While Take-Two is riding high on their announcement that a GTA 6 trailer is coming, its CEO has some…interesting ideas on how much video games could cost, part of a contingent of executives that believe games are underpriced, given their cost, length or some combination of the two.
I’ve often come across this sentiment in Steam reviews and it’s very reductive to judge games based mainly on this metric. Getting older I have less time for videogames and I value shorter games more. There are games that are extremely valuable because of their high quality even if very short, like the first Portal.
This is why we have companies like Ubisoft trying to game the system constantly with low quality content to pad the game to 100 hours or whatever is fashionable in open world these days. I will take 6 hours of quality single player anytime over 100 hours of AssCreed grinding and ridiculous ‘story’
I also have less time to game, but I sure as hell don’t want to play shorter games. I like to play games with good stories, who are engaging and with fun play. Witcher 3 is a prime example of how even the majority of the side quests can be meaningful and not feeling too generic. I also enjoyed the last of us part 2. And I usually feel sorry when I finish a good game.
And shorter games should naturally command a lower price which isn’t always the case.
This is exactly the thing that doesn’t make any sense. Should The Last of Us be priced at a fraction of The Witcher 3 because it is shorter? What about Bioshock? It’s half the length of The Last of Us 2
I don’t know if shorter games should command a lower price. It depends on the value you get out of it.
It is debatable, but would you pay 70$ for a 2-hours game and another 10x70$ for DLCs and expansions that would extend the original content?
But this also doesn’t mean that you should feel your game with generic content in order to make it longer either. It is a fine line but I know that I would have a real problem justifying 70€ for 2 hours of game content without replayability, even if the game is amazing.