Kresnik said:
For example: I bought Portal 2 at full price. And loved it, it was a really good game. But the single-player campaign took me about 7 hours, and the co-op mode took me and a friend about 3 hours. That was the whole game, completed in 3 sittings, and there was no incentive for me to go back and replay since the game is puzzle-based and I knew how to solve all the puzzles. I felt slightly ripped off. The perputual testing initiative thing (level editor) added plenty of reason to come back but that was only added a couple of months ago. Had I waited for the game to drop to ~£15 (or less than that, in Steam sales) I'd still have gotten the fantastic game I got, but at a much more reasonable price. So how much content does an experience have to offer you to be worth £40? Is it a case of quality over everything else, or is there a certain amount of quantity you expect? |
Really? Your poll only inquires about different types of features, only marginally implying its length. A game with short single player and some online functionality might entertain me just as long as a single player game with lengthy campaign. As long as any combination of these things produce engough content to warrant its price I'm fine with that.
Maybe I should've mentioned that it takes into account the amount of money I spent versus the amount of time that I get. A very tangible comparison that I always do is, after I finish the game and know how much time I spent on it, I estimate how much money I would have spent if I were doing something else for the same amount of time, like going to the pub or watching movies. If the game comes out as the more efficient option, then I'm satisfied.
Let's take a 60€ euro game for example. If i would go to the movies with that budget, assuming each movie lasts for 2 hours costing 7€ a ticket, the price/hour ratio is at 3.50€/h. Thus, with that budget I can expect to be entertained for about 17 hours and if a 60€ game doesn't last that long I feel that I didn't get my money's worth. Not many games last that long, which is why I never buy games at that price range. Plus, the whole 60$=60€ thing is beyond retarded. They should use proper currency exchange rates such that new releases are valued exactly the same as in the US market, which would be at 48€ (hooray for UK Amazon). With the adjusted budget, going to the movies would entertain me for roughly 13.5 hours which is a more reasonable expectation to have from a game.
While I do have expectations regarding the quantity of a game, given its price, I don't differentiate between the different kinds of things that a game can contain in order to achieve that, be it campaigns, multiplayer, coop, level editors or anything else. I know that the developers cringe at this mentality. They want the quality to outshine the quantity aspect of the game, but I see that as an excuse to be lazy, allowing them to maker shorter and shorter games, until we all have to pay 100$ so that we can play the newest 'You have to cut the rope'.
