Games a waste of time?

BLITZ_Molloy

Just imagine if the music and movie industries decided their products had to be 10+ hours long or they'd be percieved as "too short" or "poor value for money".

Some kid gets home from HMV after paying €20 for the latest U2 album (I'm just picking some random band here), listened to it once and felt cheated because he only 45 minutes of entertainment for his money. What if he rationalised that the album had cost him 50 cents a minute.

That's the kind of attitude we have in games at the moment. Something is only as good as one playthrough. It isn't something that can be enjoyed again and again and interpreted differently every single time.

You get people complaining that they finished Halo after only 12 hours for feck sake.

I'm just wondering if there's anybody else who really hates how long games have become in the last two generations? I've spent about 15 hours on GTA: San Andreas and have no interest in spending another 15 on it's as I've played the prequels plenty enough already.

It takes Half Life 10 hours before it really picks up pace and throws you into some proper combat. I can watch 10 movies or listen to 15 albums in that space of time. Hell, you could finish most 16-bit RPG's in 10 hours but in 2004 that's just the time it takes an action game to pick up steam.

I'm beginning to think the people working death march hours at EA are trying to inflict the same punishment on the gamers.

It's just arrogance. Games aren't good enough to be 10+ hours long. They're taking my attention for granted. They're giving me gold but making me sieve through mud for weeks to get to it. And they're wasting money and throwing away any opportunities for risk taking and creative freedom in the process.

Here's praying that EA, Konami, Nintendo and Sega keep making games with 100 person teams and 3 year development times. Eventually the whole thing will collapse under its own weight.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

no

bizmark

I agree with Mordeth...

that is all.

Stormfox1020

^ what he said.

Crucifix

I also disagree.

Wasn't there some research undertaken somewhere, and the conclusions included getting surgeons to play computer games seeing as this would improve their surgery abilities?

So eh no.

Tusky

Emm I disagree with everything you said. The longer a game is the better , once the content is good.

BLITZ_Molloy

Christ.. you get some thought provoking discussion in here. Those are some well reasoned arguments. I stand corrected.

So, PS2 or XBox. Which is better?

Smellyirishman

That post confused the hell out of me

But I will go with no :-D

seamus

Of course they're a waste of time. They're recreation, like watching TV, reading books, listening to music. But conversely, games (of all kinds) are never a waste of time. They're good for your brain.

Video games are like books. A good book, you will not be able to put down, and is nice and long so that you're not pissed off at there being so little of it. A fantastic book you can't put down, and will pick it up to read again and again. When it's over you'll be satisified, and almost wanting to begin reading it again.

If you're bored of GTA:SA after 15 hours, then do what you'd do if you're bored of a book halfway through it - put it down and go do something else.

Cake Fiend

Of course they're a waste of time. That's the entire point of them - they're a pastime.

BLITZ_Molloy

Feck sake.. must you take the topic title so literally? What I'm saying is do they take our attention for granted?

I know I don't have to play GTA:SA. It's just that there aren't alot of games at the moment which aren't another 10+ hours long. It's like having to commit to reading the whole LotR trilogy or watching an entire series of 24 everytime you go into the store. As someone who used to go into the arcade and judge something as being worth my time in 2 or 3 minutes I find this pretty unnerving.

You could say I'm just living in the past. But I think it's perfectly reasonable to want a game to be an hour or two long and completable in one sitting. That's what I get when I listen to music, go the cinema, the theatre, read a magazine.. I want quick, disposable entertainment. Sure long games have their place but they shouldn't constitute 90% of the market.

Canis Lupus

My answer is contained in at least one of the above posts

seamus

BLITZ_Molloy wrote:

I know I don't have to play GTA:SA. It's just that there aren't alot of games at the moment which aren't another 10+ hours long. It's like having to commit to reading the whole LotR trilogy or watching an entire series of 24 everytime you go into the store.

You don't have to commit to anything, it's not like you have to play that game and that game only for days and days and days.

If you want a short game, go get yourself an emulator and complete Golden Axe.

Who the hell wants to pay for a game that's over in a day?

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

Smellyirishman

So, your saying games are too long ?

If so, then your crazy , without progression through a game, you dont get much story, and it feels monotonous throughout. If you got all the weapons in HL2 from the get go, and all the bad guys were in each lvl from the start, there would be nothing to play FOR.

Similarly, in GTA, you unlock cities, this keeps your attention, and makes the game worth playing that little bit more.

I am still confused about what your trying to argue tho :rolleyes:

{EDIT} if you want, I can put together some crap with a few mates and charge you €50 for it, and it will last maybe 15minutes, thats right up your alley right?

BLITZ_Molloy

seamus wrote:

You don't have to commit to anything, it's not like you have to play that game and that game only for days and days and days.

If you want a short game, go get yourself an emulator and complete Golden Axe.

Who the hell wants to pay for a game that's over in a day?

Loads of people want to play a game that's over in a day. Super Mario Brothers came bundled with the NES. Someone broke the Guinness World Record there last week and completed it in 5 minutes and 9 seconds.

But the thing is I've already played Golden Axe to death. Played it for years. AAA on the duel and arcade mode. I've no interest in going back and playing the same stuff. I want new short games like Katamari Damacy, Super Monkey Ball, Gitarooman and Gradius V. These sorts of games are getting incredibly scarse. Everything has RPG and adventure elements.

This idea that something has to last is just alien to me. I just want it to be absolute filler free. If a movie has a slow and unsatisfying middle section I just don't enjoy rewatching it from start to finish. It sours the whole experience. Ditto for albums. If it's consistantly good, doesn't repeat itself and isn't 2 hours long I might listen to it for months.

I like to sit down and get the entire game experience in one sitting. I find this play, save, play, save, play, save system deeply unsatisfying. It's boring.

smiaras wrote:

Onto the PS2/ Xbox question - I started the year with a PS2, XB, GC, GBA & PC all being used frequently for gaming purposes, not to forget the retro conoles gathering dust upstairs. Granted I was working in a video games store at the time so picked up a fair few games for nothing and I get sent a fair few titles to review for a website for free.

Now I'm down to my PS2 & Xbox, and the PS2 is shortly going to be given the boot once I move out when I take up my position in the rat race next month.

Jesus..

bizmark

If there was a market for really short games they would be made but its pretty clear there isn’t one... most people (myself included) bitched because half life 2 only lasted like 12-20 hours and games like gta which can last months sell by the bucket load people want long enjoyable games you are in the minority im afraid.

Canis Lupus

U must be the only the person to feel like that about games.....

seamus

BLITZ_Molloy wrote:

I like to sit down and get the entire game experience in one sitting. I find this play, save, play, save, play, save system deeply unsatisfying. It's boring.

Football sims, beat-em-ups or racing games. Always have, and always will be good for just a brief flurry of entertainment.

All of the most popular recent games Like FF, GTA, Half-Life, are essentially evolved from two genres - the platformer and the shoot-em-up. Now we don't have platforms. We have city landscapes. There two genres always have been about long gameplay, do a level, get a cut scene, do a level, fight a boss, get a cut scene.
The same formula holds true today. Mario on the NES wasn't short because people liked short games. It was short because of physical and monetary limitations on how much you can possibly fit into a game, and how much time you could spend programming. Now you can fit volumes more in a game, and pay hundreds of people to program, so games are accordingly large. If you paid €40 for GTA:SA and you finished it between dinner and bedtime, you'd feel cheated.

BLITZ_Molloy

Well I don't know many people that completed Super Mario Brothers the day they bought it.

What I don't get is does anybody here finish playing GTA and simply have to play it again from the start right away? Of course not. You look at the menu and it tells you 100% Completion. Over. Finished.

You can finish Mario but that doesn't stop you wanting to play it again. It's like putting your favourite album on loop. It's over before you know it but it'll be replayed for months.

I don't get this thing of measuring a titles lifespan in such a linear fashion. Surely if it's good it lasts for months regardless of the lenght of a single playthrough.

yawnstretch

This is an interesting one. I can kinda see where your coming from with the raking through hours of mud to find some gold - playing a boring part of a videogame is a waste of time and I think we'll see things change in that department as people have short attention spans.

But short games would be terrible - a new thing that may be coming out soon is 'service' games where extra levels are sold as downloads to the masses and who knows games might start going like TV then - but will it work?

Will people pay for installments of games? They might if the installments were really good but ultimately - games are like books I agree. You want to go into the shop and buy your product and keep it, it's instinctive I think. You may not want to get it piece by piece because its not the same as television. Which doesnt have as powerful a replay value as a game or a book.

I think we ascribe more longterm worth to videogames than we do to TV shows. I mean - you're likely to watch Simpsons every monday or whatever but its not the end of the world if you miss one or two. Some people go out and buy simpsons dvds but does everyone? Do you really want to watch that episode twice in any timespan under a year?


The difference with a game is that you *do* have replay value (on the good ones - some of the modern games have limited branching and so there wont be much difference on the 2nd play) but like books you get good moments and bad ones - just be more selective in your game choices - I too tired of GTA SA and returned it (to the shock of Smyths et al!) I do need a quick entertaining fix and you'll find that some games work very well in short entertaining bursts - like Burnout3. Other games have massive replay value and are a joy to explore no matter how many times you redo the same bit (Metroid Prime).

I think you just need to pause and think about the game that you really want - if its not out there then wait until something really catches your attention and you wont want it to be short then I can assure you

Smellyirishman

BLITZ_Molloy wrote:

Well I don't know many people that completed Super Mario Brothers the day they bought it.

What I don't get is does anybody here finish playing GTA and simply have to play it again from the start right away? Of course not. You look at the menu and it tells you 100% Completion. Over. Finished.

You can finish Mario but that doesn't stop you wanting to play it again. It's like putting your favourite album on loop. It's over before you know it but it'll be replayed for months.

Em, OK, first off, have you ever gotten 100% in a GTA game? and, even if I did get 100% I would easily be able to go back to it and play it in bursts, becuase it is so open ended I can do any things to keep myself entertained.

However, with mario, its pretty narrow. If your saying mario has more playability than GTA, I disagree, Strongly!!

Ponster

BLITZ_Molloy wrote:

Loads of people want to play a game that's over in a day.

No.

I really don't think that there are that many people out thre that want to pay 50+ euro on a game and hope that they manage to finish it within the day. I really don't see the point.

In fact, the shorter a game lasts the more disappointing it is for a lot of people. But as soon as you get bored you can always try something else. I may have bought Hafe Life 2 (yet to finish it) but every so often I drag out Soldier of Fortune II (which is years old by now) and frag away.

But I think it's perfectly reasonable to want a game to be an hour or two long and completable in one sitting. That's what I get when I listen to music, go the cinema, the theatre, read a magazine..

Except we're talking about a hell of a lot more cash for a good computer game than a CD, magazine. And I may be wrong but since when have computer games *ever* being about finishing them in one sitting?

Kristok

your playing the wrong type of games mate, if you want a short burst of fun get something like outrun 2 or something like that with no story line. There are loads of arcade emulators out there with great games that can be completed in one sitting.

Even if you complete all the missions in gta you only get like 50% completion, youll only get 100% if you do everything from being a vigilanti to being a taxi man. Personally I love the fact that im only at 10% completioin after a week, at least I know ive months of gaming ahead and when im done ill be satasified, hell i might even go back to vice city when im done. Took me months to clear halo 1, when you can save everytime you like it becomes easy to just play for 5 min and get somewhere and come back days later and play 5 min again till you get through.

-oRnein9-

Beat em ups can be completed quite easily but there is a simpler solution go watch a film, or mabye a **** if your into a short session of entertainment.

Ponster

BLITZ, what kind of games do you like actually?

Run around killing folk games of ones that take a little more thinking?

BLITZ_Molloy

Most games up until the memory card came into the picture were most certainly about completion in one sitting. Then episodic gaming came in.

Games are hideously overpriced. That's a problem. But the solution is demand cheaper games not 4 times the game for your money.

The one area of gaming where this isn't happening is multiplayer. In multiplayer Halo or Counter Strike the whole experience is over in 30 minutes. Sometimes even less. There are only maybe 8 or 10 levels. You could play every level the game has to offer in an afternoon. It isn't even skill dependant, you have access to it all. But everytime you play a game it gives you something different. It isn't about how long a playthrough is at all.

Did anybody here never bother playing the campaign in Red Alert? Sure it had plot but each mission gave you a pissy little selection of the units and very few possabilities because they were trying to spread out the features and unlock the plot bit by bit. I got bored in no time. The Skirmish gave me everything I wanted straight from the off and let me do what I wanted. I must have played the one map 20 or 30 times.

Ah yes, now Outrun 2. There's a game. I've spent a good €30 on that in Dr. Quirkies. Was worth every penny. I'd really like an Xbox. Can't justify having 4 128bit consoles and a newish PC all at the same time. Hopefully Quirkies will get Outrun 2: Special Tours eventually. It looks ****ing incredible.

Ponster

BLITZ_Molloy wrote:

In multiplayer Halo or Counter Strike the whole experience is over in 30 minutes. Sometimes even less. There are only maybe 8 or 10 levels.

Although I know what you mean to say I have to disagree. Counterstrike is one of the most played online multiplayer gmaes even though it's years old. Even if you get tired of a CS in 30 minutes it doesn't mean that you won't be ready to play it again a few days later.

Did anybody here never bother playing the campaign in Red Alert? Sure it had plot but each mission gave you a pissy little selection of the units and very few possabilities because they were trying to spread out the features and unlock the plot bit by bit. I got bored in no time. The Skirmish gave me everything I wanted straight from the off and let me do what I wanted. I must have played the one map 20 or 30 times.

But that's just you I'd afraid while thousands of others lover Red Alert and the newness of it all. I played the campaign from time to time, sometimes wishing I had all the weapons that the skirmish offered me. But as soon as I discovered online skirmish then I could never really go back to campaign.

How many hours did you get out of Red Alert?

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

BLITZ_Molloy

I'm totally with you there Ponster. I'm saying that the longevity of those games can't be measured by how long a level is. You can potentially play them forever. It's the equivalent of an old arcade game that just gets faster and more challenging but never ends.

I probably spent 80 hours on Red Alert. Maybe 200 on Counter Strike. Something like a few thousand on Total Annihilation. Multiplayer skirmishes on that were just ambrosia from the gods. The depth was cavernous. If you didn't pay attention in the first 3 minutes then it meant instant death yet the matches could got on for 5 or 6 hours if you were evenly matched.

10 years ago I was seduced by the newness of it all. Storylines. Life consuming epics. **** it, I had 4+ hours of lesure time aday and a hell of alot more at weekends. I wanted games that lasted years.

But the novelty has worn off. I want something that's good for 30 minutes. Or 100 times 30 minutes. Multiplayer and arcade games are delivering that but the latter is getting kind of hard to get hold of.