How much play-time do you expect from a game?

I will take this as a survey or so ... :)
FPS talking,
how much time do you expect of real gameplay?
I mean, try to not having in mind the times you die and
have to start again ... let's say you start a new game
and you can do it from start to end without die ...
... what would you say?

10 hours,

10 hours here too. I'd rather have 10 hours of solid gameplay and fantastic graphics with varying environments than 20 - 30 hours or generic levels to run around and shoot in.

Thats why I think FPS typicaly isn't a good game genre for indies. Programming a FPS isn't all that hard, the the HUGE ammount of media needed to keep a simplistic gameplay type like FPS interesting is a bit much for a small team.

Without hours of gameplay there really isn't much chance of competing with the weekly stream of commercial FPS games that are released.


Don't mean to put anyone off of doing FPS, but make sure your know what your getting into on the media front, particularly if your aim is to make money.

10-14 hours.

Yeah but even dying a few times I finish most FPSs in less than 10 hours. >10 would be good.

I feel rather disappointed if I can finish a game in one day.

Deus Ex is about the only exception, since that was just a damned good game.

10 hours on average here as well, unless the game can keep itself up if of a larger length without droning on (Deus Ex was freaking long and was a blast all the way through the 30+ hours I played it for), or has optional side-quests to partake on (like in Rid@#!*) that increase gameplay time.

Thanks,

Agree with this :)
actually I don't recommend to any indie to select a FPS to develop, if I would have known about the difficulties of developing
this genre I would have never selected it ...

I'll take 10 hours or less for a story driven game. Any longer than than I my eyes start to glaze over. Perfect Dark Zero was the perfect length for me as was Doom 3 (though I think I played Doom 3 more per day so Doom 3 might have been a little longer than I normally care for).

Something like Half-Life 2 dragged on. So I ended up playing it for a week in November last year. Then some more in Dec/Jan ... and I think I finally finished it in February or so. I like getting a game and being able to beat the single player mode fairly quickly to feel accomplished.

Now, I really like games such as Tetris, Orbz, Hexic, and Geomtery Wars where you can pretty much play forever because they are simple games with no static goal. So I've probably poured more hours into Orbz than any game in history ... because it's multiplayer/competition and not story driven.

I expect to be able to enjoy a game forever just because it's good. Even story driven games ... I'd rather go back and play again rather than have 30 odd hours to go through the whole thing. I'd probably rather play through a 10 hour game 3 times instead of play once through a 30 hour game because I like the feeling I get when I complete something and additionally I'm the type of person who will watch movies multiple times just to pick up on every little detail. The same goes for games. Ususally, the first time through I don't feel like I got to take it all in that well and so I'll go through again and gain a greater appreciation for the game.

Metal Gear Solid on PS1 was a good example. A friend and I completed it maybe 3 - 4 times and it just got more fun each time because we were able to pick up on anything we missed the first time through.

Younger people with tons of time on their hands will probably feel different. I think when I was a kid 15 hour marathon sessions of gaming weren't uncommon.

I used to play games a ton. Lotus turbo challenge, Francis and I would play for 4-8 hours at a time lol.

These days I like story based games, and only play them once. I thought fable and KOTOR and Jade empire might be different, since their stories change somewhat depending on your allegience. But Once completed I rarely if ever want to play them again.

Maybe in part it's because graphics are a big deal for me so I'm always looking for the next advance in both graphics and gameplay. Probably why I like so few games too. If they don't have both I simply don't like them.

I loved doom initialy, but it was too samey throughout. Variety is key in a FPS, particularly one with a weak story.

I too started halflife, not sure how far I got. The bits with the metal balls that are attracted to you, whilst you drive the buggy. that was a couple of months ago.

Since then I uninstalled it and double I'll ever play it again. I'm playing Fear a little at the moment and really like the AI. More fun than most, if a little samey. Shame all the bad guys are clones and look identical lol.

KOTOR was the last long game I finished in a short time. 43 hours in one long weekend. Was kind of cool to spend all that time on one thing like I did as a kid.

10 hours - although I'm a little irked at paying full price ($80NZD) for that amount of playtime. But for a budget or reduced cost game that's a good length time.

Conversely, I think a (linear story-based) game can be too long. I know everyone raved about DeusEx, but honestly 3/4 way through I'd just had my fill of hokey conspiracy theories and just wanted to finish. After all, there's a reason why there aren't too many 4 hour movies?

Expectations are pretty low these days. It'd be nice if there was more than an hour or so of gameplay in an FPS, but I wouldn't expect it.

Then again I don't buy many FPS games.

I agree. If there was never another FPS set in a dark, plastic looking waste processing plant, it's be too soon. The last single player FPS I truely enjoyed was NOLF2.

Multiplayer was either BF1942 or UT2004.

It doesn't matter to me how much a game lasts - if it's good I'll play it as much as I can stand. If it's long (like KOTOR) I'll play it half a dozen times, if it's short (like Mortal Kombat) I'll play it a couple of thousands.

15 hours, only good solid gameplay. It does nothing but sadden me when developers spend 2 years in the process of building insect droppings.
Multiplayer too, of course. But only if it has something new to offer. (IE: Not a CS clone or plain deathmatch thing). If the game is not unique, the multiplayer won't be unique either.

I also like it very much when absolutely none of the above time is spent watching an opening video. How I hate those things! You know you have to sit and watch it, but they take up so much time, and I would much rather just start playing the game! For the whole time I'm just sitting, waiting for this ten thousand dollar opening video that was used for half of the game's fake screenshots and trailers, cursing at it to hurry the heck up and finish so that I can be the one shooting the bad guys!!!!!!!!.

All of it!

I think that ~10 hrs is also a good number to aim for.

It took me about ~25 hours to finish the Warcraft 3 campaign, and it was great. I also played some adventure games many years ago that I beat in about 2 hours -- that simply isn't enough, especially for a game that has little (immediate) replay value.

Of course those numbers aren't set in stone: For a freeware game, short gameplay isn't nearly as big of an issue as a fullpriced retail game. With freeware you're happy you got to play something good-but-short, with retail you feel cheated out of your money.
I also put up with much shorter gameplay if the game has a good multi-player mode. I played Descent & Descent 3 to death in multiplayer mode, but could never be bothered to finish the campaigns because playing against the computer wasn't nearly as interesting as playing against other humans. As a matter of fact, Warcraft 3 and "X-Wing vs. Tie-fighter" are the only two 'action' games that I can remember ever finishing the entire campaigns for.

Open-ended games are a category all by themselves as well - a game like Tetris that has no real goal other than to stay alive and rackup the points for as long as you can. "Just oooone more game" -- sound familiar? Nothing really changes, it's all just more of the same, but they can entice for literally hours on end. But an important aspect of those games: I still feel cheated when I played Qwirks (some Tetris-style thingey) to an unplayably fast level, ending up with 1.5 billion points. Breaking my all-time high record by a landslide. (Previously 850,000,000). Then I found out that the highscore table couldn't handle numbers bigger than 999,999,999 , and it recognized my 1.5 billion as 500 million instead, and didn't think I qualified for the highscore table. When making an open ended game, one should be able to handle ridiculously high scores, because *someone*, *somewhere* will get one.

£1 per hour?

I've played Day of Defeat for at least 200 hours, so buying Half Life 1 was money well spent.

When buying a AAA game, putting in 2 / 3 hours a night, I expect at least 1 week plus of solid gaming.

Thats what I had with Halo / Obi Wan / POP:Sands of Time / Buffy: Chaos Bleeds / Splinter Cell.

Something like Burnout 3 I'll happily spend months on and off as its not a game which realistically has a beginning and end.

I bought Star Wars Revenge of the Sith and completed it in 2 nights. I was not happy about that as it was too easy and too short. A waste of £30, so I sold it on ebay.

Listen guys,

You should not really measure a game in length of time it takes to play. A good game can not be said to be a game which plays for 10 - 15 hours. There is far more to it than that. I understand that you are trying to get a feel for what people expect, but you should really be looking at the other end of the spectrum. You should give players what they don't expect - and by that I mean give them something they wouldn't dare to expect, i.e. give them some good things which they didn't think they would get - even if they asked for them.

Also people play games at different rates of achievement - so what s 10 hours to an average player will be 4-5 hours for a really good player. Innovative games may not be as successful as they should be with the mass market, but being honest about it, neither will an fps game that any of us write in the same vein of other work, even if it lasts a 'good length of time'. The games we write - as people who love games - should aspire to the heights of innovation, and creativity. We should stray across old staid boundaries, daring to push them back, letting in some fresh air and allowing our audience to see some new light.


IPete2.

PS and if you asked Red Oktober - he'd tell you that time did not exist anyways!

The minimum that I expect from a game is to be as big was Final Fantasy VII....

Well at the op of the thread you said "FPS" so that's the figure I gave (10 hours), but as others are talking about other games, this is what I think:

Good RPG (Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights) 30-40 hours if you bother with the smaller quests.

Platformer around 15-20 hours if lucky.

Horror, these games normally tell you how long you've taken and it's normally around 6-7 hours but you quite often dia and have to repeat stuff.

FFX on PS2 told me I had >100 hours! This might have been true but it could have been recording time when paused, some games do this and it's naff.

Puzzle Game: 10 hours I guess, they are normally cheap too.

Strategy Game: >20 hours I would hope.

Sports Game: Don't really play em, but a golf or racing game should make you want to play again any time if it's good. Mind you I do love SSX (and sequals) and these have hours of play just due to amount of retries!

Beat 'em Up. You can normally complete these pretty quick, but the fun is of course playing against other people many times.

Point'n'Click: 10+ hours, doesn't have to be that many as it's like a movie kinda thing plus you get stuck on puzzles which slows you up.

Hello.

I'm with Grey Alien above - SSX is just infintely replayable as are beat em ups and other sport games. That's why I prefer them to FPSs.

Goodbuy.

Great inputs, thanks guys!

I think the games I have played the most
are Fighting and Racing games, I can't remember how many hours
I have driven the Dodge-Viper in the good old GT1 for the PS1, I loved the handicap of that car in that game :)

I played GT3 hours and drive my partner mad I'm sure. In fact the game made me buy a subaru!

5 minutes

5 minutes is the kinda of people that download the cheats before the game!

Knights of the Old Republic 1 had it right. I dont know how long I played it, but it was just about to get mundane when the game ended.

KotOR2 had too many badly written bugs and loose ends in the story, I finished it anyway, but mostly out of feilty to the 1st game.

KotOR1 lasted me a week or two playing most days in the evenings for a couple of hours, so I guess somewhere around 10 hours of gameplay.

2 days constant play, or 2 weeks occasional play.
If multiplayer, I expect another 6 months on top of that :)

If that isn't what you want to hear then don't make an FPS... it is a cut throat world for fps games.

From what I've read I think the best alternative for an indie developer is to develop arcade games. So an Arcade FPS game whereby you're set in an arena and given objectives like kill 100 people within 30 mins, or kill 150 within 20 mins. Could even have thing like Kill 20 Linux penguins within 10 mins (but you can only kill them if you're running backwards). Just like in Soul Calibur 3 (Can only hurt them if you're jumping.)

I think indie developers would make more games if they're were arcade games like Tetris, Space Invaders. Even Quake 3 Arena was arcade and that games brilliant on multiplayer online, and all you're doing is killing each other with no game objective.

If you do arcade games you can think small and allow people to create their own gameplay, meaning it will never end while competiting against each other.