Readers Feature

[DANGERMAN]

I just want to clarify that my 'good for them' comment was meant sincerely, I know it doesn't read that way

[Nag]

 

Quote

A reader explains how he uses a certain website to plan what game he’s playing next and how it’s helped him to have a more enjoyable gaming life.

 

I feel I should say that GC is my most treasured video game website, or there’s not much chance of the feature being used, but in truth I’m here to talk about my other favourite website, the one which has had more influence on what I play and buy than any review source: HowLongToBeat.

 

I’m never quite sure how well known it is but I find it invaluable. I’m assuming you’ve already guessed what it does, it’s not like the name is trick, but basically it has info on almost any game you care to type in, in terms of how long it takes to beat it for just the Main Story, Main + Extra (which I interpret as a reasonable number of easily discoverable side quests), and Completist (i.e. 100% completion).

 

There’s other information if you dig down further, where you can see how the totals are calculated from people who have written in to add their completion time and data. A lot of this isn’t very useful, except to see how many people the numbers are based on. If it’s only a few people then there’s a chance it can be quite inaccurate, although I rarely find it to be completely wrong.

 

Now that I’ve sat down to write this, I’ve realised I’m not actually sure why most people use the website. Maybe they’re trying to beat the average or something? But I would imagine they’d be better off at a dedicated speedrun site for that. Anyway, the reason I use it is pretty simple: to work out whether a game is worth playing.

 

If a game is any more than 10 hours for ‘Main Story’ then in nine out of 10 cases I just will not bother with it. And if it’s something silly, like over 30 hours, then forget about, there is absolutely no chance of me making an exception.

 

This is not some arbitrary rule I’ve invented, since I am quite happy to bend it if it’s a game that interests me and I feel I have the time, but usually I just don’t. I’m a working dad and there’s only so much time I can commit to gaming. I already spend more time than probably my wife would prefer, but I think it’s about average for someone in my position, at around 10 hours a week.

 

Maybe that seems a lot to some people – my boy’s 12 – so it’s not like I’m getting up every few hours to feed him anymore, but any gamer will tell you it’s really not that much. You need half that time to even get to the interactive part of Persona 4, for example. Or learn what the heck you’re doing in Dark Souls.

 

I don’t know what exactly you’re doing by hour 10 of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom or Elden Ring, because I’ve never played them, but I can tell from the website that I’d barely be 15% of the way into the games. And that’s assuming you were taking the ‘golden path’ and making progress, whereas I’d probably be pottering about and achieving very little.

 

I have absolutely nothing against open world games, but I don’t like to be hurried with them and nowadays that just means I haven’t time for them, full stop. It’s a shame, I’m sure, but there’s a thousand other things I don’t have time for in my life anymore, from reading super long books to learning to play the piano, and I’ve just got to accept that I’ve got responsibilities and my free time is a resource I have to manage

 

But now that I’m used to my limit, I have to say I’ve been enjoying gaming I lot more than I was five or 10 years ago. There are a few reasons for this but to put it simply, I’m beating almost everything I play within a relatively short time (i.e. I actually remember what the story was about by the time it’s finished), I’m playing a lot more games, I’m playing a lot greater variety of games, and I have no backlog.

 

On average, it takes me a week or two to complete a game, but the thing is, most shorter games are indie titles and they’re cheaper, so while I am buying more games I’m also getting more games in return. For £70 I can get at least three or four good quality indie games, sometimes more depending on what it is, and that’s not even counting sales.

 

Maybe I’m just making do, but I’m very happy with my set-up and my self-imposed limitations. I can break them whenever I feel like it, but I rarely do. The thing about 10 hour long games is there’s never any bloat, there’s usually no massively long cut scenes, and all the budget goes on the game and not just the graphics. The shorter the game, the less you can rely on visuals and gimmicks and I find that a big plus.

 

So, I say give it ago. Even if you have all the time in the world, limit yourself to only playing 10 hour or less games and I’d be surprised if you didn’t end up enjoying yourself more than the latest 60+ hour epic.

 

By reader Lagger

 

[Maryokutai]

HLTB is a cool site. Not using it much personally but there have been instances when I have attacked my backlog and wanted to go for a shorter game, in which case the platform came in quite handy. I also do understand that longer games can feel very off-putting depending on your life circumstances at the time. Tears of the Kingdom is a game I kind of want to play some day, but I just don't know how I can reasonably make 'space' for it at the moment in a way that would also result in me playing it in a way that enriches the experience, not just rushing from thing to thing to get some feeling of progress. But that's also a rather extreme case informed by my experience with its predecessor – usually I don't think too much about this aspect or simply adapt my purchase decision according to what I want to play.

[one-armed dwarf]

Tears is best viewed as a physics-driven creativity sandbox to fuck around and experiment with rather than a story to complete IMO. It feels like a full retail priced and scoped expansion of BOTW.

 

I've no intention of ever completing it but would like to return to it to build a weapon to surpass Metal Gear (a robot what has rockets for feet and does cool tricks on a skateboard with polearms attacked on each end, don't steal my idea)

 

Honestly when I think about it Tears is the most obvious successor to the ideas developed in Half Life 2, no wonder Valve are afraid to announce a sequel

[Nag]

I mean he can play games in any fashion he sees fit and I can see why he may head this way if under constant time constraints... but limiting himself to this always he's going to miss some really great experiences. He's pretty much never going to play an RPG ever.

[mfnick]

I love HLTB. Use it all the time for various reasons. Might just want to play a shorter game and helps me decide that. If I’m playing a game & I’m not loving it but if I find it’s short enough on HLTB I’ll likely stick with it. If I complete a game and love it I’ll check it to see how much longer for 100% completion to decide whether to go for it. 
 

The OP is mad though. Missing out on so many games - especially these days. Every game that isn’t an indie is going to be over 10 hours now. Most people who say they haven’t got time for JRPGs or larger games are usually talking shit too. Most will then go on about how they played 60 hours of Helldivers or Balatro in a week. Just say you’re not as into them. It’s fine. 

[shinymcshine]

When I read it I'd imagine the justification might have been that they only had a couple of hours per week gaming time, so even a 10 hr game might take them 5 weeks - but they went on to say they get 10 hrs per week game time, so they are just making a weird personal choice to churn through short games weekly, rather than taking a month or two for longer titles.

[Maryokutai]

1 hour ago, mfnick said:

Most people who say they haven’t got time for JRPGs or larger games are usually talking shit too. Most will then go on about how they played 60 hours of Helldivers or Balatro in a week.

 

It's not always as clear cut I think. Balatro for example is a game you could easily spend hundreds of hours playing on the train to work or in your lunch break, while Helldviers might be a 'wind down' kind of game to play immediately after getting home when the pull of something with more depth and substance might not necessarily be there due to fatigue etc.

[one-armed dwarf]

Part of that comes from the mimicing of prestige TV/films in a lot of the upper crust AAA games, where it really is unsatisfying to not see the thing to completion. But there's plenty of stuff that's not like that.

 

I think the time investment for something like TLOU2 is offputting to people cause as someone who quit halfway through that game, my impression of the story is pretty negative and unsatisfying but I left it unresolved. But there's no sense of obligation with Balatro and Helldivers, or Marvel Rising or a fighting game or whatever. 

 

Mary made the same point as I was as I was making this post but imma post it anyway lol

[mfnick]

So you’re after a different experience. The problem still isn’t time as gets made out usually or as it has here. 
 

Balatro I guess is different as you can play that on the commute or something as said. But it’s rare it’s meant in this respect. They’ve usually put those hours in at home when talking about it. 

[Maryokutai]

I mean, it is, and it isn't. I could squeeze in an hour of something like Last of Us in between getting home and preparing dinner but I would get absolutely nothing out of it. For me, in that instance, I'd argue I don't have the time, but maybe we'll have to ask Schrödinger to get to the truth here.

[one-armed dwarf]

It's a different type of time that is the issue tho, it's the minimal time commitment a thing is required to build a strong impression to seem worthwhile to continue time with

 

Balatro - that time is probably 10 minutes. Helldivers, I dunno, probably an hour to complete the tutorial and do a match. But in both these cases you have a reasonable understanding of whether you want to stick with it

 

TLOU2, how long is that opening? Feels interminable. Depends on what parts you consider the opening. There's that feeling of an opportunity cost, an evening or two wasted on something that you expected more from.

 

Honestly this is why I prefer movies for telling stories. Fuck it, I hardly even read nowadays cause of this.  

[mfnick]

Seems like a mental barrier there to me. An hour in TLOU2 would actually accomplish a decent amount. Especially when played daily. That’s how I tend to get through my long games. I’ll play ~1 hour a day (usually, not saying I do this all the time, I can go days without playing) and then maybe a couple of bigger sessions over the weekend. I’ve played loads of big games this way & always had a fulfilling experience. 
 

I agree the start of one of those games can be a bit more of an effort to get through though & would probably require a day when you’ve got a bit more time. But after the opening it’s usually fine to just chip away at them.

[Maryokutai]

It is a mental barrier of course, but if I can't get into it because I'm still halfway in work mode or maybe a bit fatigued before getting my last meal of the day it's a wasted experience. Would I make progress ingame? Of course, but it would mean nothing, like gliding over lines in a book without properly reading and asking myself how I ended up where I'm at.

 

I'm not here to convince anyone that this is an universal truth because it isn't, but I can totally see how people with short breaks, but without longer gameplay session opportunities, would accumulate a lifetime's worth of hours in Balatro without ever finding a rewarding timeslot for something deeper.

[mfnick]

Fair enough, yea I understand where you’re coming from. 

[Nag]

I play the same way as you @mfnick... tbf I find it less appealing trying to juggle two or three games at a time rather than playing one game in dribs and drabs.

[DANGERMAN]

There was a spell where I was making myself play Grandia for at least an hour every Sunday morning. It was at the time partly for content for a website, but it also worked to get me through the game, and it was kind of great. Problem is, Grandia is fairly short as far as jrpgs go, and pretty easy, it's amazing and people should play it, however it maybe doesn't translate as well to doing other, longer, more difficult games (doing it while streaming I mean) 

 

Plus I seem to have fuck all time to play anything nowadays, so losing an hour (and the rest) to streaming isn't appealing 

[Nag]

 

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A reader argues that many of the problems in the games industry are caused by gamers not being willing to try new games and insisting on digital over physical purchases.

 

The potential decline in gaming is in big part due to (casual) gamers, in my opinion. I know, I know not a controversial statement at all, but hear me out.

 

A lot of people who play games just play the same game, or newest iteration of it, each year. That means that other newer or more interesting and innovative games lose out on sales and the cash, therefore studios are much less likely to invest in them in the future.

 

If it is not another EA Sports FC game or Call Of Duty, many don’t care to check them out. To be fair, studios making money on those games means that they can invest in different games, but most just seem to put out the same thing, albeit slightly updated and then rinse and repeat the following year.

 

Whilst successful in their own right, imagine if some of the more innovative games of this year, i.e. Unicorn Overlord or Metaphor: ReFantazio got the attention of those annual update release games. Yes, other games do break through the haze sometimes, like Black Myth: Wukong, but many do not.

 

However, the bigger issue, I believe, is that gamers have readily embraced digital gaming, even though it provides much more benefit to the games publishers than to the gamer. The whole instant gratification thing has led to a lot of people having no patience. Why are people so desperate to play that new, single-player game the instant it releases, or even now pre-downloading it so that you don’t miss out on those vital few minutes to play it as soon as possible.

 

Besides that, what benefit does it provide? Don’t have to get up off the couch to change discs? Finding storage space for the games? I see digital gaming’s place for older games from previous console generations, that are hard to pick up, or for Indie games, but for AAA or even AA games I don’t get it. I know that I am likely to be in the minority with this thinking.

 

Another benefit of physical games is that most of the time, at release, I can get newer games $20-$30 (AUD) cheaper on physical disc than on digital store fronts. Shouldn’t it be the other way around since the digital version is cheaper for the publisher?

 

Even with recent Black Friday sales I saw way better discounts on physical versions of recent games than digital. If all physical games stopped being released, publishers would have less incentive to discount their digital games due to lack of competition and so all gamers would end up losing out.

 

Excluding those always online single-player games, or those that require a connection the first time you play/install them games (I am looking at you Ubisoft) physical games also mean that you always have access to the game and are able to play it, which we have discovered recently is not always the case with digital games.

 

So, this embrace of digital gaming, even though seemingly convenient for many right now is likely to lead to players having much less control over their gaming in the future.

 

And the less said about how the game subscription services may affect the long term variety of games in the future, the better. But many people also embrace this, because for them, in the here and now, it is a good deal for them. I do get that for some people on a budget it might be their only way to play a variety of games over the course of a year.

 

To finish up, I guess the gist of what I am trying to say is that, in my opinion, if gamers do not wish the video game industry to be worse off in the future, some of the choices currently being made might need to be reconsidered.

 

By reader Sigmar

 

[shinymcshine]

Pretty sure parts of that same arguement applies equally to music, TV shows, movies etc.

[one-armed dwarf]

I think there's some roundabout sense in what's been said but the PC platform basically ended physical media back in like 2010 or some shit, or a really long time ago anyway. So it's way too late. Also I'm all in on physical media for movies where there's a massive quality difference and you can curate it to whatever you like, not what a platform holder decides. But I think on the digital gaming front on PC at least you already have a criterion collection style selection of legacy titles on all the different storefronts so it's not as limited. I also think discovering non-mainstream games on these platforms is easier than it's ever been

 

Inevitably this turns into a 'PC is better' brag post, but it does fix the 'variety' problem a bit. If not the problem of actually owning any of these games, which you can do with GOG and back them up but not on steam, origin, epic etc. Also a lot of the platforms which do the lock-in DRM thing can end up shooting themselves in the foot a bit, hardly anyone uses ubisoft's launcher and it's actually caused them a lot of issues to the point their own devs are giving out to the stakeholders who made these decisions.