Scarcity of Content in Games
There’s an interesting difference, if you compare games to other art forms like movies, in how they get consumed across different groups of people. With movies, there’s pretty much two categories of viewers: the big screen people and the DVD people. With minor differences within those groups, everyone has pretty much the same potential experience. Very few people turn the movie off before its end.
That is very different with games. A sizable portion of everyone who plays a game, especially multiplayer-enabled games, will put a huge amount of time into that game. That’s awesome, but those people are not in a majority. The majority of people who buy a game wont even finish the singleplayer campaign. For these people, the game was too long. This is something like the dark secret of game design, and its a reason that makes constructing games a bit sad — no matter how much love you put into your story, it’s unlikely that most people will see its conclusion.
You would never guess that this was the case, looking at game reviews. Reviews regularly complain about games being too short. This has happened to a range of great games lately — from Portal
Well, first of all, if you are the kind of person who rarely completes games (like the average gamer out there apparently), game reviews aren’t taking your interests into account. I’m assuming here that being able to finish a game is more enjoyable than abandoning it along the way.
Second, we’re creating ever-longer games that cater to a portion of the gamer community who will not buy games that are too short, which means that at the same time we’re making sure that a majority of players will play even smaller part of the game. That’s quite a problem from where I see it — a small part of players are allowed to dictate how games are made, which actually lowers quality for the majority.
In addition to this problem, more time in games tends to mean more repetition. Content creation for modern games is incredibly expensive, which means that longer play means more play time made from the same content. Maybe that means more of the same kind of objectives (ever play Assassin’s Creed
The result of this is a kind of scarcity of actual content in games. The longer we make any given game, the more diluted the experience becomes. We get more of the same enemies in the same locations, and more locations made up out of the same building blocks.
You can see this quite easily if you compare the soundtracks of different media. Movie music is a movie-length musical score which has changing music to the events in the movie, usually with common themes for parts of movies but with the music still shifting to each individual moment.
How much variation is there in game music? Sometimes, game music is a movie-length (yes) musical score, played straight or randomly to a game (usually 4 times longer than a movie). Sometimes it’s a song-length musical score played to each level. Sometimes it’s “dynamic music” which usually means tying musical start/fade triggers to action. I commented on game music before in Give Me Some Emotion, Maestro, where I suggested a more involved form of dynamic music for games with composers as first-class game developers, but that doesn’t go all the way — we also simply need an appropriate amount of music to cover the length of a game.
More enemies to kill in the same way, more of the same concrete blocks to make up new parts of levels, more of the same music and sounds, more of the same experience. These things all lead to the current playing experience you get from games, which tends to be a repetitive flat-emotion slaughter even if you look at non-shooter games. Yet making more content for the games would make them more expensive.
I think games as a medium need to focus better. Yes, shorter games would probably be good in the long run. There are some people who would wish that movies be 10 hours long as well — but those aren’t the main segment of customers for movies. In the end, bringing quality of games up needs more variation — in environments, in challenges, and in emotions. Then maybe the average consumer would actually have the pleasure of finishing the games they buy.
I don’t mean there can’t be long games here either. People obviously liked the The Lord of the Rings
For singleplayer games, the question then becomes how to satisfy the people who want longer play times? I sure don’t have that answer, and any comments are definitely appreciated.
Tags: Emotion, Game Design, Games, Movies, Music
Games | slicedlime | 
Friday, July 24, 2009 17:49
5 Comments
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By M0t0rBreath, Friday, July 24, 2009 @ 18:22
Awesome post. I personally rather play multiplayer, but now that I see the hard work put into single player, I’m definitely going to play it. The only really single player game I fell in love with is Metal Gear Solid. I love those game, they are so entertaining and they are perfect. Its a mash-up of things that makes it great. The cut-scenes, storyline, gadgets, Snakes voice(lol), characters, etc. My suggestion for the audience who likes longer play times is to make a story that the consumer would not expect. Ex, In BC1, a 4 man squad fought all the way through the campain. In BC2, ppl will think that the same might happen, but now you change things up. You can start with a 4 man squad and leed it to be a really big firefight with these 2 humongous armies battling each other with crazy stuff happening. Keep the audience thinking is what makes Metal Gear Solid so great.
By James, Friday, July 24, 2009 @ 22:51
I’m pretty sure there are games like The Elder Scrolls which are the video game equivalent of the LOTR movies. Well, theoretically, anyway. The main quest supposedly isn’t amazingly long, but most people get caught up doing random sidequests, dump a ridiculous number of hours into the game, and then quit without ever seeing the ending.
Super Mario Galaxy and a few of the Zelda games are also varied and well crafted all the way through. Pretty much anything non-casual made by Nintendo tends to be longish and fairly solid.
By slicedlime, Saturday, July 25, 2009 @ 7:35
You’re right… side quests is actually an excellent example of a good way to make a game with a varied length.
By NiveouS, Saturday, July 25, 2009 @ 7:47
Sadly, I must admit I am the average gamer who does not complete single player games. I can’t remember since I’ve played a full game. On games like Warcraft III, I use cheats to get through the story, instead of playing the game like its meant to. Call me lazy, but I enjoy the storyline more than playing again and again. Single player games tend to get repetitive from what I’ve experienced. For me a good story is what separates a good SP game from the bad. Now, when you combine co-op such as Neverwinter Nights and games like Left for Dead, when you take single player gameplay and combine it with other people (multiplayer), now thats is where games really become enjoyable.
Before the internet was so widely available, then I would fully play single player games, Starcraft, Warcraft II, Diablo (yes I’m a Blizzard fan boy
). Also should mention Neverwinter Nights, an amazing game with single player story. But once again, I stopped eventually, even though the story is something I really wanted to finish.
I guess the change from SP being less focused is simply because of the opposite, multiplayer. When you get MMOs like WoW and FPSs like CoD4 and CS. They last longer and are more rewarding with time spent. You start taking part of your realm/community in the form of guilds or clans and then continue playing those games. They don’t get repetitive for the most part since
By NiveouS, Saturday, July 25, 2009 @ 8:04
(Odd, somehow it got posted before I finished my sentence)
since… you’re playing with real people you know. So, I would say multiplayer gameplay is what kind of has killed singleplayer games.
Before, almost everything for the PC was SP with some MP focus, now it seems the most popular titles are known for their MP focus and gameplay. Probably the most impressive SP series is the Final Fantasy games, whose games are still extremely popular and can be considered somewhat long. What makes them so popular? Story is a big thing, and also the gameplay is liked. A recent game who is worth mentioning is CoD4, who did an amazing single player experience (too short if you ask me) and the multiplayer gameplay is also extremely popular. What they did, which was done very well, was the story, cinematic, and very varied gameplay/missions. I guess a good single player game obviously comes down to storyline and gameplay. And, if you can put together a storyline which is revealed well and is very attractive with a great gameplay that varies and is not repetitive, it will be an attractive game.
Well, going to stop writing, since this is a hell of a long comment
But, just worth saying is when you look at all the famous single player games, such as Baldur’s Gates you can see what makes them so popular. They are innovative – as in its completely different from what was done before. Same as the Warcraft titles, they were so popular for a reason. And that is, they are a huge step up from what was available during their time. I would say the key thing for a single player game to be very popular now days is to do something (easier said than done) that is different and innovative. Something that will keep people playing no matter how long the game is. Sadly, I just don’t see this happening any time soon, with multiplayer games being so prominent and popular.
Just to somewhat conclude: Good gameplay, story, non-repetitive, and
being different and innovative appear to be the key things needed to make a good single player game. Though they may seem somewhat obvious things, more than half the gaming studios appear to fail to realize this.
Wow… this is the longest comment I’ve done yet… could almost be a blog.