Modern Game Pacing is Terrible

I know it's a bit of a hot take, but my opinion is that <1% of games deserve to be longer than 15-20 hours. If a game goes over that, I usually drop it because I experience burnout due to bad pacing and/or boring content. My best gaming experiences are shorter games that I want to replay over and over, not a longer game that I struggle to get through once.

I feel crazy when people talk about games not being long enough. Like you, I grew up with the Gameboy Pocket and the GameCube as my first consoles. Aside from RPGs, most games were fairly short. I gamed any second I could and replayed a lot of games. I guess it also helped I was never a skilled gamer so games would take me a while to finish. Unlike the newer generations, we didn't have any F2P games to tide us over until the next release. I think most kids were lucky to get 2 to 4 games a year. There are so many long games now, which have a better "value" now than they were back then. I think the conversation about game length really boomed with The Order 1886 but it was also an ongoing discussion during the PS3/XB360 era with short single player campaigns of multiplayer games. I guess a valid criticism people had with the game was that it was repetitive despite being short and seemed to end right when it was getting interesting. After games like GTA V, Destiny, Dragon Age Inquisition, Assassin's Creed, The Witcher 3, Farcry, MGS Phantom Pain, Skyrim, and Watchdogs; the race for bigger and longer games really took off. The concept of living in a game world was novel and exciting at first, but I quickly started to notice how less focused games were and how inconsistent the quality of content in the games were. More and more games started to adopt more RPG elements that were not originally RPGs and many games seemed to borrow a lot from Ubisoft "distractions," I mean side content. I like to play a game and not feel like I spent 3 hours getting absolutely nowhere in the main quest. It is exhausting and isn't as satisfying to me personally. Not every game has to be short, but I would like more games to take out the bloat. I think 8 to 25 hours is the sweet spot for most games, imo, but live service and open world games are still selling a bunch.

There is way too much bloat in modern gaming. There’s a lot of recent games that I really enjoyed but couldn’t help feeling relieved that it was over. Usually I’ll get exhausted of playing by 3/4s of the way through.

for me pricing is only as issue when the store page as a deluxe edition for $100 and gold edition for $120 and deluxe gold directors ultra pro max edition for like $200 or something, or live service games that release seasonal pass for $30 and yearly dlc for $120 coughcough destiny 2-

A fantastic video that does a good job illustrating what's wrong with the video game industry and how it's been getting progressively worse over the years. people at the top of the gaming industry have always been out of touch from what their designers want to do and what players actually want, And this weird bloat problem we're starting to have where games just have so much content they are a infinite well that never ceases Is only going to cause the industry to balloon further. We're going to hit a breaking point. I remember when I was growing up thinking "Man, I sure wish I had a metroidvania game that randomized its layout, that I could just replay over and over again!" Now there's a game called Chasm that does that, and Bloodstained has a randomized items mode. I don't like either of them, there's something about the non-human design that is just innately unappealing. It's something I said I wanted, yet when I got it, it was terrible. We've tried this approach with games going on forever and it doesn't work. They don't feel impactful and people stop caring. It's time to stop this toxic design practice.

The re1 remake on GameCube is perfect in length. I would 100% prefer shorter games with more focused mechanics and replay value vs modern gaming where everything is open world and takes 3 weeks to get past the opening

Well said sir! Very good video!

Yeah, just ignore that costs with distribution and physical production went down exponentially due to digital, dev tools becoming more democratized and cheap, storage becoming extremely cheaper as well as the hardware needed to make the games themselves, and the fact that games sell multiple millions of copies instead of hundreds of thousands (and, once again, the majority of those sales without the need to print anything physical, or distribution). Also keep in mind that the production of those games, for those companies doesn't happen in the vaccum, they are producing other games and offering their services to other companies, while they produce one game, as opposed as in the past where the entire industry was more insular. Just look at the credits of any game and you'll see names that repeat over and over again in many AAA titles, such as Keywords or Poletowin, which are companies that basically take LQA, FQA, Art, and a lot of the development of hands of the AAA company, providing cheaper services by hiring in studios in Indonesia or Philippines for example and spreading the cost of production even more through having people work in multiple projects at the same time for multiple companies. The way you're doing the "math" is very simplistic and ignores how things actually work. If videogames weren't profitable, publishers wouldn't be in the business, and yet, Valve makes more profit per worker than Apple, Alphabet (google) and Amazon. The problem isn't games not having increased their price, nor games being long, the problem with the videogame industry is the same as any other industry: companies pay less to workers and fire with no issues because they simply can, and it's good for investors in some cases. That's how some of those companies declare record profits year after year. Where did those record profits come if games "didn't increase their price since the 90's". Also I like the example you gave with the 49,99$ FF7, since that, even for the time was odd since Sony actually reduced the price of their games in comparison with the competition and that affected the whole market since games were more expensive before. I have a copy of Fifa World Soccer from 1994, for the Megadrive/Genesis, with the price tag still glued to it, and it cost 65$. It was a business move to show that CD's were better than cartidges even in price. Ofc that, like with everything else, the prices went back up in the next gen. When they tell you they lost money, they didn't, they just didn't make as much profit in the previous year, which means investors don't get as much of a payout. They are still paying for everyone + profit for the game. Yeah, some devs can't make it, but that was the case back then as well, just look at the army of corpses EA has in its wake, however, it's not those companies that are complaining about the price of games, it's the AAA companies. They want to raise prices, because they know they'll keep selling with higher prices since people who buy loads of games will still be able to afford it, it's not because they are hurting.

I’m not gonna lie, I bought Spider-Man just to play as MJ. Haha but seriously the video came content vs art category is a good mixture and great point for developing teams for a better focus.

I think a big part of the problem is the modern gaming is form over function, which leads to the indulging budgets too. Studios are far more concerned with making a massive map with 16 times the detail than make any of it fun to explore. The obsession with open work games is killing the gaming industry. Not every game needs to be a sprawling open world

I would say Remake had a few rough side missions but I was definitely feeling the padding with Rebirth. The Chadley stuff is obnoxious. I think Spider-Man 2 was a massive improvement on 1 tho. They trimmed the fat a ton and as a result I was able to 100% it in less than 20 hours and the side quests were way less repetitive.

Awesome deep dive, man! 👏🦖

I think the issue with modern gaming are too bloated with non important activities. They filled games with a ton of worthless side quest, fetch quest, collectatons, marks on the maps. A bunch of things that doesn't really add up to the games. Games before weren't artificially bloated with stuff. They were long because the storytelling was long and the things making those game long was cannon and important events. Games nowadays are 16 hours long of story, but then 60 on sidequest meaningless side content. Games need to be more direct and focus on their stories. The gaming era is on the trend of "Games need to last forever". Games are trying to make you sick tired and exhausted taking so much of you time making you fall into the loop of forcing you to no paly any other stuff. Nowdays i'm not touching games that require me to put more than 20 hours on it unless is a Yakuza game or a Souls like game. I just can't deal with all games being this damn long

The problem with Rebirth (if youre willing to break it down) is just Chadley stuff and some unimportant minigames (besides Queens Blood). It seems like they just want something that can make you do more exploring of the open world, but I prefer more sidequests for that. The sidequests are enjoyable. Then again, some of Chadley stuff are not completely useless. Like Battle Intel introduce you to some minibosses that helps you learn the combat more.. protorelic stuff which gives more story is also good. But some other like lifespring stuff are unnecessary. They should just give us more sidequests if they want us to explore the open world.. and make Chadley talk less

dead ass iv been saying this about pacing for long time. id rather main stories be like 15 to 20 hours long then have side content be 50 to 100 hours i love long games and taking my time with them BUT i dont like being forced to play 6000 hours to beat a game but ill grind side content for years. Assassins creed Valhalla was really bad about this too they gloated they had no real side quests but that wasnt true everything was just in the main game. there was a bit where you literally put on a mask and go from house to house getting candy... YOU WERE TRICK OR TREATING!!! thats awesome if it had been side content i just stumbled on but it came about 50 hours into a 100+ hour play through i hated it because i had to do it.

Whenever I see someone on the internet equating game length with game quality I automatically assume they are a low-IQ 12 year old. I have to or I will go crazy. I simply can't believe there are grown adults who sincerely think like this. It's the same as saying my car is better because it is physically the longer than yours. It's an asinine way of thinking. Length has absolutely nothing to do with quality and craftsmanship. Great video! P.S. While everyone cheers on AI, I fear it will only contribute to modern game bloat and homogeneity. A good example already here is Ray-Tracing which is essentially procedurally generated light (the algorithm lights the scene for the developer). It's why many modern games look the same. Handcrafted lighting is superior in every way aside from development time. Hand crafted lighting looks so much better and artistic...because it comes from an actual human creator.

I dont mind some bloat but man i will probably never 100% AC origin, odyssey and Valhalla its ridiculous, but honestly this is great for kids who only have that 1 or few games and parents cant buy them one every month.

The escapist just released a video (a day after yours) that is extremely similar in title and content. I know this is a topic that a lot of people can discuss but that seems way too non coincidental and it hurts to see their video get more views than yours.

Aye bro. Every song on eternal atake deluxe hits, don't do that! I get your point though.

i dont get them (dev) either, as if "gamers" are all kids nope, most "gamers" are also an ADULT, like me. and i dont have much time nor the will to play long games i just want to play short but sweet experience, if i want a longer games, then i would buy one. easy!!it's all depends on my mood (and wallets of course lol) better yet a long-ish game with short encounter, not long axx open world game like ubicrap made each year tldr just make great games and i would buy it