Do You Get What You Pay For?

Written By Stephen Heller

Games are expensive here in Australia, for the average shopper visiting EB Games on release day you are looking at $100 and up for the hottest game for your beloved console. That is a lot of coin to throw on something that is going to last you 8-10 hours, and it seems the gaming community know that, thousands complaining that games are simply not long enough these days.

While I agree that games are simply too expensive, I think the length argument is void. When it comes down to it I would rather play 8 hours of a quality title than 15-20 of a sub par experience. When one really sits and thinks about it, games having a shorter lifespan seems like smart business sense by developers.

The average demographic of gamers has certainly evolved from the average teenage boy in his bedroom, which begs the question, can the average gamer really afford to sink 10 hours of their time into a game. Life these days is hectic for most, juggling study, work, sporting commitments, for a lot of people it would take them months to finish an 8 hour game. Could this be the reason we are seeing a lot of developers find success in Episodic content?

Valve have sold the idea with the Half-Life 2 episodes, Rockstar recently released their episodic content for the highly praised Grand Theft Auto IV, and TellTale Games have truly shown their dominance in the Episodic Content field. Could this be the way gaming is heading?

So to all those who relentlessly tell me that a game is too short, that a game didn’t deserve a certain score because it was simply too short, I ask you this question, How Many Games did you finish in 2008? While the hardcore gamers will scream numbers into the double digits, I believe a larger number will whimper a number within the 1-5 range.

Pick up and Play mentality also must be factored into a games lasting appeal. Developers want to make games user friendly, and accessible for everyone, no matter their skill level. Unlike the games like Super Metroid or Russian Attack which threw relentless numbers of enemies on the screen, having you die continually and having to restart the game, the frustration building with each button pressed, games simply do not offer such a great challenge. Games back then were realistically only a few hours worth of gameplay, it’s simply the hard difficulty that made them last forever.

In the next few years where do you think gaming will go? Are we destined for Episodic content for the masses? Or will we see the hardcore crowd prevail and have developers start creating games that last longer than a weekend session?

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3 360 auto Episodes Game games grand Half Life Metroid Microsoft nintendo playstation rockstar Sony super Telltale theft Valve wii xbox