simple machines forum
Sword of Moonlight => Archive (pre 2023) => Beginner and other Nonsense => Topic started by: Holey Moley on January 21, 2015, 05:57:30 PM
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Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcT6M0VmIvg) is a new PBS Game/Show video asking if games are too long.
Personally I think that they definitely are, and the point made in the video about how you can easily spend your screen time doing better things is right on.
That said it really isn't a question of the actual length, just whether or not does the game earn its length or not at every point along the way. Speaking of narrative driven games (because non-narrative games probably shouldn't even have story elements anyway) games usually do one of two things... they will pad themselves out with busy work for no obvious reason, or they will feel like they are radically abridged to the point of having no real substance, kind of like the way many movies are very superficial rendered nearly meaningless versions of longer more substantial books.
For games up to now I think the second problem is probably more unintended than trying to deliver a quick/accessible experience. The first problem is more like adulteration that is pretty much unique to games alone as media goes. I guess 24hrs news maybe does that too.
But on the whole games have to tell their stories more efficiently and consider their audience as people with potentially valuable time on their hands. Not by cutting but really honing their craft, and ideally not trying to tell overly long stories. If you can't remember the entire course of events from beginning to end then the game is probably overloading itself or spreading itself thin.