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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Jimquisition: The Old 'How Long Should Games Be?' Debate

kitler53 on 23 February 2015
kowenicki said:
oh for pity sake... where has the embed gone?


broken like half the site's other features...



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TheGoldenBoy on 23 February 2015
Dadrik said:
TheGoldenBoy said:
I essentially agree with what he says. Developers should think about being more flexible with prices as well. Look at Nintendo for example, I highly doubt Captain Toad would have been the success it was commercially if the game was fully priced at $60. The $40 price tag really helped drive its success.

Also some people say short games are not worth $60, but the reverse argument is never made. Should a game, like Xenoblade Chronicles X for example, be priced more because it has more content than most games?


Good point. Making game prices more flexible can be an open door for money-grabbing companies/studios. 

I would say 60$ should be the limit for a game.

But as for The Order 1886, it is short, doesn't have a lot of replay value, but there's obviously a lot of work on the story, the characters (well, especially Galahad), the musics, the lore, and the engine. So can we really say they (Sony) should have made the price lower ? I'm not sure.

Well we'll find that out during NPD or when VGC releases weekly numbers. If it does well commercially, which many think it did, then they were fine to price it at $60.



Kerotan on 23 February 2015

I'll watch it now but personally the order cost be €40 because I bought on the US store. 12 hours for first play through and I'll get another 8 out of it at least. That's 2 euro per hour. Worth it for me but I was in Gamestop today and the order is priced at 75 fucking euro. For a less than 10 hour single player only game that's a lot of money. Glad I did it the digital way or else id be trading it in to get good value.



t3mporary_126 on 23 February 2015

Haven't watched the video yet but I think if a game can entertain you for an hour for each dollar (I'm from US) you spent on it than that is a perfect value. Seeing how most home console games are 60$ USD dollars, the goal would be around 60 hours then.



Torillian on 23 February 2015

It would definitely be interesting to see some AAA games with lowered price ranges. These days I'vev only really seen lower budget titles get a price lower than 60 like smaller JRPGs (Atelier, Disgaea) and medium budget first party titles (Puppeteer, Toad's Treasure). These prices are based on what the company put into the development instead of necessarily what they feel the customer is getting out of the purchase, but it would be interesting to see a high budget title at a lowered price and how well it can do or if the stigma of being the price of what is at the moment considered the realm of lower budget games would be an issue.



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danasider on 23 February 2015

Just watched this video and I totally agree. Some of my favorite games are short (Ico is probably my all time favorite), but it would be nice if pricing varied in the same manner that length did. Ico didn't bother me so much, because at the time games were $50 and it was so good. However, I did want more to do when it was all done. $30 or $40 might have left me a better sense of satisfaction.



Euphoria14 on 23 February 2015

Great video, especially how he ended it off.



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Goodnightmoon on 23 February 2015

Off topic: Why is this man so awesome??

Off Topic 2 : Grow Home is a wonderfull game that you should buy NOW (if you have a PC...)

OT: He´s right.



Normchacho on 23 February 2015

Two things here.

1. As others have said, however long the dev thinks the game needs to be. You don't like it? Don't buy it.

2. Since when is $60 too much to spend on a game? $60 has been the standard price for a new game since 2006 and PS2 games were $50 as far back as 2000. That's amazing considering how much more expensive it is to make games. Quite frankly it's a miracle games didn't jump to $70 this gen.



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TheGoldenBoy on 23 February 2015
shikamaru317 said:

It's very subjective. They spoke about this on the latest Co-optional Podcast, everybody has their limit. For some people it's $3 per hour of content, for some it's $2 per hour of content, and for others it's $1 per hour of content. Personally it's 1:1 for me, I feel like a game should have at least an hour of content per dollar, though depending on the game that can come from singleplayer alone or singleplayer + multiplayer, and I also factor in rather or not I think I'll replay a game's singleplayer at some point. I have a tight gaming budget and I want to feel like I'm getting my money's worth. Some would argue that I'm taking a quantity of quality approach, but there are plenty of long games that are also very good, so that argument kind of falls on it's face. Fortunately most games are long enough for them to have an hour of content per dollar after they go on sale, so if a game doesn't have that 1:1 ratio at release I usually get it on sale or rent it and still feel like I'm getting my money's worth. 

So should games that are longer than 60 hours (greater than 1:1 ratio) be priced more because they have more content? Something like Skyrim for example?