are games getting shorter as a trade off for graphics?

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has anyone else noticed that games seem to be getting way shorter these days?

For example compare Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 4. I completed Halo 4 in about 5 or less sittings while Halo CE, may have jutty triangular polygons and nasty last gen textures, is a beast of game that seems to refuse to end.

Do you think that developers are putting so much attention into graphics that the lifespan of the story is suffering?

I think there are a couple reasons for this.
First, it takes a LOT of work to create art assets for a game, and the more advanced the graphics engines, the art assets then have to be that much more detailed. Because of that, if the game is to be completed in a reasonable amount of time, more artists will have to be hired, which obviously will get very expensive.
This leads into the second reason for this, instead of hiring more people, they just release a truncated game and then sell content packs later, when the additional content is complete, funded by the sales of the initial release. This has the added benefit of selling the game (in total, including DLC) for a higher price, just split into two or more parts.

Sales are base don the initial "wow" factor. Most of the people buying games care more about graphics than game play & story, and just buy games on impulse. Many don't even get through the whole game. And even if the game sucks, it's rare anyone will seek a refund.

The game industry is just another branch of the entertainment industry. Major games make as much if not more than major movies on initial release. So if it's a movie, a tv show, or a video game, most are made for profit, actual story is not very important. And like movies, if you want story, go indie.

I think its very differently. Jump and Run "seem" shorter to me, because of them having far more game saves possibilities then in earlier times. In earlier times, you died, you started the level again, and if your life ran out, you had to start at the begin again. So you played longer on the same amountof content. Open world RPGs have become far more larger, even to an extent that I get a bit annoyed as "must have done everything in an area before leaving" customer. The announcement that the world of Witcher 3 will be 50% bigger , then Skyrim didnt make me really that happy, because only because there are more trees and boars, that doesnt add more story, which is the core-identity of an RPG for me.

When it comes to third person shooters, as the mentioned Halo. In earlier times, firs person shooters were more focused on the single player, and offered mostly only additional multiplayer content, simply because end of 90ies not everyone had internet connection, or could afford that much of data content, or had a to bad connection. So playing multiplayer was mostly optional. While nowadays, its the complete opposite, most first person shooters are focused on the multiplayer part, while the singe player part is more of a nice gimmick to practice a bit the controlling and movement, without getting shot every 15 seconds. I think I haven´t fully played any single-story modus of an first person shooter in the last 8 years, and at least around my friends its quiet comparable. So its for me reasonable, that the companies dont focus that hard anymore, on a part of the game, that has become for many players, simply something optional or an exercising court.

Idk but wasn't Halo 1 pretty high-end expensive graphics stuff in its time?

Or does it not "scale" like that? Like just because the game's easier to run now, would it still be expensive to make with those graphics?

Also, I think DLC-ability does affect the original game's length.

I think a big reason is that game developers lack the patience and dedication to take the time to make a really great game. And they probably lack the time too. Gaming is too corporate now. The best game developers, such as Rareware and Bungie, had a laid back, informal feel to their workplaces. It wasn't supposed to be overly "professional". Now since its been taken over by marketing and business, and because many gamers have the attention span of a husband with a TV remote (or a kid reading a text message) games can't be too long.

I think level/map design was more intuitive because they were working with less polygons per metric.

Cant find maps like this these days:



[img][800:876]http://zs.ffshrine.org/ocarina-of-time/maps/wateroot.jpg[/img]

Even though programmers can use fractal algorithms to generate the terrain they want for large open worlds, they cant do the same for non liner corridors and puzzle type level design that would need to be done by hand, of which they can't do as smoothly as before do to teh grafix that would take too much time for most corporations to tolerate I think. So the games have to get dumb down.

Not even in other RPGs ?

Seems like it's a trade-off for the heavy focus on multiplayer for the past years. I couldn't care less about multiplayer gaming, so I'm looking forward to Fallout 4--which is going to be single player.

(When I play games, I do not want to socialize at all.)

i don't understand why one has to suffer at the cost of other.

When i play a game, i like a good solid single player and a good multiplayer mode. Thats why despite all its horrible plot cliches, Call of Duty is an undeniably fantastic game. Thats why I also have a soft spot for the much slated Homefront and Resistance: Fall of Man series on PS3.

I don't play multiplayer to socialise either, but its more challenging to play against humans rather than AI's.

I really hope Fallout 4 (if it ever emerges) has multiplayer too.

I dont think it's JUST the graphics..... it's that actual gameplay is also being replaced by other things. Like cutscenes. Which take even MORE time/effort to make, but are often not actually all that long.

As games become more and more like bloody stupid movies, these trends will only get worse and worse. The big developers have realized that in many cases, actual good gameplay.... AKA, the IMPORTANT part.... doesnt necessarily need to be there, if the games is shiny enough, which then just makes these trends even more likely.

It all just makes me really glad that I ditched the damn consoles.

If graphics become more realistic thats fine by me, as long as they develop ways to engage the other senses and develop peripherals to reduce the feeling of 'you're just playing a game'.

I don't know. I get the sense that fps in particular are more multiplayer centric now, so the single player is just thrown in there for the sake of having it. As a single player gamer that just encourages me not to play said game. Not all games are short. The super mainstream stuff can be though. That's one of many reasons why my interests are skewed more towards niche and indie titles than the AAA stuff.

I dont understand what that means.

I think its more a console thing. When it comes to ratings of PC-games, too much cut scenes actually lowers the score, the game gets, because of them feeling disturbing to the game, according to many PC-players. You find them very rarely in games that were created for the PC alone, and mostly in cross plattform games. It´s as well one of the causes why so many dislike typical games like Final Fantasy, that often forces you to watch endless movie scenes without any real possibility to act. As well as those typical cutscenes with "actionbutton" are simply sensesless, because either I am controlling the game, then I want to have possibilities to control. But pressing stupid buttons to get only one possible positive result, makes no sense. So if I cant control anyway different possibilities, what use is there in pseudocontrolling by pushing some buttons?

About the effort for Multiplayer: It simply a cost/effort calculation for the producer, if they put half as much effort in the Singleplayer then the Multiplayer, when 2/3 of the gamers wont even play the Singleplayer, and 95% will only play it once for the story, and then never touch it again, while a majority of the players will play for months on the multiplayer, its simply a bad calculation to give as much effort for the singleplayer.

When it comes to single and multiplayer, I focus that on different genres. If I have the need for isolation its more typical strategy, roundbased strategy, economic building games and traditional RPGs, while I like MMORPG and FPS-multiplayer as a possibility to have contact with my friends, but in a way that the socialization is focused around a certain topic.

Hmmm, you're right, it IS more of a console thing. Come to think of it, of the gazillions of games I have on PC.... both major and indie.... I cant think of any that have the cutscene problem. I can also think of lots of them that are graphically brainshattering, yet are actually very long games, or games that have tons and tons and tons of content. Hell, many games on PC with amazing graphics are MMOs, which are huge to the point of being absurd.

Also I agree that quick-time events.... the "actionbutton" bit you mention.... are bloody stupid. Thankfully I've not seen them happen on PC. At least, not that I know of.

Voice acting consumes significant resources, too. If F:NV had been limited to text, i bet it could have been bigger.