The length of Single Player Campaigns has changed, deal with it.

So often I see people complaining about the length of a Single Player campaign. Games like Alan Wake, Most FPS games, Heavy Rain etc And people often see this as a problem. It's not. 
 
Most games today have been around the same amount of game time, around 6 - 7 hours but I don't see this as a problem...anymore. When it first started sure, it was a problem but now why is it still one? It has changed and has become a standard so when will people stop complaining about it? Is it good or bad? this isn't what his blog is about it is about why scores have been lowered when most non - RPG games are of this length yet people still complain. 
  
Of course, this is my opinion. When do you guys think it will stop? 
 
Thanks for reading. ^__^

So often I see people complaining about the length of a Single Player campaign. Games like Alan Wake, Most FPS games, Heavy Rain etc And people often see this as a problem. It's not. 
 
Most games today have been around the same amount of game time, around 6 - 7 hours but I don't see this as a problem...anymore. When it first started sure, it was a problem but now why is it still one? It has changed and has become a standard so when will people stop complaining about it? Is it good or bad? this isn't what his blog is about it is about why scores have been lowered when most non - RPG games are of this length yet people still complain. 
  
Of course, this is my opinion. When do you guys think it will stop? 
 
Thanks for reading. ^__^

Resonance of Fate takes about 7 hours for the first 4 Chapters....and it has a total of 16 Chapters total.  >.>   
 
Also, you got games like Heavy Rain that do take a long ass time to finish...if played right.  x.x
 
EDIT:  Didn't read the "  this isn't what his blog is about it is about why scores have been lowered when most non - RPG games are of this length yet people still complain."

Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours but that also means that most of the games I buy are RPGs, games with multilayer or have a lower price price.

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours but that also means that most of the games I buy are RPGs, games with multilayer or have a lower price price. "

Kingdom Hearts sucks, deal with it.
 
 
 
 
 
 

" Kingdom Hearts sucks, deal with it.
 
 
 
 
 
 

...

I jest

"

" @DarkShaper said:

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours but that also means that most of the games I buy are RPGs, games with multilayer or have a lower price price. "

Good point, but I still fail to see why reviewers and people complain about Story focused games like Alan Wake and Heavy Rain. Are they worth the money? well yes or no, that is how those type of games are. "

It sure has changed (Not for many RPGs though) 
From the 40 minute singleplayer games like Sonic and Mario to something close to 6 hours (12 if you're lucky) 
It's a change for the better I say

" It sure has changed (Not for many RPGs though) From the 40 minute singleplayer games like Sonic and Mario to something close to 6 hours (12 if you're lucky) It's a change for the better I say "

Are you saying that short campaigns were a problem when they first came into effect, but now that it's become the industry standard, it's ok? If you are, that's like saying it was a problem when the Nazi's invaded France, but after they'd been there for a while it was fine.
Obviously that's a completely different proportion, but you get my point. Something that used to be a big problem when it came into effect doesn't suddenly stop being a problem because it stayed like that.
 
Anyway, personally I don't think short campaigns are neccesarily a bad thing, but having a fleshed out multiplayer component and/or single player replayability is the key for me. Case in point: L4D/L4D2. Short campaigns, but I've clocked up 105 hours of combined gameplay between them.

While it's true that a lot of games are shorter then before the quality of games have gotten much better. It's bit like how Daggerfall allowed you to explore numerous amounts of dungeons and cities but there wasn't much detail to anything really. Morrowind and Oblivion on the other hand have a much, much smaller game world but it's more detailed and memorable as a result and I think that's more important then time. 
 
Having said that, I do enjoy a good long single player game and I would like to see more of those type of games.

" @ZeForgotten said:

" It sure has changed (Not for many RPGs though) From the 40 minute singleplayer games like Sonic and Mario to something close to 6 hours (12 if you're lucky) It's a change for the better I say "

That is another thing, so why STILL do people complain? "

Yeah, complaining about people not being satisfied with very short games for the price of full-length games is way better than people complaining about not being satisfied with very short games for the price of full-length games. 
 
Personally, I love to be charged more for less. It's even better when an entire industry decides to do that, because then I can just say "well, gosh, I guess that's how it's done now, so who am I to criticize?". Seriously, what does "it has become the standard" matter? Saying "that's how we do it now" isn't a justification for shitty.
 
After all, that $60 for a completely mediocre four hour Kane & Lynch 2 was the best money I've ever spent. Who am I to criticize? In fact, I should be willing to spend $60 for a one hour long bad game, too. After all, who am I to say what is good or bad? Everything is relative, right? 
 
There are a few games which come out occasionally that are so exceptional and do something so rare or new that they can demand a standard price for what is ostensibly less content. However, people should stop being mindless consumers and recognize that all too often they are getting a couple hours of content padded with many hours of trivial bullshit (achievements are a big one, here) to try and convince you that the price they're charging for an often generic or even poor game is just as worthwhile as when you pay the same amount of cash for a triple-A title that cost a hundred million bucks to develop and has a thorough, original, interesting story and mechanic. 
 
I won't presume to speak for everyone else, but gosh -- I sure love it when people tell me what I should be, as a consumer, interested in or upset by.

" @DarkShaper said:

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours but that also means that most of the games I buy are RPGs, games with multilayer or have a lower price price. "

Good point, but I still fail to see why reviewers and people complain about Story focused games like Alan Wake and Heavy Rain. Are they worth the money? well yes or no, that is how those type of games are. "

" Resonance of Fate takes about 7 hours for the first 4 Chapters....and it has a total of 16 Chapters total.  >.> "

I will not deal with it.
Lets see Hollywood go from their regular length (2 hours~) to 20 minutes, and then see what happens!
There's many games outside the RPG genre where there are multiple chances for the game to explore the setting, characters and the story but it feels like it's all cut off.
 
I don't need super deep and complex stories in all my games, but there's certainly just a decline in quality along with the length.
Games like Kane and Lynch 2 and Modern Warfare 2 just didn't cut it for me at full price, even at half price I feel like I'm paying too much for such simple idiotic videogames.
But that's my opinion, and that's also why I love RPG's.
 
For the 60 we're paying you need to have some replay value because 60 is a lot of cash you can use for other things which will last you longer.

" Resonance of Fate takes about 7 hours for the first 4 Chapters....and it has a total of 16 Chapters total.  >.>    Also, you got games like Heavy Rain that do take a long ass time to finish...if played right.  x.x EDIT:  Didn't read the "  this isn't what his blog is about it is about why scores have been lowered when most non - RPG games are of this length yet people still complain." "

" @DarkShaper said:

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours but that also means that most of the games I buy are RPGs, games with multilayer or have a lower price price. "

Good point, but I still fail to see why reviewers and people complain about Story focused games like Alan Wake and Heavy Rain. Are they worth the money? well yes or no, that is how those type of games are. "

I gotta say I am sick of people saying 'Oh well you don't complain when movies are short'. Firstly, movies have a generally accepted length of between 1h 30 and 3h whereas major games range from about 4h to 100h. Secondly, I pay about £10 to see a movie and I pay £40 to play a game. So in theory I could pay £10 for the 3h + entertainment of LotR or 4 times that for 4h of Kane and Lynch 2. Also Halo: Reach was too short.

As someone who works a full time job, tries have a bit of balance in my life with a bit of exercise, some social time, and some reading or intellectual hobby I'm happy about games getting shorter. I don't mean all of them. Something like a Mass Effect needs to be a little longer, but a Halo or a Alan Wake doesn't. I'd rather have a good or great sub-10 hour experience than a longer but less polished one.  Modern games also have different paths, choices, story arcs that you can choose and I'd rather replay a short game a second time to see what I missed, Fable 2 is a perfect example, its short and you can do a couple of playthroughs to try out good/evil/silly. 

" I will not deal with it. Lets see Hollywood go from their regular length (2 hours~) to 20 minutes, and then see what happens! There's many games outside the RPG genre where there are multiple chances for the game to explore the setting, characters and the story but it feels like it's all cut off.  I don't need super deep and complex stories in all my games, but there's certainly just a decline in quality along with the length. Games like Kane and Lynch 2 and Modern Warfare 2 just didn't cut it for me at full price, even at half price I feel like I'm paying too much for such simple idiotic videogames. But that's my opinion, and that's also why I love RPG's.  For the 60 we're paying you need to have some replay value because 60 is a lot of cash you can use for other things which will last you longer. "

I can understand the gripe about short story in games. i remember the first bioshock not being too terribly long, but i managed to stretch it out by soaking in as muchof the environment and atmosphere as i could. It was difficult to go against *my* programming and slow down in a game. too often the story keeps slamming you with objectives- go here do that kill this choose choose choose TIME LIMIT OH CRAP - that its nearly impossible to take your time and enjoy the art that went into creating that world.  when you think about asset generation, it took teams of people 100s, possibly 1000s of man-hours to design, model, texture, program, and debug that little extra bit flare on the side of the road that you might glance at in your periphery as you run by looking for more ammo or whatever. Im not saying all games have these little flavorful nuances. in fact you could justifiably argue that most designers go out of their way to AVOID such distractions, since they think "people are going to be running for their lives and looking for healthpacks on the bodies that just hit the floor. they dont care that my texture people put their initials in a heart on that tree 10 relative feet off the game path" and that would be a waste of time and money that could have been used to better render the glowy bits on that BFG. or more gibs.  
 
 also-

@Branthog said:

 
Personally, I love to be charged more for less. It's even better when an entire industry decides to do that, because then I can just say "well, gosh, I guess that's how it's done now, so who am I to criticize?". Seriously, what does "it has become the standard" matter? Saying "that's how we do it now" isn't a justification for shitty.

" Are you taking the opposite opinion of that which you originally posted? First you were complaining that people complain that games are too short and now you're saying that what matters in a review is "are they worth the money?". Well, doesn't quantity and quality play an enormous role in the value of something? Yes, an incredible hour is better than a shitty six hours, but a great twenty hours is better than a great ten hours. Especially when you factor in cost. This is taken into consideration for the review of nearly every product on earth -- from cars to restaurants.  Why not charge $120 for Alan Wake? After all, it's a good game (though the ending is weak and the game is stuffed with a lot of filler that helped turn a much shorter game into a more average length game). Hell, why not charge $200 for it? If the game is worth it, it's worth it. What does price have to do with anything, right?  There also seems to be a disconnect between console gamers (who are apparently used to being fucked in the ass) and PC gamers. The idea of a game being only a few hours long (and at full price, at that) for PC gamers has traditionally been outside of our realm of experience. Perhaps this is because the majority of PC games that are most popular have always been RPGs and multiplayer -- but still.  I mean, look, I personally don't care that much. I feel ripped off when I pay full price for a four hour game. Especially a mediocre four hour game. However, I also make a satisfying salary, so I'm able to essentially buy games without giving any thought to financial investment in them. That doesn't diminish my sense of a developer or publisher ripping people off, though. It doesn't change my perspective on things having a certain tangible value.  Should every game be eighty hours long? Of course not. How about not charging the same price, then? Seriously, if a game that provides eighty or a hundred hours of content and is a generally high quality and compelling game is $60 -- why is a mediocre four hour game with little or nothing to contribute also selling for $60? I'm not seeing the logic, here. And by that line, why isn't Limbo also $60? We've already determined that digital distribution isn't cause for reducing the price on an item compared to a physical item. And you've determined that length should have nothing to do with the price of a game (and it's about the same length as, say, K&L2). So why should Limbo only be $15?  "

I think complaints about the shortness of a single player campaign only proves how much that individual loved said game.

I played Shadow Complex for the first time and finished it in one sitting, regardless if I did miss more then half of the collectibles I had a blast and will just go back to it on harder difficulties. I think this relates, but, yeah.

"  When it first started sure, it was a problem but now why is it still one? It has changed and has become a standard so when will people stop complaining about it?  "

If I want to play a game that much more, I just play it again. Or stretch out the campaign by going back and doing side missions and getting collectibles etc. I tend to get bored of games after a while, particularly some of the lengthier rpgs, so I sometimes never finish them. So i guess I endorse these shorter games, but I feel a 6 hour game should be the minimum for full retail games, and even for some XBLA/PSN style games.

Banana Hammock

" @DarkShaper said:

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours

That's a pretty good point. Would you want to play a 50+ hour Modern Warfare 2 campaign? Would get tiring. "

" @natetodamax said:

" @DarkShaper said:

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours

That's a pretty good point. Would you want to play a 50+ hour Modern Warfare 2 campaign? Would get tiring. "

MW2 Campaign was tiring at the 4 hour mark. :\ For me, 6 to 10 seems like the perfect length for most first person, third person shooters. I remember back in the day when one of the Unreals took 22 hours on average. That was just way too long. That said, My average Fallout 3 play through was 80 hours. I think I would have cried if it was 6. "

" @natetodamax said:

" @DarkShaper said:

" Very few non-RPG games have a single player that I want to play for for than six or so hours

That's a pretty good point. Would you want to play a 50+ hour Modern Warfare 2 campaign? Would get tiring. "

MW2 Campaign was tiring at the 4 hour mark. :\ For me, 6 to 10 seems like the perfect length for most first person, third person shooters. I remember back in the day when one of the Unreals took 22 hours on average. That was just way too long. That said, My average Fallout 3 play through was 80 hours. I think I would have cried if it was 6. "

The price of single player campaigns have no changed. In this case, "dealing with it" would be sticking my ass out and saying "please sir, may I have another." My way of "dealing with it" is to not purchase games that are half as long and doubly as costly as they should be. And I'll let devs "deal" with that.

" The price of single player campaigns have no changed. In this case, "dealing with it" would be sticking my ass out and saying "please sir, may I have another." My way of "dealing with it" is to not purchase games that are half as long and doubly as costly as they should be. And I'll let devs "deal" with that. "

" @Pinworm45: Okay lets say Heavy Rain was 30 hours, you are telling me that reviewers are not going to complain how it dragged on? There are some games that are meant to be short and some meant to be long, people complain about games that would best be served short about being too damn short.  And does it make it less of a product?  "

" @Pinworm45: And does it make it less of a product? "

" @Pinworm45:  While money is an issue an I understand that, tell me this - When was there a time where games like Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, Call of Duty etc were 60 hours long? it was never there. If most games were 60 hours long then suddenly became 7 I would be pissed however games amount of hours have drastically increased over time. "

Never actually thought I'd see anyone definding this reprehensible trend. This is part of the problem.

" @NekuSakuraba said:

" @Pinworm45: Okay lets say Heavy Rain was 30 hours, you are telling me that reviewers are not going to complain how it dragged on? There are some games that are meant to be short and some meant to be long, people complain about games that would best be served short about being too damn short.  And does it make it less of a product?  "

Yeah, it does. 80$ for a single player campaign is simply not worth it. Not only that, it's simply rude of the developers. It's rude both because they're saying their product is worth it, and expecting me to buy that - and because, in times like these, they're giving an extremely short product for an extremely high price. I don't give a shit how good it is if you're pulling the "quality not quantity" argument because that makes it seem like not only do they consider their product superior just because it's short - but it gives them an excuse to keep it short. Keeping it short doesn't make it better. Keeping it long doesn't make it worse. I don't know about the Heavy Rain example cause I never played it.  
 
Games used to do it before. There is absolutely no reason I should bend over and take this change in the worst possible time to change (developers should be making their game something special and be trying to prove they're better than other people, not just slamming out tons of shitty short games shotgun style. Why the fuck would I pay for that?) simply because it's becoming common place. 
 
@NekuSakuraba said:

" @Pinworm45: And does it make it less of a product? "

It is, by definition, less of a product. I assume though you aren't being literal and are using the "shorter = higher quality fallacy" though, in which case, see above. Yes, it does. 
 
@NekuSakuraba said:

" @Pinworm45:  While money is an issue an I understand that, tell me this - When was there a time where games like Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, Call of Duty etc were 60 hours long? it was never there. If most games were 60 hours long then suddenly became 7 I would be pissed however games amount of hours have drastically increased over time. "

Are you strawmanning? Single player FPS games weren't ever 60 hours to what I know. That was never the argument. They did used to be 20+ hours though, until they started realizing they could swindle saps like you out of your money. "

Besides K&L2 most games have actually been at a very satisfying length for me recently. The BioShock games (15-20 hours), Alan Wake (9-10 hours), The Gears games(10-11 hours), the Uncharted games (9-11 hours), Resistance games (8-10 hours), Dead Space (8-9 hours) just to name a few. So fortunately for me the games I'm most interested still manage to pack in an appropriate amount of content with its linear focused single player campaigns.

" @TaliciaDragonsong: Okay let us look at Hollywood, films used to go for 5 minutes. Remember those old black and white ones? well now movies are about 2 hours. The same is with video games. They used to be 40 minutes and now they are 8. Do I go into a movie and say ''I payed $12 for this movie and it was only 2 hours long?'' no because that is the standard running time for movies.  "

" Never actually thought I'd see anyone definding this reprehensible trend. This is part of the problem. "

Games also cost less to develop meaning developers could afford to make longer games, let's look at Heavy Rain a game which would cost a lot of money to make with all the possible outcomes. We have to realize that what we wan't we can't always get because develops have limited amounts of money and if they made it longer they would have lost more money. "

" @NekuSakuraba said:

" @TaliciaDragonsong: Okay let us look at Hollywood, films used to go for 5 minutes. Remember those old black and white ones? well now movies are about 2 hours. The same is with video games. They used to be 40 minutes and now they are 8. Do I go into a movie and say ''I payed $12 for this movie and it was only 2 hours long?'' no because that is the standard running time for movies.  "

There's a difference in when films just started and only lasted 5 minutes, that's called the past and in gaming I would consider that a tech demo.  I'm paying 60 bucks, if not more for some "super" titles and I expect to be taken away by it. Sure not every game can provide that but a Kane and Lynch 2 has no place between games that do deserve the full price. Movies have a low enough price to take a chance on (8 euro's here, which is not much all things considered) but I don't take "chances" with 60 bucks. We got Arcade titles on XBL and PSN for that, or if done right stuff like Dead Rising 2 Case Zero.  I get that you are defending your standpoint but there is no way you can justify such a price for all games just because that's standard (which you claim, it's not a fact yet thank god).  If people want to pay 60 for a game that lasts so short, go for it. Meanwhile I'll enjoy my 7th playthrough of Dragon Age Origins, bordering on 200 hours played. Making a experience mainstream does not work and does not warrant any price they want to ask for it. But if they do ask the price, let them, I won't buy it. "

Don't tell me what to deal with.

" @NekuSakuraba said: 

Games also cost less to develop meaning developers could afford to make longer games, let's look at Heavy Rain a game which would cost a lot of money to make with all the possible outcomes. We have to realize that what we wan't we can't always get because develops have limited amounts of money and if they made it longer they would have lost more money. "

Not my problem. Many developers are doing just fine, and just because they get less funding and make a shitty product doesn't mean I'm somehow not getting ripped off.  What you're saying is akin to paying lawyers fees to a guy who claims to be a lawyer, he does a TERRIBLE job defending you in court, then you find out he never had the money to go to law school.  Yeah, I don't think so. I'll either defend myself or pay someone who knows what they're doing, thanks. "