Theory

[Molloy]

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/on_value_for_money/

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. People talking sense on this subject is a very rare thing. I absolutely despise the whole obsession with games having to be a certain number of hours long for you to be getting your moneys worth.

It's like saying a perfect pop song isn't worth the money because it's only 2 and a half minutes, whereas a shit one is because it's 4 minutes long. Every arcade game in the past 10 years that gets reviewed in mainstream media has the same bullshit in it. Yes, it's good but you'll have finished it in 30 minutes. Who gives a shit? If it was a good 30 minutes then you'll play it again. And again. Most music albums are maybe 35 to 50 minutes long and nobody complains. In fact, they usually slate double albums for being full of needless filler you need to skip past.

At least with a CD you have the track selector, or you can burn yourself another copy with the tracks you enjoy most. With games you have no such option. You've got to play through all the fat to get at the meat of the game. They're all filler no killer.

Stuart Campbell goes into this subject in his excellent Gran Tourismo 4 review. Talking about what he calls 'empty calories'. Everytime I read this sort of thing I just want to punch the air and say "Fuck yes." Finally something I can relate to.

Gaming has been going downhill ever since the memory card took off.

[Flying Omelette]

"Short and intense" is a good philosophy for game developers to utilize. Many of my favorite games are those that took me about a week to finish originally, but on replay and mastery of the game they can now be completed in a few hours or less.

A Link to the Past and the original Ninja Gaiden are good examples of that.

[CosMind]

Many of my favorite games are those that took me about a week to finish originally, but on replay and mastery of the game they can now be completed in a few hours or less.

all of my favorite games fit that mold.

edit

oh, and i paid no less than 60 bones for any of them - and, that was years ago, so factor in inflation...

i'd've paid double or more back then, and still would now.

[icycalm]

You guys are not too big into strategy games, eh?

Stuart Campbell goes into this subject in his excellent Gran Tourismo 4 review. Talking about what he calls 'empty calories'.

That review is indeed excellent. But still, it suffers somewhat from the "mislabeling syndrome". This is when you label an article a "review" of something, whereas in fact most if not all of it is not about the something in question, but about something else. The end result is that the people who just want the review feel shortchanged, whereas the people that would be interested in the "something else" never end up reading it, because you mislabeled it and they can't find it. I am mainly talking about the IC people here, Tim Rogers and Eric-Jon Waugh, but in this review the Rev also makes this mistake to an extent. Had he written an article exclusively on these "empty calories" I think many more people would have ended up reading it. Now he has limited himself to those who also care about GT4.

But yeah, great read anyway.

[CMiller]

Halo 3 ODST is a pretty good example of the reviewers' concerns over 'value for money' negatively impacting a game's design.

Bungie initially said that ODST's campaign would take 3-5 hours to complete, and be priced lower than a full game. Later, Bungie came out and said that Halo 3 ODST would cost 60 USD, which is as much as a full game (a full game being 10-15 hours I guess, I don't even know what that really means). There was a lot of outcry over this, and many people everywhere voiced their dissatisfaction.

In July, Bungie revised the estimate for the campaign upward to 6-8 hours. In fact, this was one of the first things I was told by a Bungie employee while playing ODST after E3. I think it's pretty obvious that Bungie revised this figure upward since it would provide the better 'value for money' that people and reviewers care about.

Having played the ODST campaign, it is painfully obvious where Bungie extended and padded it to get more hours of play in. I don't think there was even enough to sustain 3-5 hours, as most of the game was uninteresting and unchallenging. Had ODST simply been the 45 minutes that were actually fun, it would have been way better.

What of course is ironic about all this is that reviewers are complaining the campaign is dull, while at the same time claiming it was too short (and placing value for money judgements on it). A dull game is too short? Did you want to be bored longer?

An arstechnica review for example: they complain the game is too short, yet also complain about it being bland and full of filler while issuing a value judgement based on price.