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

mornelithe on 23 February 2015
sterner said:
The problem with video game industry is even if PS4 sells as PS2, it's still scraps compared to audience that movies and tv series get. So the record breaking revenue of GTA V which sells for 60$ is merely about a single summer blockbuster box-office, and there is 10 of them each year.

And then the relatively big investment required to get into video games creates "gamers", who think that video games is some kind of lifestyle and vocally object to anything that breaks the order of things as they see it.

I actually think now it would be better for industry is Sony/MS concentrated on bringing down prices for PS3/X360 to 100$, giving games the availability of cable tv instead of making "nextgen". From that point it would be possible to experiment with lower game prices, digital-only, etc. Instead we got Call of Duty in full HD and 5 more years of listening how hard and unforgiving the AAA landscape become, before the streaming kicks in.

Uh, no.  The record breaking revenue of GTA V, is only matched, movie wise, by the 5 year gross of Dances with Wolves 2 Avatar (2.7 billion), versus GTAV's ~2.5 billion in roughly a year and a half, without PC sales.  It took 34 weeks for Avatar to reach 749 mil gross, it took 1 day, for GTAV (On PS3/360 alone), to top that (roughly 960m gross, day 1).  The 2nd place movie (Titanic), is pretty far behind at 2.1 billion.



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OnlyForDisplay on 23 February 2015

Its up to devs towards how much time they want to implement. The key is how that time is used to engage and entertain the player. Whether or not a game is short or long dictates its success. Even by the series standards, Into the Nexus was a very enjoyable game.



" It has never been about acknowledgement when you achieve something. When you are acknowledged, then and only then can you achieve something. Always have your friends first to achieve your goals later." - OnlyForDisplay

Normchacho on 23 February 2015
sundin13 said:
Normchacho said:
Wait? Do people actually think about the $/HR ratio when debating an entertainment purchase? Like...will you avoid a game/movie if it doesn't meet a certain ratio?


To a point, yes. I don't buy a ton of games, because I am a broke grad student, so when I do, I want that game to last. I'm not going to buy a game like The Order, because it will only last me a few hours and I'll be done with it and I'll be left staring at my wallet thinking "can i really afford to buy another game?". On the other hand, I see a game like Monster Hunter 4. Monster Hunter tri got me almost 200 hours and 4 is much bigger. So for 40$, I am looking at a game I will likely play for over 200 hours and love every second of, vs a $60 game I will get maybe 10 hours out of. I think it would be silly of me to ignore the differential values of the two games.

However, thats not to say I am willing to miss a great experience due to length. If a game is truly great, I will play it, I just wont buy it at full price. I will wait for a  sale or I will wait a few years until the price is low before playing the game.

I understand that there is always a value side to buying a product, but I'm talking about the hard ratios that people are throwing around in this thread. Does anybody really sit down and do the math on what they will be getting as far as hr/$? That just seems odd to me...



Bet with Adamblaziken:

I bet that on launch the Nintendo Switch will have no built in in-game voice chat. He bets that it will. The winner gets six months of avatar control over the other user.

HigHurtenflurst on 23 February 2015

Depends on the game. Some games feel too long even though they can be completed in under 10 hours, some games feel short even when it takes 30+ hours.
Other times I don't notice how long it takes but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game... Mirror's Edge I think I beat first time in under 7 hours, but it seemed about right to me and it is a game I like to play through multiple times.



sundin13 on 23 February 2015
Normchacho said:
sundin13 said:


To a point, yes. I don't buy a ton of games, because I am a broke grad student, so when I do, I want that game to last. I'm not going to buy a game like The Order, because it will only last me a few hours and I'll be done with it and I'll be left staring at my wallet thinking "can i really afford to buy another game?". On the other hand, I see a game like Monster Hunter 4. Monster Hunter tri got me almost 200 hours and 4 is much bigger. So for 40$, I am looking at a game I will likely play for over 200 hours and love every second of, vs a $60 game I will get maybe 10 hours out of. I think it would be silly of me to ignore the differential values of the two games.

However, thats not to say I am willing to miss a great experience due to length. If a game is truly great, I will play it, I just wont buy it at full price. I will wait for a  sale or I will wait a few years until the price is low before playing the game.

I understand that there is always a value side to buying a product, but I'm talking about the hard ratios that people are throwing around in this thread. Does anybody really sit down and do the math on what they will be getting as far as hr/$? That just seems odd to me...

...its not like its hard math. You should be able to figure out the ratio in less that 5seconds in your head if you know the length and the price



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HigHurtenflurst on 23 February 2015
Normchacho said:
sundin13 said:


To a point, yes. I don't buy a ton of games, because I am a broke grad student, so when I do, I want that game to last. I'm not going to buy a game like The Order, because it will only last me a few hours and I'll be done with it and I'll be left staring at my wallet thinking "can i really afford to buy another game?". On the other hand, I see a game like Monster Hunter 4. Monster Hunter tri got me almost 200 hours and 4 is much bigger. So for 40$, I am looking at a game I will likely play for over 200 hours and love every second of, vs a $60 game I will get maybe 10 hours out of. I think it would be silly of me to ignore the differential values of the two games.

However, thats not to say I am willing to miss a great experience due to length. If a game is truly great, I will play it, I just wont buy it at full price. I will wait for a  sale or I will wait a few years until the price is low before playing the game.

I understand that there is always a value side to buying a product, but I'm talking about the hard ratios that people are throwing around in this thread. Does anybody really sit down and do the math on what they will be getting as far as hr/$? That just seems odd to me...

I have "done the math" on some of my game purchases, but only because I am a statistics whore (it's why I am on this website) and it's only on games I have already bought and played to death, and just out of interest to see how long I play and such. (Also I can't do a h/$ on many games because I can't recall what I paid for them)

I don't work out an h/$ ratio before I buy a game... for a start a 6-7 hour game that I can enjoy multiple times is still better entertainment value to me than something I enjoy less and have to grind at.

That said, if I suspect a 1 player story based game will take a short time, and has no guarantee of being replayable, I am less likely to pay full price for it than something like a strategy sim which I can easily get 100s of hours from.



Augen on 23 February 2015
shikamaru317 said:
TheGoldenBoy said:

True. Gamers, not all obviously, are an entitled bunch. 

Yeah, just look at how much resistance gamers have put up to the idea of the standard price for new games increasing from $60 to $70, the price has been at $60 for probably a decade now, meanwhile inflation has raised the price of nearly everything else significantly during that time. Developers and publishers have found their way around that block though, in the form of expensive DLC. 


New games have been roughly $50-$60 for thirty years. 

The challenge for games is they are entertainment and technology.  Technology has become insane cheaper in that time.  Your $500 phone can do 1000x more than a $5000 computer could in 1985.  People get spoiled that stuff comes down in price due to technological advancements.  However, entertainment has increased in cost in that time. I know going to concerts use to be $10, now lucky to get in a show for sub $30.

The odd industry that splits this is film.  Home video has dropped massively in price from $100 to $20 and that is going from VHS to Blu Ray over that 30 odd years.  Meanwhile shows at Cinemas have climbed from $3 to $10 in that time.



Normchacho on 23 February 2015
sundin13 said:
Normchacho said:

I understand that there is always a value side to buying a product, but I'm talking about the hard ratios that people are throwing around in this thread. Does anybody really sit down and do the math on what they will be getting as far as hr/$? That just seems odd to me...

...its not like its hard math. You should be able to figure out the ratio in less that 5seconds in your head if you know the length and the price

I'm saying hard like rigid, not hard like difficult and why would you do it anyways? Is somebody going to go "aww damn, this game will probably cost me $1.15/hr, better find something else." If you were deciding between a game like The Order and a game like Bloodborne, it should be a wide enough gap that you'd never need to bother with the math, and if it's close enough that you need to do the math, does the value difference really merit any thought?



Bet with Adamblaziken:

I bet that on launch the Nintendo Switch will have no built in in-game voice chat. He bets that it will. The winner gets six months of avatar control over the other user.

Frogger on 23 February 2015

Wait, so when I've been saying the same thing here for years, I'm crazy? It aways degenerated into an irrelevant debate on quality over quantity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.

Needless to say, I've never agreed with anything he's said more.



sundin13 on 23 February 2015
Normchacho said:
sundin13 said:

...its not like its hard math. You should be able to figure out the ratio in less that 5seconds in your head if you know the length and the price

I'm saying hard like rigid, not hard like difficult and why would you do it anyways? Is somebody going to go "aww damn, this game will probably cost me $1.15/hr, better find something else." If you were deciding between a game like The Order and a game like Bloodborne, it should be a wide enough gap that you'd never need to bother with the math, and if it's close enough that you need to do the math, does the value difference really merit any thought?


True...I guess its more of something that is done out of curiosity and as a rough guideline as opposed to something more rigid. Still, I will look up how long a game is and use that to determine if I'm willing to pay the cost of entry by doing the math in my head (as something that just happens...like I said, its really easy math, I barely think about it and I have the ratio).

As for when games are really close together, no it doesn't really matter. Its more of a tier thing, where games between a set of values are worth a certain amount of money to me, but as with every discussion involving length, length isn't the only factor to take into consideration.