Are console games getting too short for the money?

[Howard_Casto]

I finally picked up resident evil 5 (gold edition) yesterday because I just got my 360 back from repair and I needed something fairly intensive to test it with.  Now mind you I love the game, what there is of it, but that is the issue....

I got the game on tuesday, I've played a couple of hours a day of the evenings since then and I'm already heading into chapter 6!  (Last level).

Now mind you I have the gold edition, so I have several more bonus chapters to play though, but this game was originally released for 60 bucks last year sans any bonus content??

I've been running into this issue a lot the last couple of years.  I'll buy a game and I'm done with it in a week, two tops.  It's always the expensive games taht are short as well.  The two longest games I played recently were new smb wii which was only 50 bucks and lasted a good month and a half of intensive gameplay and samba de amigo wii, which was at the frikkin bargain bin at biglots!

It tends to lean towards that console as well.  As a whole wii games have much longer gameplay compared to the 360.  The last 360 game with any length to it was batman, and that was the game of the year.

So is it just my imagination or are games going up in price and down in content?  Are there any games on the 360 with actual length to them that aren't crappy rpgs?  Will the caped crusader save his young ward from the villanous clutches of the nefarious clock king?

[DJ_Izumi]

I really think it's ALWAYS Been like this.  Even in 1998, Half-Life 1 you could beat in a few nights.  If you had a whole afternoon and evening you coudl beat it in just one day.  Infact asside from RPGs and of course puzzle games, the only thing that made older games 'longer to beat' was because they killed you more often.

[Dizzle]

Yeah, I definitely think games are getting way too short especially considering the $60 price.  And throwing in online co-op/multiplayer to add "playability" to games doesn't cut it for me.  I was really looking forward to Splinter Cell: Conviction until I found out that the single player campaign was 5-6 hours.  No way I'm shelling out $60 for that.

Unfortunately, I don't see this trend changing anytime soon.

Assassins Creed is a game that you can put a lot of hours into though...

[northerngames]

I agree also and for me modern warfare was a cool game but it was over and through before it started for me I think I beat it in one sitting and less then 4 hours.

call of duty 2 or 3 for the pc I don't recall wich but one of the two seemed like it was never going to end and it seemed at least 4X longer then modern warfare I thought I was at the end I dont know how many times and there were still miltiple mission ahead still I have not played two yet but 1 was way way to short.

possible the shortest fps I have played I know it is an online game for those who dont have it that game for non online user's is worht the $2.00 rent for the night but certainly not $60.00 to own.

the original butcheer bay was cool also but seemed very short.

resident evils seem's like they got fast by the number 1 taking the longest to complete and 5 being the fastest.

family member recently got that new final fantasy and continue's to grip how short it was and how it was nothing like the depth or lengh of the ol ps1 ff VII only thing positive was graphic but the game play lengh was terrible appearently.

[Howard_Casto]

I'm glad it's not just me then.  You guys and your examples crack me up though, only mentioning fps and rpgs.  Personally I HATE rpgs, but that's just personal preference.  Fps, on the other hand have degraded to where fighters were by the late 90's... they all look alike, there isn't any content to speak of, gameplay is virutally non-existant in single player mode, and they just aren't fun anymore.  I think the last fps I played was metroid prime 3, and that doesn't even count because it's a fp action game and a nintendo game.  It did have a solid month or so of gamplay in it though..... again, nintendo games seem to have more content. 

I've got assasin's creed i and II btw..... ubisoft always makes a quality game, although no more heroes 2 was really short now that I think about it. 

[northerngames]

I dont have a wii nor ps3 and fps is all the 360 has really next to a hand full of racers rpg's and the few weirdo type games that should probably never been released for money.

AC 1 was cool but got repetitive rather fast like 1/4 of the way through it but I am still wanting to play II for sure.

but yeah owning a 360 only I am pretty much limited to fps and a few racers.

beside's the rpg's and fps what type games did you have in mind that were short the weirdo one's that should not have been released for money?

[Samstag]

I don't have a problem with game length or cost.  I rarely pay over $40 for a game and even at $40 it's for the games that have some life to them.  Short games tend to drop to bargain prices within a few months, and if they don't then I either rent them or don't play them.

Games on the 360 I've paid $40 or more for in recent years:

Bad Company 2 - 50+ hours and counting
Forza 3 - at least 50 hours so far
Mass Effect 1 - 120+ hours
Mass Effect 2 - 40+ hours
NHL 09 - 80+ hours
Borderlands - 150+ hours maybe?
GTA 4 - easily 300+ hours

I've also collected a huge library of short games I pick up for $10 or less for a little variety.  Resident Evil 5 happens to be one of those.  I haven't played it yet, but I'd imagine I won't be disappointed in it for that price.

So I'd say that while games are getting short for the $60 tag, that's not really an issue if you're patient and shop around.

[severdhed]

i like my games fairly short...10 to 12 hours tops.  after that i just can't stay focused.  I do agree that they cost too much for what they are, but that is why i usually wait until they are cheap.  WHen a game takes too long to finish, i just lose interest and never finish it.  I dont know how long BioShock took to finish, but i thought it was about perfect.  By the time i was near the end of it, I was ready to be done playing it.  i hate playing a game when it feels like i will never get to the end of it.  maybe it's because i have two small children (1 and 3 years old) but i just dont get very much time to play games aymore...maybe 3 hours a week if i'm luck...i dont want my games to drag on for months.  it takes me way to long as it is to finish them.  I have so many games that i have never even started to play yet... as it stands right now, 13 out of 47 xbox 360 games,  7 out of 21 wii games, and 3 out of 5 ps3 games have not even been started, that's not counting the ones i started and havent finished.  games dont need to be longer...they just need to be cheaper.

[SavannahLion]

Game developers pump a lot of time, energy and money into doing whatever it takes to get you to buy the game and the long-term gameplay suffers for it. Developers don't care if a particular game lasts 5 hours or 300 hours as long as you buy the game. Once you fork over that cash, that's it, you're done.

I don't know how many people read reviews, but based on the sales numbers for Deer Hunter, probably none.

[XCVG]

Well, the thing is, actually making a game longer requires quite a bit of effort. You can artificially increase the length by simply making it harder, but that just makes it frustrating. AFAIK FPS games always were short. Doom 2 is only 30 relatively short levels IIRC. Nowadays the focus is more on online gameplay. It's as long as you want it to be and very popular right now. RPGs are more open which makes them longer, but in Mass Effect it would take maybe an intense day of gaming to finish JUST the main quest. Strategy games generally have multiple campaigns but the real length comes from the skirmish mode. You have a good skirmish mode and people will keep playing. Online is into the picture now as well.

As for personal experiences, Call of Duty 4 was really short, but it was really awesome, especially the first time around. I must have played it through 2 or 3 times. I would play my favorite missions more than that. And then I got into the online.

Just bought Mass Effect recently and played it through. Going through again to do more of the side assignments that I missed.

Those are all for PC. As for my console collection, not much is finished, mostly because I hardly play on any of them anymore. Even my nearly brand new Dreamcast doesn't get a lot of use.

[Dizzle]

Game developers pump a lot of time, energy and money into doing whatever it takes to get you to buy the game and the long-term gameplay suffers for it. Developers don't care if a particular game lasts 5 hours or 300 hours as long as you buy the game.

Very true.  Which is why I've been buying games less and less.  On top of that, there's that nonsense where at least one game company is contemplating charging users to play their demos.  (Crysis 2)

[Malenko]

The game is only as short as youre willing to play it.  A LONG game doesnt make it a good game, and a short game doesnt make it  a bad game. Since MW2 was brought up I'll use that as an example. The single player story while fantastic IS SHORT. But there is Spec ops mode, and if you have Live! (or a PS3)you can play online. You can suck online against other players and still unlock all the achievements on the game, something you cant say for alot of games.

As for Splinter Cell Conviction, Im about 6 hours into single player and almost done it, but I put that on hold to play the co-op story, which is totally different then the single player story. On top of that theres Denied Ops mode, which has a few other modes tucked into it, like Hunter, Last Stand,etc Judging that game on the singler player is unfair to what the devs did, especially considering they let you play local multiplyer and system link fo rthose without live.

I picked up Last Remnant, supposed to be 60+ hours to beat, and it was so god awful I stopped after 25 minutes, so to me, that game was SHORT

[SNAAKE]

you guys have that kind of time and interest? thought games are old and played out by now.

maybe its just me. I still have uncharted2(ZOMG 10/10!!!) and other random games in shrink wrap... I dont think I ever played any game that took me more than 7-8 hours to finish.

[Cakemeister]

I have played many many hours worth of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games, a lot more than 10 on each one that's for sure.

[Ginsu Victim]

I've got over 70 hours in Left 4 Dead so far and I don't even play online.

[Howard_Casto]

Judging that game on the singler player is unfair to what the devs did, especially considering they let you play local multiplyer and system link fo rthose without live.

Not it isn't.  No single player = no game.  If a game is billed as having a single player experience then said experience must be as good as the multiplayer experience.  If it isn't then the single player mode might as well be removed completely.  The opposite can not be said though.  Now days, because people are so multi-player crazy games often have a multi-player mode tacked on to sell more copies (hell even re5 does) that being said it's usually obvious by the advertising if it's just a tack-on so you can buy accordingly.  

Hell even waaaaay back in the day this concept caught on real quick.  The first games (computer space and pong) made a lot of money, but they were limited in that two people had to be willing to play.  One of the first things game developers invented was the single player game.  It meant that someone could play alone, and it was good business as well because now they could charge the second player and extra quarter.  

And while we are on the subject.  Achievements are the worst thing to happen in the history of gaming.  Talk about artifically lengthening the game.....  I want to play the game, not run around like an idiot looking for hidden icon #178 just so I can hear a little "bling" when I pick it up.  I think they could honestly add two or more levels to every single play game released in the last 5 years if they'd just fire the achievement team and put them to work on more levels.  What's worse is now developers seem to be linking unlockables to these mindless snipe hunts.  I'll be forced to search for bsaa icons in re5 because unlocking all the models/extras requires not only good performance in the levels (which makes perfect sense to me) but finding useless, hidden, junk.

Assasin's creed has the same issue.  Part two was much better about it, but I still had to search for 100 pointless feathers just so I could earn a cape so that enemies would be willing to attack me again and I could have fun beating them up.    I mean I could play the game over from the start, but why?  It's a narrative-driven game and I already know what happens.  


I like rock band/gh and racing games that you guys have mentioned though.  The reason though isn't that the games are any longer, but rather they have replayability.  There might be 4 hours of songs in a typical gh game and racing games are equally short.  


It's funny you guys mention doom 2, because it's actually quite a long game.  It was released in the mid-90's.... that was literally the extent concerning how long a game could be at the time.  Hell the original super mario bros was a long game too.  24 levels?  on a game released in 85?  That's huge.  I guess maybe pointing that out makes it easier to understand what I'm trying to say.  Back in the day you got the feeling that developers were putting as much content into the game that they possibly could.  Now days it seems more like the guys up stairs say "you've got a year to make a AAA title" and the developers frantically rush to produce a game that is playable and bug free, with long levels being a after-thought.

[northerngames]

another long rpg was shining force for genesis.

I find myself playing more gamecube ps2 dreamcast and ps1 over the 360 and I dont have much interest in the ps3 or wii becuase many great older games can be had for less that are worth the few bucks and most are funner games.

like mentioned prior the way the FPS games are there pretty much the same splinter cell's were all cool but now it has rubbed off on many games were it makes them all the same ol run of the mill fps with different level and noise's but the exact same gameplay.

mirror's edge brought a little something new and I liked that game but I dont want to play 10 more just like it again.

the newer price of persia's are all cool have not plaed the latest yet though but the other's seem to have just about the right depth to them for a good game experiance and your money's worth.

fighters are good for friends and online but talk about short games for single player use 

[patrickl]

I guess it depends on what you think is "short". It took me 24 hours of playing to get through Resident Evil 4 on the Wii. Took me 18 hours to play "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" on the PS3. I'm still playing GTA IV and I think I'm only on 35% or something.

If you want something that plays for a long time then get something without a story. Simple arcade games or racing games can go on for eternity and you will never finish them.

Besides, most games nowadays have good multiplayer games included. That does count for something.

[Malenko]

Judging that game on the singler player is unfair to what the devs did, especially considering they let you play local multiplyer and system link fo rthose without live.

Not it isn't.  No single player = no game.  

Re-read. I said the story is short, the extras really lengthens it. Black ops is single and multiplayer. hunter and last stand modes are single and multiplayer. My point to stress was even the multiplayer modes require only a second controller; and not a friend with a copy of the game on the same system and an internet connection (and possibly Live!). Lastly, didnt the original super mario bros have 32 levels? (and if memory serves if you use the warps cant you beat the game in under 3 minutes?)

[AtomSmasher]

Super Mario Bros. wasn't very long, in fact most of the games from that era were not very long simply because they lacked save files.  I couldn't imagine trying to beat a 20+ hour game if it had to be beat in one sitting.

[massive88]

Aside from multiplayer, I only want RPGs to last longer than 6-9 hours.  If a game is good, you will play through it more than once, and then it passes the movie ticket price per hour comparison challenge.

SF4 Ive put like 40 hours into, and Modern Warfare 2 I have just over 27.  The vast majority of both of those is multiplayer, and neither make me feel like I wasted my money.  Mass Effect 2 I beat in 32 hours, and immediately wanted to play it again.

Modern Warfare 1 was one of the best single player experiences Ive had in a long time, and it was only about 6 hours long.  Same with the original Metal Gear Solid for PSX, that took 9 hours.

[ark_ader]

I just played with Dead Space and the game lasted the entire evening. 

I know it is an old game, but when it came out it wasn't cheap.

[severdhed]

the worst part about modern console games, is that so many of them are focused too much on online multiplayer. I buy games because i want a good single player experience.. I personally don't want to play a game with a bunch of strangers over the internet.  I'm not against multiplayer games, but what makes me mad is that alot of the current generation games don't allow 4 player split screen gaming.  Some of my favorite memories are going to my friends house, where a few of us would sit and play Perfect Dark on the N64 or Quake 3 on the dreamcast.  Sure there are still a few games that have split screen multiplayer, but they are fewer and fewer as times goes on.  This makes no sense to me at all.  TVs are larger and much higher resolution than they were a few years ago, so a split screen experience would be much better now than it was a while back.  I do all of my gaming on a 102" HD projector screen....split 4 ways, each player would have a 51" screen...why is this not an option?  Sure online play is nice for some people, but i don't get alot of time to play games anymore, the chances of my game time occuring at the same time as one of my friends is pretty slim, so if i want to play online, i end up playing against people i dont know, which just isnt any fun.  I have tried a few times, but i always end up playing agaist some stupid teenager who has nothign better to do than play gears of war for 8 hours a day, i end up taking 3 steps, get killed, respawn, take 3 steps, get killed...repeat until frustrated.

i want a game that i can sit down and play at my leisure.  If i want to play at 10pm on a wednesday for 45 minutes, i can do that.  That is why i need a good single player experience...multiplayer is a nice add on, but it seems as if too many games are relying on the online multiplayer experience.  I would just love it if my friends would come over, i could fire up the 360 and get some good split screen action going, but there just arent that many games that support it.

to get back on topic, as for games being too short, that is not an issue for me at all.  Modern Warfare 2 had a short single player mode, but it was awesome. I finshed it, and i moved on to another game.  i have not even fired up the multiplayer mode, and probably never will.  If i finish my other games, i will probably play the single player mode again, because it is awesome..but looking at the number of games i have to get through, it probably wont happen.

i also have games that i will never finish.  I just finally started playing Lost Planet, but I just cant get into it, so i'll probably move on to something else.   

Super Mario galaxy 2 comes out before too long, which will be an awesome single player experience, just like the last one. 

[Necroticart]

Honestly the only short game I've bought lately would be God of War 3 finished it on god difficulty in 12 hours. ones I've found to be worth the money for the single player experience are Killzone 2, and Resistance 2 but mostly I buy fighting games SF4, SSF4, tekken 6, for playability. another game i've taken an interest lately is Modnation racers I've played the beta and was downright impressed with the mod tools in the game they are incredibly easy to use and you can put out amazing results in no time

[javeryh]

ALL games should be 12-15 hours MAX.  There are too many and I don't have time for them all.

[Necroticart]

I had never played any of the God of War games or even seen them in person.  Couple weeks ago, I saw it on my friend's super-duper-giganto TV and all that. 

While it looked great, the character design was weird (Poseidon was some kind of crab water horse thing?  And I think Treebeard from Lord of the Rings was mother earth or something) and game-play consisted of holding the d-pad up and pressing the same button over and over.  It felt like a borderline interactive movie, to be honest.

 

As far as the gameplay goes on easy you can just mash buttons and finish the game. the thing is once you start to raise the difficulty to anything above normal the enemies take alot more strategy to kill and the same goes for bosses a few stupid moves will get you killed with ease.

[Epyx]

I just love games..long, short, medium...it doesn't matter...I just ask that the game be good. 

To me games are all about the mood I happen to be in..if I want short I play on my arcade cab...if I feel like carnage its FPS...something more cerebral, then ill load up Civ 4 or Gal Civ 2 on my pc, RPG mood same, load up PS3 or PC etc.