PieToast on 28 February 2015
Super Bunnyhop discusses the game design and experience of short games, old and new. However, they never played The Order: 1886 even though the video was inspired by the controversies surrounding it, and only talked about it for less than a minute. The video is broken down into three topics:
1. Replayability
2. Pacing
3. Experimentation
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Jim Sterling also made a video that became a popular topic here. He argued that critics shouldn't judge and decide whether the game is worth it or not but let the consumer decide if the length was acceptable. However, he talked more about price, reviewers and the market than game design imo. There are, I think, many ideas and perspectives to consider when discussing game length outside of just one game.
Some interesting (maybe a little trimmed) quotes that summarise a few points but I still recommend watching them video:
"...You know the kind. The kind that comprises gameplay with low framerates and long cutscenes... But that's not new. It has been business as usual since the advent of the CD ROM... These games are just decades old"
"remember Portal? That game was about three hours, and it was the only game in recent memory that I remember was praised for being short. It's an intriguing funny story that begins and ends before the player forgets what's going on"
"shorter games allow developers to trim off repetition and fillers. Resulting in games with tighter design, more visually polished areas and a higher verity of experiences coming to players faster. Optimizing their effort over a small amount of content also means the developers can make short games more polished and more thoroughly playtested to make sure everything is working as intended, and even then, if something doesn't work, it's not gonna over stay it's welcome"
"if there isn't much time to risk then shorter games are gonna be able to get away with compromises longer games can't"
"...amnesia did that stuff for 5 to 8 hours at 20$, but when Alien Isolation decided to stretch that kind of gameplay up to 18 hours and charge 60$ reviewer panned for being too drawn out."
"AAA still has problems in charging less money for less time."
"the value of games length is going to change depending on who you ask and what their playing. The same reason people argue about game length is the same reason people argue about review scores..."
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