When a Game is Too Long - Respecting the Player's Time - Extra Credits

With games that continue to expand into vast open worlds and the number of hours a game takes to complete goes up and up and up, we have to ask ourselves: is this game really worth my time? Is this 90 hours of engaging material? Or is it 5 hrs of engagement stretched over 90? How do you design around potential grind fests, even when you're working in a genre that needs them so the player doesn't burn through new content, like MMOs? Even small changes to game design choices and UI design can save players some time and prevent people from burning out.
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#ExtraCredits #Gaming #GameDesign

[@jasonblalock4429]

I feel like this video skipped over the real elephant in the room: "time-saver" in-game purchases. Once the larger game companies discovered THAT scam, they started deliberately bloating their games specifically to try to inspire people to pay extra to speed things up. Which is completely antithetical to good game design, yet certain companies (UBISOFT) keep doing it again and again, even when it starts driving away fans from their franchises. :-/

[@hiddentreasure2161]

I think that's mainly because they have talked in-depth about this specifically in their various videos about microtransactions; why would they re-assert an argument over and over when you can just go to the original where it's more appropriately mentioned anyways?

[@Aasha]

Frankly if a game is offering you a way to skip content the game has already confessed to you that the game isn't worth playing. At that point you should bail.

[@rickbergolla4055]

cough cough (Warframe)

[@shawnheatherly]

As someone who plays a lot of long JRPGs, I'm happy some were listed here as good examples. The game can be long and still respect me.

[@ALittleSnowFairySaga]

Yep.

[@zaadshadow1279]

Does that mean Paper Mario is an IRPG (Italian RPG)?

[@ALittleSnowFairySaga]

Zaad Shadow Means it’s a JRPG.

[@00F]

Mother was a really hard game. You had to grind levels like every 3 minutes.

[@JoseDorda]

I kinda disagree with them using octopath traveler as an example, the begining of the game when you are getting all the 8 characters is pretty boring and the true ending is link to side quest that most people without a guide will be unable to find.

[@tristanneal9552]

When talking about UI that wastes your time, I can think of a no better example then Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In a game that’s all about a slow paced relaxing waste of time, it’s surprising how infuriating having to button mash through dialogue or repeating tasks like crafting can be.

[@RealityMasterRogue]

Crafting bait or terraforming are the ultimate examples of "why does this take so long"

[@MahouPoint]

The crafting is inherently designed to make you want to stop and take your time and keep coming back to the game every day rather than breeze past all the payment milestones you gotta make. But they could allow you to at least craft from your storage. That I dont get.

[@rymlks]

BuT tHaTs Ok BeCaUsE tHiS iS a SeApLaNe ...

[@tamar7065]

God yes. Game needs a total UI overhaul. Some of it you can tell is flat-out half-finished (like the fact that we have only spotty touch support rather than none or all) and they failed to update the AC UI formula to incorporate crafting and building elements (you don't pick up stuff automatically, slow animations, no settings, awkward text-base branching menus instead of input for things like purchase amounts, etc.) Plus you got arbitrary shit like the aforementioned inability to craft from storage and the fact that some items can't be stored at all, oh, and you get penalized for leaving them laying out?? Half the stuff doesn't stack and what does doesn't stack enough?? Inventory management is incredibly clunky?? I want all this fixed before we get new features or I'm gonna just walk into the Nintendo office and like, cry.

[@therealbahamut]

Elite Dangerous is a game about flying spaceships, yet the simple act of swapping out a weapon with one in storage takes nearly a dozen clicks AND you have to watch not one but TWO animations play every single time.

[@LillLizzert]

I feel like the older you become, the more true this is. Plus replayability and the minimum session length are much more important then total game length.

[@quietone610]

Because then, you get speedrunners.

[@aadarshbalireddy2939]

Yeah, when I was younger I would very very rarely get new games (parents didn't like them) so every game I got would have to last me a long time. Now, though, after getting a job, I have so many games and the main thing I have to worry about while gaming is actually enjoying the short time I spend with the game

[@danielhall271]

110% on the minimum session length. I'm having trouble picking up games that have a target session length of longer than an hour.

[@Shadowfax1804]

Totally, it's one of the reasons I've generally enjoyed the Switch - the console itself is designed to drop in and out of your game easily

[@turma8eac]

Completely agree

[@KairosGaming]

This video has me questioning how much time I put into RuneScape lol

[@133774c05]

At least some of the grind is pretty afk in RS, imagine that cooking had a minigame attatched to it lol

[@tintilinic1912]

But how much did you put into brawl stars?

[@etrikia]

hits too close to home

[@dracosfire7247]

To be fair, Runescape is basically an idle game with RPG elements. The core gameplay is just calmly grinding until you want to mix things up with a mission or two.

[@IsamBitar]

RS3 changed all that. You get plenty of ways to quickly get through the grind (both paid and free) and their newest quest-related content is quite great.

[@michaelberg9348]

As an example of 'longer isn't necessarily bad', we give you: "The long version of 'awesome per second' "

[@icarue993]

This is from Extra Credits, right? OG Dan said it, if I'm not mistaken.

[@timschutz9068]

That meta joke xD

[@nerdlingeeksly5192]

The old adage "Sometimes less is more" stands true to this day.

[@killerpixel2k3]

"Bad for business when people quit the grind" ... except when the amount of people who just quit from grinding is offset by whales spending thousands of $$$ on microtransactions to skip the grind

[@killerpixel2k3]

@John McCalmont I believe that you misspelled (most) "AAA gaming" there 😉

[@Chronicallyonline97511]

GTA Online *cough cough

[@christophpoll784]

But on the other hand: by their money they pour into the game, they keep it free to play for a lot of others...

[@rolfs2165]

@GHANI ZIYAD SAGIANSYAH Nah, it's AAA as well. Just look at Ubisoft and their "time savers". Where you can pay them some more to skip part of the game. Whether it is unlocking collectables right away or getting an XP booster so you don't have to do side missions for the level gate in the main quest.

[@therealbahamut]

Yeah but you know the problem with whaling? Eventually you kill off all the whales.

[@davidruggiero1602]

And then there's Hardspace Shipbreaker....a game that is literally a grind divided into 15 minute chunks, where the cutting of ships is both the grind *and* the zen gifted reason for playing.

[@SwordofAlabastor]

Dig deep and let's finish strong

[@davidruggiero1602]

@@SwordofAlabastor pitter patter

[@nicholasgawler-collins5754]

I recently got this game.

[@cheybat5390]

Then it doesn’t waste your time?

[@erictheepic5019]

Finish up that work order before they turn the lights out on ya'.

[@mosquitobight]

"Your grandfather bought this game in the early Seventies and installed it on the mainframe in the office where he worked. He played it whenever he had a work break, level by level, year by year. In the early Eighties, he bought a PC XT for his home and transferred the game program on some big floppy disks. He played it on weekends and reached Level 37 when he passed away in 1994 and bequeathed the game to your father. Your father downloaded the game through an Ethernet cable onto his Pentium computer and played it on evenings and weekends until he became terminally ill in 2013. By then he reached Level 114. You were still too young to play the game, so before your father passed away, he told me to keep the game and all the saved levels in a safe place until you were old enough to take over. For seven years I kept this memory hog in the only place I could, in my laptop. And now, young man, on this 16GB memory stick, I bequeath your father's game to you."

[@psinjo]

To quote Zero Punctuation: "You can tell me something gets better 20 hours in, but I have always maintained the same is true for being boiled alive." "You can leave your hand on the stove for 20 hours, and it will probably stop hurting, but you haven't done yourself any favours" I tried out dauntless, and gave it 10 hours, I got bored and walked away. I had multiple people tell me "you're not allowed to give your opinion on the game unless you've played over 100 hours and got one of the super legendary weapons, that's then the game really starts" My response: I could finish 5 other games in the time it takes this one to start? that's the worst tutorial ever.

[@IsamBitar]

Can I please ask in which game review was this quote said?

[@Aasha]

The fun fact of people that say "You're not allowed to have an opinion until you have at least 100 hours in a game" is that they themselves tend to have reviews for a ton of games that they never played more than a few hours of. They're just moving the goalpost because they can't handle someone simply not liking something that they like.

[@Bobson_Dugnutt_Esq]

I love dense, well-packed games that are short and concise. Or at least, if they have tons of content, making the "main path" reasonable--15 hours or so, And then making the rest fully optional.

[@lorlouis6644]

I absolutely love doom Eternal for that exact reason, it is a short game but I played it at least 5 times because everything about it is good.

[@rebelgaming1.5.14]

Then there's map games, where everything is optional

[@ThomasstevenSlater]

House of many Doors works like that.

[@andresalvarez5415]

"If I need to spend 10 hours for a game to get good, something has gone wrong." Paradox game devs: * sweat profusely *

[@goldplasma8881]

But it's worth it and it all builds up with early chooses affecting you when it matters most

[@combrade-t]

Well It can be good from the begging with Paradox games, but yeah the fact that 300 hours is considered rookie shows something is off. Though it is nice when hundreds of hours in you can still be learning something that adds to replayability.

[@skyfish8781]

But it's fine cause that's exactly why we play them!

[@dynamicworlds1]

I mean, to be fair, when I played the demo for CK2 years ago, I was engaged very quickly. *_I_* wasn't any good, but there was enjoyment exploring all the little mechanics and learning by trial and error (mostly error, but still).

[@StathMIA]

Paradox is an interesting case study for this topic. Their games are designed for a niche audience that loves complex and emergent gameplay with high replayability. This audience tends to put in hundreds of hours on their game(s) of choice so, for them, 10 hours to learn the system is a very small portion of their play time. In fact, were the gameplay to be simplified to where it could be learned in an hour, it would most likely lose out on the depth that carries it at 100+ hours. I absolutely LOVE Paradox games. I also absolutely wouldn't recommend them to most of my friends. If you aren't willing/able/interested in spending 100+ hours, then the learning curve is not worth it. For an even more extreme example, see EVE, a game with lots of dedicated players and a learning curve better described as a flat wall with the people on top throwing rocks at those below.

[@Ishpreetb264]

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the perfect example of a game that is too long.

[@TheHct123]

It's fortunate I started playing it during Quarantine! Because oh my heck if I'd started any other time I may not have left Kephallonia. And there really is a lot of good content, but it kinda dips when you get to the mythological bits and it starts feeling like a slog

[@henrydepaiva278]

F*** A! Way too long.

[@patsg1146]

Do you mean you did NOT like the map be filled with random camps during your exploration? *Pikachu face*

[@hag141]

I wasted hundreds of hours with this game and I don't even know for certain whether I finished the main story line or not. At some point, I just lost oversight and didn't care enough to continue with whatever thing I was planning on doing next.

[@DeadDancers]

Totally. I stopped playing for months at a time as I got fatigued by all the samey grind. I ignored the main quest until all lands were explored and side quests done because I find the story loses punch when there’s days or weeks between points of progress. Then once all the side stuff was done, I blitzed through chapters 5-12 (or whatever it was) in a single afternoon. Am currently taking another break before approaching the DLC.

[@diepie5144]

As someone with thousands of hours in obscure map games, this hits hard great video though

[@severedsage5867]

paradox games?

[@diepie5144]

@@severedsage5867 yeah, I just hit 1.8k hours in eu4

[@GoErikTheRed]

Probably 10,000 hours across the total war franchise, with over 4,000 of those being in Rome II. Still think I've only ever finished the grand campaign like twice in that game

[@thil2894]

@@GoErikTheRed What the one you played less? Mine is Empire equal with Napoleon, just can't wrap my head around the world map.

[@pimppimpproductions6497]

As someone with 2300 hours of hoi4, I am in the same boat, however I think those kinds of map games are different because most of that is replay, not the same campaign, so it’s not really grinding

[@GunnarClovis]

90 minutes of awesome > 30 hours of okay *Awesome per second* As someone with a lot of time-consuming hobbies like playing games, making games, reading, writing, listening to music, making music, and lots and lots of KZbin and TV and old cult classic comedies, I've always preferred shorter games that I can enjoy and finish with satisfaction than the massive never-ending RPGs and the like... I know I'd love them too and love what I do play (to be fair I've probably played through Dragon Age: Origins 7 times), but there isn't enough time for all that.

[@KasaiYuppa]

you did an episode on speedrunning, and user generated content. I'd like to see a video where you talk about replay value. I've dumped a lotta time into this game called songbird symphony cuz it's songs are hard to completely master, and crypt of the necrodancer sorta encourages speedrunning on its rougelike level design. I think a short game with a creative aspect/challenge that encourages optimization gets more hours outta me then a narrative with finite story chunks. the story definitely is what pulls me in but a game that takes a day to beat for the average joe, yet you can dump hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours into singleplayer/multiplayer stuff is a lot better then a 100 hour game. i guess i just like the idea of a lean core but a mass of side stuff like from zelda botw

[@Sniperbear13]

and i beat Chrono Trigger so many times, i remember every single path to each of the endings.

[@Levyorg]

^ This Short games might have more replay value and be more fun at the same time. When it's about something like mastery of the game the player has more control over how much they time they want to put into a game and feel 'done' with it, or maybe they'll keep coming back for years because it's still fun.

[@gniludio]

The measurement should be: How long the game provide enjoyable content...

[@Taladar2003]

Also, what percentage of content is enjoyable. 8 hours of great, enjoyable content is better in an 8 hour game than embedded in a 40 hour game.

[@lightn3ngcat]

Essentially: Grind does not equal content. hint hint tripple A hole industry.

[@tauIrrydah]

Dragon Age Inquisition: 40 hours stopping every 5m to ping so I can gather elfroot or shiny rocks, only to realise it's not worth worrying about at all.

[@PtolemyJones]

I remember when board games often came with a chart listing things like length of game and difficulty. Good stuff. Helped a lot.

[@ricniclas]

When I entered university, I started to HATE long games

[@dimdimbramantyo7666]

same, I assume that happens because in Uni you have more assignments and other things to do, so Time has become a valuable currency for us to spend on gaming. With that your gaming preference has change from LongGamesLowContent to ShortGamesHighQualityContent

[@crappytoast2441]

Actually really helps to know why Dead Cells is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD

[@matthewanderson7824]

Hollow knight

[@EmpererDevian]

I wish more people liked Dead Cells, it’s the only game I’ve never uninstalled

[@isaacreeves8790]

Title: "When a Game is Too Long" Me, who loves Xenoblade Chronicles: Impossible

[@redpandai1]

honestly id say both the first game and x still respect your time. Its super long but all of that content is the core gameplay and the core game that is fun. XC2 though has a rough start that takes like 3-4 hours to actually begin the game.

[@MantaKizaemonFTW]

[flashbacks to the xenoblade days of chuggaconroy]

[@luischavesdev]

100 hours later... Screw the side quests though, for real

[@RealityMasterRogue]

Xenoblade is pretty consistent quality, and the game doesn't expect you to do everything anyway. Before expert mode, doing all the sidequests would get you massively overleveled for the story, for example. So, while it is long, it's a good long.

[@aragornk]

The difference between Xenoblade Chronicles and its Definitive Edition is a perfect example of how changes to systems like side-quests can respect a player's time

[@cassiocassiano6187]

Extra Credits: "Respect player time!" ***Death Stranding sweats nervously***

[@Seilfemit]

*glares at Skyrim’s constant fetch quests*

[@databanks]

this is what mods are for

[@maddie9602]

At least with Skyrim, though, you can ignore a lot of those quests without being punished for it. Most of the main story missions consist of "go here, kill some stuff, maybe retrieve one item". Now the vast tracks of emptiness you have to jog through, especially in the early game, though ...

[@Rysto32]

I'm less bothered by the fetch quests and more bothered by the fact that you need to grind Alchemy, Enchanting and Smithing on basically every character.

[@ArchinaGM]

@@Rysto32 Those skills are useful, yet not necessary at all. I tend to ignore alchemy and Enchanting completely due to how broken those two are combined though for smithing I'd say it's a useful side-task if you want some quick levels and stronger gear for non-mage classes.

[@Seilfemit]

Rysto32 I know the pain, doing a smithing heavy Orc run now.

[@user-ir8fx6uv1j]

I think I feel this the most when playing games of the Ubisoft map "you have collected 34 of 784 things" sort.

[@aturchomicz821]

*Laughs in 5000 hours in Stardew Valley*

[@karsten69]

dang what a pro, I only have 375 hours.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

It probably takes about 20-30 hours to complete the main story and one of the romance plotlines. There's 12 different romance partners, so that's give or take 300 hours of content right there. Solid replay value, especially since you can do all romances in sequence without starting over. After that it's just relaxing grind for the sake of it. A Zen garden with virtual pets.

[@Joshisepic2222]

@@TommyTom21 impossible

[@isviewer]

You have spend 6 months in a game released about 4 years ago? Don't you have a job or something else to do?

[@aturchomicz821]

@@BonaparteBardithion Speedrunning and Challenge Runs too!

[@DrIcchan]

Not enough people dislike pointless grind or timewasting UI's.

[@shaxuesheng6128]

yeah hours of grinding is annoying.

[@nerdlingeeksly5192]

Plenty of people do, they just accept it as status quo and so long as the business makes enough money then why change the model. In short people do hate grinding, but don't bother to not buy the game enough to make developers change pace

[@God-ld6ll]

if you don't like grinding, find another hobby

[@pavlisickaja2495]

@@God-ld6ll I don't think it's too much to ask for games to be more fun, y'know.

[@God-ld6ll]

@@pavlisickaja2495 it is too much work for the developers though

[@MrJanfs]

The worst thing is when they implement "time savers" like in the newer AC games to encourage the use of microtransactions.

[@Ethan5I5]

Biochi What does AC stand for?

[@MrJanfs]

@@Ethan5I5 Assassins Creed

[@thegameghoul3442]

WOW had a similar problem via boosting characters to level 110 for Battle for Azeroth, but in shadowlands they seem to be removing that by reducing the max level to 60 and giving enough experience in one expansion you can play through from 10-50.

[@geofff.3343]

I've got a good example of this from a bygone era: I recently beat Final Fantasy IX (checkin' it off the old gaming bucket list) and I played the Steam re-release that came with speed up and cheats. Well, I got the end without cheating. The game is fairly smooth in its run, but I got to the end of Memoria and had to fight Deathguise and two bosses after him one right after the other. Well, I breezed past all the bosses up to that point only for Deathguise to whip out a super powerful meteor attack that wiped half the party and then attacked before any other action could be taken wiping everyone else out. By my reckoning I had played 99% of this game fair and square. But last-minute grind requirement to beat the game on what was basically the climax was anticlimactic so I enable the max-level cheat. None of the bosses had neat tricks to be worked around. It was just about absorbing raw damage and keeping going. I had all the abilities that made their status effects not work for all those characters. I don't feel bad about doing it. I had other stuff to do and just wanted to see the end of the gosh-darn story. As far as I'm concerned I could have beaten it through grinding, so all I did was save myself some time.

[@KotCR]

Overall I think FF9 did a pretty good job though getting the balance right here. Honestly, your description here pretty much mirrors what most people experienced with Octopath Traveler too. Smooth sailing until right at the end of the game, then you've got to grind a little bit to be strong enough to take on the very final boss. If it's just the ONE-time grind though, assuming it's not utterly ridiculous like pre-MTX removal Shadow of War to finish up, it's not so bad though. Trying to get through my bucketlist too, and started FF5 the other day....good god, it's horrible. I'm honestly tempted to use a cheat too to improve ABP gain (the actual experience gain doesn't seem so bad so far, but the ability point gain is terrible, and the game basically requires you to have a Thief in the party at all times - so much for a versatile job system - if you want to not have one you've got to grind out the Thief class for each of your party at some point, spreading out the must-have Thief abilities such as map Sprint out over the party, since each class can only pick one extra ability from another class they've used). My justification would be pretty much the same as yours. Figure I'd literally just be saving time if I bumped up the ABP gain enabling me to finally continue playing the actual story, instead of having to spend half my life grinding moving left and right continuously over the exact same 3 cells on the world map were I have a 30%ish percent chance of encountering a mob that gives me 3ABP instead of 1ABP (which pretty much everything else gives) and an absolutely insignificant amount of EXP and Gold. It's simply not fun, and I've got much better things I could be spending my time on.

[@MrHBDk]

I would say that almost all games I have played through ended up feeling like a chore at some point before I was done with them, it's so rare for a game not to over stay it's welcome. When you think about how small the group of players that actually complete the games they start are it's kinda strange that companies still are hell bend on mostly making large sandbox games instead of smaller and more focused experiences.

[@blockmasterscott]

Because different players do different things. Some like the main quest while others just explore and enjoy the scenery. Others like me visit and help out npcs while not touching the main quest line.

[@deco90014]

its late now, but the developers insist in sandbox and open world games because the same reason that there is some many multiplayer games because they can monetize better than in focused and smaller games even if they sell less there is more space for microtransactions and DLC with this kind of game

[@gglovato]

"games that redownload their entire client everytime they patch" i sweat that was squarely directed at IW and COD:patchzone

[@ZhouTie47]

Made me think of Phantasy Star Online 2 on the Microsoft Store, that combination was a real piece of shit.

[@jonnunn4196]

Isn't this all Steam Games? But fortunately these normally patch in background.

[@gglovato]

@@jonnunn4196 not really, most steam games have small patches, warzone has around one 40 to 50gb patch per month, plus several other GB scattered between. And If you own the full game the patches are bigger

[@llSuperSnivyll]

Or Mortal Kombat 11.

[@101jir]

Ubisoft kindof, at least the client is small enough. Basically every major War Thunder update.

[@eainen]

Well, I think there's a huge difference between "long and enjoyable" and "long because it's crammed full of grindy mechanics to push 'time savers' on the MTX store"

[@VKSgtSLaughter]

DESTINY 2... has turned into a never-ending grind with way too much busy work. They could learn a lot by watching your great video.

[@howHumam]

I'm playing it right now it's a confusing clusterfuck to say the least. Solid game but they need to fix quest tracking

[@knightjs3790]

Especially solstice right now!

[@bondrewd3660]

Beyond light will clean up the game when it launches

[@giorgiannicartamancini3917]

Part of what has made me put it off, by the third planet I was bored out of an experience I wanted to like, come on, how do you make being a space wizard as boring as going to the post office?!

[@diegosatori5718]

It has a campaing?

[@Otto_Von_Beansmarck]

1:09 and that is how I have nearly a hundered hours in an amazing 7 hour long game

[@tedcraboli8021]

Ghost of Tsushima is legit one of the best open world games I’ve ever played. There’s interesting and engaging stuff practically every 100 meters in any direction. There’s shrines, battles, random npc’s that point you to quests that aren’t just nameless people asking you to get an item. There’s even simple corpses on the ground with notes that you can find around them and even far away from them to put together a tiny story.

[@Phantasm811]

And even the "busywork" is fun because of how enjoyable the combat is. I finished the game about a week ago and while I'm clearing up what I missed, I still find myself wandering and fighting random battles just because the exploration and combat are still engaging even now.

[@yoavjacoby8246]

Minecraft is the perfect example of how to make wasting your time a part of the challenge (Im talking about making automatic farms btw)

[@databanks]

Used to make cross-world railways on the 360 version. Was recently slightly miffed to discover just how freaking HUGE the PC world is. Surface area of Neptune, huh? I don't think the railway's going to get finished. It was a "I'm bored, what can I build" thing

[@zynstein8059]

@@databanks I never got the on a rail achievement on 360 :(

[@dimanyak373]

I've played in Minecraft so many hours but I haven't really finished the game, I was just building cities, castles and ships in them(but the most time wasting thing in this world was exploring and writing the book about lore of this world(book in minecraft))

[@zachpierce5245]

I'm watching this while playing LOGistICAL: Earth. The game's concept: Here's a truck, fill it with stuff and tell it to take that stuff to that town. Did you like that? Good. Here's the whole planet to do that on! It is highly time consuming and monotonous, but it never told the players it would be anything else, and so if you find that compelling, its great!

[@ThePikmania]

Exactly. You did talk about this already in the past but I do feel it is important enough to have this nicely done fresh reminder

[@Wissle]

Interesting talk, ty

[@PaulGaither]

5:19 - this is what I find to be different about BioWare RPGs and a traditional JRPG. Bioware's games going back to at least KoTOR didn't have XP grinds. The plot and side quests were appropriately challenging and you never had to go grind a dungeon in order to advance the plot. Similarly, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were not XP grinds either.

[@jaives]

i finally played Dragon Age Inquisition last month. and that game fits the bill for this video. there was no heavy grinding nor pointless side quests BUT my god, the mechanics were bad. you had to do multiple key/button presses just to check your inventory or level up. picking up items was a chore. it's a 2-sec animation each time and considering you need to collect crafting materials, those seconds add up. and the war room and crafting room which you needed to visit a lot of times were a good distance away from the nearest fast travel point. i probably spent around 60+ hours on the game and at least 10 hours of those were just running back and forth and picking things up.

[@PaulGaither]

@@jaives - Welcome to the post-EA purchase and upper management control of Bioware. They were given so much more lee-way to do their thing with Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2 and 3. In truth, Dragon Age Origins and then the later table top game is the only true Dragon Age in my mind. I try to forget anything after that was ever published.

[@Robbedem]

yeah, the only time waster on Fallout 3 and New Vegas, was hauling back all the loot to your home. ;)

[@taber9669]

"Streamline any part of the game which doesn't feel like playing the game" is a great rule. It also kind of explains the appeal of cult favorites with arcane controls like Dwarf Fortress and Space Station 13. The crappy interface has kind of become a part of the experience. Also intentionally difficult controls like Human Fall Flat and Surgeon Simulator.

[@Taladar2003]

The interface of games like DF might appear crappy but it is actually a lot more streamlined than a lot of modern games, especially the ones with console or mobile game controls ported to PC.

[@xujhan]

That line made me think of my first couple years playing World of Warcraft, right back at launch. At the time, the game world being huge and inconvenient was a selling point! We didn't mind being sent out of our way; the immersion was as much a point as the more traditional 'gamey' elements. Then after a while the luster wore off and players wanted to be able to get from point A to point B without having to trek through all the wilderness in between. None of this is meant as a complaint, I just think it's interesting to reflect on how a culture's preferences can change over time.

[@Dsingis]

I absolutely hate modern open world games. Everytime I hear them talk about how big they are, I just roll my eyes and ignore the game. I'm only willing to give Cyberpunk a chance, because a) the developer and b) they said they made a smaller world but with more density. But for all other open world franchises I have permanentely lost faith, especially Assassin's Creed.

[@rafaelbordoni516]

Yeah, I feel the same. What hurts the most is that on paper open world is my favorite genre, but on practice I hate them. Devs treat open world as a feature instead of a genre, and think exploration is sightseeing. Super Mario Odyssey did exploration way better than all Ubisoft games imho.

[@reitheist]

Yep, open world games feel incredibly lifeless most of the time. I'd much rather have the budget be put into a small area that you get very well aquainted with. This is why the Yakuza series is so great, along with it's cool story it feels super vibrant and big despite taking place in pretty much the same 4 city blocks or so

[@Neoplasie1900]

You are describing what I have termed for me "open world fatigue". Having a full time job I just cannot spent 80 hours actually getting to know a game's world. Recently thought I might tackle my pile of shame and finally go for MGS 5. I stopped it after I learned it's another open world game with loads of mini map objective markers.

[@Robbedem]

Never bought No Mans Sky. They talkend all the time about how big their universe was, but never talked about what you were supposed to do in that big universe. ;)

[@ArchinaGM]

Even going back about a decade and you can see this happening. Think about a large world like Skyrim and look at how many markers there are on the map. Now categorise all those markers into which ones contain interesting content and which one's don't and you suddenly realise how little decent content is actually in that game. Even something as monotonous as clearing a bandit cave feels like a waste of time due to the low reward combined with the time it would take to clear your inventory again before taking on another area.

[@JolanXBL]

4:20 So a lot of recent games created a way around this: Micro-transactions. Free-to-Play. Pay-to-Win.

[@brockmckelvey7327]

"If your players have to 'prove themselves worthy' to experience your game's content, then that simply isn't respecting your player's time."

[@brockmckelvey7327]

Saying it again for the Cuphead dev team, and anyone else who doesn't design accessible games

[@Mordalon]

@@brockmckelvey7327 A game being hard and lacking accessibility options has nothing to do with "respecting time".

[@brockmckelvey7327]

@@Mordalon I think you are missing the fact that the only way to get better (git gud) at a game is...to spend time. Arbitrary difficulty is a time sink.

[@Mordalon]

@@brockmckelvey7327 Any activity takes time. Even easy games take time to get to the end. A task taking time isn't an accessibility issue. As for difficulty, You are acting as if all difficulty is arbitrary. Even on the same difficulty level, the moment to moment difficulty of a game fluctuates, like a difficulty spike followed by a victory lap.

[@Mageling55]

There's also another peak for low engagement things that can be done to help keep hands busy so that we can get more out of the other things we do, rather than getting distracted every which way. Runescape and idle games to that well, and for my mom its crocheting. Its the stuff in the middle that causes problems a lot of the time

[@BonaparteBardithion]

Are you familiar with Disgaea? It's a grid-based SRPG with about ten hours of story and hundreds of hours of pure grind. My sister owns probably every port of it. Half a dozen ports later, the mobile version finally implemented auto-battle. Now she can actually sleep or watch a new show while the game does excessive grinding for her. What I'm saying is that more games need this feature. Turbo controllers have existed forever, so it's not like developers don't know about the demand. There's a slew of games that can be turned functionally idle.

[@no_torrs]

Big fan of short games here. As a person who just doesn't have 50 hours to sink into every game I play I usually find great joy and feel very thankful for short experiences. I appreciate a good long game that respects my time as much as the next person but I can't tell you how many good games I just stopped playing cause after weeks of playing I decided to take a break and when I came back I just had no idea what was going on. So hooray for games that respect your time and just great short games in general. Just make sure you price accordingly.

[@joaomarcoscosta4647]

3:40 "You should be asking yourself: is the activity the player is grinding inherently engaging? Is it something the player would do without the skinner box reward? If it's something they would be doing because it's something they are coming to your game for anyway, then it's totally fine to attach a grind to it." Which is why I still love the Monster Hunter series after hundreds of hours spent grinding. ^_^ I'd add that even if the activity is engaging you still need to worry about pacing, tough. Even you have a great combat system, putting a 25-hour grind-wall in a single-player game just before the final boss - or requiring players to spend 80 hours on online matches to unlock a playable character - is likely to create some degree of frustration. ^^;

I thought to myself "James is being burnt out, I found nothing interesting in this episode..." And then the credits shown that this episode was not written by James.

[@justanothercommenter9318]

This channel knows Exactly what to ask when making a game, very useful!

[@septicduzzle]

Im just vibing to the outro music, this was amazing as always

[@CFood0]

me trying to get into FF14, god i just wanna get to end game and play with my friends that have been playing this whole time.... at least the story's good which is the only reason i haven't actually stopped, actually any MMO is like this, my friends always put in way more time than i do, so they blast ahead together and get to endgame content again, where i'm still behind and then i just lose more interest. Destiny 2 was fun until they raised the level cap and all my friends hit level cap and i'm nowhere close and can't do the new content that they can do also kinda salty you put BotW up with "boring busywork" because that game was the most fun i had in a long time when that came out. I was able to get lost in this big world and just explore it. sometimes i found something useful, sometimes i found a breathtaking view, sometimes i found nothing, and the mystery stayed alive. idk if i can ever go back to re-experience it now that i have explored it once, but god it was so beautiful

[@MajesticSkywhale]

just wait for TBC re-release from WoW and you'll never need another MMO. I played just that expansion on wow private servers for over 10 years and never got bored

[@BartvG88]

CFood0 I think you missed the point with that breath of the wild example. Look at what shows up on the screen, when he says: “boring busywork”. That’s the extra boring busywork, not BOTW itself. That game is universally praised for having an amazing open world with lots to explore and fight and surf time crunched logs through the sky in.

[@razielonex2469]

FF14 recently had a patch that reduced the main quests needed and shortened some quest in the base game (A Realm Reborn) while still leaving relevant story content uncut. It's not only one of the best MMORPGs at this time, but also has one of the best storylines I every expierenced in gaming overall.

[@BartvG88]

@GHANI ZIYAD SAGIANSYAH Breath of the Wild is a better example of a universally loved open world game, and Assasins Creed is already full of tedious repetitive tasks like collecting flags

[@SnoFitzroy]

"kind of like pokemon swsh" WAIT THIS VIDEO IS N E W ?

[@Sopturtle]

Love the GamePro magazine reference at the beginning!

[@whatgamesweplay]

I was more than halfway through "The Longest Journey" when I accidentally found out double clicking made the character run instead of slowly walking

[@woketoad2426]

Exactly why 95% of mobile gaming is and will remain cancer.

[@georgeg7259]

Agreed. They are not really games but psychologically designed slot machines to take your money for a dopamine hit.

[@couchpotatoe91]

Yeah, it's crazy what kind of skinner boxes young kids are exposed to these days.

[@virutech32]

its kind of a shame since the mobile platform is so easy to develop for and accessible. some of these games even have some cool gameplay but then some exec is like "but that money tho" n boom a billion microtransactions, unnecessary grind, & gambling mechanics.

[@rebelgaming1.5.14]

@@virutech32 There are mobile games that started out great and then went downhill due to them getting greedy and wanting only money. *COUGH* PLAUGE INC *COUGH*

[@101jir]

@@rebelgaming1.5.14 Part of that is that is started as a browser game (by a different name).

[@braulioservodedeus]

As a fan of RPGs, I am reeeealy reluctant to go into a new one in this day and age. *Specially* if they are open world. So many of the open world games just have way too long treks to get anywhere interesting...

[@darknativity42]

I kind of agree with you there. But sometimes I really appreciate the long grind and walks around an open map if I'm seriously roleplaying a character so I "feel" the tiresome stuff the character has to do. The last time I role played New Vegas, I think I used the fast travel option maybe twice.

[@celestialgloam7439]

@@darknativity42 I agree with this wholehartedly. I often find fast travel takes away some of the wonder from open world games, when it's used too heavily.

[@TheKronosKeeper]

Thanks for this video. I'll take the info along with me as I design my game.

[@williaminghamfarrow9371]

This is useful advice for writing too. Its about hitting the action points and cutting out the slog. I'm enjoying watching these videos and using them as writing advice for fantasy/sci-fi stories. :)

[@notafangirl]

Persona 5. Took me 4 months. Assassin's Creed: Origins? 3 months. At some point I don't want to play a game cause it just feels pointless to continue.

[@fairelymaid7145]

I honestly think Stardew does a lot of things to respect players time. Auto-sort buttons on chests, and the ability to move already built structures after placing them as examples. The game loop itself seems geared toward avoiding a truly repetitive experience. You can get into the tedium if you want to, but its not required.

[@robonerd125]

funny you mention auto sort, because the one thing i absolutely *L O A T H E* about Stardew is that the inventory sorting (not the chest sorting) sorts your fucking hotbar. 0/10 will never hoe again.

[@mrjoshua1983]

That was definitely Ice Cap Zone from Sonic 3 played in the outro!

[@donaldpetersen2382]

This video makes a good point. _Starts up a new Total War campaign_

[@christianhumer3084]

Extra Credits: Games shouden´t waste your time! Paradox Grand strategy Games be like: Say sike right now

[@sejfzlrrhman]

😂 Sike! It also applies to Total War.

[@hebl47]

They're called GRAND strategy for a reason and we like them that way.

[@imbw267]

The time invested helps raise the stakes of conflict and loss.

[@braulioservodedeus]

Hahaha that's so true it hurts. I love strategy games, but I really struggle with paradox, because it takes so long to just *learn* how to play, that I keep meaning to get into them, but I never get around to (because ya know, adult life...)

[@charanth182]

For some of us that grind is the enjoyment, like huge puzzle with lots of moving parts. Paradox and grand strategy is not a genre for all or even the most.

[@teslobo]

I can't play any MMO because the remotely engaging stuff only seems to be in endgame, and if they think I'm going to endure the first 60 hours of boredom with the promise that it gets better they have another thing coming.

[@llSuperSnivyll]

And if you'd like to try another class... then it's the same slog all over again.

[@AngelBolt]

1:17 j appreciate whoever straightened the Spotify logo

[@MCRedThree]

God. It's so funny that this came out just as I was finishing Mad Max! Perfect timing.

[@spencersss1251]

Pokémon does have its improvements but it’s also at fault. You have to go through tons of dialogue and unskipable cut scenes at the beginning when you just want to go out on your adventure. And they cutscenes throughout the game take up space and time and make the replay ability a chore.

[@krankarvolund7771]

In S&S, you can pass the cutscenes ^^

[@notfamous649]

Exactly!!!!

[@themysticautistic5449]

kid: Im SO good at fighti-- me who just wants to get to the forest to get a pikachu: Shut the f*ck up. Please. Just shut the f*ck up.

[@Jydmd]

Yeah, stuff like raid battles and a few other things makes me feel like the game is artificially long

[@spencersss1251]

Krankar Volund oh really thank god. I didn’t replay sun and moon because of that. But I do feel hesitant about the lack of Pokémon in the game and the dlc content

[@paavoelonheimo2456]

So true! I wish that somebody would do epic fantasy games, that would be just 25-30h. Instead many of them are 60-70h, and actually just that 30h of good content :)

[@Warpstoned]

If everything is awesome, nothing is awesome - you kind of need the "boring" content to make the other content exciting

[@Joeygms53]

Great video! I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately concerning the mobile gacha styled games that I’ve played

[@JDKevlar]

I’m so glad you made this video! I’ve felt like the Assassin’s Creed games have been too big since Syndicate. I started playing Origins when the pandemic hit and after completing the first area and the world map opens up, the sheer size made me stop playing because there’s no way I’m going to have the time to do everything. Especially since the gameplay revolves around the same 3 gameplay loops. I just figured I’m old now and not the target demo anymore. Good to know “game too long” is a legit sentiment in the community.

[@jeromykeloway]

I have one objection against that argumentation: Going back or at least communicate to a quest giver after I completed his quest feels very natural to me (Afterall, that's exactly what we normally do in real life with somebody that gave us a a task). I think skipping that would show me very clearly that I am playing "just a game". Maybe I could write a letter to a quest giver to inform them about what I did (And so maybe get letters back). Could be a system like in Phantom Doctrine with the Clue-Finding system My point would be to make that final discussion with the quest giver more interesting instead of just skipping it.

[@EWolffe]

I feel like warframe could learn from this. I love the game and all, but the grind just gets to me sometimes.

[@tqit0210]

Seeing "The Lunch King" reminded me of a SoundSmith video. That's probably not where that joke originated, but I think the little skit he made was hilarious.

[@Sukaki_Izamu]

god that Igglybuff face is amazing I love it.

[@kingle0538]

Ark Survial evolve: allow me to entrounce myself. Seriously is there a game that has taken more hours from people without reward than Ark?

[@stephenolder4552]

Yeah, I had to quit that game, and I only played pve

[@Fl_uffy]

Ah yes, the f r o g g y c h a i r, I do require the f r o g g y c h a i r in all the common tasks in video games

[@270jonp]

Given the chance, I would love to see you tackle the interesting movement of taking older games and recreating them through the use of randomization and often removing the initial narrative. Link to the past is a prime example of this but Ive seen ff1,ff4, and CT all have similar mods available.

[@bahmet6928]

Paradox : Yea il take all you time

[@MM-qz3eh]

Hey ubisoft you may want to watch this video, you know after the marathon grind that assassin's creed odyssey was. If you think I'm wrong tell me did you enjoy every side quest

[@sejfzlrrhman]

I agree with you. AC Odyssey is not even an Assassin's Creed game. It merely bears the AC name. That's all.

[@kewky_mewky398]

I love this series, its just such an amazing experience.

[@asdfawe5961]

great episode

[@megaagentj2248]

The “hey man it gets good after some time” is literally the DEFINITION of reccomending Nino Kuni legend of the white witch, like “yeah, it’s boring at first, but when your ass gets kicked by a rat with a stick you’ll realise it’s good”

[@JusticeForPottsvilleMaroons]

This is why "live service" games are terrible.

[@analytixna6610]

They can totally not be terrible too. It's just laziness that they don't respect your time

[@sonictimm]

@@analytixna6610 Agreed, it's often people vs. profit. In Age of Empires 2, they recently started doing events, which makes it feel like a live service game. That said, the events allow you to immediately jump in, no level requirements or anything. A lot of events in MMOs make your player level irrelevant to achieve a sense of community. On the other hand, lots of mobile games go so far as to punish you for not playing the game every day, then go so far as punishing you for not doing x amount of things every day, and they try to make it feel rewarding just to show up.

[@harrym2945]

Battlefront 2 did the live service model very well, you didn’t have to spend a dime to access any extra content and the grind wasn’t to bad either

[@poilboiler]

You mean "lie service"?

[@somekid538]

"If your players have to prove themselves to experience your real content." *cough* HOI4 *COUGH*

[@twotales1645]

Very well said!

[@takatamiyagawa5688]

Extra Credits: "When a Game is Too Long - Respecting the Player's Time" Adam Millard: "Why The Longing Takes Four Hundred Days to Play"

[@BottleWaterson]

Nono, see, here's the galaxy brain reasoning behind long playtimes. If people are busy playing your game, that means they dont spend time on another game and spending money on microtransactions on the competition's game. This is what business is now, money's not enough, ecosystems are business now... man video games are the worst.

[@vaughnjohnson8767]

Roblox: You can make any kind of game you want! Game makers: ima make a game that is built around time consuming stupidity! Game players: Yay I can waste my time on meaningless quests and Level up at a pointless game! Me after watching this: Thanks guys for absolutely wrecking that kind of game!

[@tomholy]

Of course Roblox is more about friends and community so they get away with it.

[@tomholy]

@jocaguz18 That's partly true, but when you think about guys going to the pub, they're not really going there to have a drink, they're going there to hang out and talk with their mates. The drink is not the most important part, it's just the part to get their mates together. Roblox is the same.

[@ZetHololo]

5:51 I WANT THAT BLOOM POSTER

[@connerduncan7411]

I really appreciate that this was worded as allowing the player to do what he or she came for. In essence, this argument can be for or against a grind in a game because it's centered on purposefulness.

[@shamrocksheep8203]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons fits into the 1:50 category :|

[@KingMJAH]

NervousNessie did you buy the key ring ?

[@JoKES1417]

"Some of the greatest games have a slow build" - show AC. I dunno man. It's just an eternal grind with horrible UI and time wasting conversations.

[@shamrocksheep8203]

@@KingMJAH I have but I'm referring to all the other constant "fighting the UI" bits the game has. Mostly things like reading the same dialogue over and over just to do a simple task. One perfect example is trying to buy from the tailors' shop. We have to go in and out of the changing booth multiple times when they could have easily let us buy what we want and just "Press *button* to preview." It feels like they added a lot of unnecessary repetition just to add game time.

[@williamhouser5715]

Pokemon Sword and Shield is a terrible example. They also removed all of the routes and trainer battles that made the game fun and made all 6 of your party pokemon all level up every time they beat a lvl 3 wild mon.

[@DrakonLameth]

I have to chuckle at the game poster used for the 'could be playing other games', because it's yet another example of the unlikeliest of fandoms crossing over in a wholesome way (because very few people would have told you that the Doom and Animal Crossing fans had a significant cross over of people who are both)

[@fozzcraft2575]

this perfectly describes the feeling of being very bored while walking in between villages in kenshi

[@ANAND-zw1on]

Vote for hollow knight.😁👍

[@glassninja]

Large open worlds are almost a turn off for me. I'm an adult with limited time and if I have to spend 40 hrs just trying to unlock all of the map I'm out.

[@tutterbear98]

I'm not too far in it yet, but Trails of Cold Steel has a Turbo Mode, which makes everything - walking, fight animation, I think even some story scenes - super fast. I usually don't have it on, but I can toggle it literally whenever I want to, there's a dedicated button for it. so if there's a point that feels like a slog, like a space where small encounters can happen, I can turn it on at any point and speed through it. At first I thought it was funny because I only thought of speedrunners just using that for the whole thing, but watching this makes me realize that it's actually very helpful for people who want it.

[@huwguyver4208]

This video is spot on. Long games are awesome when you are a kid (or perhaps an adult in corona lockdown) with relatively large amounts of free time and not much money for other games. And some open-world games I enjoy having always around, never quite done, knowing I can go back basically whenever I feel like it and do a new quest or two. But 40 hours is a big time commitment as as an adult, especially these days with so many other competing games and other media. I think a good solution is having a relatively lean and high impact main campaign for most players, with a ton of side content for those really invested who just want to live in that world. Fallout 3 and NV were great for that, and are two of my favourite games ever partly for it.