to work as a game reviewer, now I rarely find time to actually touch a fully fledged game. I currently get vastly more gameplay out of my 4 year old DS lite (I basically have nothing to do on my lunch break other than listen to radio, no access to computers and barely anyone to talk to) than I do out of anything else. So much so that I'm currently considering picking up a PSP to expand my game selection.
I've spent 2 months trying to play through Dragonage, but can't find enough time to actually sit down and enjoy it, and any actual free time I do have I have priorities elsewhere, like trying to keep my writing skills exercised so I don't become an illiterate troll.
I very rarely play games, but if I do, I like to play for three days straight (with sensible drinking, eating and sleeping). There are just not that many games that are good enough, or so it seems. But I admit that I have stopped following the announcements, too.
There definitely was a time when few good games emerged, but it might have changed for the better now. You know, when selling points were "50 different weapons, super-blaster-bazooka. Very realistic blood effects".
Last game I enjoyed was Risen, Fallout 3 is in the backlog.
How can you play a game like Half Life & successors and not be hooked?
My consoles are gathering dust, as well. An older Windows computer still has an unfinished session of Dungeon Siege, somewhere around the house.
The wife and I instead opt for those shorter, hidden object with mini memory games that take 2 to 4 hours to complete. We play these together, taking turns who is mousing.
The service we currently subscribe to gives us a game each month for $7.00 - Much less than the popcorn and sodas, let alone the admission of a movie these days. And the service makes out, too: We end up buying one or two extra each month when we find we have the odd evening off. The service gets the steady revenue and a minor cash till ring here and there.
I'd love to see a polished "arcade" game that ran on my Mac. Something like Cadillacs and the Dinosaurs[1]. Sometimes it's fun to sit down with a couple of friends and mash the gamepad for a few hours, then forget about it. Modern games come with too much baggage to be fun.
That, or strategy/sim games that are designed to be challenging. Rollercoaster Tycoon and Capitalism come to mind.
It definitely doesn't fit your first criteria, as it is phenomenally complex and took me weeks to get the hang of using signal lights to route trains without collision. I found it pretty engrossing, though, and easy enough to play in spurts when time allowed.
MeteorBlitz has this right. The game auto-saves when you let go. You can pull your iPhone out of your pocket and play, then put it away in a second.
Something like Machinarium would be great, where you have many, many short puzzles. For an adult, what you can fit in "in a spare moment" becomes very attractive.
Whenever a new Grand Theft Auto comes out, I buy it and plan to use nearly all my free time playing through it. It's better just to get in it, get expert, and get it over with. Then I can return to a more normal life. It's the same obsessiveness that makes me a pretty good coder, I suppose.
Usually, the only other games I play are ones recommended by a friend in the gaming industry. He introduced me to Braid. Sometimes, I'll play a game which gets a lot of coverage in nerdy, non-gaming channels, like Portal.
(by the way, I'm currently fighting the urge to run out and buy Red Dead Redemption)
I can totally relate to not wanting to feel required to put 100+ hours into an RPG or MMORPG/grinder game. Short simple games that can be played in quick intermittent bursts of free time was one of the design goals with my Rogue-like zombie survival game http://DeadByZombie.com.
Due to the nature of the game engine, nothing happens unless you issue a command or make a move. It only reacts to your input. Therefore, you can keep a long-running game session open, not even needing to save, and just tab over to it and play, here and there, when you have a moment.
