As I've aged I've found myself more attractive to games where....

you can just quickly pick up and play for 30 min and then set back down.

As opposed to games where you need to devote 1-3+ hours at a time in a single sitting.

I've been playing more Rock Band 4 lately since I got that new guitar made by PDP. I can play a few songs and then go back to doing something else. As opposed to something like RDR2 where I've got to devote a lot of time to it each time I boot it up.

At least something finds you attractive right?

I'm not really interested in games that are dozens of hours long, generally speaking

fettster777 posted...

you can just quickly pick up and play for 30 min and then set back down. As opposed to games where you need to devote 1-3+ hours at a time in a single sitting.

This is one of those things that happens to a lot of people as they get older. Especially if you've got a family.

I know my one friend basically has like one or two hours a week when he can actually game (usually early on a Saturday before his kids wake up). The rest of the time he's either working, doing stuff around the house, driving his kids to whatever club, practice, or activity they need to get to, doing stuff for his mother who's in a nursing home, trying to occasionally spend time with his wife... and maybe occasionally get to sleep. And when he does have free time to game, half the time his daughter is on his PS5 playing Fortnite or his son is on the Xbox playing Minecraft. Or if they're not playing they're constantly trying to get his attention to do other stuff. So he really only gets to play if they're not around or are sleeping.

When you can only play games for maybe an hour or so every other week (give or take), it's kind of difficult to get into games that require a huge time investment or require you to maintain/increase skill level over time. By the time you get back to it, you've forgotten what happened last time you were playing and your skills have gotten rustier. So it's much easier to enjoy stuff you can just jump in and out of.

That was Splatoon for me

Jump in briefly, jump out

I miss that game

go try one of the shittiest looking games known to man, it's got a demo

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3191030/Nubbys_Number_Factory/

a winning run is maybe 30 minutes

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And when he does have free time to game, half the time his daughter is on his PS5 playing Fortnite or his son is on the Xbox playing Minecraft.

That's where a Switch (or Steam Deck/similar handheld) can come in handy. It's nice to not have to choose between getting to play a game and letting somebody else use the TV.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

This is one of those things that happens to a lot of people as they get older. Especially if you've got a family.

I know my one friend basically has like one or two hours a week when he can actually game (usually early on a Saturday before his kids wake up). The rest of the time he's either working, doing stuff around the house, driving his kids to whatever club, practice, or activity they need to get to, doing stuff for his mother who's in a nursing home, trying to occasionally spend time with his wife... and maybe occasionally get to sleep. And when he does have free time to game, half the time his daughter is on his PS5 playing Fortnite or his son is on the Xbox playing Minecraft. Or if they're not playing they're constantly trying to get his attention to do other stuff. So he really only gets to play if they're not around or are sleeping.

When you can only play games for maybe an hour or so every other week (give or take), it's kind of difficult to get into games that require a huge time investment or require you to maintain/increase skill level over time. By the time you get back to it, you've forgotten what happened last time you were playing and your skills have gotten rustier. So it's much easier to enjoy stuff you can just jump in and out of.

I love my daughter but this basically sounds like my life now minus the nursing home part lol

Both games and game industry are stuck on some weird "Hours per dollar" kind of metric but everyone is struggling with time and attention economy.

VioletZer0 posted...

Both games and game industry are stuck on some weird "Hours per dollar" kind of metric but everyone is struggling with time and attention economy.

ya, a lot of people forget that those almost $100 NES and SNES games (well, in CND so probably more like $60) were indeed only like an hour or so long; other than the RPGs.

It's a weird situation where gamers are both overly entitled by the sheer number of games available and generally higher quality while also somehow being exploited by lazy game developers/publishers

I also think the desire for long games is hurting games by filling them with needless padding.

Games deserve to have good pacing.

This whole "I need value for what I buy" thing is just consoomer mindset. Most of you aren't playing the whole 48 hours the game requires.

Whenever AAA games are truly short like Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, nobody minds. I certainly don't because I can just play again.

VioletZer0 posted...

Both games and game industry are stuck on some weird "Hours per dollar" kind of metric but everyone is struggling with time and attention economy.

It's bothersome because it's really the only objective metric of "value" available, but it's a really bad way to evaluate everything except "how much will I have to spend to fill my free time?". That's not an irrelevant consideration, but it promotes bloating games with unnecessary padding. I won't pretend I'm immune to it (like I had some mixed feelings when I spent $20 on Untitled Goose Game and it was done in under 3 hours), but I'd still rather see a tight, well-paced experience that doesn't overstay its welcome than to see games stretched out to give the illusion of "value."

If nothing else, I've got so much in my backlog at this point that I won't have to spend a cent to fill my free time for the next decade or two (to say nothing of the potential to just replay any of the hundreds of games I've already beaten), so that consideration is actually irrelevant for me.

I just don't really play games at all if I don't have the time to sit down with them for a good while. Those kind of quick-play games are how you end up with like 1000 cumulative hours in something, and I prefer to experience many games than experience one game a lot. Not like I can really claim to spend that time any better, but at least wasting my time on the internet or whatever doesn't come with a time counter that I can look at and be appalled at myself with

I've got a ton of long games in my collection (Fallout 4, various Borderlands, Deus Exes, Saints Rows, a bunch of Ass Creeds, etc) and what am I spending my time playing lately? Goat Simulator 3, Squeekross, and American Truck Simulator.

adjl posted...

That's where a Switch (or Steam Deck/similar handheld) can come in handy. It's nice to not have to choose between getting to play a game and letting somebody else use the TV.

He actually has a Switch. He bought it for his kids, but none of them ever play it. So it's sort of become his by default. He mostly complains about it.

As for a Steam Deck, he shares similar opinions of PC gaming as I do. In his own words, "I'm not a keyboard twitcher."

At this point I think he mostly just plays GTA and Power Wash Simulator.



VioletZer0 posted...

This whole "I need value for what I buy" thing is just consoomer mindset. Most of you aren't playing the whole 48 hours the game requires.

The problem is, when you buy a game that lasts 100+ hours and costs $80, and you buy a game that costs $80 but only lasts 7 hours, it can absolutely feel like you're being screwed over. So there winds up being a demand for longer games, so people feel like they're getting their money's worth.

If studios sold shorter games for cheaper, they'd probably sell way better, and there'd be less emphasis on all games needing to be so long.

Customers might be more willing to have a mindset of giving the developer the benefit of the doubt that "a fun experience is worth the money no matter how long it is" if they weren't already so used to being repeatedly screwed over by developers and publishers in dozens of different ways, to the point where everything looks like a way to squeeze more profit out of a game without providing any extra value in exchange for it. When publishers spend years constantly thinking up new ways to exploit you, it's kind of forgivable to be a bit paranoid about whether or not they're screwing you over with pricing/value.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As for a Steam Deck, he shares similar opinions of PC gaming as I do. In his own words, "I'm not a keyboard twitcher."

I'm not sure how keyboard twitching applies to a Steam Deck that has no keyboard, but you do you.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem is, when you buy a game that lasts 100+ hours and costs $80, and you buy a game that costs $80 but only lasts 7 hours, it can absolutely feel like you're being screwed over. So there winds up being a demand for longer games, so people feel like they're getting their money's worth.

The thing is, those hours are not necessarily equal. I'd much rather spend $20 on three hours of terrorizing hapless villagers as a goose that remains hilarious and fun the whole time than on a 20-hour game that consists of 5 hours of fun and 15 hours of dull padding, even though the latter would seem to be the objectively better value on paper. Emphasizing hours per dollar as the primary metric of value encourages the latter, though, particularly where padding is cheaper and easier to develop than the good stuff.

That said, I don't disagree that it feels bad to end up with what seems like questionable value. I can compare spending $20 on Goose Game for 3 hours to spending $20 on Factorio (in 2016) for 1100 hours. Even with replays and watching other people go through it pumping my total Goose Game numbers up to the 10-12 range, that's still a really unfavourable comparison, especially where Factorio will see more future replays than Goose Game will.

On the flip side, though, I got 1100 hours out of Factorio for $20 (and having spent $35 more on the expansion, that's up to 1400 for $55 total). Minecraft doesn't track play time, but I'd estimate similar numbers there. 1400 hours in DotA 2 that didn't actually cost me anything aside from like $10 in extra stuff I elected to buy. Hundreds of hours across dozens of games I've gotten for free or paid only a nominal amount for because of bundles... In the grand scheme of things, I'm not even remotely lacking in value for the money I've spent on gaming. If something brings down that average by some negligible amount, that's not worth fixating on, especially not at the expense of letting myself enjoy a shorter experience that's really fun. That doesn't mean I'm going to completely ignore length in deciding whether or not a game is worth purchasing, and I'm cognizant of the fact that people with more restrictive discretionary spending budgets and smaller existing libraries do need to put more stock into the question of "will this game last me until I can afford another one?", but it's not something I make a big deal out of anymore.

It's also worth noting that, in the context of this topic, I'd actually say $80 for 7 hours is a better purchase than $80 for 100 hours. If you only get half an hour to play a week, a 7-hour game will fill all of your free time for a little over three months, after which you'll have finished it. A 100-hour game will take nearly four years. While filling all of your free time for the next four years for $80 is a pretty sweet deal at first glance, the motivation required to spend four years finishing a leisure task isn't exactly easy to come by. $80 for three months of entertainment is also a pretty good deal (if not as good), but doesn't require nearly the same level of commitment. Spending $80 on something I'll actually finish is better than spending $80 on something that's theoretically a better value, but that I'll lose interest in 15% of the way through.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If studios sold shorter games for cheaper, they'd probably sell way better, and there'd be less emphasis on all games needing to be so long.

That's a nice idea on paper, but the unfortunate reality is that development costs don't scale with game length as cleanly as that idea would require. The outcome would be largely the same: studios would throw a bunch of cheap padding into their games so they wouldn't be expected to sell them for less. If anything, that'd probably make the problem worse , because you'd get studios trying to make shorter games that wouldn't be able to cover their costs if they sold them at the short game price, so they'd have to pad them out to be able to keep the lights on.

adjl posted...

I'm not sure how keyboard twitching applies to a Steam Deck that has no keyboard, but you do you.

Psssht. You understood the point, you're just being deliberately disingenuous so you can get a snarky zinger in there.

His comment was about PC gaming as a whole. The Steam Deck is part of the PC ecosystem. If someone doesn't like one, they're not likely to go out of their way to seek out or use the other either.

The entire appeal of the Steam Deck is mainly to give people who already game on PC an option to play their games portably. You're not going to get a ton of people who never play games on PC suddenly rushing out to buy the Steam Deck.



adjl posted...

The thing is, those hours are not necessarily equal.

Oh, I'd agree. But because of how subjective gaming is, it's always going to be difficult to directly compare any given hour in one game to any given hour in another game. Or even the same hours in the same game.

Three hours that are fantastic fun for you might be a boring slog for me. The 20 hours I spend mostly mining dirt and rock in Minecraft might bore the ever-living hell out of someone else, but I'll wind up getting so engrossed I basically skip meals. It's very difficult to try and label any of that with an objective quantifiable measure of "value".

But when people say "I want longer games", what they mean is that they want longer games where most of the extra time is fun, for them specifically . They're not looking to wish on the Monkey's Paw and get 15 extra hours but it's all boring filler (see also, why so many people hated Dragon Age: Inquisition). They're also not wishing for 20+ hours of non-optional card game minigame content forced in if they'd rather be fighting monsters or romancing sexy NPCs (especially if they hate card games in the first place).

Arguing whether any given game is "worth" whatever amount of $ is always going to be an incredibly subjective argument. But the ultimate answer will always be whether or not people are willing to pay.



adjl posted...

It's also worth noting that, in the context of this topic, I'd actually say $80 for 7 hours is a better purchase than $80 for 100 hours. If you only get half an hour to play a week, a 7-hour game will fill all of your free time for a little over three months, after which you'll have finished it.

Theoretically true, but you're ignoring the fact that if you're only playing for a fraction of the time, you're still going to feel like your money is being wasted if you're expected to pay the same amount as someone else who is playing 10x more than you are.

It's the equivalent of having a restaurant that serves you enough food for four people to eat for a full meal. It's not going to be economical for a single person to go to the restaurant and order the same meal for the same price but only eat 1/4 of it. You can say "Well, it's still worth the same to you because you're still just as full at the end!", but that customer is still going to feel like he's paying four times as much as what the meal is actually worth to him. Which will likely encourage him to seek out alternative options.



adjl posted...

That's a nice idea on paper, but the unfortunate reality is that development costs don't scale with game length as cleanly as that idea would require.

The problem there is that most development costs have also ballooned ridiculously out of proportion because developers use massive teams they don't need (and which often do very little to guarantee a quality product), and waste significant amounts of development time due to poor planning or mid-development pivots dictated by higher-up executives. It's not just that every dollar spent leads to producing a concomitant amount of increased value.

In essence, piss-poor business practices are passing the cost on to consumers, without justifying those additional costs in any way that actually benefits the consumer. The end result is that game development is slowly pricing itself out of viability. The only reason some of these studios still exist (as opposed to having gone bankrupt from losses years ago) is because they're owned by massive corporations that can eat the losses much more effectively than a smaller business that actually has to be fiscally responsible.

And none of that is helped by the state of the economy, because.luxury spending is almost always the first thing to go when times get tight. It's far easier to justify $100 per game (on top of much more to buy the latest console or PC upgrades) when you're flush with disposable income, but far less so when you're living paycheck to paycheck and barely making ends meet.

It doesn't really matter if the price of games today is "necessary" due to development costs and inflation, if people's perception of games is that they're not getting the same level of enjoyment or quality they got out of games that cost half the price 20 years ago. That's when people are far more inclined to simply not buy.

This is me. Steam keeps track of your play time across the last two weeks. Often times before I had a kid it was 20-40 hours because I played in my free time but also would pop something open on my laptop at work because I tend to have a fair amount of down time between emails and whatnot spread over the course of a day.

Now I work primarily from home and I have no free time and my gaps between emails are filled with child related things. I'm lucky if my 2 week play time hits 2 hours. Which is why I primarily now play cozy games or turn based Roguelites. Ain't got time for Fromsoft games no more. Certainly don't have the mental bandwidth to devote to overcoming extreme challenges any more. Got enough of that when I'm not playing games.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The entire appeal of the Steam Deck is mainly to give people who already game on PC an option to play their games portably. You're not going to get a ton of people who never play games on PC suddenly rushing out to buy the Steam Deck.

You aren't, but in terms of the games available, modern PC gaming is virtually identical to modern console gaming. There's very, very little difference between buying an Xbox and buying a bunch of Xbox games for it and buying a Steam Deck and buying a bunch of PC games for it, aside from having a couple extra hoops to jump through to put it on a TV (in exchange for having hassle-free portability). The bigger consideration is investment in an existing ecosystem

I know there are plenty of reasons why you're not a fan of the ways in which modern console gaming has become more like PCs (like the push for all-digital), but anything relating to the "kinds of games" that get released on PC reflects some largely outdated assumptions. The days of PC gaming being dominated by 300 APM RTSs and twitchy shooters are long gone. Those games do still exist, of course, but they exist alongside many of the same games that get released on consoles.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But when people say "I want longer games", what they mean is that they want longer games where most of the extra time is fun, for them specifically.

Oh, of course, but it rarely works out that way. If you intend to make a game of a given length because that's how long your core gameplay loop or story or interesting level design ideas or whatever will support, and you end up facing pressure to make it longer, you can't just magically make all of those things last longer. There is a "right length" for any given game, and the idea that longer games are better than shorter ones strongly promotes exceeding that right length.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Theoretically true, but you're ignoring the fact that if you're only playing for a fraction of the time, you're still going to feel like your money is being wasted if you're expected to pay the same amount as someone else who is playing 10x more than you are.

If you take a step back and look at the big picture, sure, but if you don't it's typically not such a big deal.

The thing is, the less free time you have, the more valuable that time is. That, in turn, makes spending more per unit to occupy it more palatable, especially if you're still spending less overall than you would have to occupy all of your free time when it was less limited. In this case, the more condensed experience is going to be more enjoyable on a per-session basis than one that's more drawn out where you spend every story development trying to think back to a cutscene you saw two years ago, which is going to make it feel more valuable on a per-session basis and justify spending more per hour of gameplay.

Now, in an ideal world, obviously you'd spend less on the 7-hour game than on the 100-hour game, helping that comparison along further, but even at the same price the comparison favours the one you're going to have more fun with, in terms of moment-to-moment enjoyability. It only becomes a problem when you look at the big picture with the specific intent of finding reasons to feel bad about it, so just don't do that.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem there is that most development costs have also ballooned ridiculously out of proportion because developers use massive teams they don't need (and which often do very little to guarantee a quality product), and waste significant amounts of development time due to poor planning or mid-development pivots dictated by higher-up executives. It's not just that every dollar spent leads to producing a concomitant amount of increased value.

It's true regardless of the AAA industry's poor business decisions. Making a 100-hour game is less than 5 times more expensive than making a similar 20-hour game. There are a lot of front-end design and planning tasks like characters, controls, and mechanics that have to happen for every game, but only happen once and tend to be roughly the same amount of work regardless of the game's length. While it does cost more to make a longer game because many other tasks do scale more linearly, that scaling isn't consistent enough for something like length-dependent pricing to become an actual thing.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And none of that is helped by the state of the economy, because.luxury spending is almost always the first thing to go when times get tight. It's far easier to justify $100 per game (on top of much more to buy the latest console or PC upgrades) when you're flush with disposable income, but far less so when you're living paycheck to paycheck and barely making ends meet.

Which is why I'm saying that "if I buy this game for $80, how long will I have before I have to spend another $80 on a new game?" is a salient consideration for many people. Hours per dollar may be a poor metric for evaluating a game's quality, but it is a crucial part of a game's practical value, which does matter.

Though, saying that, if value for money is the most important thing for somebody, they should just play Fortnite or some other free-to-play game and avoid spending money on it. The full price of games is also rarely a consideration for people in that situation, because it's so easy to wait for sales and get games for a tenth of what they'd otherwise cost. From the business side of things, creating the perception of value for money is still important because otherwise they risk losing sales, but on the consumer side the modern gaming industry is not lacking in opportunities for gamers on a budget to have a good time. They just might not be playing the latest AAA game at the same time as everyone else (which, speaking as somebody who plays very few AAA games that aren't from Nintendo, isn't the end of the world).

Mafia: The Old Country just released. It is relatively short (10 hours), very little filler and tightly focused on its storyline.

But most importantly it launched at a 50 dollar pricepoint to match this.

Right now I am still boycotting 2k but I think this is a very positive direction for game development to go in.

Personally, my expectation is that a $60 game should last 10 hours. Anything more than that is a bonus, anything less is disappointing unless it's got a lot of replay value. That's not an absolute rule, but it's good enough for me.

VioletZer0 posted...

Mafia: The Old Country just released. It is relatively short (10 hours), very little filler and tightly focused on its storyline.

But most importantly it launched at a 50 dollar pricepoint to match this.

Right now I am still boycotting 2k but I think this is a very positive direction for game development to go in.

That's overpriced if the game is that short.

eh, MGS games (and specifically revengeance) are really short and worth full price

I want at least 20-30 hours out of any full price game, but it's not a hard rule

People just got used to these empty ass open world games with little to no story. Ill take a solid 10 hour focused game over some empty wandering around for hours