While discussing the upcoming Xbox 360 action RPG Too Human and its two planned sequels, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack explained that gamers do not want long games. Thus, the decision to produce three separate Too Human releases was not made from a strict business perspective, but one with gamers in mind.
"Legacy of Kain [PlayStation, 1996] had about sixty hours of play, but games have changed," said Dyack in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "People don't want that any more. I don't care how good the game is I don't want to play something that's one hundred hours long. As much as I love World of Warcraft I pulled myself out of it."
"I don't really see it [planning Too Human as a trilogy] as bold. I see that as a promise to the consumer that there's more here than just one game," he stated. "If we're going to craft an epic story we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer."
While some may oppose Dyack's stance, others studios such as Valve echo a similar sentiment. "There's a lot of depressing evidence out there indicating that not very many players are finishing out games," Valve's Robin Walker told Shacknews after the release of Half-Life 2: Episode One, which signified the company's shift from longer experiences to bite-sized episodes. Currently, Valve's statistics page shows that only 38% of Half-Life 2: Episode One players have completed the game, despite an average completion time of only 5 hours and 40 minutes. Furthermore, Valve has indicated to Shacknews that discussions with other developers suggest Valve's numbers are above industry averages for completion rate.
Dyack also noted that the trilogy-based approach benefits developers in that studios don't have to "start from scratch again" when producing sequels. Presumably, Dyack was speaking of reusing assets and technology developed for the first game, which would lower the cost of additional entries relative to the initial title.
Though no release date has been provided for the first game in Silicon Knight's Too Human trilogy, past comments by Dyack suggest the title will see release this year. Back in April, the Silicon Knights president made headlines after expressing his desire for one standardized gaming platform.
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Comments
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Fuck You.
Most awesome games I've ever played? Final Fantasy 7. Oblivion. Morrowind. Legend of Zelda (any of them). System Shock 1 & 2. These games are long as hell, and they're all brilliant. And yes I finished them too.
That's not to say all long games are excellent. I have yet to finish FF12. I never quite finished either Ultima Underworld 1 or 2. But not because they ran too long...
Long games aren't finished because they're too long. Long games aren't finished because they generally have bad pacing, which will kill any game, including short ones. Many people finished FF7 because the pacing was so good. Very few people finished Bouncer because the pacing was terrible.
In closing, you are an idiot and your opinions carry no weight with anyone who is still capable of breathing.
BFF,
Arnold Palmer
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Readers don't want long books.
Racing fans don't want long races.
Moviegoers don't want long movies.
I beat half life episode 1, and that was the only one out of the latest 5 games bought that i have beat.
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I always finish Valve games because they keep it fresh and provide the player with new challenges and experiences throughout the whole game. This isn't the case with the vast majority of games. Instead, they take some base gameplay and stretch it out repeatedly over X game length. And usually that base gameplay gets tiresome (for me) before the end of the game. With most games, the actual gameplay doesn't change whether they're 6 hours long or 15 hours long.
It's Bungie's famous '30 seconds of fun'. I never get more than 2/3 of the way through a Halo game, because by that time I'm tired of repeating the same 30 seconds. On the other hand, a game like Max Payne 2 I comfortably complete, because it doesn't overstretch it's gimmick.
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I am against taking one good game, chopping it into 3 pieces and charging me $50 each.
I don't want to pay $150.00 for one good game.
-Vote Vertdang in '08
If these customers finished a few of these games they would just get pissed off about how short the games are, or how crappy the ending was.
Now that i have even LESS time and a HUGE backlog of games to play I'm not sure a 40 hour game is viable. I haven't gotten Oblivion or started titan Quest for a reason. Whats more important to me though is a game I can PLAY in chunks, no matter length. As long as I can make some progress in 30min-1 hour than I'd be more inclined to play a longer game. T
his is why i dont play many MMORPGs anymore. 30 min isnt enough to do jack shit in most of them. I will also use the example of Max Payne as an excellent but short game. I dont think the shortness hurt it one bit.
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I mean I'm on of those guys who doesn't play lots of different games, I like to play just a few and master them and play them continously. I probably played only 10 different PC games the last 10 years, apart from dozens I have tried and not liked.
Games like Diablo, Quake, Civ, Warcraft, Starcraft... you get the point. All of those I can play for hundreds of hours and they cost the same money.
What? For one, they started as books, and two, didnt they make shittons of cash?
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Wow, that's REALLY hard to manage.
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People who don't finish a game haven't stopped gaming for eternity; they start playing other games So the issue is clearly the content. People most often don't finish games because either their interest wanes or it shifts.
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10 hours is about the optimal length of time i can stand playing a particular game before i become bored of it. The latest exception being Final Fantasy 12.
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Who has he been talking to? Investors?
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"If we're going to craft an epic story we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer."
If they were going to play through the entire epic story, then you aren't saving them any time. You're just charging them more for it. You're penalizing the people who actually want to play through the entire story. But hey, who cares about hardcore fan bases when you need mass market appeal?
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Just because people didn't finish HL2:E1 during the survey period doesn't mean they won't. Hell, I've had Warcraft III for 5 years, and went back and played it again and finished it last month (for the 1st time). It was awesome. I'm glad they didn't chop it in thirds and end up releasing 4 expansions (+2 for TFT).
I guess if they keep saying that people want to pay $20 for 3 hour games they'll eventually believe it. Whatever. I'll vote with my pocket.
Oh yeah. Fuck Valve. It's none of their god damn business when I finish their game.
Paying full premium price for a short game is a joke in my opinion, but I am not even going to argue against it. Why? I rented Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (classic example of a short game), finished it, and got “cash back†for a fast return.
So whatever, bring it on.
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I've played some great games that were long, great games that were short, and terrible games that were both as well.
Isn't the sign of a good game how much you enjoyed it, and wanted more? I know that with -great- games, I wanted more at the end, even if it was already an absurdly long game - if a game is short, but ultimately enjoyable, why is it not worthwhile? You can always play it multiple times. For example, Diablo 2 was not 'long' in the sense of content, but due to the levelling and difficulty, you would often play through parts of it multiple times to advance before moving on...but it was (unless you hated the entire game) quite fun, and you could play through multiple times and have it be interesting, either because of multiplayer, skills that continued to advance, or continuing to find interesting magic items.
People love to hold up RPGs as an example of really long games. There are some great ones that stand out in my mind as having a lot of content throughout, like Fallout and Planescape - but then there are games like Ff7, which I played to completion, and even liked, but I'd say a lot of the 'time' was wading through battle. after battle. after battle. Not nearly as rich as something like Planescape. (I'm not trying to directly compare them other than on this point)
The list of games I own that I haven't even had the time to get to, these days, is pretty depressing. I need to take a vacation just to put a dent in it.
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I do agree that well-paced and plotted games usually don't feel short, even if they are. In the hands of lesser devs, a short game would probably also be a pretty thin feeling game, but I'm more willing to give Silicon Knights a pass, based on their track record. I'm sure the plot and pacing will be the best things about Too Human.
On counter point we have Arcanum, Deus Ex and Morrowind, all hugely long games that I've played to conpletion two or three times *each*.
Check your assumptions game makers.
There are some games (Oblivion, Civ, etc) that I want to play hundreds of ours with, but for most games, the sweet spot is 10 - 12 hours. For a good, linear single player game, 20 hours these days feels really long.
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What more people should do, if they want to make long games, are separate it into acts or chapters. Each chapter should have a self-contained sub-storyline in addition to the overarching storyline. This would give the player a breather, a nice location to put the game down and chop the game into several pieces and such.
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RPGs I want to be really long. FPS games I'm happy with 10 hours so long as they are a quality 10 hours. Other games such as sims are not really relevant to this question as you can play them over and over again.
Make the guns fun to replay through again. I have replayed both MP2 and HL2 more then the originals. I think the originals I have completed once while I am into my 4 or 5th play through again on HL2 and MP2. I have played EP2 twice though, just isn't as good as HL2.
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If you want to tell a high-quality story in a relatively short game, that's fine. Just don't try to sell incomplete stories as short games and tell us it's good for us.
Whew!
I feel better letting that out, now I need a cold brew.
"To be mass-market there needs to be one console under the TV. There's one DVD standard even though there's different manufacturers. When you buy a DVD you know it's going to work. When consumers want to buy a videogame they shouldn't be held back because of the format."
I think his intentions are good but I don't agree with his prediction that it's inevitable that we'll have one console. I think we'll always have consoles from Sony, Nintendo, MS and maybe even new comers. However, what I'd like to see is eventually, maybe 20 years from now after we perfect gfx rendering, AI, physics simulations and gameplay mechanics that we have a standard set of hardware specifications and software. That way, you can buy the Sony Playstation 12 and play games from Nintendo on it. Maybe you like buying the Sony Playstation 12 because it has added luxury features. Also because the console hardware/software is standardized as well as the game engines themselves, you could buy different controller devices, like the Wii-mote or an Xbox 360 camera and use it on the Sony Playstation 12.
I'm not proclaiming that will happen, but it's something I'd like to see. Giving consumers 3 completely incompatible gaming systems and software is not conducive to expanding the growth of the industry as a whole.
I also see it being beneficial to game developers. Many have to deal with programming and designing games twice to get them to work on multiple systems. Think about that.
Personally I prefer longer games, but I don't have as much time or inclination to play as much as I used to, so despite the desire, the reality is that shorter games are more palateable.
But I even like some rehashes too! I'll always have 8+ hours for a 2D castlevania/metroid game :P
Make a game as long or as short as needs to be. Don't make it short(er) or long(er) on purpose because you think some people who probably haven't finished any game in 5 years may not finish yours. Do what's best for the flow of the game.
In the $60 world games of today, I'm buying less games than ever, so that each purchase I have to think long and hard about must have some meat for me to consider. It's easy with HL2 episodes because their price relfects the length, they end up having good bang for the buck like some XBLA/VC titles.