Hypothetical - Guardian Trainer (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, June 23, 2014, 15:47 (3816 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I think maybe the core of your problem is you have correctly identified a fundamental fact of game development, that games take longer to make than to play, but instead of trying to find a balanced solution to the problem (like strong core gameplay with some repetition and level / upgrade gating) you skip directly to a position of no compromises ever. Would I prefer for Bungie to make me 10 years worth of engaging, unique, creative content? Yes. Is such a thing possible? No.

But what about instead making 30 hours of content that is absolutely concentrated with fun? There's nothing wrong with that!

I'm a big supporter of making games as short as they can be. Basically, you should try to concentrate the experience as much as possible and always be giving the player interesting things to do. You should cut out all the redundancies, filler, and boring parts.

You get close here to ignoring the economic realities of game development. The entire Halo series could be shrunk down to Assault on the Control Room, or any other arbitrary level, but then you'd be throwing out all the other fun mission encounters, and good story tellings, and epic visuals spread across the Halo series. Plus, "Assault on the Control Room: The Game" would not have inspired such a following, would not have supported Bungie's development cost or allowed them to go on to be a big name developer, and ultimately would not have allowed the creation of Destiny. Without the Halo series there is even the chance that the Xbox platform would not have been successful which would have prevented the development of many more fun titles.

I'm certainly not saying that short, concentrated games are bad, but I'm highly doubtful that they could support an industry that could make a $500,000,000 bet on Destiny, a game you've already had hours of fun with.

Vanquish doesn't take very long to beat, but every second is jam packed with excitement, challenge, and novelty. To me, that's better than a 15 hour game that strings things out for the purpose of length.

And yet, successfully arguing that any game strung things out for the purpose of length is very hard. Does Destiny have its beacon missions because it wasn't long enough, or because Bungie thought mounting and repelling a variety of attacks while exploring with friends and strangers would be seen as fun by most players?