So, Ground Zeroes is out and has been played now... and sadly completed by everyone who's got it. It's been out for a total of 32 hours here in UK but that's easily long enough to have completed it multiple times over. So what do we have in the game in total. Well, my cousin is an avid game collector so has bought it already but as it's so short I know of 4 people who've played and completed his copy already, in under 24 hours.

The game itself is about 60-90 mins long. The longest play through was 138 mins, the shortest was 49 mins, the other two came in at 92 mins, and 87 mins. This was four people who've not previously played the game. The added missions that are supposed to add to gameplay really don't, and I'm sure you could buy this with some friends, split the cost enough that it comes to £5 or less each; play through it twice each and return it for trade in, all within a single weekend. I honestly won't be shocked if there's a special edition of Phantom Pain released with this included.

So, is it good. Yeah, it's awesome. The game is a genuinely polished and fantastic experience. I'm really looking forward to playing the second level of Phantom Pain now... pity we don't have that yet. If you buy this you're a mug; plain and simple. I personally like short games, I'm of the opinion that short games, about 3-5 hours long, would be a welcome addition to the gaming market. We could release them at a little under half the standard retail price, so $20-25 in USA, £10-15 here in UK.... The price of Ground Zeroes, £29.99, that's fucking sick. To put that in perspective, UK gamers where charged FIFTY US DOLLARS!!! to play Ground Zeroes, that's more than $1 for every minute of gameplay if you're my cousin Lee who finished in 49 mins. Hell, the digital price of $20 in USA actually seems REASONABLE to me, and that's a scary thing to say.

So, the big question here is. Is this going to become a trend? Will this set the scene and before we know what's happening, every game had full retail disc prologues and expansions. Hell, this is something that's worked in the past; Grand Theft Auto: Episodes Of Liberty City for example was effectively a stand alone game made out of DLC packs, the difference being each of the two DLC packs was 8-12 hours long putting the entire content at around 20 hours long or more... that's longer than some main retain releases. So, in that case, it's entirely justified. With Ground Zeroes, here we have barely 2 hours of gameplay (and that's being generous), at a £5 more than Episode OLC initially released at.

If this does become a trend, I expect to see many franchises take this model and run with it. They'll create a main game for release at £50 containing aprox. 8-10 hours of gameplay with a pre-order bonus level that adds maybe 30 mins of content but costs an extra £5 as DLC day one. There will be a "collectors edition" with a stupid plastic doll no-one wants, a soundtrack no-one listens to, and an artbook no-one looks at... that'll cost £80+ but it'll have extra exlusive game content which adds about 1 hour to the game naturally. Now add on that they can create a prologue for release at £30 containing a mere 2-4 hours of gameplay, and create three lots of DLC (or more); each about 1-2 hours long at £10 a pop which they can re-release as a seperate retail disc for £30, oh and don't forget online multiplayer will have some additional DLC in the form of maps for "deathmatch", even in games that aren't FPSs and that have fuck all to do with Call Of Duty, and pointless skins and avatars for £0.49 here and there... If we're really unlucky we'll get in game microtransactions for added weapons, armour, characters, or anything else they can charge us for. Effectively before we know what's going on every video game, if we want the full experience, will soon be running us £150-200 and this is something that scares me.

What do people think? Is this a trend we're likely to see exploited? Games cut up into chunks so we can buy the Prologue, Main Game, Epilogue, DLC Pack 1, DLC Pack 2, and DLC Pack 3; all individually priced in an attempt to cover up the fact that they're more than doubling the price. I'd like to hear peoples opinions.

We have seen it with the GT prologue games.. And when people still buy it at that price... Good for the publisher..
We'll probably see more episode games in the future with a season pass like the telltale games.. Its better for a developer to spread out the risk in this difficult times for gaming with developers and publishers not making enough money.

As long as they eventually release a full version of the game for normal price then I don't see much wrong with it.

There are very few franchises that can get away with such shoddy practices and mgs is one of them. I am not condoning the practice, but I don't see it catching on tbh

That may be so, but I genuinely don't care what's good for the developers and publishers... I'm old fashioned when it comes to entertainment and I genuinely believe that consumers come first and what's good for the consumer is all that matters. If the developers and publishers want to make money, make a good product that I want to buy and I will buy it. There's a prime example here... Minecraft.

Minecraft is a perfect example of a game like this because it's a great game with small but focused development. It's on PC so suffers with ease of piracy, so much so that I pirated the game myself. The game impressed me though, and I bought it. In fact I bought it during beta, so I even got it at a reduced price. I took part in the community discussions on the forums and saw the feedback put into effect. I recommended the game to friends and family. Six people are now playing this game, having paid for it, because of my recommendations; including my 51 year old mother who loves it. We've bought merchandice including little plushes, mugs, and a bag from websites like ThinkGeek, all under licence so supporting the developer.

This is how games work. You make a good game and people will pay for it.

I've not pirated a game in well over 2 years now. I never feel the need any more because games are so cheap on PS3 and Steam that I can literally get 20-40 hour experiences for under £5. I've so many games I can't begin to tackle my backlog. That said the last three games I pirated; Minecraft, Dragon Age: Origin, and Plants Vs. Zombies, where all games I ended up buying in the end... the last two I've double dipped on.

My belief is that publishers and developers trying to squeeze so much money out of people is only going to push them away.

Here's a list of games from Amazon:

Batman: Arkham Asylum, Splatterhouse, InFamous, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Saints Row: The Third, Grand Theft Auto IV, Kane & Lynch 2, Lolipop Chainsaw, Darksiders, Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Brutal Legend, Sleeping Dogs, Uncharted 1, 2 and 3, Vanquish, Need For Speed: Hot Persuit, Fallout 3...

These are all on Amazon, Play.com or available though eBay buy it now stores for less than £10. Most of them are around £6-7 now. That means you could have all 20 of these games for around £150. If I can have all of these experiences for that low a price, why would I pay the same in peicemeal for one game; including all it's DLC, added content, prologue disc and more... hell, even if we only pick 10 of those games, that's still about £80, the current price for the collectors edition of InFamous: Second Son. So why are we paying so much for new games. Surely you can find a few games in the list above you've not played.

My point is; it's not our job to support developers and publishers. It's their job to create compelling entertainment that makes us want to spend money. Now, I really want to get a PS4 and InFamous Second Son. I've seen the first hour on a let's play and it look genuinely great, but when I can get so many games on my PS3 for the price of a single game on PS4, and I've not even considered what the price of the new console is worth... I simply can't justify it. Ground Zeroes is the same; for the same price I could pick 4 games from the list above and have change left over.

This move by the industry will only serve to harm it as people collectively decide it's simply not worth handing over their hard earned money.

The universal gripe is that the game is short, i do not, however, hear anyone complaining that the game is "bad". as such they made a good product and plenty of people are buying it regardless of the length.

While i do agree with the general opinion that it is too short, I do not agree that it sets a dangerous precedent, with the sheer number of rental services, online and social infrastructure we now have, theres no excuse, at all, to make an uninformed purchase, with the fanfare surrounding its length, plenty knowing that fully went ahead and bought it anyway.

and there in lies the important fact, its an OPTION to buy the game or not, it is simply a "heres something to tide you over until the main games finished" much like prologue, much like the only-included-with-advent-children FFXIII demo for Ps3, much like many other games before it, none of those set a precedent so i fail to see why zeroes is singled out.

As for game length, thats entirely down to the type of player, those who just steam through a game skipping cutscenes, story and tutorials will finish ANY game faster than those that maticulously search and explore every scrap the game has to offer, you even have speed runners completing games not intended to be finished in under an hour, doing just that.

When i reviewed Need For Speed Most Wanted for Ps3 (criterion remake), I actually made a bet with the developer that i could not only complete the game, but platinum it in a single sitting - I did just that, achieving that goal in just under 7 hours - The core game however was completed much, much sooner, most other people however would have spent a lot more time on the game than that, providing they enjoyed it.

So yes, Zeroes is a somewhat shockingly short game, but it's priced as such, regardless of how that price came to be.

All that i get from your words is that you are a cheap gamer buying games not new but after a while when the dropped in price.. The good news for you.. Ground zeroes will drop in price in a few months.. Plently of people will buy this game new and see the value of it.. That you don't see it is more your own problem and looking at your buying habits you are fine to wait a few months to play a game which is great for you.

Sadly a lot of people seems to do that cause there are a lot of good games out there which people don't buy. Thats how games work nowdays. The industry is pumping out too many great games then that there are gamers actually buying them. So publishers and developers need to find a way to cover the costs better.. If dlc, prologues or episodes are the way to go I support that..

A lot of those games costs millions to make and when they are cheap new they'll never make their money back cause frankly there aren't enough gamers to buy them. Thats why new is at a high price.. minecraft is an exception rather the a rule cause no game has imitated the succes of it..

It was tolerable with GT though because you still get enough tracks and cars to provide hours and hours of entertainment, yet didn't give so much that people weren't compelled to skip to full version. It was a good balance, helped by racing games inherently high replayability. Whereas with single player, linear games like MSGV it doesn't work because there isn't much replayability in the game, so you're left playing ~$40 (in Oz) for 2 hours of play, versus the average full size game that provides 10-12 hours of play for $80. Its just really poor value.

I get developers trying to derisk a game by getting early return on investment to help fund the remainder of the game (GT5P made enough money to basically fund all of GT5), but IMO MSGV gives too little for the price.   I don't have a problem with prologue or episodal games, but MSGV  is just a bad implementation. 

I admit, I'm a very price-concious gamer but then I have to be. Living as a disabled man with a small fixed income, I have no way to earn any additional money, a credit rating which is practically on the floor, and no real buying power for store cards or overdrafts etc. My disposable income is such that if I bought new games on release I could afford maybe 5 games per year. I put aside £40 for gaming per month, that's all, (less than the release price of a single game now). However I frequently find I can get 3-5 games for that if I shop smart and I'm not hurting for systems. I prefer to buy new and if I can get a game for less than £20 I will usually buy new if only to support the games I want to see more of. However I tend to find I buy used more often than new. The exception being Nintendo games. Wii U games don't drop in price very quickly, however I've bought many brand new for £10-15 including Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Darksiders 2 and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. The 3DS is more problematic, with most of my games for it being gifts. I refuse to buy DS or 3DS games used as they're so easily faked and I've had fake DS games in the past. Now, if it's not sealed I don't buy which makes it the most expensive system I own.

As for the rest of your post. Fair enough, if you support that move for the industry that's fine. I don't and I think it'll mark a major backfall for the industry as consumers lose faith in their products. If anything I'd even argue it's already happening. My question to you is, are you supporting this path because it's good for you and let's you enjoy your games more, or reluctantly making a compromise because you're afraid that not supporting it is contributing to the death of developers you're attached to?

I don't think anywhere is selling the game for £29.99 in the UK. I bought it for little over £20 and even on PSN it was £24.99