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Games have a “replayability” factor, so I’m not sure the analogy with content length matters. Someone can play a multiple hour RPG just once, while another can

Games have a “replayability” factor, so I’m not sure the analogy with content length matters. Someone can play a multiple hour RPG just once, while another can devote a life to mastering Tetris or Street Fighter. I believe games fall into some spectrum between movie and sport, the experiences are very different.

maroonblazer 3y ago
That occurred to me too, but I wonder if there's a way to caveat that the length descriptors refer to some threshold of player investment that expresses "You've experienced the basic gist of the game and a large majority of what the developer wanted to convey. You can move on to another game or continue to improve in this one, your pick." As a player, I'd love such a classification. Increasingly I just don't have the time to slog through an entire Elden Ring or Starfield. Give me a way to easily find more Rocket Leagues and Cocoons.
- raytopia 3y ago
  You put it into words better then me.
- beenBoutIT 3y ago
  IIRC, RDR2 does exactly this. The issue is that you know exactly what percentage of the game you haven't experienced and exactly how good the game is and it makes it next to impossible to stop playing.
  - maroonblazer 3y ago
    But you have to start playing the game before you get that information. I want that information before purchasing it.
    - beenBoutIT 3y ago
      best you'll find is howlongtobeat.com
beenBoutIT 3y ago
The formula is something like the longer a game is the less linear it needs to be to have a high replay value. 'The Last of Us' is incredibly long and among the best linear non open-world games ever made. That said, it's entirely linear and the thought of sinking such a massive amount of time into a game that's effectively a very long movie give it a very low replayability factor. Likewise, Skyrim is a massive open world game that's incredibly linear and repetitive, giving it a low replayability factor. Rockstar has several very long open world games that have massive replay value and don't get stale with repeat playthroughs. On the flip side, if you haven't played through 2 or 3 times you've generally missed a decent amount of content. GTA San Andreas, RDR2 and GTA V all fall into this rare category of long games that are highly replayable. With open world games the key to high replayability seems to be NPC AI quality and providing different outcomes for different actions and the order in which you do things in-game. Allowing you to do lots of missions in whatever order you choose goes a long way to breaking up any feeling that you're watching a movie.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Replayability isn’t the only metric for open world games though, a bigger part is “Is the open world interesting enough to invest time in outside of the main plot?” You might spend 20 hours playing through a main story, and another 200 running around doing other stuff without ever actually starting over in a new game.
- hibikir 3y ago
  Interesting examples you have there. The Last of Us is 10-15 hours long: Short by full-price standards. There's 100 hour games out there, many made in Japan. The issue with replayability is that the story is better than the gameplay, and few want to go through said gameplay twice. Skyrim is a game that, shockingly, people still play today. There's players with 1500 hours. It's not my cup of tea either, but putting it as an example of a non-replayable game is more than a little dubious. Especially when GTA V and RDR2 have basically the same practical problem, yet you find them highly replayable somehow. What a game needs to be replayable is a fun gameplay loop that is enjoyable when the novelty of story has worn out. Even simple gameplay loops like the one of Hades can make the gave very replayable. If you like, say, the gameplay of Spiderman for the PS4(another game longer than Last Of Us), playing it again will still be fun anyway. If you are going in it for the story only, it will not. Very few games spend the effort on making all the little decisions have relevant story consequences: Basically all you ever get is illusion of choice. It's the fighting, driving, shooting, or strategizing that has to be so fun that doing it for 100+ hours can be rewarding to some people.
HelloNurse 3y ago
There are the length of playing the "whole" game, the length of a minimum/typical/maximum session, and the length of a supported unit of play, and each can be long, short or irrelevant. For example, an online PvP game has discrete games (e.g. a worst case of 2n minutes to play chess with a time limit of n minutes), one often plays a few games in a row depending on fatigue and available time, and replayability is infinite.

maroonblazer 3y ago

That occurred to me too, but I wonder if there's a way to caveat that the length descriptors refer to some threshold of player investment that expresses "You've experienced the basic gist of the game and a large majority of what the developer wanted to convey. You can move on to another game or continue to improve in this one, your pick." As a player, I'd love such a classification. Increasingly I just don't have the time to slog through an entire Elden Ring or Starfield. Give me a way to easily find more Rocket Leagues and Cocoons.

raytopia 3y ago
You put it into words better then me.
beenBoutIT 3y ago
IIRC, RDR2 does exactly this. The issue is that you know exactly what percentage of the game you haven't experienced and exactly how good the game is and it makes it next to impossible to stop playing.
- maroonblazer 3y ago
  But you have to start playing the game before you get that information. I want that information before purchasing it.
  - beenBoutIT 3y ago
    best you'll find is howlongtobeat.com

beenBoutIT 3y ago

The formula is something like the longer a game is the less linear it needs to be to have a high replay value. 'The Last of Us' is incredibly long and among the best linear non open-world games ever made. That said, it's entirely linear and the thought of sinking such a massive amount of time into a game that's effectively a very long movie give it a very low replayability factor. Likewise, Skyrim is a massive open world game that's incredibly linear and repetitive, giving it a low replayability factor. Rockstar has several very long open world games that have massive replay value and don't get stale with repeat playthroughs. On the flip side, if you haven't played through 2 or 3 times you've generally missed a decent amount of content. GTA San Andreas, RDR2 and GTA V all fall into this rare category of long games that are highly replayable. With open world games the key to high replayability seems to be NPC AI quality and providing different outcomes for different actions and the order in which you do things in-game. Allowing you to do lots of missions in whatever order you choose goes a long way to breaking up any feeling that you're watching a movie.

wlesieutre 3y ago
Replayability isn’t the only metric for open world games though, a bigger part is “Is the open world interesting enough to invest time in outside of the main plot?” You might spend 20 hours playing through a main story, and another 200 running around doing other stuff without ever actually starting over in a new game.
hibikir 3y ago
Interesting examples you have there. The Last of Us is 10-15 hours long: Short by full-price standards. There's 100 hour games out there, many made in Japan. The issue with replayability is that the story is better than the gameplay, and few want to go through said gameplay twice. Skyrim is a game that, shockingly, people still play today. There's players with 1500 hours. It's not my cup of tea either, but putting it as an example of a non-replayable game is more than a little dubious. Especially when GTA V and RDR2 have basically the same practical problem, yet you find them highly replayable somehow. What a game needs to be replayable is a fun gameplay loop that is enjoyable when the novelty of story has worn out. Even simple gameplay loops like the one of Hades can make the gave very replayable. If you like, say, the gameplay of Spiderman for the PS4(another game longer than Last Of Us), playing it again will still be fun anyway. If you are going in it for the story only, it will not. Very few games spend the effort on making all the little decisions have relevant story consequences: Basically all you ever get is illusion of choice. It's the fighting, driving, shooting, or strategizing that has to be so fun that doing it for 100+ hours can be rewarding to some people.

HelloNurse 3y ago

There are the length of playing the "whole" game, the length of a minimum/typical/maximum session, and the length of a supported unit of play, and each can be long, short or irrelevant. For example, an online PvP game has discrete games (e.g. a worst case of 2n minutes to play chess with a time limit of n minutes), one often plays a few games in a row depending on fatigue and available time, and replayability is infinite.