I recently made a "copycat thread" about characters and dollar value that almighty Trucks wasn't happy about so here is an actual discussion thread about the subject.
Before all the moans and groans about beating a dead horse, let's just sit and talk about what makes a game valuable.
Amount of play hours has been brought up before but there are a lot of detractors to that line of argument.
For example:
1. JRPGs should then be number 1 in terms of value because most if not all have up to hundreds of hours of playtime.
2. Many classic games have short play times by today's standards.
3. Some shorter games are rated more highly than longer games.
So, what aspects of a game make it longer? Most people would say the amount of things you can do, or the scope and size of the game. But this isn't particularly true with all games. GTA is a huge game, yes, and there are tons of things to do but then what about games like angry birds? Or temple runner, or Dota, or Hearthstone? These games are all very limited in scope, but people can't stop playing them and some people spend hundreds of dollars on these games.
Is it the multiplayer aspect? Well, multiplayer games do have an insane amount of replayability. Some of the most played games are multiplayer. Unfortunately, much to the chagrin of many gamers and developers, single player games tend to do really well too. It's not simple that what makes a good game is the multiplayer. Just look at MGS4 with its bundled MGO. Of course, sometimes you can take a single player game, like uncharted 2, and adding multiplayer greatly increases the value of the game. Does that mean uncharted 2 wouldn't be worth a purchase on its own? It's a tough question to answer. My guess would be, 'probably'.
Is it the number of individual characters? Is it the number of weapons? Is it how many levels? Colors? Resolution? Alternate endings?
It's a really hard question to answer, because for everyone value is rated differently based on their personal tastes.
For you, what makes a game valuable?
