Dhruin
SasqWatch
Gamasutra's latest Question of the Week is "Does Size Matter?" - "the importance of a game's play length, particularly in terms of monetary value". The article then follows with excerpts of responses from collected game industry professionals, with the introduction indicating the majority position was they didn't have time for epic games. Here's two opposing positions:
More information.I believe that the game should be based on a "minimum hours to finish the game" calculated from the "Retail price in dollars = MINIMUM Hours needed to finish the game." Games that are short make the player (buyer) feel ripped off and like movies, games that are too long are usually less fun and less entertaining. In my Gamasutra article "The Pedersen Principles," I suggest this equation (The Yardstick) and use the acronym KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) to provide entertaining, intuitive gameplay.
Roger E Pedersen, PSI SoftwareI don't think that there is an actual hour-to-$ ratio that can truly be quantified. I think that it depends more on the actual game and how well it's crafted. I don't mind paying $70 for something that is truly engaging the entire time I'm playing it, whether it be 20 hours or 1000+ hours. Two games that were considered short that people didn't mind (that spring to my mind) are God of War and Chronicles of Riddick. Both were worth the price, but many felt they were too short. I have heard it said that if someone plays a game that they think is too short, then that means that they want more.
I would rather have a shorter game that was tight and polished than one that is 1000+ hours of bugs and crashes. One way we can help/compromise this may be with episodic content. Release the main game for a lower price, then have regular updates with new content for a lower price. It may work, but it suffers from the possible problem of charging way too much and having the same lack of polish a lot of games suffer. It all comes down to making and polishing your game to the Nth degree.
Liam Hislop, Full Sail