How important is the length of a game to you?

Portal had a lot of re-play value? Really? It's a puzzler and once you solved the puzzles, you can just go through them again - but you already know the solution.

Do you mean in terms of speed runs / achievements?

Portal was incredibly short, but it was still worth it BECAUSE it was sooooo replayable.

Games that have high replay value are considered (by me at least) to be a longer game...

~Sol

um... i played it once, and then i waited for half a year before i played it again, so that i would forget some of the puzzles. If there are secrets n stuff i haven't found them yet. But i still think it was worth it.

> Portal was incredibly short, but it was still worth it BECAUSE it was sooooo replayable.

>

um... i played it once, and then i waited for half a year before i played it again, so that i would forget some of the puzzles

I agree, this is the only way in which Portal is replayable. It was a good game and all... just not one I would need to play again any time soon. There's not a lot of opportunity to change up your gameplay style in that game, unless you're a speed-runner trying to shave half a second off your best time or something. Which I'm not.

Portal had a lot of re-play value? Really? It's a puzzler and once you solved the puzzles, you can just go through them again - but you already know the solution.

Do you mean in terms of speed runs / achievements?

That's exactly what I mean... I got one level down to about 8 seconds... and found ways to break multiple other levels... pretty much what I would do if I had a potral gun in real life no?

~Sol

That's a little too hardcore for me

Okay - I'm trying to genuinely find something out here: I never understood why Achievements took off like that. Like, I never cared about Achievements at all, doesn't matter what platform we're talking about. As Microsoft first announced achievements, I thought you'd get something (like Microsoft Points) if you achieve a certain thing in a game - but that obviously wasn't the case, so it's just a value that's either 0 or 1, locked to your account. If you would've been able to gain like 400 MSPoints if you play the game for 100 hours, I would've at least understood what the fuzz is all about, but right now it's a 'virtual achievement'.

I mean, exp systems and levels and stuff aren't anything different (well, although they do have a direct effect on you in the game), I just wanna know what the achievement hunters feel when they're trying to become perfect at a game by getting every single achievement there is - why do you do it? What's appealing about it? Do you really feel like it adds re-play value? Would you think less of a linear game that doesn't have achievements?

I never really cared for HighScores either. Developers used to include highscores in a sort of agenda for every 8 and 16bit game, but they seldom had any meaning - I think Achievements are probably the improved version of HighScores.

Agreed, Achievements are by and large retarded. They're just there to artificially extend the life of a game. Then again, I would make up such silly goals on my own when playing games to artificially extend their life, so... yeah :/

As for high scores, the only kind of game I've ever played for points is pinball. There's a certain sense of satisfaction when the knocker slams into the bottom of the machine and scares the shit out of you for earning a free game.

If you've never heard that ear-splitting, soul-jarring WHACK then you're missing out

I wouldn't go as far as calling them retarded, but you definitely have to be an obsessive son of a bitch to fall for achievements. On the other hand, they would certainly help to teach your hardcore users certain lessons. Like, I'm thinking about Super Mario Kart on the SNES right now (best Mario Kart ever, but that's beside the point).

There, an achievement could be: "Win championship without ever driving against a wall" - If someone's out to get all achievements, you can bet your ass he's going to become pretty darn good at playing the game, trying to get that achievement. It's just not a very hard thing to integrate from a developer point of view and it's certainly an interesting phenomenon that achievements gained such a huge popularity.

Deadeye: Your highscore example isn't quite accurate, cause there it's more like the exp in an RPG - you get to a certain number of points and it will have an effect on you (getting an extra life). That's not what achievements are all about. Achievements are just tokens that are being activated once you reached a certain goal in the game - but they don't really have any effect on you in the game, they're external.

locked to your account

ight there: account. identity. community. nuf said? achievements are what people make of them. they're far from virtual. they affect the game on a different level than just code.

right there: account. identity. community. nuf said? achievements are what people make of them. they're far from virtual. they affect the game on a different level than just code.

That's clear, but I just wonder that it got that important for gamers.

Like, I understand why a doctor would hang his certificates on the wall - if some guy cuts me open to play with my intestines, I wanna now that some other medical dudes think that he's the right man for the job.

So it makes sense for real events and real issues - but have you ever really walked through your friendslist, checked someone elses achievements and been like:

"Dude, WTF, WOW!!!!! BatFucker2010 actually managed to deliver 30 headshots in one game in Gears 2! That's so awesome!!!111"

?

Like, seriously? I guess it depends on the person, but I never looked at other peoples achievements, since I don't even care about my own. It's just interesting that so many people do care about them. I guess Deadeye and me are in the minority when it comes to that though.

Achievements are good in some games, like Peggle. The challenges kept me playing for a while longer than I would've. Ditto for .. WoW, where the achievements kept me going a little time.

> if it's free, i don't care at all. if it costs money, i'll rent it if it's too short.

>

Say the game lasts an hour if you know exactly how to beat it and costs 4.99 EUR.

And you can't rent it.

Would you buy it if it's a cool game? Would you pay 5 EUR for a cool experience?

One thing I'd love to see in the future are simpler, episodic games that really focus on story and character development - and to sell each episode for something cheap, like 5 bucks. I think that'd be a win / win.

You'd get to play a short, but great game for a small amount of cash and if you liked it and want to know how the story develops further / develop your character further, you get the new episode for another 5 quid.

Would that business model be attractive to anyone here?

i have and will continue to spend small amounts of money on small games. i should have clarified -- i just think if there's a price, it should agree with the game itself. i can't afford to spend $60 on games i'll only play one week, so i rent those. i have bought tons of $5-10 games -- i think they're usually a better value than going out to the movies.

edit: i think achievements/trophies are great. they very rarely take anything away from the game experience. i think there are several positive effects that come from them, too.

Achievements are like a lot of things in real life that you don't really need, but want for one reason or another, and it's usually to show off.

Some real world examples of "achievements" are:

1. Shiny wheels on your Ferrari

2. An Armani suit, or fashion in general

3. A girlfriend with massive knockers, who is you girlfriend only because she has massive knockers.

4. A sports trophy for winning the 100m dash at school

5. Poptarts

6. Hair dye

7. Penis extensions and/or breast implants, including cosmetic surgury in general.

8. Jewelry

9. Motorised automatic gates on your driveway

10. An olympic gold medal

You do not need ANY of these things to "win" at life... yet most of them are to show off, or in the case of example number 5... taste really good.

I for one, will try to get most of the achievements in a game. I'm not OCD enough to get EVERY one of them unless they happen to be reasonable to obtain. Not touching the walls in a racing game for an entire championship could just go ang get fucked srsly...

Games like GTA have had "hidden jumps" and "find the thing with the thing" for a long time now... in fact, most games had some kind of "secret" thing to find, even back in the 8bit days, and even before that! Game developers are just making more elaborate "secrets" in games, and thanks to Microsoft, everyone now calls them "achievements" which is kind of a shit word to use really.

I still prefer "secrets" or "easter eggs" or "special items" as the primary descriptive term... but that's just my opinion.

~Sol

What I like about highscores is the sense of competition, its just like having a winner of any sport game. Everyone wants to be the highest on a ladder.

Achievement should be something that you achieve through effort; often it is considered a goal, short and long term alike. Quite often those achievement would be notable; one can note a Ferrari, a framed diploma in someone's office etc.

But you don't see framed photos of someone stuffing as many sausages or eggs into their egg to get into Guiness' book of records. Neither does doing a double backflip over the trash can count as an achievement.

Let's draw a clear line, shall we? Getting into Guiness is an achievement. How you got there is NOT.