Topic: What constitutes value in a game for you?

[K-man]

Overall length?  Graphics?  Story? Originality?

Would you rather have a shorter and more intensive experience rather than a long but diluted experience?  Vice Versa?

Basically, when determining what sort of value a game personally has to you, what aspects define it?

[Quemaqua]

All of the above, depending on the game.  I play a lot of everything, so not all games require the same things for me.  I don't need a billion hours of gameplay, but I expect some meat if I'm paying money.  The whole Modern Warfare thing with like 4 hours of gameplay isn't enough by any stretch.  Even twice that is feeling skimpy to me for a shooter.  10 hours is about the minimum I expect.  Good graphics are nice, but they're definitely not as important as art.  I still consider Disciples II to be one of the best-looking games of all time, despite the fact that the graphics are quite low-tech and the animation is somewhat lame.  But the art is fantastic.  Story is important too, for some games, but not for others.  I don't need a great story in Borderlands because that's not what I'm there for.  I do like originality, but it isn't paramount.  Iterations on a familiar, solid idea is okay, but raw copycatting usually sucks.  New ideas are great, but not every game has to reinvent the wheel.

Still, after the video I just watched, I'm pretty sure that the most important thing in a game for me is not being forced to watch innocent civilians being gunned down in incredibly realistic fashion from a first-person perspective, including screams of pain, crawling across the floor in agony, and then being executed.

[Xessive]

Length definitely plays into it for me, though it's not a defining factor. It needs to be reasonable. If it's too short it loses value, if it's too long (as you mentioned) it could get diluted. Replay value factors into a game's longevity as well.

Story is usually a big one for me but it really depends on the type of game it is. For example, a game like L4D is not about story. Originality is appreciated but lack of it is not a serious deterrent.

If I had to choose one characteristic that I could not do without it'd have to be overall polish. A game has to feel complete and well-crafted. Bugs are inevitable, of course, but as long as they're not game-breaking and can be patched out I can deal with them. The sense that a lot of hard work, creativity, and careful attention went into the development of a game really captures me and gives me the desire to support the developers. People like Blizzard, Bioware, CDProjekt RED, Ubisoft Montréal, Relic and even Epic, among others, stand out in my view because they give me the sense that they genuinely care about their products' quality, the craftsmanship that went into them, and the art of interactive entertainment.

By contrast, you have some games that feel like they've been neglected. My most recent encounter is Divinity II, there's a great game hidden amid the turmoil of bugs, unflattering user interface, and overall lack of polish. Having to dig through the crap to get the jewel can be daunting and it's a real shame.

Another example is Risen, which just feels like repainted a clone of Gothic (though that could be somewhat understandable since it was developed by the same team), it lacks originality in its design from infrastructure to visuals. It felt more like a proposal demo than a finished product.

[Quemaqua]

I wanted to agree with you about polish at first, but it occurred to me right after that some of my favorite games have been buggy nightmares.  The Elder Scrolls series would be the prime example.  They've gotten a lot better, and I certainly like them more the less buggy they are, but Daggerfall is still one of my all-time favorite games, and that thing was borderline unplayable at times.  The original Fallout games were buggy as shit, too; considerably more so than Fallout 3.  But again... huge favorites of mine.

[gpw11]

It's completely relative. You can just "feel" you get the value out of a game.  I paid less than full for Modern Warfare, but I felt I got my money's worth out of it just because it was such a high quality product.  At the same time, I've played things that are far less polished and felt the same, and things which are longer but felt like I got ripped off just because they weren't complete.

[Quemaqua]

Exactly, same here.  It really is relative to a lot of factors, and what you're specifically looking for in a given game.

[idolminds]

All these factors will vary depending on the games.

I loved Doom 3 but felt it went on too long. Some of the levels didn't have an interesting or recognizable element so it felt like filler.

I thought Portal was the right length despite being so short. It was funny and had good mechanics but they didn't just stretch it out just for the sake of making it longer. Show me a concept, let me play with the concept, and move on. Making me do it over and over feels like math homework from grade school. I get it, do I really have to answer 100 more problems?

Dreamfall I felt was short, even though I spent a lot of time playing it. I liked the story and the characters, but it didnt have a proper ending so I was left wanting more.

Graphics and the like mean less to me. I like when games look good, but Im not going to not enjoy a game because its not using some new shaders or some crap.

[gpw11]

All these factors will vary depending on the games

Dreamfall I felt was short, even though I spent a lot of time playing it. I liked the story and the characters, but it didnt have a proper ending so I was left wanting more.

Great point.  I played Dreamfall years after it's release and probably got it for $20.  Still kind of felt ripped off because it wasn't complete at all.  It was longer than, say, Portal or MW, but it wasn't a stand alone product by any means.

[Pugnate]

It's completely relative. You can just "feel" you get the value out of a game.  I paid less than full for Modern Warfare, but I felt I got my money's worth out of it just because it was such a high quality product.  At the same time, I've played things that are far less polished and felt the same, and things which are longer but felt like I got ripped off just because they weren't complete.

Yes it is relative.

I felt I got more out of MW1 than I did out of the vast majority of shooters out there.

Take a game like Gears of War for example. It is a fine game, with decent length and whatnot, but I would still rather pay for MW1 than it because of how unique an experience MW1 is.

Yes, MW1 is only 6-7 hours, which is probably 40% less than the standard, but there seems to be a lot of thought behind every sequence in MW1. There are tons of set pieces in that game that feel like something out of a movie, and are stitched together very well.

While a typical 10-15 hour action game like Halo that you would classify as "good" has a lot more gameplay hours, the bulk of those are filler areas that have been pasted together.

I guess you judge the value of a game by the richness of the gameplay hours, rather than the volume the gameplay hours. As the saying goes, it is about quality, not quantity.

While Oblivion is a fine 50+ hour game, it would have felt like a rip off had it ended at the ten hour mark.

[Xessive]

Technical bugs I can forgive since they're almost certain to occur. I'd actually add Bethesda to the list in my previous post! Even though they're games can be buggy they still retain a sense of high quality in their games. When I paid $60 for my Oblivion CE I felt it deserved every penny! No buyer's remorse. However, when I paid $40 for Rainbow Six: Lockdown I was pissed off! I felt the need to compensate by reverting to an "impoverished student diet" for two weeks to save the equivalent amount.

Overall polish is more about the choices developers made or neglected by the time the "final" product is released. For me, something as simple as a bad font can dock marks. One thing that can really bother me is inconsistency in quality, which in some cases can attributed to a bug and in other occasions is just the result of a lacking attention. I remember when Unreal II was released, the visuals weren't particularly impressive but they were decent, then at some points in the game you see uncharacteristic low-poly models and low-res textures that look like they belong in Quake II, they just don't fit.

[iPPi]

Everything is a factor for me.  First and foremost, I look at the gameplay experience based on videos and reviews.  If it looks appealing, then I look at the story and length of the game.  I no longer care about the online gameplay of video games so the single player campaign is of utmost importance to me.  If it's a good campaign with a solid 10+ hours, it strongly appeals to me.  For example, right now I am not considering Modern Warfare 2 since its campaign is likely to be the same length as its predecessor, and I bought the first one only when it was on sale for like $40.  The SP campaign was absolutely phenomenal and has a lot of memorable experiences, but the length of the game makes it tough to dish out $70 for it.

Graphics and sound design are important, but it's dependent on the game.  I think I picked up Dead Space based on its graphics and sound design, as well as its backstory marketing from motion comics and a full featured film.  I look at art style too.  For example, I picked up 'A Boy and His Blob' on the Wii purely for the art style and puzzle gameplay. 

[W7RE]

I value the minute to minute gameplay and how much fun I have with that. For example Brutal Legend was pretty short, some said about 4 hours. I finished in 12 hours or so, and that felt fine in length. Of course I also found the treasure hunt of searching for serpents and shit to be addicting. I'd do just that for 2-3 hours at a time without realizing it.

On the other hand, Fallout 3 did the same thing to me. I would start it up and get lost for hours, but the game offered a shitload more playtime than Brutal Legend, but I consider them both to be worth the price I paid ($60 for BL, $50 for Fallout 3 and another $60 just tonight for the GOTY edition just to get the DLC on XBL instead of GFWL).

Really story and characters and all that other stuff is different on a case by case basis. A game can have shit story, graphics, gameplay, or whatever, but if one of those things is amazing it can make up for the rest. A game needs to excel at SOMETHING to keep me going. My biggest pet peeve though is long games. I'd rather a game be short and sweet than mediocre and stretched out. Then I get the same short amount of time that I short game would have given me, just because the long one fucking bores me and I stop playing. Then instead of being satisfied by this short but amazing game, I'm pissed off that this game was fucking boring and I couldn't keep with it more than 5 hours.

[MysterD]

Overall length?  Graphics?  Story? Originality?

Everything.

Would you rather have a shorter and more intensive experience rather than a long but diluted experience?  Vice Versa?

Depends on the game length/amount of content and its actual pricing.

[Cobra951]

I guess the ADD crowd likes the short games fine.  I agree that games that stretch out the length with boring filler are worse than great short games, but I still will feel ripped off if I pay $60 for a 6-hour game.  I want to enjoy a much longer experience than that for $60.  For $20, fine, give me short and sweet.

Given the sterling tech quality of vintage videogames, and my own attitude toward programming, I find nasty bugs particularly unforgivable.

I like games that suck me in and won't let go.  That usually means a huge immersive world with lots of freedom.  But it can also mean something like Puzzle Quest.  I want to be somewhere else mentally, somewhere enthralling and rewarding.

[K-man]

I get the legitimate complaint about a single-player campaign being short, but what if it's coupled with an above-average multiplayer component.  Does that factor into your perception?

I mean you can legitimately say that MW had a short (albeit fantastic) campaign, but it also had a very robust online multiplayer component as well.

[W7RE]

I get the legitimate complaint about a single-player campaign being short, but what if it's coupled with an above-average multiplayer component.  Does that factor into your perception?

I mean you can legitimately say that MW had a short (albeit fantastic) campaign, but it also had a very robust online multiplayer component as well.

This also sort of applies to games with no single player game mode. Day of Defeat was amazing, for example. I spent a ridiculous amount of time with that and it had no single player. A funny thing happened there though. I totally feel like Day of Defeat was worth paying for, but when it went retail I just didn't bother to buy it and that's when I fell out of it. I guess too many maps were drastically changed or just removed, and it didn't quite feel the same anymore. I remember playing some jungle map and wishing I could just play on one of the oldies. (I can't remember which version I played most, but I think it was the major release where it released with 2 beach assault maps.)

[Cobra951]

I get the legitimate complaint about a single-player campaign being short, but what if it's coupled with an above-average multiplayer component.  Does that factor into your perception?

I mean you can legitimately say that MW had a short (albeit fantastic) campaign, but it also had a very robust online multiplayer component as well.

I have to confess that my attraction to gaming comes in part from its terrific value for alone time, me time.  While I have had many a good time during deathmatches in games like Doom and the first 2 Quakes, I still much prefer the single-player experience overall.  So my first consideration is the quality and length of the single-player component.  Games that have miniscule SP campaigns as trainers for the real focus, multiplayer, don't interest me much.  Games designed for SP typically don't have much MP value.  I have lots of those.

[MysterD]

I guess the ADD crowd likes the short games fine.  I agree that games that stretch out the length with boring filler are worse than great short games, but I still will feel ripped off if I pay $60 for a 6-hour game.  I want to enjoy a much longer experience than that for $60.

Agreed.

For $20, fine, give me short and sweet.

That's fine for $20.
But, if they make it longer - that's even better, as long as the long content ain't littered w/ filler!

[Quemaqua]

I don't mind good multiplayer, but it usually doesn't get my primary interest and it's very, very infrequently that I'll buy a game based on that alone (unless that's really all it is, like Quake 3 or UT3).  Unless a bunch of people I know are going to get into something, MP isn't a big focus for me because I consider the majority of the gaming world to be a bunch of drooling freaks and have absolutely zero desire to interact with any of them whatsoever on a random basis.  But if my friends have an MP game?  Yeah, I'll totally check it out with them.  Ala Borderlands (though I'd have bought that if it were SP-only, anyway).

[MysterD]

I don't mind good multiplayer, but it usually doesn't get my primary interest and it's very, very infrequently that I'll buy a game based on that alone (unless that's really all it is, like Quake 3 or UT3).  Unless a bunch of people I know are going to get into something, MP isn't a big focus for me because I consider the majority of the gaming world to be a bunch of drooling freaks and have absolutely zero desire to interact with any of them whatsoever on a random basis.  But if my friends have an MP game?  Yeah, I'll totally check it out with them.  Ala Borderlands (though I'd have bought that if it were SP-only, anyway).

All I've been playing for Borderlands is SP.
I want to do some Borderlands MP gaming w/ some of y'all good folks around here!

Usually a good SP component is a way to get my attention.

[Ghandi]

It's completely relative. You can just "feel" you get the value out of a game.  I paid less than full for Modern Warfare, but I felt I got my money's worth out of it just because it was such a high quality product.  At the same time, I've played things that are far less polished and felt the same, and things which are longer but felt like I got ripped off just because they weren't complete.

My sentiments exactly.

But I should add that I appreciate a naked woman or two or three. Just not the weird boobs. You know what I'm talking about.