Why should length determine quality?

I don't like that people are saying the Order is bad because it is short. For me, it is a case of quality over quantity. What does everyone else think?

I'm not defending the game. I just don't think we should judge games based on length alone.

It can be if one is frugal about their purchasing decisions!

It doesn't. Short games are fine. If someone don't want to pay full price for a short game, then the game isn't for them. Wait, rent, or skip. That simple. I don't see what everyone is freaking out about. I'm more concerned about the story than the length. I hope they've built an interesting story and world. Length doesn't matter for me personally. I don't need every game to be an open world where I have to waste time walking between missions. I don't need a bunch of side quests and branching paths. Just tell me a story and make sure the guns feel nice.

To me it comes down to the other options out there. If there are games already out that I haven't played that are known to be good, long games, I will without a question choose them over short games. Actually who am I kidding, short games I will only buy when they're deeply discounted or used, as it's just not worth it to me.

Also, with game prices being higher this generation, I think that there is even less that can be said in opposition to this.

BECAUSE I WANT MY MONEY'S WORTH AND ON A $60 GAME WITH NO MULTIPLAYER, 5 HOURS ISN'T CUTTING IT.

@thatonedudenick: I couldn't agree more

I don't have a problem with short games at all. Some of my all-time favorites are pretty short (Journey, Portal). I care more about the quality than the length of the game- to a point. I have a hard time justifying paying $60 for an experience like The Order (what looks like a fairly generic third-person shooter) that lasts only 5 hours. The game would have to be truly exceptional for me to feel good about paying that much for that kind of game.

Maybe someone who enjoys the genre/setting of The Order more than I do would feel differently. I still intend to play this game (unless it gets completely trashed by the majority of reviews- I don't have time to play bad games). I'll just play it for $20 or less.

@asilentprotagonist: @mb: It is as cheap as it has been for my entire lifetime and with the increasing dominance of phone games I can only see it getting cheaper, assuming you don't buy everything full price for no reason. That is until phone games cause the apocalypse.

As far as length goes ideal length for a perfect game is 40 hours for me but Super Metroid takes a dump on that. If the Order is as good as Super Metroid it can be as long as it wants to, if not it should probably shoot for 10-12 hours. I'm all for 20 hour games like the Evil Within and Alien though.

All hail the mighty Steam!
And also that most big name games can be found for 20 bucks eventually if you just wait on it. But I've never been part of the 'must buy immediately' culture anyways so it's never been a bother.

Anyways, for everyone saying the game looks too short I see someone defending it, so I guess it's just a preference thing, some people justify money spent to time entertained, even heard of a person or two who thought they got more out of seeing a longer movie then a shorter one.
I don't really get it, I actually prefer shorter games at this point in time, means I actually get to finish them, but to each their own, if people are saying it being short makes it not worth their money, that's fine. If other people say it being short makes it a bad game, that's silly, but we are on the internet, and it tis a very silly place indeed.

It shouldn't, though the angle most people seem to be taking is the value proposition is poor--not that the quality of the game is poor.

It's hard to pinpoint what value is since it completely depends on the individual. To me length is a smaller factor in value, whereas gameplay and story quality are a much bigger factor. If you talked to me a few years ago when I was living off very little money in school, I would have said I needed a game to be longer to justify my purchase. Like most people I'm hopeful about this game, I have 60 dollars ready to spend on it if it turns out well. However I'll have some time to make up my mind since my PS4 disc drive stopped working yesterday (thank Cthulhu for that 60 dollar extended warranty).

It shouldn't.

Imagine a $60 game called 'Paint Drying Simulator' that involves nothing but watching paint dry for 600 hours. That's 10c per hour, but I can't fathom anyone considering it to be good value...

It's all about the value proposition. If you're asking 60$ for your 5,6 hour game, you better have something in your game that makes that totally worth it. This can be by jawdropping visuals, amazing new systems, A lot of repeatability or a great multiplayer mode.

It seems like The Order is going for the visuals. So i guess when people play that game they must feel like they're blown away by it, otherwise it's a tough thing to sell.

Edit: Captain Toad had the same problem. During the quicklook it was apparent that it was a great game that put well together. But for the price they asked, Dan had trouble recommending it to everyone. Saving grace of that game were the visuals and the replayability (getting all the stars).

That's how I feel, generally. I don't mind a great single player game that takes even just four or five hours to go through. Games like Spec Ops: The Line or Bulletstorm come to mind.

I also bought those games for $5, not $60. I'm not sure I would look back on games like that with as much fondness as I do if the value wasn't as great as it was thanks to Steam sales. I think about all the games I could get on Steam for $60 and buying pretty much any game for that price seems completely ludicrous to me.

In 6 months when this game bottoms out in price, you bet I'll try it out. But I don't think people are concerned with the brevity of the game so much as it's shallowness.

Plenty of short games can pack a lot of punch but plenty of others can feel like glorified tech demos. We shall see come Friday.

Because people can be idiots. Judging something before you experienced it is stupid, and this is mostly only getting hate because the new generation of console wars is still going strong.

Value is different things to different people. Some people are totally fine with plopping down $60 for a 6 hour game if they enjoy that experience (that's where I tend to fall), others aren't willing to spend that much money without knowing they're getting a significantly longer experience. Both are totally fine. People who are saying The Order is bad because of its length are being silly, but I can totally understand not wanting to purchase the game knowing it's short.

For me it's just one of many things that makes me think this game isn't going to be too great. Why do they only have 5 hours worth of ideas for this IP establishing game?

@johntunoku: Becouse they go for quality over quantity?

I live in a country where new games cost $80. Short games doesn't automatically make them bad, but they need to be priced accordingly there's no way i'm going to pay full price for a game that i will finish in one evening unless it's really special.

My problem with short games being that expensive is that the value proposition, to me at least, is poor. I can't help but compare what a six hour, $60 game offers compared to any number of other games that are 90% less expensive but may offer just as much if not more content.

There was a time when I was buying two or three (or more) new releases every month because I always had to have the latest, newest thing. Now, I'd rather spend less money. I'm perpetually six months or a year behind the latest releases, but I am playing way more games and spending a lot less money this way. With few exceptions, about the only time I spend a significant amount of money on games is twice a year during Steam sales.

Taking value into account and using a game I have played, let's use Spec Ops: The Line as an example. At $5, which is what I paid, I give that game 5/5. If it was $60, it would have been 2/5.

@rethla: None of the gameplay footage I've seen has indicated to me that they were super discerning about making every moment engaging and interesting.

I'd prefer to play a short and entertaining game for 7 hours than a good game that drags on too long. Alien Isolation is 20 hours and it would have been a far better game if it was cut down to 10 hours. The whole money for hours played nonsense is fairly new. There are a ton of short games from the 90s and 80's, even those without replay value, that are classics, and games were more expensive then. So get over it.

@mb: Yup, that's a totally understandable position to take.

So, like a lot of people, I don't like a lot of what I've heard about The Order: 1886. It sounds like... well, a lot like a Naughty Dog-esque PS3 exclusive. In other words, it sounds like the games that made me roll my eyes whenever the name Naughty Dog was mentioned with high praise, rather than the games that Naughty Dog used to make, the Jaks and Crashes that made me call Naughty Dog one of my favorite developers.

But why on Earth has this game in particular been a scapegoat for a lot of the dislike some people have for the "cinematic, shallow third person shooter" brand of game design? What is this game doing different? Is it just that some people are tired of these kinds of games getting perfect scores when better games get shunned?

In any case, if I ever play The Order and I wind up disliking as much as I suspect I will, it won't be because of its length. As someone with untouched and barely touched games just sitting there, I'd much rather have a five hour game with great pacing than a twelve hour game with really bad pacing. I have other games to play, I'd rather not see games needlessly padded out. Besides, if you want your game to be longer, give people a reason to replay. Treasures, secrets, new game pluses, change up the game on higher difficulties, implement some kind of level up system that changes the way you play depending on where you put points, etc. - you don't even need to include moral choices. There are many examples of games that include reasons for you to pick them up again. And let's not forget the most important one of all, solid and fun gameplay.

Thinking back on my favorite games and series, they tend to be very long experiences I can lose myself in (Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Red Dead, Skyrim). It's a tough sell for me to pay full price for a very short experience. It does lower a games appeal for me at release if I know it will be a short (possibly single evening) experience.

I've loved some short games - but I usually buy at a steep discount. I go in with the expectation that the experience will be short and sweet.

One size must fit all.

That's why I don't buy Street Fighter and it's ilk. Arcade mode should be 20 hours +.

It doesn't. If it's 6 hours of (somehow I doubt it will be) good storytelling and solid action then I might pick it up. If The Order is just 6 hours of rote garbage then they will not see a cent from me. My time and patience, and yours, are at a premium, and the sooner larger developers realize this, the sooner I'll be willing to buy more top-dollar games in a given year.

Exactly. People act like they're losing money on games before they even buy them. If only the people that did buy them had a way to know some aspects of the game before making their purchasing decisions of expensive hobbies. If only there were a website that did just that. If only they had a variety of games to choose from. If only..

@beachthunder: that's pretty much every ps1-era JRPG

I beat BioShock Infinite in one sitting (about 9 hours...not a reasonable one-sitting session to be sure) and loved it. I think if a full $60 game can be more succinct and awesome in its <10 hours than it could be by needlessly drawing it out (see Alien Isolation) then it's perfectly fine. If it's over in a flash and has little to no replay value, though, I'm going to feel a little ripped off.

The last time I can remember feeling SUUUUPER ripped off was with Gone Home. For one, I didn't like the direction the story went in or what it was all about (something no reviewer mentioned) and for another it look me like an hour to finish and it was $20. That was way too freaking short for a game I'll never replay that was more than $5. I remember getting furious at Yoshi Touch & Go for being a full $30 DS game and being nothing more than a not-even-glorified tech demo for the dual screen/touch screen thing. GAHH I was so mad I bought that. You literally saw all it had to offer in like six minutes. That and Electroplankton were serious rip-offs from Nintendo.

If you are looking at videogames as purely art pieces to experience, then yes, who cares about the length of the game. But many see videogames as an activity, and an activity/hobby needs to last long enough. Right now in our world "long enough" is >6hours depending on the genre and price. I personally would buy a 3 hour game if it is under 15$, but I would absolutely never consider a 3 hour 60$ game not matter how good it was. Now, quality is important, but there are minimum thresholds for quality and quantity that must be met. Excelling in one but lacking extremely in the other equals to failing expectations. For example:

Imagine if you bought tickets to Kevin Harts next comedy special. Those stand up specials last about an hour. You buy your ticket for 60$, you and your date get dolled up, ready for an entertaining show. But, the show lasts 5 minutes. It was the funniest 5 minutes you have ever experienced but it was still 5 minutes. If you came to see Kevin Harts comedy art, you walk home happy but if you came with a date and this was your activity for the night... well you are not happy, right? Now what if 60$ was a significant amount of money to you? What if you found out ahead of time that the show was going to be 10 minutes long? If you are looking for an activity to take your date to, is a 10 minute/60$ Kevin Hart show worth it? And finally, if there is another show where the guy is doing really funny jokes(nothing mind bending) for 1-2 hours for 60$, which would you feel better about going to?

I think I got across what I was trying to say, I will have to come back tomorrow and make sure I made some sense.

I think the whole debate going on it kind of silly. If it's short, call it short, but length does not determine quality. An amazing 5 hour game is worth $60. A semi decent 5 hour game is probably not. I don't know what area The Order falls under yet. Hearing it's 5 hours means it will probably take me 7 to 8 hours which is fine since I find the setting far more compelling then your random sci-fi or random modern combat shooters.

What I don't understand is the people who say they are happy it's 5 hours since they would rather have an awesome 5 hours rather then 5 awesome hours and 5 filler hours. Sure, but wouldn't you rather have 10 awesome hours? Length has nothing to do with quality. Defend the quality of the experience, not the length.

In Europe make that $77.

Also, it's not the length specifically that's deterred me from the game, but that it looks to be a pretty bog-standard single-player only third-person shooter with little to stand out besides its graphics. Also QTEs.

That it's also potentially rather short simply adds another notch as to why this game continues to look unappealing, certainly from a new purchase perspective. I'm not opposed to trying it out for myself eventually, just when it's significantly cheaper.

The thing is that the person who did that 5 hour playthrough probably played it either on easy or normal difficulty (he has said that he didnt play it on hard difficulty). People on neogaf have said that their playthrough has varied from 7 to 10 hours which is a reasonable length. It still isnt a long game but seems longer than 5 hours.

I usually play fps games on hard so they tend to last me longer anyway.

I think it's the fear that, if the game sells well, we're going to get more games like this that are expensive, short, and QTE infested. Thing is, all the controversy is just going to get this game to sell even more.

I think people should get over themselves and wait for the game to come out.

Well I never got any complaints..

It doesn't. But I understand where people come from when the argument is "games are expensive".

What I hate with this idea of dollars-per-hour though, is that people like to complain that short games are being sold at a full $60, but if a substantially long game like Dragon Age or Skyrim came out at say, $90, people would still flip their shit.

In short, you can't ever please "gamers".

If every single person out there was "frugal" with their purchasing decisions this industry would be in really bad shape. How awesome would it be for developers/publishers if we all waited 3-6 months until they discounted their game to half the price before we even thought about buying it? The idea is that they present a product that is so good that we don't think twice about the price.

Gaming is expensive. Games are expensive and peripherals are expensive and hardware is expensive. Just because some people are willing to wait a year for a game to drop down into the bargain bin or stand in line for 6 hours on black friday to buy hardware at a super steep discount doesn't suddenly make the hobby itself less expensive.

Also the way people don't seem to understand the prospect of short, linear games at full retail price being a bad value for the consumers is mind boggling. It's like they put these blinders on and only see this one very narrow beam of logic that short doesn't equal bad and everyone who doesn't agree is just a whiner. Gaming hasn't been around since last week. We've all been gaming for years and have grown to understand the nuance of the length to value ratio. There have been unspoken standards established, where we know how long a typical shooter is expected to be and how long a typical RPG is supposed to last.

I don't have a problem playing short games. It's easier for me to finish a short game than a longer one at this point in my life. I only worry about the price if other factors about the game don't make it seem worth it. Other people only look at the length. That's their prerogative, but I'll be ignoring them when they whine only about the length without considering other factors.

I think people getting all up in arms about this game is silly. To me it has never looked like anything but a bargain bin game. Kind in the same category as Singularity from last gen. Sure it's a bummer because ps exclusives have been pretty terrible so far but did anyone think this game would solve that problem?

@bjacks27 Singularity is a solid game with neat puzzle mechanics and design. It's well worth whatever price you end up paying for it and in no way deserves the negative connotations of being 'bargain bin.'

How many people want to pay full price for a 30 minute movie?

Yeah, it's not a perfect comparison, but this is an expensive hobby, and not many are as informed or as engrossed in gaming media as we are, or even as well off. Some kid may get this as his only birthday present and be sad that it only lasted a Saturday. Even COD has unlimited multiplayer.

I guess you can say "screw the poor" and tell that 11 year old that his parents need to spend more time reading game reviews - that's anyone's prerogative - but I think it's worth understanding the views outside our little corner of the web.

Length doesn't factor into my purchasing decision at all. As long as a game is paced well and feels complete it doesn't really matter how long a game is. I play a lot of games that I wish were shorter.

To me the length isn't the reason that I dislike a game or refuse to buy it, it's just something that makes me skeptical that it's worth full retail price and will entertain me enough to make me feel like it's worth it. If they can blow my mind with 10 minutes of gameplay then I'm all for it, but it's just not likely to be the case. Especially for full-price games.

@geirr: I really needed a good laugh then, thank you.

For me it comes down to story more often than not and the fact that most of the marketing for the game I've seen has been about the visuals that's what is making me think I'll wait for it to drop in price, nothing to do with how short it may or may not be. If anything I don't like games that go on too long, recent examples for me which I've played have been Assassin's Creed Unity or Red Dead Redemption in that I think I've gotten to the end and then it just keeps going...and going...and going.