@mb: Yup. Games are $69.99 in Canada, $44.99 for 3DS games.

It's increasingly hard to justify buying a game for $80 after tax if it's only 5 hours long. There's always the chance that you'll do a new game plus, or you'll go back to do 100% of things, but whether or not you'll find that worth wild is unknown until you've actually played the game once over, so if it's not ... then honestly for $80 it seems like a waste.

@humanity: The suggestion was to be frugal with games that were valued as such for those people, i.e. short games for a lot of the people on this site, apparently. "It's bad for the industry." No, it's bad for the people that don't make games not worth full price. That's voting with your money, and if that company goes down, then there we go, you got what you wanted, one less artist that wanted to create something short and sell it at full price. How do you know their projected sales and what they need for a profit? Maybe their projections actually do support sales at a lower price and their just releasing it at full price for a short while?

My big point in the end is... vote with your money and the industry will react.

@hurricaneivan29: People increasingly refusing to purchase games at release time for full price is in fact bad for the industry. Yes, it is bad for people that make those games and price them poorly, but those people are the industry. If a "company goes down" thats not just one artist, thats hundreds of people that just lost their jobs.

But that is neither here nor there. There is a big difference between gaming being expensive and looking for alternative ways to purchase games on the cheap. If you want to game in a traditional sense, by buying games that interest you when they come out, then yes it's an expensive hobby. Money saving can be applied to anything. You can grow your own food but that isn't an argument that food itself isn't expensive. I was just making this distinction because I thought that what MB originally said was somewhat uncharacteristically ignorant.

If you do the math, $69.99 CAD is less than $59.99 USD. So, games are actually slightly cheaper for us now.

Anyway, I find this whole thread to be hilarious. I can't justify playing anything longer than about 10 hours because I simply don't have enough time. Certain games with a longer cadence (your Skyrims and what not) or particular appeal (Zelda, primarily) get a pass since I am able to keep engaged, but I can't think of the last game otherwise where I've spent more than a few hours playing it.

Ha ha ha ha, 40 hours would take me 3-4 weeks to play which is far, far longer than I'm usually willing to give it.

People just gotta be grumpy pants on the internet.

It's not about quality, it's about customer satisfaction. It's much in the same way of how restaurants increase portion sizes to attract costumers. The size of the portion doesn't necessarily affect the taste, but it will make the meal more worthwhile for a lot of people.

It's all just a matter of some people conflating quality and value, and the fact that which way that quality/value scale tips is highly dependent on a lot of personal factors: genre preferences, affinity for a particular franchise, feelings about a developer/publisher, personal finances, number of gaming hours per week, etc.

Yes if you wait for deals you can cut costs more than you think. Also, don't buy everything right when it comes out. wait awhile and see if the game in question is worth the full price based on what the early adopters say about style, gameplay, length etc. it's kind of on you as buyer to make an educated purchase. Also regarding length I prefer a really tight 10 hour game over a bloated 20-25 hour one (ex dying light was about double the length I wanted to be).

@humanity: I'm sorry, how exactly is it bad to not purchase a game at full price in my scenario I brought up of a company planning on profits coming after price cuts but choosing to still release at a higher price temporarily?

Also, I had a poor choice of words by saying "company going down." Company wouldn't necessarily go down off of one bad game design. Even if it did, another would come in its wake anyways..

Personally I could use a short game after Far Cry 4, AC:Unity, Dying Light & Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'm onboard.

It shouldn't. I get that people want to be careful with their money, and more power to them for doing that. And while I think it will be good, there's no telling if The Order will actually be enjoyable, so who knows? But just in terms of length, I think it's ridiculous to judge single player games like that. On the flip side, I HATE competitive multiplayer. Therefore, games like Titanfall and Evolve are complete busts for me. A waste of money. I wouldn't even pay $10 for them. Does that mean they should conform themselves to exactly what I want? Of course not. That's the game those developers wanted to make, and there are plenty of people who enjoy them. Good for them.

By the same token, I hate the idea that "You should make all single player games above 10 hours and have multiplayer" notion that some people have for single player games, like everything needs to conform to this exact formula. It's absurd. If it's not for you, then so be it. I just think it's ridiculous to straight up call it a bad game because of the length only(though again, not everyone is doing that, some legitimately don't like how the game seems to be turning out).

And as for the "6 hours isn't worth $60" thing, we can play that game all day long. A new Blu Ray at my local Wal-Mart costs $20-$25. That gets me two hours(average) of non-interactive content. $60 for 6 hours of interactive content isn't a bum deal AT ALL when you look at it like that. They have the same amount of replay value, though technically the game would actually get more mileage due to the different scenarios that result due to human participation. Does that mean that games like Skyrim should be $200 bucks because they have a ton more hours packed into it? It's a false argument. Now, sure, you have to ask the question as you do with anything that you buy, "Is this worth my hard earned money?", but I feel like that's a different thing. Get it preowned, wait for a sale, wait until it goes down in price, rent it(if possible), just don't play it, do whatever. There are plenty of options.

Because people need some way to unreasonably gang up on things? I dunno. We had another thread (No Man's Sky Price) which sort of went down this "Value Proposition" road.

When it comes to Value Proposition, no one can tell *you* anything. End of story.

Take the length of any video game and measure it in hours. Great. Now you have a useless number. At best, a "theoretical average number of fun hours".

If a game is X hours, is that exactly how long you will play it for? If not, what's the value of the number? How many of those hours are fun for you? What if you replay the game? What if you don't finish it?

Consider those impossible questions then jump to the next one: what is money like in your life?

Some people don't need to give a fuck at all about a 60 dollar game. For others they won't even buy 1 one of those a year.

@geraltitude: I like this reply. Value should be something that is different with each person. Some people think The Order will be worth $60 and they'll buy it day one. Others maybe $40 or even $20, and they'll wait for the game to drop in price to go for it.

Like many PC gamers, I hardly purchase games at $60, but recently I got Advanced Warfare for $60. I looked at it personally and to me, I was essentially paying $30 for the single player, which I knew I would complete, and $30 for the multiplayer, which I feel like I have already gotten my money worth out of. Some people are just spending $60 to play multiplayer. It is all personal value. If you don't like how a game is priced, wait for it to go on sale. I'm really anxious to play Shadow of Mordor, but I'm waiting for it to go on sale.

If The Order was the quality of MW1's campaign and featured a replay-mode similar to MW1's Arcade Mode, it might as well have been three hours long. MW1 is sooooo gooooood this way, endless Veteran replays of it done, great time every time beating scores times challenges, it's the way to do it, it's the way no other developer has done it in a third or first person action game ever since. That is replay value at its best for a western developed game.

Yours truly,

Somebody living where there are no videogame rentals of any kind and games cost far beyond the equivalent of $80 US even when there are no extra taxes

Yuuuup. This. So hard.

Games are expensive and there's enough choice out there via Steam/GOG sales and the like to put a game like The Order on the back burner until the inevitable price drop arrives.I hate to make this a 'length equals value' proposal, but a 5-hour, cutscene stuffed experience is not worth it for me. And that 's not even bringing om how ordinary The Order looks from a gameplay perspective.

Given how great Sony has been about sales these last four months, I'm fine waiting until this hits twenty bucks. Like others have said, it's more a question of how far that sixty dollars could stretch if I'm willing to wait.

Any game that I'm not willing to pay full price on I would be perfectly fine just not playing. So yeah I might pick it up when it's on sale and check it out, but never am I like "Oh man! I really want to play this game but I don't want to spend $60." If something grabs my interest enough then I don't really care about the price.

Its a matter of execution. You can have it short, you can have it long, you can have it thin or thick, but as long as you're doing it right its all good man!

No comment on the game since I was never really interested in it, but I think length and quality are inversely related. The shorter a game is, the more quality it needs to counteract that length. A game could only be 15 minutes, but if those 15 minutes are the most fucking awesome minutes if your life, the length doesn't matter.

I think The Order's short length doubled the likelihood that I will play it.

I don't get why length of the game should not be considered during reviewing process or while talking about the title?
It's all subjective so why not be subjective about it. For me 5hours for 60 euro does not sound appealing and when I have choice I will prefer title thats longer/ offers replayability. I see no difference mentioning that and saying something about graphics. Some people say that some games are crap based on their standard for graphics. Other don't think the same way. It is simple like that.

I'm not worried about the length of the game, I'm more worried about the content of this game. Is this really going to be just "cutscene cutscene cutscene shoot stuff cutscene" or is there more to it? If it's 5 hours of just that, then maybe I will just save my money and watch it on youtube... With other games coming out this year that I have more interest in, I'm more inclined to just save my money.

I'm more bitter about the letter-boxing than the length (that's still a thing, right?), as long as we're talking about The Order. That said, I've got more money than time, so sure, $60 for five hours seems okay. That's about how much of Dragon Age: Inquisition I have played so far since launch.

Definitely don't hold it against anybody who wants to wait for a price drop though.

I don't think people are saying to ignore the length when it comes to the review or even talking about the game. But around the internet people have been equating length with the quality of a game. Some people think that since the game is short, it makes it a bad game, which isn't true. Is it worth $60? That is up to the person paying for the game. If it isn't, wait until it is cheaper, or don't play it at all.

Length doesn't effect quality, I think the thing which is making people nervous is the idea that, given everything we've seen, the game could be a 5-7 hour game with a lot of cutscenes and we don't know if the shooting will be any good yet. Add those together, and you have a game which could be terrible value for money. All of this academic until the game comes out of course.

Infamous Second Son was 14-16 hours to platinum, then the replay-value was a true zero after the two playthroughs required for that. No multiplayer no nothing to expand on that $60 investment. I had a problem with that.

1886 looks like 20 hours at most done slow, I kinda have a problem with that even if I get it half-price used.

[insert Japanese game on the PS4 here] goes up into triple digit hours and I'm still not done with optional story-content, GIMME MORE OF THAT.

Put it on the box. "Short story based game movie thing." These games will most likely sell to people who don't follow games media, people who look at boxes. This box looks particularly good.. It is also particularly bad value unless you're specifically looking for a 5 hour movie type thing. So.. Put it on the box. People assume a game is of a certain length even today. If it differs greatly.. Put it on the box..

You could even put it on the box as a positive.. Sort of like how graphic novels are comic books for people who love a short read but are too ashamed to say they like comic books... Know what I mean? These games are also pretty spectateable(sp) for the rest of the people in the room. Like a live letsplay where you get to mock the player in REAL TIME! (no swatting)
I dunno.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. The Order looks like it's both short AND bad.

It's not fair to say that shorter games are inherently bad. Several of the comments about open-world length-padding and arguably too-long games like Alien: Isolation make some good arguments that long <> good and short <> bad. I'll also point out that people can play the game at their own pace. If you want the game to last longer, play it on the hardest difficulty or take a break on occasion; you aren't required to marathon speed-run it. Anyone acting like the purportedly short length is some death knell for the game, especially at this point before it's even out, is being short-sighted or worse.

Sadly, a bunch of people seem ready to shit on this game. The PC folks are already using the letterboxing as an opportunity to insufferably pat themselves on the back over graphics yet again and trash the consoles, and fanboys of the other consoles seem eager to trash another Sony first-party game. I don't get it. Hoping a game will be bad and nitpicking the shit out of it before it's released seems petty and lame. I don't currently own a PS4, but I'm hoping The Order: 1886 is good and helps push me towards getting one. At minimum, I hope others enjoy it. Bad games help no one.

That said, we don't know what kind of game The Order: 1886 is yet. Maybe it will be extremely polished and have a well-crafted, engaging story. Maybe it will be a hollow, forgettable disappointment. We don't know yet. All we know right now is that it has some impressive visuals, but uses letterboxing, and has an interesting setting, but is short. Which, to me, seems like a bit of a wash in terms of pluses/minuses, meaning the game could probably go either way depending on how other elements pan out. How about we let the game, you know, release before we make verdicts on it?

It doesn't for certain types of games but for others it does. Games are not cheap. I wouldn't want to drop $60 for a 10 hour max experience. That isn't good value.

@mb: This is why Steam sales were born, lol.

For gamers who don't have a whole lot of money, value is a HUGE argument. A few years ago when I was buying 1-2 games a year at full price, I would've been hella pissed that a game i bought lasted 6 hours. We don't all get free games, yo.

The same argument came up around when Captain Toad came out for 3 hours at $40, and I've come to the conclusion that if you PERSONALLY can justify it, then go right ahead, but don't detract from those who like to be a bit value-conscious with their game purchases.

Besides, I've been reading that the Order is a very mediocre GAME in the first place with beautiful graphics, a ton of cutscenes and very questionable quality gameplay

For me, length only trends to have an effect on quality when the game is too lengthy, so I lose interest before the end. I'd honestly prefer more games to be shorter.

Mostly though, length affects value. A quality 5-hour game is something I'll just wait to drop in price before playing.

This debate about game length and price has been going on for a while.
Does anyone remember when Limbo came out and while reviewers were giving the game high scores, players were furious that they had to pay $15 for a 3-4 hour game?
Limbo was one of my favorite game experiences of the past few years, and I never considered the price when I bought it.

For gamers who have more money than time, game value arguably isn't length-based.

Length absolutely is a component of value of a purchase.

If a game is $60.00 and it takes you 5 minutes to beat it with no replay value, chances are you are going to think that isn't a good value.

However length is by no means the sole determinant of value or even the primary component, there are a lot of other factors at play

E.g. Kingdoms of Amalur may take you 100 Hours to clear, but that doesn't automatically make it better than say South Park : Stick of Truth. In fact I think most RPG fans would likely pick South Park as the superior RPG due to the lack of filler content compared to Amalur and superior writing.

What length (or rather perception of it) basically is an entry/minimum qualification and a secondary one to other more core aspects of the game.

What if Captain Toad is 3 hours of awesome fun and Skyrim is 60 hours of incredible boredom? What's the better value?

Not all gameplay is fun. I know that's dead obvious, but I feel it's been missed all over the place here.

Time is less relevant than Fun when it comes to Value - for anybody, poor or rich.

Or, are you telling me you really don't care at all how you are feeling when you play a game? All you care about is how much game there is?

I feel the "right" answer for anyone who is value-conscious is a combination of these two things: Amount of Fun Time + Price of Fun. Because Fun is the main issue, no one can tell you what game is a better value for you, outside some general popular consensus reporting, i.e. Ocarina of Time is a game many people had fun with, and on average it is 15 hours long, etc so on.

Games are often too damn long. Make them shorter and cheaper! What kind of a story holds for eight consecutive hours?

It doesn't have anything to do with quality of the game. It is a customer decision whether or not the quality overrides the shorter amount of content.

Individuals can make that value judgement however they want, but reviews should concern themselves exclusively with quality. A game doesn't become any better or worse if it costs $10 or $1000. Reviews should be reviewing the game, not the purchase. The individual reader is in a much better position to figure the value proposition out for themselves.

As for game length: the only time that should be considered in a review is if the game ends up feeling rushed or dragged out. Again, the individual reader is in the best position to decide whether the hour count itself is 'enough' for them / the price being asked.

Just to use a recent example: I think Inquisition could have been a much higher quality game if they had cut ~50% of the content / hour count. But whether that would make it a better or worse value proposition would depend entirely on the priorities of the individual looking at it.

I can't be the only one who saw that headline and thought,"...oh, wait, he is talking about a game's length."

@geraltitude: but people on a budget also know that there are other options out there where less money can be spent for a longer experience. Staying in the realm of PS4 exclusives, the Last of Us remaster that came out last year came out at $50, was a great game, gripping story, and arguably the best game of the year when it originally came out, and it was about 20 hours long.

The Order has leaked. It's on youtube, there are playthroughs completing the game in <5 hours. There are individuals who have completed it who attest that the game is about 70-30 cutscene to gameplay; which is fine, but that gameplay better be fucking phenominal for me to even consider purchasing it anywhere near full price. I can see many more hours of film for that price and get the same (if not better quality) writing.

There's a contingent of people on the internet that are crying that we need to support this developer for the cool shit they've done in the past, too. I inherently disagree with this sentiment - that'd be like saying CoD4 was the best shooter of its time, so go buy Modern Warfare 3 because they deserve your continued support. That baffles me that people would be willing to do that.

I don't know, but from what I've seen, the combination of its length and the general lack of satisfactory anything other than the graphics make this game not worth $60. But, as I said in my original post, if you can justify it, more power to you. Not everybody has to agree with you, and you don't always have to agree with general sentiment on a game, either. Hell, people bought the Crew for $60...

I'm still a little confused by this... Why is longer better? Isn't more fun what anyone cares about?

I agree about how you described The Last of Us.

However, someone could play it and hate it. Many people did (Jeff Gerstmann, you monster). They aren't wrong in how they feel.

So is it really relevant at all that TLOU is 20 hours? If Jeff was bored by all 20 hours of The Last Of Us but loved all 5 hours of The Order it's impossible to say TLOU is an objectively better value proposition. It has the chance to be, because it is longer. But that's all, isn't it? I could just never, ever see myself questioning the length of a game when making a purchase. I want to look at it and see is it fun? And again, some player preference/play style is at work here. I replay linear games all the time. Sometimes on different difficulties, sometimes just for kicks. So for me value proposition is way more complex than "Standard Amount of Time to See All Content".

I'm gonna agree with @jimbo here and also say that I think Dragon Age being so long kinda ruined it. It just too much not fun fetch quests and little this and that. It's boring. It being so, so long gives me nothing. Maybe if it was a shorter, more focused game, I would have liked it more.

Anyway I definitely agree with you about a few things: the developers history is irrelevant. It makes me curious, but no developer gets free passes on quality because of their history. I'm cool with anybody like you saying "hey you know what for the price, based on the length of the game, the type of game, and its quality - I'll pass". Makes sense for you!

The problem is there are people out there standing around going "No. No game this length should ever be $60."

And that's crazy talk to me. If it's not a good value for you - cool. But you ain't I.

Max Payne 2 was really short (if i remember correctly it was shorter than 5 hours), still one of my favourite games. It had replay value.

Pretty sure some of the early DMC games are quite short too. But its been a while since I played them. If the order has good replay value for whatever reason then I'll still get it.

The amount of people defending this is really depressing. I look forward to $70 games that last two hours in ten years.

It can be the absolutely most amazing game ever made, but there comes a point where quantity has to factor in somewhere. Assuming the game is a six hour story driven game, most people will spend one or two afternoons with it and be done with it. There's hardly any replayability when it comes to games like this, so it'll probably be played, put on the shelf or sold off immediately. God, I bet if Kane and Lynch 2 was released today everyone would love it despite how ridiculously short it was. Journey should have sold at $60, since a lot of people in this thread seem pretty ok with buying short games for that much money.

I will agree that games can be too long though, Dragon Age: inquisition being the prime example I can think of immediately.

And I get this is subjective, but come on people, there has to be a limit somewhere.

Do you pay 5 bucks for 1 M&M and then say it's as satisfying as if you paid 5 for a whole pack? No. Volume is a factor in the quality of an item, too much or too little of something hurts it's quality. $60 bucks for a game the length of 3 movie viewings is not a fair value.

Length is not a factor of game quality (pacing is), but it is a factor of if I'm willing to spend $60 on something or wait for it to go on sale.