Ars Technica has a good discussion of how and why games are getting shorter.
I do think that (single-player) video games still tend to be too long. When was the last time you completed a game in which major parts didn’t feel like filler?
The article notes the problem of time, which I also discussed in A Casual Revolution: However much players would like to put 40 hours into a game, there is only a tiny audience with that kind of time. Here are the completion rates for various recent games, from the article. (Note the Red Dead Redemption 7% completion rate!)
[Note: The graph should probably be titled Completion achievement rate – it represents the percentage of users who have earned the achievement for game completion – which means the percentage of user who completed the game (rather than % of achievements earned that it may sound like).]
I like to joke that games should have twice-as-expensive but quarter-as-long Executive Editions for players with busy lives and more disposable income.
Part of the issue is that we may intuitively feel that a longer game gives more bang for the buck, even if we end up not completing it because all the filler is so uninspired. As the article says, hopefully we are starting to move beyond that.
Is this chart tracking “achievement” completion rate? If so, that makes it far less clear to figure out what, if anything, it tells us.
Oh, I see you clarified that on Facebook. Never mind. Stupid internet.
@Frank yes, that was unclear. I have added a note.
Just wondering, game completion does that mean just the main campaign or does it mean the 100% achievement where you can gotten every acheivement in the game ?.
In either case it leaves a question whether the game isn’t completed because the gamer thought it was too long, or if they got tired of completing everything in the game.
I dont think games should be shorter, but I agree with the removal of filler.
@Brian As I read the article, the numbers refer to completing the main campaign.
When you complete a game, do you never reach a point where you wish for it to be over?
I’m not sure if it’s at all related, but there’s been some discussion of the same phenomenon in television series as well (over longer timescales). A typical 1950s/60s American television show may have had around 35-40 episodes with 50 minutes of non-advertisement programming each, for somewhere in the range of 30 hours. A 1990s network drama would’ve been around 20-25 episodes of 44 minutes each, for around 15 hours; and a 2000s cable drama might be 13 episodes of 50 minutes each, or around 10 hours.
@Mark I guess the big argument would be that we are consuming our entertainment in ever-shorter bites, due to more hectic and multifaceted lifestyle. (Though I would love to have some data saying that is actually the case.)
When I typically play a game I try to do as many of the side missions as possible. It is not often I try going for the platinum achievement in games as many of them have repeat action X 1000 times, which I hate.
A few games also simply overwhelm me. Like Baldurs Gate 2, with it’s vastness and sheer amount of gameplay possibilities, but I still play it since it is so well made.
A game I stopped playing was BulletStorm, even if it is short, I just didn’t feel it was that well made and certain aspects of it bugged me.
So to summize I would say that the it is not the length of a game which effects whether I will finish it or not, but rather it’s quality and contents.
As opposed to a film, I believe a gamer is not necessarily expected to “finish” of “complete” the game in order to enjoy it or feel like the money for the game is well-spend. In some games it is not even possible: Tetris can’t be won and games like Sim City or Football Manager are simply open-ended. But also for games with a clearly defined start and finish, like Mass Effect, the player can enjoy playing the first, let’s say, “50%” and then choose to put it aside to try something new. There simply are different types of players (Bartle’s player types for example) who experience games differently. Some players reach their “game dead point” in which they have to spend too much “dead time” in order to reach higher goals (like finishing the game/campaign/story or in case of Sim City: to get 10 billion citizens or something like that) which might make them decide to stop playing. In stead of simply shortening games, there should always be a possibility for fans to play the game as long and often as they want. For people who generally don’t reach the end there might be a “short version” or low degree of difficulty to be choosen.
@Brian I agree that the ultimate test measure is quality. I am just saying that pure length has been valued over quality.
@Boes Yes, a completion vs. 100% completion option is a way of allowing games to speak to people with different tastes (and different amounts of time).
Full disclosure: I prefer to complete, rather than complete with 100%. I find the optional side missions in Mass Effect quite boring…