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The Myth of the 40 Hour Game
Over at Wired, Clive Thompson talks about the myth of the 40 hour game, the typical length of time listed on the side of a game box nowadays. Mr. Thompsons discusses the ways in which that estimate fails to jive with reality. From the article: "This game offers about 40 hours of play. This is precisely what I was told by Eidos — and countless game reviewers — when I picked up Tomb Raider: Legend earlier this year. As I gushed at the time, Legend was the first genuinely superb Lara Croft game in years... I was hooked — and eager to finish the game and solve the mystery. So I shoved it into my PS2, dual-wielded the pistols and began playing... until about four weeks later, when I finally threw in the towel. Why? Because I couldn't get anywhere near the end. I plugged away at the game whenever I could squeeze an hour away from my day job and my family. All told, I spent far more than 40 hours — but still only got two-thirds through."
Man, I really wish their game wasn't as good as it is. And to think they gave me *more* game than they advertised! Oh, what false advertising is this?
I demand my crappy games back that I beat in a week.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
A good rule of thumb is that when a PC game is touted as having 40 hours of gameplay, you can expect about 16; when a console game touts 40 hours of gameplay, you can expect 200. That's just the way it is, and has always been in my experience.
Maybe the estimate is based on a average skill level, and you just don't make the cut.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
I've come to the conclusion that "40 hours of gameplay" refers to being able to complete the game in 40 hours if you know exactly what to do and make no mistakes. If you have to solve a puzzle or replay a part of the game repeatedly, that adds onto the "40 hours" listed on the box.
Actually, I was expecting him to indicate the other way. When I bought Prey a couple months ago, I was expecting 5-6 hours single player, got 7.5 and was happy.
It's been a long, long time since I've seen a game, especially in my preferred genre (FPS) that carries anywhere near the playtime promised.
So, isn't this more of a problem that the estimates are just totally wonky across the board, and vary wildly between genres and the players playing the games, and not a singular "40 hour myth?"
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Quoting "time to complete" on a game is nonsense, and always has been. Time to complete for a 12 year old kid? for a thirty year old guy? for someone whose crap at FPS games? for which level of difficulty?
I play games because i want to immerse myself in another world, and play with some interesting stuff. Its not a race. I dont keep a clock going as I play (although oblivion does that for me for some reason).
Whats important is FUN, nothing else. People can't easily define fun, so they try to come up with other metrics.
how many unique units does it have?
How long is it to complete?
How many DVDs does it come on.
I had someone complain about one of my games once because it was "only 23 MB". Apparnatly they didnt want a "good" game, a "fun" game or an "original game" or even a "game with depth", they just wanted one with a bigger filesize. I played Elite for most of my childhood. it was 48k. Was I ripped off?
whats the time to complete for Chess anyway? I'm still working on that one.
One day maybe game reviewers and publishers will shut up about how much bump mapping the game has, shut up about what hollywood actor did the voiceover, shut up about how long they *think* it takes to complete it, and just sell their game on the basis of it being a GOOD game.
King Kong is a long movie. Its also shit (in my opinion, YMMV). Applying the metric to books and movies is clearly nonsense, so why apply it to games?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
As a former EB Games employee, I remember being frustrated at the large number of customers who would purchase the strategy guide along with the game at release, and then have the nerve to complain that the game was "too short". It's since been my opinion that the growing strategy guide market has encouraged developers to use "cheap" methods to increase the average gameplay time.
Games were much more satisfying before the popularity explosion of guides and cheats =/
I have the same deal the article author does: too many games, not enough time, never finish anything. I don't see what the problem is, though. Knowing that there is more to do in a game, if I ever had time to do it, doesn't make me enjoy playing it any less. If I was really obsessed with completionism, I'd buy fewer games, but I've never felt a strong need to get every medal or unlock everything or whatever. I just enjoy the game until I'm not enjoying it anymore, and then I switch to something else.
Of course, these days I have money for games but not enough time to play everything as much as I'd like. In my college days, I had plenty of time but no money, so I played fewer games for longer. I think I get more out of gaming now, though.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
What's he complaining about? Long games = good.
This is only true if you have loads and loads of free time on your hands like a high school or college student might. Otherwise, when you get out into the real world and get a job or start dating someone, you find out that free time disappears and a game that gives lots of goodies for little effort or that can be dropped for weeks and months before being picked back up without losing you is a great thing.
Long games are good for certain people and bad for others. However, the problem isn't really that the game is giving him a lot of gameplay so much as it's making it's gameplay so hard that it's unnaturally prolonged by failure. That's another split between the hardcore and casual gamer markets.
As a fan of console RPGs, I run into this all the time. Some games keep the fun continuous. Others require a lot of old-school level grinding to wring out the rewards. Some games make it easy to pick the game up and remember where you were if work intervenes for a week or two. Others leave you feeling like you need to start over.
It should be pretty easy to guess which type I prefer.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Part of the appeal of an MMORPG is that there is no specific end-game per-se. Hardcore uber players have turned the raid instances into the 'end game', but its not necessarily what Blizzard intended. What can a L60 do in Wow?
Rep grind with various factions.
Battlegrounds -- faction rep, PvP rank/honour.
Raid instances.
Crafting professions (aka "The Auction House game").
And of course, you can skip all of those like I did and start another alt -- different race, different faction, different zones. IMHO the tiered questing is Wow's greatest strenght, coupled with rest bonus for inactive characters.
I played Baldur's Gate II to finish the game. I play WoW for the experience, knowing there's always going to be something new around the corner. The online social aspect is a huge benefit too.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Well, take into consideration I'm talking console RPG's and you're talking PC style RPG's. It's like comparing apples and oranges. I think I put over 200 hours on Morrowind and I'm not sure if I ever beat the game?
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Count me in as another old sucker. :)
:P)
Quite honestly, however, I did agree with the author more often than not in this piece. But at the same time, I completely agree with your funny, yet intelligent thought, that games aren't made for us. Sure they want to sell to us, but we're not the "core demographic". They want someone who's going to play the game fiercely, talk about it to all their friends and gamers online, spread the gospel, and therefore sell more copies to more hardcore gamers, and so on and so on....
We're a dollar cog in the million dollar machine, so the fact that save points don't come frequently enough is an "old people" problem. It's more important to have the intensity of "will I survive until the next save point" than "I can really only play for about half an hour... will I have a chance to save?"
And I think as the gaming generation ages, it's something people have to really think about. Because while the young, brash minds producing calls of "So U R upset about a longer game? N00b!" are annoying and grammatically...odd, they have a point. But the gameplay has to be structured in a way that it can be crystallized and played in smaller nuggets, and yet still flow. This makes a game that takes forever to be fun. Because if you have to figure out where you are, and what your inventory is, and where your next "checkpoint" is from memory of when you played the game three days ago, you're more likely to not pick up that game. But if the system flows and keeps you where you were, and helps you remember these things, and is structured in such a way as to encourage you to play even when it's been a while, then that's gaming for the adult set. (No, not THAT adult. With the job and the money and the wife and such, we get that stuff for free now. No need to see it in the games.
First off, the article is about the myth of the "40 hour gamer" not the 40 hour game". The author is not complaining that the games take longer than 40 hours, but that it takes him months to find 40 hours in which to play solitary games - a problem for those games who suddenly find themselves with the trappings of what is commonly called "a life".
Most of the posts here are completely missing the point ("You suck D00D!"). As someone who's put down more than one game that I was enjoying partway through, I can tell you the main reason why: because something new comes along. Humans enjoy novelty, and many long-play games are long play because of a continual repetition of the basic game mechanic. After your fourth session sitting down doing essentially the same thing you've been doing for the last month, you get intrigued by the latest & greatest. Add to this the fact that you may have multiple irons in the fire (I'm currrently in the middle of 3 different books and 4 different single-player games)
Why is this a problem? Because there are a lot more "soft" gamers out there than hardcore ones, and they make a lot more money. As a developer, what would you prefer you market to be: 3% of the population or 30%? If you're spending tons of effort to produce a narrative game that can only be reached by 3% of the population, why are you bothering with a narrative? Hard games are fine, but perhaps they should be restricted to genres that are inherently more repetitive (e.g. classic arcade games), allowing people that bail on the title to go away feeling they had fun, as opposed to abandoning the narrative.
Ultimately, there are many more people out there that only want to commit 6 hours to some interactive entertainment as opposed to 40.
-BbT
And that's what makes it hard for casual gamers to enjoy story-based games with quests.
If I read a long novel say, one chapter at a time, then I get busy at work and have to put the book down for two weeks, I can pick it up two weeks later and start from where I left the bookmark. I might not remember all the details of the intrigue at the moment, but the story will continue one page at a time, and eventually I'll remember and continue to enjoy the book.
If I start a long story-based game, then I get busy at work and have to stop playing for two weeks, when I come back, I might be totally unable to progress because I forgot that I need to deliver a plucked blue chicken to a one legged chiropractor three villages away in order to trigger the rest of the story. That is what turns a nice 40 hours game into a boring 60 hours game, because you wasted 10 hours running around and talking to every villager you met (most of them saying useless things, and not even "What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?") until you figured out what you forgot.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
You're missing his point.
... I have a hard time appreciating the point" actually reinforces his point.
He's saying "The people who have time to immerse themselves in it completely are getting far less that 40 hours of play, and that annoys them, and for people like me, it takes so much more than 40 hours of play that we get tired of it and never finish the game"
His point is that nobody's happy with what it takes to finish games. It's either way too long, or way too short, depending on whether you have a lot of time to devote to gaming, or play now and then when your real job/real life permits.
Responding to that with "I finished in 20 hours
The problem isn't that the game has given him MORE time than the box listed. The problem is he doesn't have 40 hours to devote to the game.
However on the other hand the 40 hours game claim are almost always wrong. I now work in the game industry but still found a way to play 40 hours into disgaea. I have about 24 hours in Samurai warriors (only been out a week).
I believe the real myth is "40 hours" games or games like Xenosaga that promise 100 hours where they hardly deliver half to people who ACTUALLY play the game. If you pick it up and drop it over and over and keep dying then yeah 100 hours is possible. However if a game can be completed 100 percent in 20 hours by knowing what to do in it, then it's a 20 hour game.
What the industry needs is games like Katamari damacy, or multiple non-forced (suikoden 3 way? bad) story lines. Imagine if you could change your character, and get a different story. Imagine playing through games that have "good" and "evil" story lines. They might be 20 hour games that you play through once, but if it's fun the first time and good the second time that's fine. Kotor started on this path but how you acted never really effected future gameplay too much until you get to the final temple. This allows the "hard core" gamer to get two unique experiences, and the casual gamer to get one solid experience that they decide.
Some game companies are making "40 hour games" by making the game so obscure you won't know what to do in it for the first 30 hours, or giving you puzzles that will make you work on them 5 hours to find a little dot. I'm all for hard games, or difficult achievements but pretending obscurity makes your game longer is a joke.
I've put at least 100 hours into FFX when I was able to devote that time to it just because I loved the level grid/capture system. But it's not a 100 hour game. It's a 30-40 hour game which a few people could put 100 hours in.
The problem we are running into is game companies who won't or can't make scaleable games. Lego Star wars 2 has a good start, on the 360 there's the regular game, and then "never die" achievements which is quite hard for the player. They are completely optional but everyone is willing to try for them. If more games used "achievements" systems like the 360 to give optional quests like so it would enhance the length of most games.
What can a L60 do in Wow?
Rep grind with various factions.
Battlegrounds -- faction rep, PvP rank/honour.
Raid instances.
Crafting professions (aka "The Auction House game").
I read this as:
Grind for faction points (which can get you cheaper/special loot).
Grind for honor (which can be traded for loot).
Grind for loot.
Grind for crafting materials (whch can be turned into loot).
It's really no wonder that WoW is far and away the most popular MMORPG ever created. Purple items--gotta catch 'em all!
Games are entertainment. I really can't see how you can complain about getting, say, 60 hours of entertainment for the price of 40 hours.
Perhaps the packages could make the point a little clearer: "This game should provide you with at least 40 hours of entertainment."
Of course, if the game takes you 60 hours to complete because it's badly designed, then you can legitimately complain about the game. But the problem there isn't the 60 hours, it's the design.