Are 100 Hours Out?
June 19th, 2008Sorry for the drought, but I temporarily relocated to South Korea.
In any case, Warren Spector thinks that 100-hour games are on their way out. I tend to disagree simply for the reason that very few games require 100 hours to complete, and almost all of those that I can think of don’t actually require 100 hours to finish unless you’re a completist. The average game might be getting shorter simply because there are more short games now available (thus dragging down the average), but those that are highly involved tend to be labors of love and I don’t really see them drying up.
Posted in Geoff, Industry |
June 19th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I agree but…..
I don’t think he meant “100 hour game” literally so much as just a euphemism for “realy bloody long”.
That being said, yes, there are more shorter games bringing down the average, but I think it’s also important to note that games are getting shorter in general. Where many games were 15-18 hours before, we’re seeing more 8-12 hour campaigns. Where “long” RPGs clocked in at the occasional 80 hours, now they seem to be showing up in the 40-50 hour category.
The thing is, I don’t really think it’s some all-encompassing shift in gamer tastes or the changing makeup of the mainstream gamer demographic, but rather simpler things like budgets and timeframes. I think with todays HD graphics and higher standards from ever more hardcore gamers (those most likely to consume epic “100 hour” games), it’s getting harder and harder to create that volume of content in a timely budget minded fashion.
Also, worth noting is that more and more games include a multiplayer element that (in theory) add longevity to games to make up for shorter single player experiences. It’s much more excusable for a game like COD4 to be viewed as “short” when the multiplayer weighs so heavily into its value proposition.
Lastly, there has been a lot of feigned outrage at his “only 2% of you have probably finished GTAIV” comments, but honestly, given the entire population of people who have played that game, I think he’s probably pretty close.
June 20th, 2008 at 2:21 am
I think another part of this is actually a corollary to the “Games as Art” theory, in that many developers actually want people to finish their games now. If a game is too long, the chances that someone will finish it go way down, and therefore less people can fully appreciate the game in it’s entirety (by definition).