Since When Is It Acceptable For A Game To Be 5 Hours Long?
“Single-player games should be a four-hour experience,” says Lucasarts’ Clint Hocking
The simple answer is, it’s not. It never has been yet it seems that over the last two console generations, publishers have been playing a game of one-upmanship to see who can get away with the shortest single-player experience possible. The first-person shooter genre has taken the brunt of this creative squeeze, the highest profile gimped campaign of recent years being Call Of Duty: Black Ops, with the Medal Of Honor reboot being another notable perpatrator. The offline length of both these games is around five hours with very little replay value, compared with the 15+ hours you can expect from the five-year-old Call Of Duty 2.
In the case of both these shooters, single-player length is polarised by the multiplayer, which offer hundreds of hours of quality competitive online action. Your £50 RRP (plus any Live subscription) is money well spent if that’s what you’re after but if not, and if £10-an hour is within your pocket, you might still consider this good value. Most gamers wouldn’t and we certainly don’t.
Who’s to blame? You are, in part at least and if Clint Hocking has anything to do with it, this will be the future for FPS’s, “While I personally feel that modern AAA single-player games are too long,” the Lucasarts’ Creative Director said on his clicknothing.com blog site, “the reality is that is not the case for your typical 18- to 24-year-old who does not have an enormous game-buying budget and needs a lot of content if he has any hope of keeping himself distracted from studying. I would love to make the argument that the next generation of single-player games should be a four-hour experience.”
It doesn’t help that a new generation of gamers coming onto the scene from all walks of life often don’t know any better, propagating the idea that it’s okay to piggyback a sub-par single-player campaign onto multiplayer and saddle it with a full retail price tag. If this had happened ten years ago, before the floodgates opened up to a new world of online console gaming, gamers would have been tearing the publishers’ headquarters down with their teeth. Nowadays, there’s a-stamping of the feet and some dirty looks are cast around, before we all roll over and buy it anyway.
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I would love to see dumass Clint Hocking make games that have 4 hour campaigns. I would never have to buy them, LucasArts could get somebody who has an IQ over 10 at creative director that understands games need to be longer.
@ Jake
You are a moron. Have you ever thought, the reason most single player games are 4-5 hours is b/c people (like you… aka KIDS) are playing it on the EASIEST dififculty? On top of that, you idiots are getting other “pro players” to beat the game for you, for the sake of achieving 100% achievement count.
BWAAAA, baby is a little b!tch. Go back to circle jerking with your Xbros/ sucking your mom’s d!ckt!ts.
I dont see what the problem is witha game being 6-8 hours and wanting you to come back for more. I like shorter games, I always find myself getting board of the ones that last sooo long and tend to drag on. I like the lets get to the point and get this done type of game. If Im having fun the whole 6-8 hours on edge with a good story I am not complaining. Typically the longer games drag and are dull at times. So yeah, stupid article. Go play SNES if you want to play long games.
Also to add – This is the entertainment industry. Its roughly 12 bucks to see a 1 in a half – 2 hour movie right? Put that in persepctive of a video game. You pay 12 dollars for 5 movies = 60 dollars, now do the math. Comes to be 10 hours giving every one of those 5 movies you see is 2 hours long, which most movies are more in teh hour in a half range.
@King Bishop
What? I don’t play games on easy, I wasn’t refering to any particular game, I play PS3 games and other “pro players” don’t beat the game for me… I think your just a fucktart. I also dont know what the hell your talking about. Also I was saying that games shouldn’t be only 4 hours long so I’m not really sure where your coming from…
WHAT, THE, HELL? Games already cost £50 and yet they think that as long as they add multi-player mode to a 5 hour storyline it will be acceptable? I don’t personally mind online, but i expect a good, long storyline to keep me playing the game. Lucas arts just want to rip people off.
@Dave
Going to a movie and playing a game are huge differences. Yeah, the math adds up, but you can choose different movies– when I drop 60 bucks on a game– thats what you get is one game. I want it to last a damn sight longer than 5 hours.
Perfect example is Bullet Storm, great game, gimmick gets old, short play time– GLAD I rented it. It doesn’t have that much replay value and I would have been pissed if I’d dropped 60 bucks on it. If you charge 60 bucks for a game, you better have a ass load of add ons coming. I don’t mind war games with short stories, as long as the mulit player is good, but even that gets old.
Also, Lucas Arts, look at their founder, George, he really thinks the world is going to end in 2012– I watched a video with him and Steven Speilberg, George went on a rant about the world ending in 2012– so I’m sure they want games that are 5 hours long so you can buy and burn through a few before the world ends.
Short games are an industry killer. I hate paying 50 bucks and being done in a hurry. I don’t blow through games, and appreciate a good story, but if its just tacked on to the multiplayer – I don’t bother. I rarely play multiplayer anyway, so its not worth it for me if the game isn’t single player centric. I avoided the new Star Wars cause a buddy said it was short. Companies complain about used sales, but push the consumer towards it when they shorten the product. Yes, I will pay 12 bucks for a movie, but not if its 40 minutes long. Meanwhile I will line up for the next Fallout or GTA or Bioshock because I know I will get my moneys worth and I will ALWAYS support those developers. Constant quality dlc keeps me from selling it off after 4 months also. Short games will be industry suicide.
@king bishop
what are 12? grow the hell up you fool.
if im buy a game its for the content not just for the length of time it lasts. it’s a bonus if a great campaign lasts longer and remains enjoyable throughout nowadays and i seriously think that game developers shouldnt just turn to online but incorporate online into the campaign such as the upcoming Brink. it lets loads of players enjoy a campaign whilst keeping it enjoyable and still playable. take bulletstorm for example ive already played 6 hours and am on act 4 its enjoyable and hasnt lost any steam (yet) with inventive boss battles and so many different types of enemy. it also has a huge replpayable factor with the fact that on echoes you just want to beat your previous score and the campaign is made to be replayed on different diffuculties. call of duty modern warfare 2 a beast at online but the campaign isnt up to spec. before online came about it was all about the campaign and id like to see some game developers really put alot of effort into their campaign as well as multiplayer which is most likely the way forwards.
@King Bishop
It must really irk the people who write these blogs in an attempt to stimulate debate when tools like you wade in. If your under 15 then fair enough you’ll probably grow out of it, but if your much older you should really think about some adult learning classes.
5 hour campaigns are never exceptable for a full price release unless it was made specifically clear on the packaging that it was intended as a multiplayer game and not to buy if you aren’t online. I think a good model for games like COD going forward would be £10-£15 for the sinlge player campaign after which you pay a subscription for multiplayer.
Some games these days are really taking the piss, Force Unleashed 2 was about 5 hours long and didn’t even have multiplayer.
that actually is a bloody good point and im 12 i like the idea of a £12 game with a subscription for multiplayer apart from the fact that i really dont want to have to pay even more just for the online when i pay enough for XBL i also understand your point on TFU2 i just completed bulletstorm and for the echoes and campaign im wouldnt mind paying £25 but as im so used to paying full rp im actually not bothered about paying £45. and i have to earn all my money to pay for games so dont say that im a little kid who gets his mommy to pay for everything. oh and ‘acceptable’ is spelt how i just showed you there not exceptable it is accept not except because that would mean to exclude something or someone.
@Massacara2792
I wasn’t insulting you earlier, I was talking about a post further up the page. Being younger doesn’t make your opinion any less valid, although whoever sold you Bulletstorm should be sacked.
I know what you mean about the XBL charge, it would make pitching the subscription model on X-Box difficult.
i know you weren,t insulting me so dont worry but i think that the price of gaming will start to get stupid if they put service charges for the online because if cod6 did that then id habe a massive bill since i play it so much. but if the campaign cost a tenner then i would probably think about it a bit more than knowing that i would get everything in a bundle. i get your point on the fact that XBL charge would make it difficult however microsoft wouldnt lower the tariffs just because a few games required extra cash to play online. in fact microsoft might not even allow it because it may take away revenue for some of their games.
id like to hear what Ben Biggshas to say about games that are five hours long it’d be interesting to see what side he is on?????
@Massacara2792
You mean it’s not obvious?!