Game over?

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Nintendo's president says the gaming industry is at an innovation crisis. Certainly I do not disagree with that, but I think it's more than that. Take the movie industry, I certainly don't see anything innovative about movies, and certainly some of the same old stuff has been around for a very long time, and I don't hear people getting jaded with yet another good versus evil or whatever. I don't really see why people should get jaded with game even though it's just the same old thing. I never played the Sports games very much but I seriously doubt there can be significant innovation changes, and yet people obviously still play them.

If there is one thing that is wrong with the gaming industry, though, it's the length. Movies aren't becoming longer but games sure are, and longer isn't better. In fact it's worse. I don't think there's a game I've enjoyed more than 20 hours for a very long time. Even Fate, which is like gaming god's gift to the world, probably only has 30 hours of good gaming out of the 60 hours it takes (and all the good parts can be played in under 10 hours for sure once you know where they are) The only other game I've played in recent memory that has more than 20 hours of enjoyable gameplay was Grandia 2, and that's because the fun is at the game engine itself (the story is pretty forgettable).

I wish companies would just get that quantity is not quality. If it is, MMORPGs must be the best game in the world since people play them more than most other games combined. Obviously it's not.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Disagree because there have been numerous articles lately on how studies show that the gaming market is on the rise forcing attention from people like film makers and TV producers. Prime time TV viewing has declined in favor of video games from 18-28 year olds (the new average age of a gamer). I can certainly believe it, TV nowadays is mostly trash and games are the first thing i turn to. Our age group started this gaming revolution and obviously the games are growing up with us. There are way more mature games on the market than there ever used to be. The market isnt going to decline any time soon, i see this time period right now as the peak of gaming.

But, i dont see a lot of variety in games still. Back in the day when graphics sucked games had to be good for people to buy them. I think developers now are spending too much time on the graphics which makes them spend less time on the game if they want to get it shipped as fast as they used to. We've all said this a ton of times for years and nothing has changed much. the last big innovation was MMOG, you dont often see a creation of a whole genre, so when this runs its course (which may be soon) there will be a new big boom in gaming. Expect it soon.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Gaming is taking roughly the same road as movies. They've basically cracked the mass market, but they've just started, so it's all about the flash and no substance, just like movies in the early to late 90's. But look at them now, the "indie" films are the more popular ones now.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>"I don't really see why people should get jaded with game even though it's just the same old thing." Heh...whatever. Also, Nintendo is only talking about innovation because they want to be all high and mighty with their "invention" of 3D games, which were all crap.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Only to you. I may be burning Fog of War right now, but trust me, it's a movie that barely anybody has seen. People are still crying over fucking Friends, for god's sake!</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>The 3-D revolution is certainly running out of steam at this point, but the situation is really not that much different from the end of the 16-bit generation in the early nineties. If you were to ask someone what was the last time games were really innovative they would likely tell you that it was around the time that the 3-D generation systems first came out - for obvious reasons. I mean, of course we're going to see some stagnation in software innovation when given a lack of <I>hardware</i> innovation.

The current situation is only a "crisis" insofar as there are no quantum leaps that rival the jump from 2-D to 3-D on the horizon. But this isn't a dire situation. We just have to grow accustomed to a more gradual evolution in how games are designed. PS2 games are generally a lot different from PSX games despite the fact that the PS2 is essentially just a bigger & better version of the PSX. I'm sure PS3 games will be even more divergent still.

I don't understand why you see game length as some sort of epidemic, Don. Games did certainly get longer with the move from cartridges to CDs, but only RPGs have become exorbitantly so and RPGs are basically a dying breed nowadays anyway. I would agree with you that games shouldn't exceed 20 hours or so (which is also about the time it takes to finish a decently-sized novel), but most games don't. 20-25 hours is about par for the course nowadays when we're not talking RPGs and I think that's a fine amount of time to spend on a game.</div>

[the Gray]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Of the multitude of games coming out, i can only think of two that may be innovative. Fable, and the Movies. Both from Molyneux.... go figure.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The Movies looks great. I can't wait to try it out. I hope Molyneux doesn't screw either up</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, but without the climate over the last couple of years, no one would have seen movies like Memento, Crouching Tiger, or Columbine. The "smaller" films are getting much more publicity now 'cause even the general public is sick of the all-flash, no-substance crap</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Mario and Zelda were crap? Dear Lord, man....</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>They're definately getting more publicity, but I don't think I'd say they're more popular than the regular crap.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I played the new Megaman Zero game (Z3) and it's still really the same thing but it's still tolerable because the game takes place 2-3 hours as opposed to 20-30.

There's no reason why you can't just pump out some by the book short RPG without regard to actual innovation and it'd still be enjoyable.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I played the new Megaman Zero game (Z3) and it's still really the same thing but it's still tolerable because the game takes place 2-3 hours as opposed to 20-30.

There's no reason why you can't just pump out some by the book short RPG without regard to actual innovation and it'd still be enjoyable. If RPGs are say 20 hours as opposed to 50 hours it'd not be as hard to come just mass produce reasonable RPGs. A 50 hour RPG has to be about 5 times as interesting as a 20 hour one to not get people bored playing that long, and they simply aren't.</div>

[Derithian]

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>I know. I'm gonna crank out a good horror movie studio....oh yeah.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>For example most of the 3D platformers (Zelda/Mario/whatever) certainly seem like they'd take that long to finish. I was watching my roommate play some snowboarding game and it doesn't seem like it's going to end in 5 hours either. Besides the length of the game is not related to the size of the medium involved, unless you were trying to write a game like Fate Stay Night in the SNES era which totals at 3 million words. Size of the game is a state of mind. Games have trended toward getting bigger and more superflous over time independent of the software. RPGs are ballooned with pointless minigames. Any game automatically has to have unlockable content and secrets without considering whether it's even meaningful. RPGs are obviously the worst in terms of needless size but they're hardly alone.</div>

[Derithian]

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>that's one thing I liked about Final Fantasy 8. there was no need to level up whatsoever and you could easily plow right through the game only stoppid on a few occasions to draw magic.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Not more popular than the biggies, no way, but they're getting a progressively bigger piece of the pie</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Consumption of content should be because it's interesting not because it's forced to. Fate is a 60 hour game, but if you don't care for dialogues it's like a 20 hour game. Games should have options like that.</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>It's called replay value. If you can complete everything in a game under 20 hours, then it's a waste of money to buy it instead of renting it.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>And I thought that Panzer Saga was well worth the money....silly me</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Did people forget that games USED to finish well under 20 hours and SNES era games are more expensive than any other gaming era?</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>If you play through a short game mutiple times that's all well and good, but to only go through it once and never pick it up again isn't worth it.</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>How many times have you gone through it?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>3 times. Spectacular game every time. It's that damned good. What I meant was, if a game is good enough, sometimes, that 20 hours or less is much better than the 35+ hours, like Panzer Saga vs FF7 for me</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It can be if that short game was more rewarding than the long game</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I think 20-25 hours is a great length for a game though, and most non-RPGs don't exceed that length. 5 hours is way too short for 50 dollars.</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '>...oh yeah, only every year around this time, usually from Nintendo. Innovation, bah! Bah I say!! Innovation is the pearl in an oyster in a bed of a thousand empty oysters. In other words, innovation is rare and always has been. For every Pong, every Bard's Tale, every Donkey Kong, every Dragon Quest, every Grand Theft Auto that change the way games are played there comes a million imitators and re-creators of similar styles of games.

Its always been this way. It takes a rare breed to create something truly innovative and innovation is rarely advertised. We never see it coming. And most of us are happy without constant innovation. We like to play the same game over and over as long as enough is changed to make it feel new and that it's well made. How innovative was Symphony of the Night? Ocarina of Time? Are these games lessened by a lack of innovation? I think all of us would be very unhappy if all we got was attempts at innovation and the genres we loved were ignored completely. My favorite game of last year was Jak 2 which was a mish mosh of past genres and I loved every second of it. Look at some of your favorite games and ask yourself, "How innovative was this?". Most of them probably took someone else's innovation and tightened, polished and shook it up.

Way too much emphasis has always been placed on innovation. Innovation does not drive the industry and it never will. It can light a spark, but it will never be the driving force...innovation does not sell well. You said it yourself when you brought up sports games.

And I really don't get why Nintendo is on their high horse about this when they're just as guilty as everyone else. Have no doubt that they're big seller next year will be the Zelda game...the same Zelda game we've played before with some spit, some polish and some new bells and whistles...and I'll love every second of it.

As for game length, that all depends on whether it's long because of filler or because it needs to be longer. Looking at my game collection I don't see too many games under 20 hours in playtime. I like long games, but none of the long games I own are long because of filler. But that's subjective...what's fun for one is tedium for another. In the end, your money talks. No amount of critical praise can sell a game. I find myself buying fewer and fewer games lately and looking forward to very little I saw at E3. The market has shifted away from me. But I'm not worried because it will be back my way eventually...it always comes around and until then I'll have my Jak 3, Final Fantasy XII and Zelda: Whatever They End Up Calling It. Fuck innnovation! I want Shining Force 4, Panzer Saga 2, Vagrant Story 2....and I don't want them to be innovative.</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '>Always Final Fantasy 7 with you isn't it....you BASTARD!!! :)</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>Well sure, if it's that good, chances are over the course of time you'll pick it up to play again, thereby adding to its total playtime. My issue is with paying $50 for a game that can take as little as 5 hours to finish and only play it once through.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You did that in the NES and SNES era. Why is it such a bad things now? Or do you have faith that longer = better?</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I'm simply not inclined to play a 50 hour whatever of something that is obviously a rehash and doesn't attempt to add anything new. Now if it was 20 hours, maybe. I've been saying for a while but games should offer you to skip majority of the content. For example in FFX you can grind it out and move on the sphere grid or you can just flee from every battle and fight only enough to get past the next boss. It's true that people may find anything interesting but what's obviously a filler is generally not interesting and you should be able to skip them if you want. Random battles in RPG comes to mind as the best example.

Most games I like aren't under 20 hours to finish the first time, but I can certainly finish most of them under 20 hours now. That's roughly how long games ought to be.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>If a game isn't worth replaying it probably isn't all that great to begin with. And games that you simply don't want to replay again even if it's good shows significant design flaws. Xenogears come to mind as the best example. A great game by most people's standard but excruiciating long so that playing it again is almost painful.

And most long games you never replay again just aren't all that good to begin with. The difference between a 50 hour game you never replay and a 5 hour game you never replay is that you wasted 45 more hours on the former.</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>It's only bad if you shell out full price for something that you leave sit collecting dust after 1 day.</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>It's only bad if you shell out full price for something that you leave sit collecting dust after 1 day. And now with the Net people can be more informed in their purchasing decisions than they were back then.</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>I actually did replay that game once and made it to the very end, but never got around to finishing it. But in that case (and the case with most Square RPGs) I played for the story, and so I never picked them up again so soon after finishing them to allow time for me to forget most of the stuff that took place in the game. Gameplay was secondary to me; if I wanted something more involving I'd play a more action-oriented game. And like Esque said, one person's fun is another's waste. Assuming you paid $50 for both the 50-hour game and 5-hour game and never replayed either, the difference is with the 5-hour one you've wasted $45 on something you could've gone through in a $5 rental.</div>

[Ganath]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Probably that's what you meant in the first place, I was just hung up on the last sentence in your original post and being a grammar nazi I guess. If it makes you happy to know, my last name is in fact German. :)</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>You could have avoided wasting the $50 on the 50 hour game AND 45 hours you wasted (assuming it takes 5 hours of rental to figure out it sucks) if you rented the 50 hour game that turned out to suck.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I have shelved more long games than short games because at least I can finish the short game, while the long games that suck I never finish. Anyway Internet hasn't really faciliated the spread of useful information at all unless you're just blindly following where the sales are</div>

[Manshoon]

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman"; text-align: left; '>Wish I'd have done that with FFX-2.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>I dunno, I'd say gaming mags are just as helpful as the net when it comes to making purchase-decisions</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You know people can relate to that, so I always use it.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>You forgot about Banjo Kazooie, and the tarnishing of the good Castlevania name.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Yeah, it's called the Start button in-between cutscenes. The only game that really had a problem with that was Xenogears.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Case in point: .Hack. Complete waste. That's about $2.50/hour. Fuck that. RPGs don't have enough replay value (usually) to be short. (Exceptions: FFT and Vangrant Story.) Most action games do. It's a trade-off between content and gameplay fun. If the gameplay is mediocre, you're driven by content. Otherwise, visa-versa. I didn't play Castlevania for the shoddy story, but I enjoyed it anyway. In the same way that I'm not playing FFTA for the story.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>If it sucks, you're not going to play it for more than an hour or two. What's the point of debating about the length of games when you add another variable of how much it sucks? Don't play games that suck.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>So, Zeus...do you like an orgasm that lasts 2 minutes or 30? I'm just curious.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Amen.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>That's a broken analogy. Zeus is comparing high quality, low play time vs. low(er) quality, long play time.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>2 minutes? 30 minutes?! Dear Lord, man, I'd actually like to be able to have orgasms again......</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Umm, Panzer Saga and Final Fantasy 4 were both shorter than 20 and are among the best RPGs ever made</div>