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Adventure game length

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I think we can all agree that on average, the length of playing time in newer adventure games has gone down significantly. Back in the 80s and 90s if you bought a game you could expect to play for 8+ hours, and usually a lot more. Now it’s more like 4-6 hours, and sometimes a lot less (Edith Finch took me 2 and a half hours). Personally I feel like for the epic feel of a long journey a game needs to be at least 8-10 hours. Part of the reason The Longest Journey had such a lasting effect on people was its epic length. Cut it in half and people would have barely remembered it.

There are exceptions of course. Thimbleweed Park, Obduction and The Witness are all recent examples of longer games.

I want to ask some questions to see what people think about this.
1 .Why is there this influx of shorter games? (short attention spans? not enough resources for developers? decline of big devs and rise of indies?)
2. Is this a good thing for you? Would you like to see more longer games?
3. Do you see the trend of shorter games continuing? What would reverse it?

     
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Some games give the illusion of being shorter because they are divided into episodes. Like Life is Strange or the new King’s Quest feel short if you play an episode, but played back-to-back they are full fledged lengthy games.

As far as why there are shorter games, it is mainly due to more indie development. I think with Steam now, the market is open to anyone in the world to make and self publish games, so you have some devs who are working on their first game, or are working solo, and so maybe they want to work within that scope.

In some other cases like Kelvin and the Infamous Machine for example, the dev had stretch goals in the kickstarter that could have increased the size by a couple of chapters, but those goals weren’t reached.

As far as my preferences, I don’t mind if they were short or long games. Some short games like Gone Home can be very interesting and memorable experiences. What I mind though is short (or long games) that are incomplete and do not wrap their story satisfyingly, games like Duke Grabowski that were obviously meant to be longer. Also they should be priced accordingly. The Witness is priced at 29.99 so you would expect it to be longer, whereas Her Story was something like $6.

     
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BitingWit - 28 June 2017 12:04 AM

I want to ask some questions to see what people think about this.

1 .Why is there this influx of shorter games? (short attention spans? not enough resources for developers? decline of big devs and rise of indies?)
2. Is this a good thing for you? Would you like to see more longer games?
3. Do you see the trend of shorter games continuing? What would reverse it?


1. Normal marketing thing is people are busy in life and got limited time
Issue with my pals too who have family and kids, hey i dont get time so i play few matches of Overwatch or play portable games
If people are doing 10 hrs job, you only get time at weekends proper then there are so many games trying best to grab attention , in the end tight experiences get the attention

When it comes to indies and esp AG it would be super time consuming and hard to make big AG games, market is niche of niche
And for narrative purposes if your talent juice runs out , no need for padding

2. If Devs can pull it off without boring off, hard as shit even Witness bores out if you are not into them maze puzzles on panels
Finch and Firewatch over it anytime

3. Big good games will be hard in future but Sdude is right, eps structure is best way forward, copy LiS/TTG model of delivery so it remains short and long at the same time
Gamers can find their own pace
But as you can see with LiS sequels and TTG games with time, quality is now all over the place

     
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BitingWit - 28 June 2017 12:04 AM

I think we can all agree that on average, the length of playing time in newer adventure games has gone down significantly.

No, we really can’t. Tongue

Lots of games from the 80s/early 90s felt very long because people would get stuck for weeks or months on end, but they really weren’t that long or big. Games like KQ5, MI1 or Myst can be played through in a couple of hours if you know what you’re doing.

There definitely was some gameplay bloat around the end of the 90s and most of the aughts. Basically, with walkthroughs readily available on the Internet, games started to feel much shorter, because people weren’t getting stuck as much, and this led to some designers overcompensating by just adding more and more content (usually, lousy filler puzzles) and making games that frankly overstayed their welcome.

It’s true that this trend has been receding over the past decade, with games that are OK with being shorter. This was definitely helped by the rise of digital distribution, which reduced the overhead costs and made cheaper games viable—removing the need to drag things out so as to make players feel like they got their money’s worth.

I’m happy with that. I’d rather play a short but memorable game than an endless slog. After all, one of the best and most memorable games I’ve ever played is Loom, which was very short even by the standards of the 80s.


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By the way, it’s somewhat interesting to note that Ron Gilbert predicted the whole thing back in 1989:

The second thing I’d change would be the price.  For between forty and fifty dollars a game, people expect a lot of play for their money.  This rarely leads to huge, deep games, but rather time-wasting puzzles and mazes.  If the designer ever thinks the game might be too short, he throws in another puzzle or two.  These also tend to be the worst thought-out and most painful to solve.  If I could have my way, I’d design games that were meant to be played in four to five hours.  The games would be of the same scope that I currently design, I’d just remove the silly time-wasting puzzles and take the player for an intense ride.  The experience they would leave with would be much more entertaining and a lot less frustrating.  The games would still be challenging, but not at the expense of the players patience.

It’s also interesting that Thimbleweed Park doesn’t really follow that pattern at all. 50-year-old Gilbert has become a lot more conservative than his 25-year-old self. (As most people do, I guess.)

     
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There have always been some shorter games - Full Throttle was shorter than the other Lucasarts classics, and I remember being disappointed at finishing the original Journeyman Project in a couple of hours. There’s a subjective element too - Myst didn’t seem short at the time but if you played it for the first time now (having already played more recent games) you might well rattle through it. And there are (as you observe) still some longer games around - I’m sure you’re right that the average has come down, but I suspect it’s more because there are more shorter games than fewer long ones.

It does make sense that there are more shorter games now because more people can make them, which has to be a good thing. For an independent developer working with limited time and money it’s better to do something smaller well. Some developers move from shorter to longer games - Wadjet Eye started with pro-quality versions of short free AGS games, but Shardlight and Technobabylon are full-length. And on the customer side, the people who had time to play a 10 hour game in the 90s are older and busier now - a 10 hour game these days might take me a month to get through, so it’s good for there to be a wide variety of lengths of games. And that doesn’t just apply to adventures, there’s more variety across the board - which is good!

But most of all, each game should be the right length for that game! TLJ was long, Portal was short but they’re both considered pretty close to perfect. Imagine if the publishers had insisted that A Christmas Carol ought to be as long as David Copperfield, or that Paradise Lost ought to be a sonnet, or that the Moonlight Sonata should be the length of a symphony (you can actually experience this one in if you wait around in the restaurant long enough), or that David Lynch’s Dune should be cut from 8 hours to only 4 (Oh yeah. That one happened. Bad move…)

EDIT: I’ve just realized I haven’t addressed the ‘what could change it?’ part. Massive arts grants to developers would help, as would a mandatory extra day off each week for the express purpose of playing adventure games.

     

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As others have said, if you re-visit a lot of titles from the 80s-90s they arent half as long as you remember. And plenty of modern adventures meet the 8-10+ hour range.

     
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It really depends on the game concept. Games that try to tell an epic story will use the length to give you the effect of an adventure that really spreads throughout time. I don’t mind playing a long game every now and then, but as people mentioned, it’s really hard to devote your time when you are not a teen with nothing else to do. And even in really good and long modern games like Thimbleweed Park I felt a little bit lost when having larger time gaps between my play sessions.

I really enjoy short and intense games nowadays if done right. You can finish Inside for 4-5 hours for example and it’s so well paced that you don’t feel a second of boredom throughout the whole playthrough. Also, I think games like these are meant to be played in one session in order to be completely immersed into the atmosphere. Wouldn’t want this game to be longer than that.

Inside is not pure AG, so you don’t have the “wandering what to do” moments that breaks the pace. But I think this can be applied to more linear, story oriented and not so puzzle-heavy AGs that have a small-scope but intense plot.

     
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Phlebas - 28 June 2017 05:18 AM

as would a mandatory extra day off each week for the express purpose of playing adventure games.

Thumbs Up  Grin

     

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I think people already said what there was to say about the length of games, so I’ll just reply to the point about personal preference: in a sense, I miss longer games. Some of the oldies ramp up the difficulty as you progress in the game, similar to arcade games. There was a lot of pleasure in “getting into the designer’s head” and solving increasingly obscure / ridiculous puzzles based on some implicit understanding that was growing in you as you solved the more obvious stuff. Modern adventure games rarely reach this point, instead opting for a consistent challenge level (typically easy one as the game has to be accessible).

     

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BitingWit - 28 June 2017 12:04 AM

I think we can all agree that on average, the length of playing time in newer adventure games has gone down significantly…

I want to ask some questions to see what people think about this.

1. Why is there this influx of shorter games? (short attention spans? not enough resources for developers? decline of big devs and rise of indies?)

Mostly because of money, or more specifically the lack of it. Adventure games don’t get the huge budgets that so-called AAA titles do.

2. Is this a good thing for you? Would you like to see more longer games?

No, not a good thing for me. I’ve played casual Big Fish adventures and IHOGs (Interactive Hidden Object Games) that take me as long as 5 to 7 hours—and so-called adventure games that are over in less than 2 hours, sometimes closer to 1 hour. I expect a full-on adventure game to last longer than a casual and to be more immersive. In most cases, that’s not what I’m getting. Not that casual games are perfect, with their constant popups and slide-in messages breaking immersion, but current adventure games aren’t immune to those interruptions either.

3. Do you see the trend of shorter games continuing? What would reverse it?

I think the only thing that would reverse the trend is higher prices for games that resulted in more development money—and I don’t see that happening. People have been trained to wait for sales, which means less money for developers. At the same time, who would want to pay $20 for a game that lasts less than 2 hours? or to pay full price for a game only to see it being sold for a fraction of that price a few weeks later.

The only lengthy adventure games I’ve played recently are certain pixel art games like Technobabylon. There doesn’t seem to be development money for both length and high resolution modern-looking graphics—at least not with the current system.

It’s difficult to find a recent adventure game that has an “epic feel” to it. Not a short game with padding, but something that warrants its length. There’s more to an “epic feel” than sheer length, though length does play a part. And right now I usually have to go to other genres, or replay older adventure games if I want a lengthy, immersive game as opposed to a casual.

     
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I’d rather play a short game packed with ‘quality’ content than a longer game that is drawn out for the sake of it with mindless padding!  Smile I’m not a great fan of games released in episodic form but there have for me been some successes in that a game has materialised eventually to conclusion which has resulted in it being ultimately much longer than many stand-alone games, without for the most part unnecessary additions in order to extend it’s length!    Thumbs Up

     
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chrissie - 28 June 2017 03:33 PM

I’d rather play a short game packed with ‘quality’ content than a longer game that is drawn out for the sake of it with mindless padding!  Smile


“All games are but mindless padding.”

-Seneca

     
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All of my favourite games - without exception - are games that took me 20 hours or more, often considerable more, to complete!

There might also be shorter games of high quality, but it is hard for a game to make a lasting impression if you complete it in only a single short session, and especially if you start a new game already the day after or perhaps even immediately after. Whereas a game that you are playing exclusively over several weeks, with the game rumbling in the back of your mind even when not playing it, is pretty much bound to make a lasting impression regardless of its quality.

It is a bit like the difference between reading War and Peace compared to watching TV. Hands up, how many can actually remember what they watched on TV last week or even just yesterday?


As for why they have become shorter, and I do agree that that is the case, though it was even worse a few years ago, then most have already been mentioned, but I would like to add one thing:
With the rise of Steam and similar, developers also get a lot of data on how people are playing, and one of the things it has revealed is that only a relative small percentage of players actually fully complete their games, whereas many (perhaps even the majority) only play the first 5-10 hours! So why spend time and money creating a larger game, if most players wont even see the extra content?


Edit:

crabapple - 28 June 2017 02:49 PM

It’s difficult to find a recent adventure game that has an “epic feel” to it. Not a short game with padding, but something that warrants its length. There’s more to an “epic feel” than sheer length, though length does play a part. And right now I usually have to go to other genres, or replay older adventure games if I want a lengthy, immersive game as opposed to a casual.

I agree completely Thumbs Up

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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Iznogood - 29 June 2017 03:59 PM

It is a bit like the difference between reading War and Peace compared to watching TV. Hands up, how many can actually remember what they watched on TV last week or even just yesterday?

That’s a terrible analogy. The difference is akin to reading a novel vs. reading a novelette or a short story. Mixing mediums, even allowing for your outdated disdain for TV, makes no sense here.

     
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Antrax - 29 June 2017 11:53 PM
Iznogood - 29 June 2017 03:59 PM

It is a bit like the difference between reading War and Peace compared to watching TV. Hands up, how many can actually remember what they watched on TV last week or even just yesterday?

That’s a terrible analogy. The difference is akin to reading a novel vs. reading a novelette or a short story. Mixing mediums, even allowing for your outdated disdain for TV, makes no sense here.

Unless Izno’s favourite games are all epic text adventures? I can imagine completing Zork in the days before walkthroughs might well take in excess of 20 hours…

     

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