Well, many gamers would beg to differ. When it comes to completing games now-a-days the average time of ‘completion’ has definitely dropped somewhat since the early days of gaming. Nostalgic gamers would reminisce upon the good ol’ days, when titles like Baldur’s Gate took 20 hours, and Diablo II’s huge replay value, what exactly happened to those titles? Well, the honest answer is nothing; they’ve just been swamped by over publicised shooters and pretty graphics. We’re starting to see the same range of times pop up on forums and in reviews, as generally most shooters or action/adventure can be completed in 8-10 hours, give or take an hour, and many avid gamers are getting very bitter about this.
When looking at a game’s length there are many factors critics – either amateur or professional – tend to forget about; things of which are crucial decisions during the whole development cycle, as I assure you many of these developers want to give you the most extensive experience possible. But there are a number of hurdles to jump, and a few of these happen to be new audience aims, heavy development costs, and hardware restrictions. Most of the answers to these problems are normally found on the developer’s end of the game’s industry business cycle, but all other issues can be answered by the publishers, who are generally the presenters of these issues when marketing to a majority.
One of the major changes - other than game length - in the past ten years of development is the improvement of technology and graphics, new hardware capabilities,faster and more impressive CPUs and GPUs which allow developers to push these computers to their potential. Thus resulting in more detailed textures, higher resolutions and special effects. Everything that you saw in those old CGI clips are now being rendered in real time on your PC and console, it’s only really noticeable when you compare directly. This is all well and good, but it has lead to a bottle neck in production, a particular piece of hardware which has, until recently, been out of sync with technological enhancements, and that is the common DVD form of distribution.
Your Xbox 360 and the majority of PCs read DVD-9 formats, single sided, dual-layer forms of distribution which can hold up to 8GB each. Now, only a few years ago that was more than enough, today however we’re starting to see the constrictions. Those JRPGs we’re seeing on the Xbox 360 not only are they using enhanced compression methods, they’re using up to four discs already. I’m sure many of you have at least heard of Lost Odyssey as an example.
Manufactures have thought back, it wasn’t so long ago we saw the format war between HD-DVD and the successor Blu-Ray. HD-DVD allowed an incredible 30GB dual-layer, over three times that of DVD-9, fortunately though Blue –Ray won for long term development reasons as it offers us 50GB of capacity dual layer, and recent advancements show a potential layer count of 16 layers. That is storage of 400GB on one disc, apparently readable by all current Blu-Ray DVD drives.
But to show how quickly computer graphics can evolve, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 4 managed to fill the whole 50GB Blu-Ray DVD, that’s with using enhanced compression methods. At the moment 400GB could easily facilitate any game uncompressed and for quite a while, at least in proportion to the standard rate of technological improvement. But distribution methods are a major concern for developers as although you now have the option of internet downloads - which is something being looked into further for the Xbox 360 - people still like to have the physical copy of their product. So as a whole, the creator has to balance game length with the quality of the game itself. If the developers can create a new and compelling experience in 6-8 hours of average completion and fit it on a standard DVD then that’s a sacrifice the developer is willing to make to save space and money, a key factor of the cost-benefit analysis.
Moving on to development cost, an average ‘next gen’ game’s production cost is huge with some even equivalent to the costs of making a movie. GTA IV’s cost of development rounded to about $100 million, which is around £60 million in GBP, while The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (the screen adaptation of Tolkien’s book) budget was around $94 million. The gaming industry is huge, but games are expensive to make, rather than forcing the customer to pay a higher price, the developer would rather build the game around a publishers given budget, and if that means a slightly shorter game than normal, then it’s another risk that’s necessary to take.
You may be witnessing a lot more promised download content from companies; the fact is this is good news for everyone. Not only are you able to keep the game a bit longer for the next highly anticipated piece of downloadable content, the developer can wait a while longer after the original game’s production and initial revenue to afford to build extra bits of an already created game, and charge you – the consumer – about quarter rate of the original title, isn’t that great? This is a common solution to the potential loss of profit, or downfall of sales. If you feel length is a problem, and the game we provided wasn’t enough to suit your needs then pay that little bit more for an ‘extended’ experience, this is called ‘leaving room for improvement’. And this also leads quite nicely to the definition of a ‘completed’ game.
Probably one of the major reasons why the gaming industry has boomed so much is due to the expansion of audiences. More importantly that of the casual audience, as nearly everyone is a gamer of some kind now. Many long term gamers - or ‘hardcore’ gamers as they’re called more frequently - are somewhat ill informed of what other audiences enjoy from a title. The point to make is some games are not aimed at one particular type of person, but many types of people, and having to provide for all of these types can be somewhat of a challenge for the developer/publisher. Adding difficulty options is an oversimplified but good example of this, adding multiple layers of gameplay; as in being accessible and playable for button mashers, but allowing for complex actions and options for the hardcore audience; or in context – offering an experience of which is manageable for everyone but also adding in optional tasks such as the much loved Achievements. Whether a game is too short or too long is a matter of personal perception from a particular audience, and although it is undeniable games are mostly shorter in length, it is also undeniable that many gamers are satisfied with the time it takes them to complete a game, it’s almost impossible to please everyone.
To bring this down to a digestible conclusion, as the gaming industry evolves the game’s themselves have to change. Some things don’t change fast enough though, like portable storage, a problem unfortunately that must be worked around until either downloads kick off or a new disc standard is created. Maybe the over ambitious marketers have aimed a little too high in setting next-generation expectations. Developers have been forced to not only provide a great gameplay experience, but a cinematic and visual one also. Developers are not just providing for the regular gamer, but for the occasional one too, all this has to be put into consideration. In the end, the developer has to produce a game which is tailored to the model the publisher has given them, and in this very competitive industry a lot of the time it means putting the effort into the most crucial components of the game - unique, accessible & interactive content - and cutting the most insignificant factors to save time and cost. Length, unfortunately for some, generally being the straggler as it’s something that can be extended in due time... but only if you the gamer can provide that extra £10.
Posted By: Lee Burton
Date: 2008-12-14
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