Why don't they make long games anymore?

Well, why don't they? They spend all this time making beautiful scenery, or very atmospheric textures and such, but, games often seem to be too short. I mean, 10 hours? Hire 2 extra guys to make levels and write a longer story, and you've practically doubled the value of the game.

Here's the way I see it.

Game Value = Worth Playing (1 or 0) X Happiness Playing (Graphics, storyline, level design, AI) X Time Playable

I mean, what's the amount spent on pretty graphics compared to how much is spent on writing (Story, dialogue, etc.) and level design for more levels. I don't mind playing pretty games, but I'd rather play something that looked half as good for twice as long. $50 for 10 hours of great gaming is worth much less to me than $50 for 20-30 hours of good gaming.

Just a rant I guess. Maybe I was spoiled by things like Baldur's Gate, NWN, and Deus Ex.

^ +1

Personally, I perfer long games to short games since I'm not into multiplayer.

I haven't finished Fallout 3 yet, in fact I haven't even made it to the GNR station yet 'cause I've been doing a few side quest and lots of exploring. I've read the main quest is relatively short, it woulds have been nice if it was a bit longer. Hopefully there will be some downloadable content or user created mods in the near future.

Long games are fine as long as the storyline is relavent and it is not too repetative. Far Cry and HL2 were two long games that I liked. Crysis was pretty good too, but the storyline was not as long as the other two games I mentioned.

Two main reasons I see. The first is the trend to episodic games. Multiple games that are more tightly related than standard sequels. With the high cost of developing competitive games today it's not only more profitable to sell multiple chapters but it's also less risky and easier to develop for. I know people bitch about the money grab of game companies but in reality over the past several years game development cost have sky rocketed but games have remained the same. Take Crysis for example. A very costly game to develop that always had a high risk of being a complete flop. So rather than put all their eggs in one basket Crytek made a smart move and released a moderately successful game followed up by an improved second chapter. In the end I think it was a wise decision and benefited gamers as well. Even if Crysis had hours more of game play it still would have had it's issues that kept a lot of people away from the game. Warhead allowed for improvements along with additional game play without having to develop a whole new game, and it's relatively cheap ($19.99 at Best Buy this week!). Think about that, less than 1 year after the release of a major blockbuster you have an expansion/sequel which doesn't require the original game and is already at bargain bin prices.

Second is the push for more multiplayer. A good multiplayer component can add far more replayability than additional content for only a fraction of the cost. If a developer has to decide what to put resources into, multiplayer or additional content, multiplayer will win out in most practical situations. For one it seems to be what gamers today want more. Secondly like I mentioned before you get more bang-for-your-buck. And thirdly it has the side effect of being a piracy deterrent and acting as a sort of continuous link with customers.

I hope there are still epic single player games to come, but there is good reason for a trend towards shorter games and I don't think it's all bad.

I guess I've only gotten into a few multiplayer FPS. Only two I really played for more than 5 hours were SWAT 4 (which I spent way, way too much time playing) and Call of Duty. So maybe it's my preferences to a strong story that make games "shorter" for me, because I don't enjoy their MP.

Think of it this way -- CoD4 is the perfect prototype for the modern game. Short, but fantastic, blistering single player campaign that can be completed in under 10 hours, and a great multiplayer mode. Reviewers can quickly and easily review the game prior to the street date, and consumers can get plenty of value out of a "short game's" multiplayer. I'm not saying I want all games to be like this -- I personally prefer a KOTOR-like experience over a short campaign with a linear story. Just saying this seems to be the way things are going in gaming.

I actually didn't like KOTOR much.... I saw a lot of reason to like it, I just never got into it. Made it to the last "mission" too. Really, that CoD4 is the perfect prototype scares me. It was good, but nothing truly new IMO. No story. I just wish that wasn't the direction we were heading.

Maybe I should go back to reading books....

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Enjoy Decasav

Everyone has a short attention spa...hey look! A shiny penny!

*wanders off*

GTA-IV isn't a 12 hour game

Eve, WOW, Everquest and all the other MMO's - I have over one year *played* time on my older EQ accounts.

I don't know what you class as old - San Andreas, FarCry are fairly long. Oblivion? What about the Sims class of games, do they ever have an ending? The CnC3 / KW campaigns take a lot more than 10 hours to complete.

But yes it comes down to money if you are talking about FPS - all them shiny shiny graphics take time to build and the less content there is the less testing needs to be done. I don't like FPS online (apart from the odd CS:S game) so I'm happy to wait for CoD4 to come down in price before I buy another game in the series I can finish in an afternoon.

Personally, if a game is well made (San Andreas), the longer the better, but then I'm old so I can manage to hold my attention on one subject for more than 23 seconds

I think the first COD was great and COD2 was even better MP-wise but not SP-wise. COD4 was a big disappointment for me. The story was bad, the campaign was very linear, and I hated the multiplayer changes. I will take COD1 and 2 anyday over 4. I'm even more disappointed that Treyarch decided to just copy COD4's MP than bring it back to the good old days. Oh well, 2 less games to buy.

Btw, Fallout 3 is beast.