Winterbottom devs think you're tired of 80-hour games

by Justin McElroy on Oct 21st 2009 11:15PM

As we get older, we find we'd typically prefer a great 10-hour game to a pretty good 20-hour game. The Odd Gentlemen – the devs behind upcoming XBLA puzzle-platformer The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom – have realized that as well and it's part of the reason they think indie devs are focusing on smaller, more easily consumable experiences.

As studio co-founder Matt Korba told Gamasutra, "People are tired of 80-hour games ... so, I think the other thing about these indie experiences and these vignettes is you get something that's really good and really satisfying in a short amount of time."

Even if the game length discussion isn't particularly interesting to you, the full interview is worth a read if you're curious at all about the indie perspective.

Source

Tags: indie, Microsoft, pb-winterbottom, the-odd-gentlemen, xbla, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (115)

10 hours isn't enough when your playing a fantastic game like Uncharted 2, yet 1hour of Wheelman was all I could take.

I agree. I rather stop playing myself than the game ending too soon.

But if you stop playing yourself, does that mean that the game was longer than it should have been and got old?

Or I guess it could have just sucked, too...

The game industry is releasing too many games now, an 80 hour game use to be great because you could play it for the next 2 months until a new exciting game came out.

Asking consumers to buy more games by making them shorter and releasing them more often with more iterations is a stupid ass thing to do that will only hurt the industry in the long run.

I could take 80 hours of a game if the game was really really awesome for the entire 80 hours.

I could take 80 hours of a game if any game ever had 80 hours worth of gameplay in it.

Fallout 3 says hi.

Persona 3 and 4 say hi.

I tried to play Fallout 3, but the PC version was so buggy I had to uninstall it, it was basically unplayable.

Well it wasn't unplayable per say, the game just stopped functioning all together if I tried to use VATS.... maybe the bugs have been fixed, I would really like to actually be able to play it at some point.

Haze says hello? .. Anyone? Hello?!

@ Alton
Only reason Persona is such a long game is because the story parts are soooooo long and dry. That doesn't make it good.

GTA4 and Tales of Vesperia also dropped in to say Hi Ryan.

I've got to laugh... When I attempt one of those "40+ hour games", invariably

Yeah I've clocked in over 80 hours with Fallout 3 and I've only just started the DLC. And I still have plenty of side quests I can do.

It all depends on the game really.

lol with games running at $60, I better get more than 80 hours. Hell, I can get 250 hours from a $30 game. Twice over. THanks Dissidia and Persona 4.

I know what you mean, I won't pay anything over $40 for a new game thankfully because of Amazon I have 5 left to get and not one cost more than $23.

Fallout 3. Steam sale $40. Anchorage + The Pitt, $20. I've probably dropped 100 hours + on fallout over the three times I've played it through...

I personally use GoGamer. I love their 48 Hour Madness.

Price as an argument to play time is a a fairly shitty point.
No ones asking you to pick something up the day it comes out, just wait for it to be on sale.
The last thing I want to see is a bunch of 90+ hr games for 60$ that are extended to be that time without much thought.

Id much rather see a 4 hr game with some extended reason to come back to it such as multilayer, rankings what have you.

I'd be ok with an 8 hour game if they where ok with a $6 price.

There's too many great games nowadays. I just have to skip the uber long ones, which unfortunately means I still haven't played Fallout 3 or finished Tales of Vesperia.

ToV is only 20 hours long or so.

About 15-18 if you're decent with RPGs.

Otis is talking out of his ass.

I spent 68 hours in ToV, and I am well experienced with JRPGs. And I still didnt even come close to completing/finding everything in that game.

Well, IF you do everything, maybe?

But just finishing the game itself isn't going to take you that long at all :x

That is like saying Halo 3 is a 5-minute game if all you ever play is a single game of slayer.

I stopped playing Twilight Princess because people kept saying it was 70 hours or whatever. I just don't have time for that.

Twilight Princess took me around 40 hours my first playthrough. It might take you 70 hours if you are going for 100% completion, but for most people it shouldn't.

Took me about 70hrs on Twilight Princess . I always complete 100% of every Zelda game.

Yeah, 10 hours of great game is nice... If it didn't cost 60-70 bucks.

This sums it up very well. I like a great short game but I wouldn't want to buy it for full price, that's why I pretty much just rent games now, I get sick of all but a very few after less the the week I have the game.

The few exceptions are the 80 hour games that I just play over and over, I wouldn't hesitate the price on a game like that.

Case in point, Star Wars Force Unleashed. It was a fun game, but I've never gone back to it since I beat it. There wasn't anything worth going back to find. I don't see why games like that get such good reviews.

I agree... as long as the great 10 hour game also has great multiplayer. I just don't have enough time for super long games anymore. Never finished Fable 2 or GTA 4. Great games, just didn't have the time.

Fable 2 is MUCH shorter than GTA4. There's only like seven or eight primary missions in Fable 2.

Yes GTA4 is long, but the sad part is that most people hear how long it is and give up on that fact even if they aren't very far from the beginning. I had a friend give up and sell his copy as soon as he reached Algonquin because he heard that he was less than half way to the end. And for those people, EFLC is coming out.

They probably give up on GTA IV cause it's shit, I've got it. I gave it a couple of hours and that's it, I'm just glad I got it for less then $7 (Value Village).
More on topic about 20-30 hours is good, not too short, not too long, provided the game play is good (GTA IV's isn't).

I love me some demon's souls

it totally depends. I think the number of hours the game lasts should NEVER be a back-of-the-box bullet, which I have seen before. Granted, they were RPG's, but the point of gaming isn't to waste as MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE, but rather to enjoy yourself. Dead Space was kinda short, but it was the perfect length. Portal was short but amazing. Killzone 2 was too short. I wouldn't want Final Fantasy 13 to b a 6 hour game, but I wouldn't want Prototype to be any longer than it was.

His statement isn't really correct, but I get the point.

A friend of mine STILL plays Demon's Souls, despite saying he spent over 70 hours on it... this was two weeks ago...

i thought killzone 2 was a pretty good length. any longer, and it would have gotten stale fast. the way they did it, it stayed pretty fresh from start to finish. the cliffhanger is one of the few cliffhangers i've ever liked.

Well said, Levi. I like where your head's at.

:D yeah I can dig Killzone's length. It's just REALLY short, like 6 hours first playthrough short, and it's clear they had more placed to go with the story. I'm not too big into the multiplayer anymore, so.

But yeah, game length really bothered me since I saw "over 100 hours of gameplay!" as a feature on the back of a PSP game box. I was like wtf...

just what i was thinking. the game should be as long as the developer needs to accomplish what they wanted to do with the game. it shouldn't be artificially extended OR artificially shortened.

I love long games, but unfortunately don't have time to finish them. Still haven't finished Fallout 3 and had Oblivion for almost a year and haven't even opened the box.

Yeah, I just bought Oblivion:GOTY for the PC and don't have enough time to play it, opened the box but haven't installed it. Fuck, I also have to play The Witcher as well.
I only have time to go through short games like Mirror's Edge and Prince of Persia.

: (

I'm surprised Modern Warfare 2 even bothers with a single player campaign, since the vast majority of gameplay will be online. I know that some will skip the campaign altogether.

They should ship a multiplayer only version of the game and it will still sell like crazy.

I will gladly pay extra for more SP missions in Call of Duty games.

I'd rather pay 5$ for just a solid 5 hour campaign than 60$ for a mediocre 8 hour campaign with OK multiplayer.

I'd love to buy Modern Warfare 2 for $20 just to play the campaign.

if they made a multiplayer only COD, i would buy it up ASAP. COD multiplayer could seriously hold up on its own like TF2 or warhawk.

"I'm surprised Modern Warfare 2 even bothers with a single player campaign"

The first one was amazing. What reason would there NOT to ship a campaign.

yeah, i like shorter games. fallout 3 could barely keep my attention. i guess the capital wasteland was too dreary for my tastes (great atmosphere though).

on the other hand, a lot of short single player games are favorites, like COD4. there are some longer games that i love, like jeanne d'arc and pokemon, but those have really colorful and interesting worlds, so i guess that's the reason.

why did i put "on the other hand"?

Play the PS2 Persona games. You won't be disappointed.

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Winterbottom devs think you're tired of 80-hour games

Reader Comments (115)

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