@ XBOXSOLDIER12

BUllshit, there's something called dvd9 and blu-ray which lets games last easily more than 20 hours look at oblivion.

This whole idea about how games are getting shorter is pretty funny to me. I'm sure some of you used to play games a while back when every game was max like 5 hours on consoles, where you had to play through the whole game in one go.

To say that this is a new trend developing because of new consoles and how much games cost is to ignore most games in the past. The majority of games are pretty short, people somehow tend to ignore that and continue with this whole 'graphics are killing my games' nonsense...

Is that why many rpgs on the 360 are coming out in about 2 years of development time?  Like say... The Last Remnant?  A lot of games on the 360 have the advantage of online play, you know that thing that lengthens games to hundreds of hours of playtime.

There's also always a learning curve with new technology.  Take a look at Project Gotham Racing series.  The first one was in development for awhile, the second have been in development for probably half the time and looks significantly better with more tracks, etc.  As companies get a handle on the technology their development time will lessen.  Mass Effect is the first part of a planned trilogy, I'm willing to bet they have the next one out in 2 years (they have said they expect all 3 to be on the 360).

Also new engines and improvements to them and development tools help speed up the process tremendously.

Gballzack, you are really bad at concealing your identity in these new usernames. If you keep saying the same things over and over again with each new user name, it's a dead giveaway, not to mention when your new account starts just when the last banned one ended.

Seriously, don't you have anything better to do with your time?

I expect the next username to be PS3 soldier or something in an ill-fated juvenile attempt at hiding who you are. Move on...

I agree. The shortness of this game is a consequence of genre, not developmental costs. Obvlion is an excellent high-end, big game that is clearly larger than it's not-so-graphically-impressive predecessors. Long games can be done, even without breaking the bank.

 I don't think he's talking about how much data can be packed on the disc, I think he's talking about all the labour and computer processing it takes to make all those shiney, hi-res graphics. If you pretend that each video game is a computer rendered motion picture, it's obvious that it would take more time to make an hour of PS3-quality movie than it would to make an hour of Wii movie, what with the huge resolution and detailed textures of the PS3 platform. He's saying the cost, in both time and money, of developing a 20 hour plus game could get very prohibitive.

 Really, it mostly depends on how it's done. If you recycle a lot of the same textures and levels in the gameplay, or otherwise extend how much time people spend on one chunk of content, you get more game time out of your media. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how skilled the developer is, and the subjective opinion of the player. For example, I love Metroid Prime, but some people find backtracking through levels they've already been through tedious.

I agree with you and Xbox Soldier 12.  I think RPGS (Oblivion) are a different story, but adventure and action games are likely to be signifficantly longer on the Wii (especailly than the 360).  Wii games take signifficantly less labor for the return, and they don't use up mind boggling amounts of disc space for 1080p graphics.  So a Wii game that already has more disc space available for game content than a 360 game (7GB available for game content on 360, 8.5GB available on Wii) is obviously going to be signifficantly larger content wise.  For the PS3, it has more disc space but again it's taken up by 1080p rendering.  Add to that the amount of development time necessary to make a game of any real length on the PS3 and I'm sure most of it's games will be shorter than most Wii games of similar genre.

Please, Legend, he was far from trolling. He complemented Heavenly Sword, and then others attacked him for it. Obviously, he did not know that God of War took 12 hours to complete for the average player (nor did I? Where did you get such information?). For example, I beat Obivion in well under 40 hours, with pretty much everything complete; I didn't think "Wow I'm awesome," I just assumed that was about the amount of time it took everyone to complete the game. How would I know differently?

The Twilight Princess example was used to show that Rol can complete games quickly. When someone said that God of War was longer than Rol suggested, he used TP as evidence to show that he may be faster than average.

I really don't see what the problem is here, Legend :/

Bodhesatva,

Your bias blinds you.  I think we all know that you love the Wii and PC so much that whenever you bash the PS3 and Xbox360 and I bring up a point that I know is valid you simply can't see or accept it.  For example when you were bashing violent videogames and I brought up Unreal Tournament 3 because I knew you were eagerly anticipated it, I knew you would find some excuse to well excuse it from the bashing, and it came as no surprise to me when you did by claiming Unreal Tournament 3 wasn't violent.  I mean who are we kidding here?  You honestly can't see how the claim that God of War is half the length of another 12-15 hour game is ridiculous?  Look I'll be honest, I've given up on expecting you to be fair and balanced when it comes to the consoles, so I'll stop wasting my time debating with you with this post.

Some people may think I'm an Xbot or whatever but when it comes to games I treat each system's games fairly, that's the difference between me and many of the actual trolls that are on this board.  I'd never see an rpg that claims to be 50 hours in length and say something obviously biased like "Wow, that's twice as long as Zelda Twilight Princess.".  Anyways it's probably good that people like Rolstoppable does make outrageous complaints because it makes it much easier to single out the people who's opinions we can't trust.

When "Hey, Heavenly Sword is significantly longer than God of War, that's good!" becomes rampant Nintendo bias, let me know.