Content Tourism and the Value of Gaming
Is Need for Speed: The Run a two-hour game? Digital Foundry on why games are being defined by how long it takes to beat them
The fact that games are being judged in this way at all comes down to a shift in the way that developers are structuring the playthrough, and the way that games are being played in general. Games are now a mainstream proposition. More people are playing them and thus, to make sure that the content publishers invest millions in isn't wasted, games are generally far easier than they were in the past. To present an extreme example, almost every 80s gamer most likely played Manic Miner - but how many completed it, or even saw a majority of its 20 levels?
In an effort to make games more accessible, we have moved away from the notion of the game session being limited by the number of "lives" players have. Look back into the mists of ancient history and games magazines used to print cheat codes for infinite lives - now it's a standard component of every game we play. Even the notion of the health bar - which constrained players' progress through the game, has basically been abolished in favour of regenerative health or shields.
As an industry we like to compare ourselves with music and movies, but the fact is that in the consumer's mind, a £15 Blu-ray movie is up against £35 to £40 games - of course value is going to be scrutinised and weighs heavily in the purchasing decision
There's little to no need to hunt down health packs or 1UPs any more in most games - simply duck into a corner somewhere and all your health returns. I remember pointing and laughing at The Getaway's mechanism of regenerating health by leaning against a wall. Little did I know that it was the template of things to come.
Bestowing infinite lives on the player also means that almost every game can be completed simply through a matter of brute-forcing your way through, exactly as I did in my NFS: The Run playthrough. This is something of a shame for a game like Vanquish, which harkens back to the era when highscores, and developing an actual technique for playing the game were important over and above "clocking" it.
On the one hand, it's disturbing that gamers are being labelled - often incorrectly - by the time it takes to complete them, as if that encompasses the entirety of the product. Some games can be defined by their content in terms of levels, missions, quests or whatever - the Assassin's Creed series is a good example of this. Others, like Vanquish, present value in terms playing and replaying the game, improving scores and peeling back the layers of the experience. As for Need for Speed: The Run - the notion of value is the least of its problems, for all the reasons Tom Bramwell pointed out in the 5/10 Eurogamer review.
That said, the fact that the "length" of a game becomes headline news demonstrates that value is clearly a priority for the core audience. The high price of video games (on launch, at least) is such that buying a boxed retail product is still viewed by gamers as an investment rather than an impulse buy. As an industry we like to compare ourselves with music and movies, but the fact is that in the consumer's mind, a £15 Blu-ray movie is up against £35 to £40 games - of course value is going to be scrutinised and weighs heavily in the purchasing decision.
Credit where it's due - by and large, the industry has adapted to this, and many AAA projects offer astonishing value. The Assassin's Creed and Uncharted games, for example, not only include a phenomenal amount of single-player content, but a robust online element has been added too - and these multiplayer elements are essentially standalone, complete games in their own right.
It's impressive to think that major franchises are now offering two games for the price of one - indeed, in the case of Assassin's Creed: Revelations on PS3, it's actually three individual components, with the original game included on the Blu-ray for free - an interesting idea for making use of the massive storage space the format offers. But what it does mean is that consumer expectations have never been higher. A game like Skyrim can project value despite being a solo experience, but with the lack of success in a brilliant game like Vanquish, it suggests that certain types of single-player game are now a much tougher sell.