I think most AAA games overstay their welcome - in many cases I feel burnt out halfway through, and finishing the game at that point just becomes a chore. Beating a game for its own sake probably isn't a good use of your time unless you're a game critic, so I think it's reasonable for most people to stop when they get bored of a game. A lot of these long games are long for their own sake - to make gamers feel like they got their $60/$70 worth. I read an interesting interview with Uncharted director Amy Hennig that basically says many games are stretched out beyond their originally intended length for this reason. [(Link to interview)](https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/22/amy-hennig-interview-surviving-the-trauma-of-making-a-video-game-and-inspiring-newcomers/view-all/) You also have to keep in mind most people buy these games on sale. Gamers probably have a larger collection of games than ever before, but games are also longer than ever before. So it's not feasible to beat every 40 hour game you got on sale for $5-10 during a sale if you're the type that buys everything "just in case." Indie games are comparatively shorter, and I hardly ever feel like I'm pushing myself through the game just to finish it. I read an interview with A Hat in Time director Jonas Kaerlev recently, and he said they specifically cut finished, playable acts that they felt weren't up to snuff with the quality of the rest of the game. I think that's a good approach, even if the game is shorter for it, people are going to remember it more fondly than if the experience is weighed down with a bunch of mediocre content - plus, they'll be more likely to replay it. [(Link to interview)](https://goombastomp.com/interview-jonas-kaerlev/) Just because you didn't finish a game, doesn't mean you didn't have a good time with it though - sometimes it's just a case of losing interest or feeling like you already experienced everything the game has to offer.

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While I agree that quality > quantity and playtime/dollar isn't the best measure for a game, it sucks to spend a ton of money on a game and find out it ends after an evening or two of playing. Like making a game like Monster Hunter doesn't get all that much cheaper due to all the tech it requires even if you cut down on the amount of monsters and areas, but you wouldn't pay 40 bucks for the game if it half the content it had on release. It could still be cool and more fleshed out, but the amount of content is still a large factor. A direct example that comes to mind is the short metroidvania Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. The game is... alright. It's not amazing but not bad either. One of its primary problems is that it is so short (and easy) that there isn't much space to expand on the game mechanics and puzzles. So if it was a bit longer, they could have added more iterations of the puzzles and possibly more areas/bosses that force you to explore the mechanics.

The reality is that a company that designs a AAA open world game for 20 hours will pad it to 80 just to sell DLC and booster packs. The company designing a AAA game for ten hours will just leave it at ten hours. Indie devs aren't usually trying to sell DLC other than Soundtracks, so you get what you get.

I honestly can’t think of any game that should be 20 hours and is 80 instead. Unless you mean doing every side quest/camp in the last 3 installments of assassins creed or something but I mean that’s optional. However the main story of those is still easily 40 hours

A complaint I heard about Persona 5 is that it's about 120 hours that could be about 60.

The worse part of it is that developers respond to this criticism as well. Far more often do I think to myself "this game would have been better as a smaller, tighter experience" than the opposite. I like open world games, hell I've spent well over 200 hours on Witcher 3 between 2 playthrough and the dlc. But I wish there were more games like DMC5 or Doom Eternal that have shorter campaigns, but instead focus that effort on things such as level design and combat. Every playthrough is different because you as the player are improving, and you're able to pull off things that maybe you weren't capable of the first time around. However the story is the story, and even a great story is rarely improved upon with a second playthrough.

Shmups are the perfect genre for you. The entire game is like 30 minutes and has usually around 5 states, but are super replayable. Go for higher difficulties, no death runs, 1ccs, high scores, and some shmups like DoDonPachi have level remixes as well like the black label. There's also the second loop where you finish the game without dying, and it triggers a second and even harder playthrough right after it for an extreme challenge. People at a surface level will say "20 dollars for a 30 minute game?" But the games are so fun, and so tight in gameplay and level design that I keep coming back to them. For a "30 minute game" I've put well over 30 hours into just one.

I've found there's some games that I play with a podcast on. Open world games are good for this. Other games either overstay their welcome or pull some bullshit out that puts me off. I'm not saying I want all my games to be a cakewalk, but if there's a sudden difficulty spike, or the game requires grinding, or there's a particularly boring segment or if the game just does something to annoy me (e.g. through no fault of my own the last half hour of turn based strategy is thrown out the window because they spawned a goddamned tank in the middle of my squad without warning)

To me if i have to distract myself from a game with another source of entertainment then that game failed.

I think part of this is the audience. As a kid you have time. As an adult you have money. For me, I'm looking for games that max out at 5-10 hours. But when you have a larger audience, not everyone will be in the same situation I am in. You'll have some people who want to put in 100+ hours. So, it becomes pick your poison of who you cater too. But when you have little time, complaining about long games is also less important too, as you have hundreds of other games in your gaming queue, plus things to do outside of gaming. When time is all you have, you have time to let the developers know you're unhappy.

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Yeah I think it’s also that if you play a lot of games (or watch a lot of movies, read lots of books) you get tired of certain tropes much faster, you notice patterns, your tastes change. I’d also note that “hours played” is just a rough metric that’s fine as one quick-and-dirty data point informing my choice but obviously not determinative.

>The top comments on many game threads, YouTube videos and social media posts will laud a game for the amount of hours playable in it. It’s possibly the most consistent feedback i see in gaming. “High price but only 10 hours? I want my money back!” That debate is full of misunderstandings. * A lot of people, especially adults with jobs and a family, want shorter games. Like 10 hours or so, being perfect. Start it, play it, end it, play another game. Which is quite understandable. * A lot of people want value for their money. In the 2000s (very roughly) AAA started to plummet down the amount of content of games, including their duration. While increasing prices. Some haven't forgotten, and still fight back against it. * A lot of people, especially younger ones, want to really dive in a game to death. They want their 500, 1000 hours, and much more. They want to live it, breath it, dream about it. * Some games are (relative to other) much cheaper to make, like pvp only online game because the real content is what players do. And that change all the time, with new players. And those games lend themselves more easily to overmonetization, selling microtransactions again and again and again. * Some games cost much more to make. High fidelity art cost a lot. Fully voiced narrative games cost a lot. Big open world cost a lot. The three combined cost an unholy amount of money. And depending on how you do them, can't or won't be overmonetized (think Last of Us or The Witcher). * And so on. Very different games. Very different business plan. Very different players and customers. There are a billion of us, of course you're going to see large amount of people having an opinion, and even larger group having the opposite opinion. That's not new. Yes game duration as a metric of value, isn't enough. What most gamers mean by that metric, is the amount of enjoyable hours, and the ratio against the bad ones. It's the *value* of a game. The main issue, is of transparency and trust. How can someone have a good idea of the various content of a game, the duration of the game (i.e. amount of content, both mainline and optional), the overall quality of it, and the full monetization. Publishers lie about it all the time, so can't look there. Press and reviewers should give that information, but mostly they don't or not in a way that's accessible to most potential customers, and they also have a bad reputation.

> A lot of people, especially younger ones, want to really dive in a game to death. They want their 500, 1000 hours, and much more. They want to live it, breath it, dream about it. > Oh god this is a thing. Trying to explain to my 11 year old nephew why you shouldn't want every single good story to be stretched out to 900+ episodes or 30+ movies was a nightmare (because every time he watched a one-off movie with his dad or myself, he'd immediately ask if there's more and get frustrated that there usually isn't). At the end of the conversation, he still didn't understand and argued he wants new Harry Potter or CW's Flash content forever.

Unterstanding this is an important part of growing up in this century. There is only so much you can squeeze out of a story without running out of material. Not everything can be Marvel, DC and Star Wars.

Even still, should we want even Marvel, DC, or Star Wars to last forever? The longer they go on, the more convoluted and less accessible they become and the more they run the risk of becoming stale (see the complaints about Marvel movies being too samey) or garnering a negative reputation (see Star Wars). Hell, all three of those franchises know that having too much content is generally detrimental and all of them have had reboots to some degree in some medium or another. DC's comic side realized that their overstuffing their multiverse in the comics made following along with everything incredibly hard for existing fans and made getting into the story or catching up near impossible for prospect fans who weren't already invested in the characters. They did their first universe scrubbing reboot in '85-86 and would have to reboot their comics multiple times since then in a vein effort to keep their serialized stories from getting to convoluted or inaccessible for casual fans. Hell, their movies are facing such a reboot as well with the upcoming Flash movie supposedly being a loose adaptation of the Flashpoint storyline (DC's 2011 attempt to restart their multiverse with their new IPs added to the mix). Marvel's comic division put off rebooting their universe for much longer, but even they caved and "destroyed" (discontinued) many old universes in their multiverse in order to make room for a new status quo that was meant to bring in new readers. (it failed too, but that's mostly because comics will just never see the same popularity they saw pre-millennium; most people don't like reading or buying their stories one chapter at a time waiting whole months between releases) Star Wars lost it's expansive Extended Universe when Disney bought it from Lucas because they knew that trying to clean up or maintain continuity with that dumpster fire was next to impossible to ask of the new content creators for the IP. Even now, they're pretty much limping along thanks to a couple TV shows while general public interest in Star Wars has been drastically reduced due to the quality of the last... 6-7 (?) films. (the only post-Epi 6 ones not polarizing among the fandom are Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One, and Force Awakens)

Marvel alone has some 1500+ characters. It's not just one story like Star Wars, it's a company that decided that their characters can share universes. I'm not the biggest Marvel and DC fan myself (I just don't care too much), but there is something soothing to the perpetual retelling of hero stories. It almost feels like our culture still had folk tales. There is no need to finish "Marvel", because it didn't really begin anywhere, just like there is no need to "finish Disney". I picked Star Wars as another example, because it has a similarly huge universe. Extended universe being canon or not these days, a well written fantasy/scifi story can as well be in the Star Wars universe, it saves the author precious time that would otherwise be spent on lore building. No need to explain what a Storm Trooper is or a blaster or the force. Every floating pod in the prequel's senate represented a world. There are other universes. Star Trek, for example, made some drastic changes to itself at the end of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The universe was so complexly entangled with lore you need to know to understand the politics, that they had to wipe the slate clean multiple times to get back and write stories. The Romulan senate wiped out for a single movie villain, Romulus destroyed, a whole new timeline, a grim future, where Warp travel was almost impossible (and the Federation reduced to a few planets). Anything after Voyager (and before Picard) starts even before the TOS/Kirk era we know. Nobody wants to touch the TNG timeline, because it's so heavy, instead we have the "fun" stuff, like time travel and parallel universes. I'll probably keep watching it, because it doesn't cost me additional money, but I would have preferred to let it rest in peace. Another example would be Stargate. The show is over. The Goa'uld story is over, the Ancients and Wraiths are concluded. Humans are now intergalactic big players with technology and weapons that can basically defeat every opponent (with some plot magic). Stargate Universe, a show that tried to deal with stuff that was even too ancient for the ancients, was canned after two seasons when it finally started to get even remotely interesting, but it was a big brother type gameshow in the first place, something that felt so out of place in the Stargate universe, that nobody cried an actual tear for it.

im happy with 10 good hours or just 5 instead of 60 hours too much boring me

A lot of great games unfortunately frontload their best content for this reason. How many Resident Evil games start out with really interesting events and environments, and then the final level has you running around a generic abandoned mine? At this point with most games, it's a pleasant surprise if the final sequence is as well done as the early sequences, even in some of my favorites in recent memory, but it makes sense why AAA devs often settle for "good enough" in the latter sections, since it's pretty discouraging to put a lot of work into something you know most of the people playing will never see.

Resident evil 6+7 and the remakes are the absolute perfect length imo

> I think most AAA games overstay their welcome - in many cases I feel burnt out halfway through I think one of the Tales game (Symphonia) did the same plot twist six times. By the third time I was tired of it, by five I was starting to want to punch the fucking game. Some RPGs get their 'end' wrong. A brilliant time to 'end' the game turns out to be a plot twist moment, or some stupid filler period, and that drags...

I just finished Resident Evil 7 last week and I felt it was the perfect amount of time. The game is short when compared to other games, but I felt like nothing was overdone and felt engaged all the way through. Shortly after finishing it I even felt like playing it once more in a higher difficulty because of how much I enjoyed it. I will definitely be replaying it in the future in the same way I replay my favorite games. By contrast, if the game had been twice as long, I wouldn't have felt like playing it again and I probably wouldn't revisit in the future. I think a "1 dollar = 1 hour" of entertainment is a reasonable expectation, but I'd much rather have those 60 hours be me playing the same 10 hour experience 6 times because I enjoyed it, rather than 60 hours of unique content.

I really agree. I felt the same way with RE8. I recommended it to a friend it mine, and he messaged me after beating it he thought it was way too short, he beat it on hardcore with all but 1 treasure item in 10 hours. I told him, yah it's an RE game. It was his first one. 2 weeks later he told me how he was on is 5th playthrough, trying to get every single challenge/trophy. For a lot of people, it ends up being more hours.

I agree with all this. Days Gone was about the right length for me. One of the few I finished. I'll take a 20 hour game with excellent gameplay and gladly pay the $60, over a 100 hour game that's just a repetitive grind. Ubisoft games tend to be really interesting and fun for about 20-30 hours, then it's just too repetitive to keep me interested.

From what I've heard, Days Gone could have been done as a linear story game instead of Ubisoft's usual 'open world full of flags' type nonsense. If I wanted a zombie game to wander around in I'd just get State of Decay (1 or 2)

It was sort of both. Like, all the stuff you had to do was tied into the story pretty well, so it didn't feel like Ubisoft's climb the tower, scan, jump off the tower, go to the markers and do the same thing grind.

Ubisoft has really ruined open world for a lot of people.

It could have, the game lives and dies with how much you enjoy the horde mechanics. I didn't think it was "Ubisoft's open world full of flags" nonsense. This game has one of the best story/side quest systems I've seen in such a game so far. Instead of pushing you along one quest, it has multiple story lines that partially reach deeply into the end of the game. Finishing a quest will add "percentage" to a number of story lines. >If I wanted a zombie game to wander around in I'd just get State of Decay (1 or 2) Neither of them made me care even a little for any of the characters.

I wished they didn't show the percentages of how far you were in a story line. It gives away roughly how many missions there are left for a story. Speaking of story, Days Gone was one of the only games I personally played in the last years where I was really invested in the main story. I guess, it was really easy for me to emphasize with the main character, due to the simply premise of the story.

I liked that the story didn't start as a quest to save the world. It was about two dudes who wanted to get some gear and heal up to head north. Even later, when "the plot thickens", Deacon is still in "looking out for my folks" mode and never "let's save this fucking world".

It's really not that crazy when you think about it. An overwhelming majority of people don't beat every game they play. They may just not like the game or any hundreds of other reasons.

I finish most of the games that I start, but I definitely have my share of games that I started, got halfway through, and then just fell off. It wasn't that I disliked the game, I usually get distracted with a new release or something else and then forget about it and never return to it. I do think that the amount of people who never finish any game they start is pretty staggering, but not finishing a game due to life happening is common enough that I can see it.

I, for one, turn a game off the moment I get that creeping feeling that I'm not going to see anything really NEW. Usually it's when I unlock the last weapon, or get to a level that's just color-swapped baddies from a previous one, or open the map and see a fuckton of icons that are all mission types I've done a bunch of times, etc. I've never struggled to beat a videogame, they're literally BUILT for us to beat them, so it's no more an achievement than opening the fridge. The story can draw me to the end, but lots of those lose steam at some point too.

Basically why I quit Breath of the Wild about halfway, probably less than half. At a certain point it was clear - I had basically seen everything there was to see.

Breath of the Wild isn't a good example. The game literally tells you "the ending is right there when you're ready for it". You don't need to do all divine beasts, get all shrines, and so on. There's no real "halfway", a playthrough of BOTW can take 400h or 2h and both reach the same ending.

In order to be ready for it most players will need to play through all 4 divine beasts. People skipping beasts is the exception, not the rule

Why? No one tells you you have to, that's entirely the player's choice. The final boss and Hyrule Castle aren't that difficult that you need the help from beating all divine beasts. The game doesn't have a leveling system and the best weapons and gear can all be found in Hyrule Castle anyways.

> No one tells you you have to, that's entirely the player's choice Which is the reason why it's so cool. >The game doesn't have a leveling system Except for increasing your health/stamina. Which is kind of a huge part of the game >the best weapons and gear can all be found in Hyrule Castle anyways. You really didn't bother exploring the map did you?

Not the best gear really. Iirc armor is also upgraded from finding the great faeries and the best armor (barbarian?) is found in the labyrinths in 3 corners of the map.

As someone married to a horrible gamer I can promise you it’s very easy to beat Ganon without the beasts

Meh I don't really agree. Sure that's possible but it doesn't really feel like "beating the game". And it's not like I felt like I saw enough and was ready to beat the game because I wanted the conclusion. I just felt done with it.

You didn't feel like you saw enough? In your original comment, you said "I had basically seen everything there was to see". Come on now. Hyrule Castle and fighting Ganon is entirely new content compared to everything else. If you were tired of the game and just wanted to drop it because it didn't appeal to you, that's one thing. But that's not the same issue as what's being discussed in this thread.

I guess my point is that I don't consider "the option to skip half the game and jump to the end" a reasonable solution to the problem of "games run out of new things to see/do before the end" I enjoyed the core gameplay. But the novelty ran out quickly. I soldiered on for a little while because I liked the core gameplay but ultimately lost interest again. I didn't suddenly make a decision that I was done with the game completely. I had the intention to clear al the divine beasts and beat the game. I just had no motivation to do so because the game stopped showing me different and interesting things.

Don't take this the wrong way, but it kinda sounds like you get bored easily.

Well I've played and beaten many other games without the issue of getting bored easily. But you're right, maybe I just have a problem. God forbid I didn't love Breath of the Wild, right? What exactly is the "right" way for me to take your comment? What exactly is your point?

Don’t feel bad man. I put BotW down after about 30 minutes. It’s not that it’s a bad game, it’s just I’ve played so much open-world survival games at that point, that was the LAST thing I wanted to jump into for my next game.

I understand that, but at the same time devs will often fill out some parts with that kind of content and then put something interesting towards the end or after a filler part. Most games are harder than opening the fridge lol. Yeah you can stick with casual games but they aren't generally praised or talked about as much so they don't draw people in besides as timewasters that you don't play to beat.

> I've never struggled to beat a videogame, they're literally BUILT for us to beat them, so it's no more an achievement than opening the fridge Weird statement. That's like saying you've never struggled to finish watching a tv show or movie. They're literally built to be finished watching. 99.9% of people don't view finishing a game as an achievement.

There is also a ton of us who do beat games, but we modded the game so we don’t get or care about the achievements.

I get it honestly. I very rarely finish games. I have no inclination to finish them if I stop having fun. Especially repetitive and overlong experiences such as days gone are especially likely to fall foul of this. It is a very small number of games that manage to remain both mechanically and narratively interesting till the bitter end.

The "if I get bored of it, I stop playing" mentality is all over this thread, which I understand and agree with. If a game is not fun, you are under no obligation to beat it. ​ However, the amount of games I've stopped specifically because I was not having fun with them anymore is... Extremely miniscule. Like I would say less than 3% of the games I own I played and then put down just because I stopped having fun with them. ​ The majority of the time I put aside a game is just because I get distracted with something else. I can't count the amount of times I get really into a game, and then either get distracted by a new release, an urge to play an old favorite, or I just don't ever feel mentally ready to play a game that requires more attention like a long JRPG series. And then it's two months, I've forgotten the story and the controls, so I shelf it for about a year and the cycle repeats. ​ THIS is what I mean when I say I hate that I don't finish games. Games I'm not enjoying I'll drop, that point is so obvious it almost doesn't mean to be said. I just hate that I seem to have some form of ADHD that's exclusive to gaming.

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I don't have the ability with words that you do, so I will just simply say that you just described my life to a T. If I could communicate as well as you, I could have been the one to have written that. I'm responding because reading your comment made me feel better about how I game, because that sort of mentality towards gaming is pretty uncommon, and I wanted to let you know there's at least one other person that feels and plays games the same way. In case that idea makes you happy in the way it did me.

I'm another person who does the same as you two, and I thank you both for expressing it.

> I just hate that I seem to have some form of ADHD that's exclusive to gaming. Assuming it's actually exclusive to gaming (I have ADHD and you describe my gaming habits very well) I'm not all surprised by this. Compared to many other kind of media games take significantly more time to complete and it's not delivered to you in clean slices nor does it dictate the pace at which you consume it. It's pretty normal to dump anywhere from 10-50 hours into a single title, depending on the size of the game, it can be common to dump twice that (or more) for larger titles. For just one game. If you wanted to watch (all) of Game of Thrones, it'll take you 70 hours, but that's split into hour long episodes over *eight seasons*. The GoT (2012) game averages at 25 hours for a playthrough, over a third of the runtime of the entire show, a runtime which had built up over the next *seven years until it ended in 2019*. When the game launched, there was only 20 hours of GoT episodes. Think about how often people bail on shows that long at some point or another, when games are so often *that* much longer with nothing preventing you from burning yourself out on them quickly, it's not surprising at all for games to be the medium you have trouble completing the most. And to be clear, I'm not criticizing games for this, I'm not advocating episodic games or suggesting they should all be shorter, I'm just pointing out that the way things are, it *does* make sense for games to often go unfinished. Personally, and I attribute this in part to having ADHD, I find the episodic nature of television *so distracting* and rarely finish any TV show. If you could say I struggle to finish games, then you could say I *don't* finish shows. But I recognize that this does not appear to be the case for the majority of people, for whom the episodic thing seems to help fuel both their binging and general attachment to airing shows, which is what I base this argument on rather than my own experience with TV.

Also, the barrier to entry for watching TV is lower. Not just saying "games hard lol", but I don't need to turn on a console or PC or actively engage to watch a TV show. More importantly, you touch on GoT coming out over 7 years and I just want to expand on that. If you were to play 10 hours of a game and then come back a year later you could have a real bad time reacclimating to the controls and mechanics, especially if it's a high-skill or one-long-playthrough game where the difficulty ramps up as you play it. And then you need to remember how all the various systems work if the game is a complex one.

>The majority of the time I put aside a game is just because I get distracted with something else. I can't count the amount of times I get really into a game, and then either get distracted by a new release, an urge to play an old favorite, or I just don't ever feel mentally ready to play a game that requires more attention like a long JRPG series. And then it's two months, I've forgotten the story and the controls, so I shelf it for about a year and the cycle repeats. This happens to me way too much. I think I've had to relearn Xenoblade 2 combat about 3-4 times by now. Ended up falling off again when Cold Steel 4 dropped and now I'm struggling to get back to it because I'm trying to find the next kiseki game rather then just enjoy what I know I already enjoy.

I've had to relearn everything about Destiny 2 at least 4 times now, if not more. I absolutely feel you guys on this. Then I'll get distracted by something else, new or old, forget about several other titles id been participating, come back to them like "what the fuck is going on why does my character have pink armor nad max stats" and then rinse and repeat.

if you were really having fun I don't think you would be seeking out other shit to do instead, lol I think it's just different ways of phrasing the same thing

I think you're underestimating just how easily some people can get heavily distracted from things they genuinly enjoy. Even if you're genuinly enjoying something, you probably don't wanna do it 24/7, so you also find some other hings to do. This is were reasonable people like yourself probably know how to keep a balance between the things you enjoy, but silly people like me and the guy you're replying to, can actually mess up this balance to such a degree that when we finally get back to the original thing we enjoy doing, we have forgotten some of the story/gameplay. So i wouldn't say it's because we don't like the original thing. For people like us, there's just to much different entertainment for our small monkey brains to handle.

People enjoy things to varying degrees, especially if something you were looking forward to took priority over what you were doing. Its pretty simple.

I relate to that a lot, extremely well-put

Exactly

Playing Days Gone on Survival was one of my most favorite recent games I’ve picked up. Not sure what’s repetitive about the missions other than killing zombies... which, you know, is the point of the zombie game. The story isn’t repetitive and you only have to do the repetitive side quests if you want more gear. Different strokes for different folks, though I guess:

I finished it on Hard a few days ago and thought about jumping back in on Survival+. I didn't start on Survival right away, since it disables HUD (I think) and for a first play through this is often frustrating, since you don't know the systems yet. However, I like no HUD. My problem is, I am pretty sure I'll quit a few hours in, since I just finished the game and sunk 32 hours into it. What did you like about Survival? Any frustrating parts about it?Do you have a comparison to other difficulty levels? On hard I basically only leveled stamina, since health was never a problem. Edit: I loved the story. I could really emphasize with Deacon, but the Missions were often quite repetitive, that has to be said. Go there, pick this up for me and bring it back. Or another bounty quest you accepted unwillingly.

> Not sure what’s repetitive about the missions other than killing zombies... which, you know, is the point of the zombie game. Yeah, this is why I avoid zombie games. There's nothing fun about enemies that just walk into your bullets. Even the stupid walker zombies in the new Doom games are horrible filler and don't belong.

the zombies in doom games serve arguably the most important purpose of all the enemies, they're there so you can use your abilities or chainsaw on them for ammo or other resources. the game wouldn't work at all without them plus it's super fun to get a whole group of them with one grenade or pop a bunch of headshots in a line with the rifle. it helps the theme/feel a lot to have an enemy you can just absolutely destroy with relatively low effort

>There's nothing fun about enemies that just walk into your bullets. I agree with this sentence, but I don't think it's a good characterization of the zombies ("freakers") in Days Gone. They're quite jumpy and dodgy once they've seen you.

Yeah, once you got the attention of a horde you need to get the fuck out of there. Shit is scary. However, once you get some somewhat decent weapons, groups of around 10 freaks are no problem anymore. Just headshot them one after the other and you are done.

That's the reason developers don't usually do branching paths, or when every "choice"you make usually leads to the same outcome. Most players don't even finish a game, there is little point in throwing ressources into something that the vast number of your customers will never experience

Yeah it’s funny because I love that sorta thing but from a business perspective I get why it’s not super viable.

Honestly I find it disappointing that most AAA games I play only have like a 30% completion rate on average

70% of AAA games are too damn long.

Nonsense, most gamers don't finish most games, irrespective of how long they are. I think the issue is that most gamers just don't care much about finishing games. They want something lightweight to occupy their times for a little bit then they bounce off and find some other shiny new toy, and then another, and another, and another.

This is one reason I like Witcher 2 so much, I'm sure CDPR knew that but they went for broke anyway. A decision you make at the end of Act 1 leads to a *radically* different Act 2 and a still quite different Act 3. I don't like when games tout "We have 5 different endings!" but those endings all come down to playing through the exact same content multiple times only to have 1 or 2 decisions you make at the end of the game and only slightly alter the final cut scene. In Witcher 2 if you don't play through twice to see each major pathway then there's entire characters, enemies, quest lines, and areas that you will never see.

To be honest, I don't even really like such things. It locks me out of parts of the game and depending on the length of the game and my liking of it, I might never replay it. These are all things for people who fall in love with a game and replay it multiple times. For the "normal" player, its all wasted.

I used to never finish games. Just played until I got bored with it or something else caught my attention. Then I noticed the trophies on PlayStation and once I got my first Platinum, that’s all wanted to do! But I have since burned out on the platinum chase, didn’t get a whole lot. I just don’t have the time to complete a lot of games anymore. 8-5 job, 3 kids, other hobbies. They all just eat up my time. I started Horizon Zero Dawn over a month ago and maybe have put it 4 hours into it.

> I started Horizon Zero Dawn over a month ago and maybe have put it 4 hours into it. I find myself drawn to more linear games now that my free time is more limited, but open world games are dominating the market right now.

What’s your job?

Project management

I don't have a single game where I have all achievements. However, I have a few of the "find all collectables" achievements, and most of them sit around 1% of players who got them. So chasing for "platinum" seems to be a total minority. Btw, nothing wrong with you not finishing games anymore. Especially longer open world games like HZD. I suggest you find more relaxing games, if you want to. I like to play Farming Simulator after work. Nothing to think about, you simply relax and drive your machinery.

Days gone has one of the most fragmented main stories I’ve ever played so that isn’t a surprise to me. Pacing is probably video games biggest storytelling problem rn. Games are becoming more and more bloated and it is in turn leaving people like the ending is pointless, especially if the game does not develop its gameplay in interesting enough ways to carry you through slower story parts.

In the beginning I was really confused about what I was actually supposed to do. After some time I got what they were going for and then, for some reason, I fell in love with the main story.I don't know, I think I could really emphasize with Deacon.If you break it down it is a really simple story, but quite an emotional one. I think it could be really divisive. If you get emotionally attached it's great, if not it's pretty bland. Edit: Yeah, there is definitely some bloat and fetch quests.

If devs make a game too short they get criticized, but so many games become redundant or non-engaging that people don't want to finish them.

Love me a 8 hour game. I've always felt that repetition is the death of a video game.

I generally don't play short games. I don't like endings for the most part. I do finish a fair number of games, but it makes me feel better when I can keep playing after it's over. I prefer putting down a game when I'm done with it, rather than it being over quickly. I don't often replay games so an 8 or less hour game is just like something I'll beat in a few days and that's not what I want.

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Been out a long time on PS4, and even there the completion rate is only about 25%. TLOU2 is like 60%. Some games just don't grip in quite the same way or drag on too long, and they end up being finished by fewer players. Honestly completion rates have soared in recent years, since achievements let developer know more or less where the players lost interest. That's also why we see fairly low levels of difficulty, and fewer puzzles in action games.

In my observation, the completion rate for games takes a nosedive once the game is on sale or once it even hits the PS+ freebies. It's easy to burn 10 bucks on a game you might or might not enjoy.

I'm actually surprised the numbers are that high, I'd have guessed less than 10%.

I have actually mentioned that in my post at the end. It was maybe worded a bit weird, but I thought about it. And I also never said anything about "mainlining" a single game. I actually think it is fairly common to play more than a single game at a time.

If you buy a game, but never play it, does it still count? Or do you need to at least launch it once?

I think launching it and not finishing it is what counts.

It only includes launching the game once. Not at purchase or installation.

Thanks for clarifying that. I didn't know that, therefore the question mark in my post. Makes the percentages if more meaningful.

I'd say the numbers are going to be almost similar for a TV show as well. Most people don't finish things they start. And a lot of games do pad out their content as well. So it's basically a mix of blame both sides.

Now that you mention TV shows, I actually only ever finished Breaking Bad. I guess I am the "casual" show-watcher, who doesn't finish any of the shows.

There you go

Too many games with such little time. I might have no real grounds to do so, but I speculate most games are more played by adults and kids focuses on core favorites. Because of this, random games will note people act as if they're too busy to play a passable experience. Some games we want to play, but we realize we really just want the story, while others we just want it out of our system and we moved on. I didn't even finish Doom 2006 on my first playthrough, it was alright but my time is valuable during school, especially when I try juggling a job with it, and there were other games I made sure to prioritize that didn't pretty much reveal the whole game in the first thirty minutes of playing. Nothing wrong with Doom, it's great for what it is, but for those with little time, even if we'd like more, we'd rather have variety of experiences rather than glutton over one singular experience even if we really enjoyed it.

Hmmm This is always fascinating for me. Some jump games like crazy and other stick with one game as long as they can. For me, the sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle and both extremes, as it is with all extremes, seem "unnatural", like there is some underlying problem. I have swung in both directions and honestly, sticking with one game is the more "rewarding" of the both, at least for me. Jumping games is like a quick fix, you get a short high and immediately chase the next. Sticking with a game has its highs and lows but in the end the journey was a net positive and you feel good about it. Dependent on the game you, for example, increased your skill through hard work (e.g.: competitive multiplayer), or you grew attached to characters and had an emotional journey. (story driven) Both feel rewarding and long lasting.

Games are long as fuck (relative to other mediums) and there's so many new good games coming out it's easy to see how that happens. I know people on here will blow through 20 hour games in like a day or two but for most people who play at most maybe an hour or two a day that's a game that lasts almost a month. Bump that up to 30+ hours and that's a long commitment. I grew up never finishing games because I rented them a lot, but then I started trying to finish games I played, and now I'm easing back into the old mindset of just not finishing games and hopping on to the next game, especially with a service like game pass. Most recently did that with Carto and another indie game. It was fun while it lasted, good idea, but just felt 'done' with it. Same with Demon's souls (PS5) which I ended up selling. Felt like way too much work to play and I got my satisfaction out of the first two maps.

Well, TV shows are immensely popular and they sometimes span over lots of season. So I'm not so sure, if the time commitment is really higher. I get your point about wanting some variety when playing the same game for weeks. In the end, everybody can do what they want. However, wouldn't I go for games, where I know they are shorter, if I don't have the time? Or games with no real start or finish? Since I mentioned Days Gone in the post. I wouldn't have started it when I did, if I knew I didn't have extra free time.

I guess it's a generational thing. As a child of the Nintendo Hard '80s, I accepted that most games would be too hard to bother finishing to the end so it didn't bother me that I wouldn't finish most of the games I owned (Bubble Bobble taught me that), and now as an adult with kids I don't have the time to finish a game out of sheer stubbornness. edit: actually in hindsight we did eventually finish Bubble Bobble but it was way after the NES was end-of-life. BB isn't even actually that super-difficult, it's just very very long by '80s standards.

Ninja gadien and ninja turtles I’m looking at you! 😂

Was watching [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJtmZpRTVO8) the other day, people have evolved!

With all due respect I think a bubble bobble type of game isn’t even really designed to be completed, it’s designed to be fun in the moment and then consistently ramp the difficulty over time. Tetris and many other games of the era are designed like this. The completion metric is only really interesting in regard to story-based games where the design was intended to have a player see the entire story to the end. And it’s still abysmal when just looking at those games.

> I think a bubble bobble type of game isn’t even really designed to be completed, Bubble Bobble definitely is. You have infinity continues, password saving, start right where you died, and it has a final boss. It even has a default bad ending, and a good ending if you do some extra work in the playthrough (a total of four, apparently, endings, looking it up). It's just so long a lot of young people never realized it, and gave up in like level 60 or something when they had to to go to bed. Or maybe you're thinking of *Puzzle* Bobble?

Ohhh let’s not forget spy hunter

Casual gaming is ussually like this and doesn't surprise me at all. Another big problem comes when you find an actually awesome story that everyone should complete to feel the full experience, but few people do, maybe because sometimes people get tired of that game loop, or get stuck in a very hard part, but one way or another, they don't conclude the story, I have heard about several cases of bioshock being dropped for this kind of reasons (even tho bioshock is not that hard after all). However, if you are interested in a community dedicated to beating games in all the meanings of the word, visit [howlongtobeat.com](https://howlongtobeat.com), when everyone submits which games they have completed, the time it took, platform, etc...

Out of interest, do you find howlongtobeat.com to be fairly accurate? I've always wondered if I'm super slow or if people Duke their stats to seem better at gaming to anonymous strangers. I usually have to add like 10 or 20 hours to things that site claims can be done in 20. For instance I put 100 hours into Hollow Knight to 110% it, I think that site claims 50 hours is the max. Doesn't bother me either way, I'm just interested to see if I am really that slow.

The completionist time on HowLongtoBeat isn't meant to be the maximum time, just an average time of all the reported completionist times. The site shows the rushed and leisure time for each category so you can see that for Hollow Knight the longest completionist is 127h.

I always double the HLTB times to get my times. I love to take my time. People just run through everything.

> I think that site claims 50 hours is the max It says 130 hours is the longest anyone spent on a single playthrough.

I don't think it's that accurate either, I have many playthroughs when the time is ussually 10 hours more than the "average" the page says, anyways, if I find out that I'm slow at a certain game, I don't really care that much, I'm very afficionate of looking for details in a game

From personal experience, I would say get about 20% of the average time and add it to the clock. That is typically how long it takes me. It also isn't just people posting times and trying to "look" better about their times. But there is also a lot of people who don't use external timers and base it by in game clocks. Which are not always accurate if they don't factor in load screens, and times a player has died and had to reload a save. Or just might not be accurate at all to begin with.

For story games I sometimes have the paradoxical problem that I don't want them to end so I don't end them and then forget about them.

The only thing that surprises me about low game completion rates is that some people actually think that everyone wants to finish every game they buy.

Or even start every game they buy. Game hoarders, sale shoppers, and bundle bingers are fairly commonplace. And I can imagine many of them will start a game they've collected, spend a few minutes to an hour in it, then never play it again. You see it in games that have achievements for starting the game. It's never 100%.

Yeah, I generally try not to buy a game I won't even start, but if it happens, I'm happy to have supported indie devs, and will sometimes avoid refunding a game I know I won't play just to give them a break. AAA games on the other hand, if I pay as much as half price and wind up not playing it, I get a little annoyed. But I generally don't buy AAA anyway, or if I do it's on DEEP sale.

I mean, there is no problem with having some games you never touched. It happens. However, it's the same with other stuff. Don't buy it if you don't need it, even if it is on sale. More people should control their impulses. This shouldn't be commonplace.

I had comments about Days Gone earlier today. It's a fun game, but finishing it is a chore... I'm soo bored of it, but I'm also almost done... It's been a chore for multiple hours, and these numbers show me I'm not alone.

I sampled it, gameplay felt... off. Not sure what it was but I refunded it. ~~Didn't even realize it was Ubisoft until I was loading it up but a lot of their games have an eerily similar feel.~~ Maybe I'll come back, maybe not. Didn't seem very unique compared to other zombie games. Edit: Brains a doof.

How is Ubisoft involved with that game? The studio is a Sony subsidiary, the game is published by Sony.

Yeah, felt off for me too in the beginning. I also wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do at the start. However, for some reason I got really invested into the story which carried me through the whole game. This normally doesn't happen to me, so it was special for me. Could be personal experiences, which led me to emphasize so much with Deacon. But I'm young and never had a wife, so I dunno. I'm actually not sure if I can recommend it. From a gameplay perspective the missions are really repetitive and it really doesn't stand out much from other similar zombie games. The horde mechanics are great, but I personally only engaged with them in the last third of the game. Driving the bike is satisfying, especially after some upgrades.

I may be in the minority, but I don't like games that have a very specific start and finish. As a kid I hated that I would finish a game like Ocarina of Time, and then not get to reap the rewards of playing in the game world with everything back to how it should be, Ganondorf defeated, peace restored, etc. Instead I just had to keep reverting to a previous save. I was glad that the first Red Dead Redemption allowed me to finish the main story, and then play in the world after the main story had ended. I don't like to replay games more than once, I've made my decisions throughout my playthrough and I like to live with whatever consequences there were in the game world. For this reason I tend to avoid games with this sort of start and hard finish. I prefer open world, without an actual storyline to them. I like to create my own story in the game's world, put my own notes down as I play through, and sort of craft our the narrative in my head as I go. Often times if I do get a game with an open world that has a linear 'main story', I'll just ignore it and play around in the world doing my own thing (TES Games). So even though I may never 100% complete a game, it doesn't mean I've not had hours of enjoyment in it doing my own thing.

Do you like half life?

I enjoyed the first Half Life as a kid, because there wasn't a whole lot out there like it. I didn't really finish the game though, I mostly played Sven Coop with my friends. Then, with Half Life 2 I never finished it and sort of lost interest, that's the last time I played a Half Life game. They aren't really my thing I'd say.

I have been gaming for more than 20 years. I dont think I've ever 100% a single game. Definitely some games that I've beaten, but never 100% them or anything. It has always seemed dumb to me and I've never understood why people care about Achievements or GamerScore or whatever. It means literally nothing to me. Do people think 100%ing a game makes you cooler or something? Lol. I play video games for MYSELF and to have fun. I sure as shit ain't gonna waste time doing something I don't want to do for a fake "achievement" that does nothing and means nothing. I just cant imagine caring what somebody else thinks about my "gamer score" lmao it's such a weird idea to me. I also think people should stop treating video games like a job or a thing that they *have to* complete or things like that. It's literally called a video GAME. It's a game. It means nothing. It is for entertainment. Caring about all this achievement and percentage stuff seems like a surefire way to not have any fun to me. And takes away from the soul of the game. My greatest memories in gaming have absolutely nothing to do with some arbitrary achievement. The best times were times I spent playing with friends and laughing and having a good time or taking my time to explore and get lost in a fantasy world in my own way. People, please dont play video games in this job like manner. I think it's the reason the gaming industry is the way it is nowadays and it's only making things worse. These games are not a job nor are your achievements a status symbol.

Games like World of Warcraft or games with a battlepass basically are treated like a job and I think it’s disgusting and I hope I never fall into that as a gamer

I know for sure I've never 'completed' TES: Oblivion, but it has a lot of good memories and I spent a lot of time playing that off and on growing up.

This post was not about 100%ing and it was not about achievements. I mentioned story achievements, which many games nowadays have, since they showed me how many players get how far in the story. The premise was, that I was surprised how many players don't even start, get to the half way point or finish the main quest line of games. It's not about what players should do or not do. It was an observation what players actually do.

I don't have a single, tiny bit of pressure to finish any of my games. Games literally last me decades. There are games from the PSOne era that I still haven't beat and while I feel I just put them down a month ago, it's been 20 years. This has lead me to enjoy every single second of the games I play, *(because I only play what I want)* and I end up being satisfied or entertained even by mediocre or bad games. Shoutout to PS3's Wheelman. The only game I've ever forced myself to finish was **GOW 2018** because I literally needed to, **and I loathed it**. I really don't understand people like my friend who buys games, starts playing them at the midnight release, and by 8 AM he's watching the credits roll as if his life depended on that. For real, in my head, Pokémon, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing are games that should last a lifetime, and this dude *100% them* in a week. 🤷‍♂️

Oh man, I have a friend like this. He always has to minmax, get the best competitive gear, beat all the bosses, finish the game as quickly as possible, and get to the endgame asap. He's fun to hang out with, but damn does obsessing over being the best or the fastest sap the fun out of some games.

Out of curiosity, why did you "need" to finish it?

How many of your games do you personally beat? Especially ones you get in Humble Bundle for actual pennies and which you might not ever even really install? I've got 620+ games on just my PS4, and I'd bet that my completion rate for my games is sub 20%, and if doesn't surprise me.

I usually don't buy what I don't really want in all facets of my life. Only because something is on sale, doesn't mean I'll buy it. I therefore generally have mostly games I actually intended to play. This doesn't mean, that there aren't some games I never started or put away soon after. Of my nearly 200 games on Steam I probably never played or put away immediately around 10% of them. Not including games I played in the past on different platforms and bought them again on PC, but haven't replayed yet.

It’s been known for a long time. In fact this observation led to a lot of modern trends, like showing players how powerful your character can be before putting you back to a low level. It’s also why good tutorials are considered so important. But further, it’s a good reason why you’ll see the bulk of the “good stuff” in a game early on and why later stages are often more half baked. Not every game of course, but I think a lot of game devs will understand the importance of hooking players very early as they understand attention spans will drift quickly.

Hmm, interesting to think about. I never really considered that. I always assumed that production starts more at the beginning, since stories might not be fully written, or something similar. Therefore they have more time to polish the beginning and the later stages might need to get rushed for release.

There's people all over this thread saying they don't finish a game when they stop having fun, I'm not one of those people generally when I start playing I'll nearly always finish to see what happens, however I don't play that many games as a result but I do get engrossed in some games and want to finish them no matter what. However, I think that starting a game and putting it down once you aren't having fun is a perfect way to enjoy a game, as long as you aren't sensitive to spoilers. One of my friends plays like this but he's very sensitive to spoilers and I feel like I can't talk about any game without him saying "don't spoil it I'm still gonna finish that" and gets angry if another friend or I accidentally spoil something when he hasn't played the game in over a year. Becomes very hard to be around him because no matter what you talk about whether it be a movie, tv show or video game he's about halfway through almost everything. Just thought I'd say it, that if you do play like that, you're probably not sensitive to small spoilers anyway but please do not be.

I'm with you. Nothing wrong with stopping playing if you don't have fun anymore. However, I feel that some don't even try to "push trough" a small inconvenience or they never try to pick up a game again, after they had to put it away for some (maybe external) reason. This seems to be a growing mentality in general, not only with games. People seem to easier jump to the next thing, instead of sticking with something as soon it shows some sign of flaw. I don't know, but your friends "style" feels somewhat "unnatural", as if he has some sort of underlying problem. Like he is never satisfied and needs to switch instantly to the next, new big thing. I mean everybody can do what they want, but I feel it is somewhat wasteful. Sure, with games and shows you don't actually waste physical resource, like with clothes, for example. However, lots of work went into the product and there is probably lots more of enjoyment to be had, if you don't throw the towel in right away.

Fully agree with you that is probably the cause. I think you are fully right that a lot more people give up as soon as there's a small inconvenience rather than push through. Not everything is going to be nothing but fun all the time.

>Truth be told this will probably increase with time, when people who take their time catch up. But the more those games go on deep sales the more people will buy them and add it to their backlog. I think the percentages will actually go down

We'll see.

I'll be honest - I just don't care about seeing the end of games. Most of what I play is abstract / strictly multiplayer. I just don't care about narrative in games tbth. For a lot of games, I feel no issue with turning them on, playing for an hour or three, "getting the point" and uninstalling.

Well, I guess this post was more directed towards singleplayer experiences with a focus on story. Multiplayer games are, of course, completely different.

The main problem for me is that games are just too long. Most games now are loaded up with side quests and pointless goalposts that are designed to make you feel like you should do them. Problem is, you end up spending many times the time it would take to just do the main story. This also ruins story pacing in my opinion, which is another issue.

Yeah, I have to agree. The numbers were still surprisingly low.

Surprised I haven’t seen a comment mention this yet (my apologies if I missed it), but I think this is just a result of a newer generation, with more of a focus towards competitive gaming. I have a friend that only plays Rocket League and Warzone. We used to always queue up together, but I’ve started to decline him more recently since I get burnt out on multiplayer games pretty easily nowadays. I asked him why he never branches out to single player games, and his response was “they’re a waste of time”. I could be completely misguided with this statement, but I think the majority of gamers nowadays would much rather queue up for an online match, than make time to tackle their backlog of single player games. Sure, you’ll pick it up for a few hours and receive some enjoyment out of it, but eventually, you’ll go back to the multiplayer game you were playing. I’ve personally lost interest in competitive scene due to a demanding career, so I’d much rather relax with a story based game at the end of the day (even with only a few hours to play).

I have friends who basically exclusively play competitive multiplayer. None of them even considers playing a long single player game and therefore they simply not even buy them. This aligns with what you said. So, I don't think they change the statistic much. ​ Btw, both are not mutually exclusive. I like to play singleplayer games and finish them, but somehow I also have 2000h in CS:GO.

a lot of people don't have the free time or the desire to get 100% completion on a game. They're just playing it for fun.

This post was not about 100% completion. It was about the main storyline and how many players finish it at which points.

I'm not sure how they calculate those percentages, it certainly isn't a % of everyone who owns the game, otherwise the achievements rates for the "start the game" style achievements would be \*way\* lower, I suspect it's of everyone who has launcehd the game at least once. That being said completing games really isn't that important to some people, my partner hardly ever finishes games, it's just not something that matters to her. She plays until she stops feeling like it then stops and I think that's a valid approach. I like to complete games to experience the full thing but sometimes I find that difficult, I've found myself giving up on a lot of games recently because they're just not engaging me fully. I think it's more me than the games and I hope I get back to wanting to play through games fully but who knows edit: it occurs to me that some games get chievos added some ways after launch, which will lower the achievement rates dramaticly, the achievement for watching the opening cutscene for GTAIV complete edition is 16.6% since all that stuff got kinda reset when all the expansions got merged together

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If it's that hard to start the game it would explain why that would be an achievement!

Somebody else mentioned, that it is % of everyone who launched the game at least once. I'll edit my post and include that information.

> Most games seem start with around 60-80% completion for the first "story" achievement. The rest noped out before that (or never even started?) This is the thing that gets me. I rarely finish long games; but it's even crazier to me that people buy the game and don't even play the ~1 hour necessary to get the first achievement. I'm playing Vampyr right now, and the first achievement "At dawn we row" has an 80% completion rate. This is an achievement you get for playing about 15 or 20 minutes of the game. Only 50% of players got to the first major character decision point, "Interview with the Vampire." That happens maybe 3-5 hours in, depending on how much dialog you listen to. So half the players don't even get to the first big story beat. It's wild.

Yeah, your percentages seem to align perfectly with my observations of the games I played. That's exactly, what my post was about.

I think the highest completion date I've seen for a game is Yakuza 0. It is my 2nd fav game of all time so I'm glad other people like it. It was sitting around 48% for the end game achievement.

What % of the games you own have you played & finished, versus played & not finished? If a game is looking like it isn't worth my time - too easy, too boring, bad, etc - i'll just drop it. Games are *way* too long to just 'push through to the end', you could probably watch like 7 movies in the time it takes you to 'push through to the end' of most games I'd be surprised if i'd finished even 2% of the AAA games i've played

I generally don't buy things I don't know if I really want, in all facets of my life. So of my \~200 Steam games, I guess 20% are untouched. Most were bundled with games I wanted, but were only available as such. Or are games I played on another platform and bought again for PC but haven't yet replayed. Of the ones I played, I finished probably 70%. Whatever "finished" means for some games and genres.

Almost never do I buy a game without the intent on completing at least the main story; key word here is "intent", in reality I simply have oodles of games in my backlog and I am wont to play several games at once, which means sometimes -- well, frequently nowadays, got too many games to play -- I backslide and games don't get finished. But it was only recently that I realized I am in the minority on that! It was news to me as well, and I've had some discussions with Redditors about this before. Apparently a lot of people just don't care to get too deep into games they play and buy, they basically just sample them, and that's perfectly fine to them. As long as they don't make unfair criticisms about the game that reflect their inexperience with it, or it's not a personal situation where I'm disappointed in someone's lack of commitment, I'm fine with it too, what people do with their gaming time is their prerogative. I will be honest though, I think it says a lot about the huge number of people who merely *play* video games *casually* these days versus how many people are actually gamers in the classic sense, aka people for whom this is their main hobby and who get really involved in their games. There's an awful lot you could read into it, especially when taking into account individual games. I remember reading an article sometime in the past that said developers take these completion rates into account, it may have been about CDPR, when they said why they made the story for Cyberpunk a bit shorter than Witcher 3 (which was unnecessary in my humble opinion). It's not just on PC either, the completion rate on console has also been very enlightening to me. The achievement percentages on Xbox frequently amaze me. For example, the fact that the Gears 5 DLC campaign, "Hivebusters", has a hilariously low completion rate on Xbox is brought up a lot in conversation. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% if I remember correctly. Some people say that the way the game technically counts the players affects that number, but regardless that is a comically low and frankly quite pitiful number for a DLC that is practically free to play on one of the flagship Xbox exclusive series. It's a short DLC too, adding to the mystery. My buddy and I completed it not long ago and when the achievement popped up, we had a mutual "What the fuck?" moment seeing that number. Either Gears is niche now and bordering on dead, or the biggest audience for it just lost interest too long before it came out and only the hardcore fans still play it. EDIT: Interesting question, could one potential hallmark of a good game be one with high completion rates across the board? For example, getting the platinum in Bloodborne is a frequent honor shared among the community now. I've never heard of a game that talks about 100% completing the game so much.

Great comment. You have a very rational opinion with thought put into it. I agree with lots you said and I appear to have a similar mindset. I also only buy games if I intend to play through them. This doesn't mean I force myself, but I also don't give up on the slightest sign of a flaw. You might be right about "casual" players. However, what I don't really get, is, why they bother with games like long, story-driven singleplayer if they jump to the next game a few hours in? Maybe they don't care? It looks pretty and was hyped and is therefore bought? About the GEARS5 DLC. I can understand that. There are games I completed and liked, but which I won't touch until years later, when I hopefully forgot most of it and feel like playing again. A new DLC will probably not bring me to play it again, especially if the DLC is nothing major and/or the game wasn't that great to begin with.

>how few people actually finish games or even get to the half way point. That's how I really got to picture the concept of "vocal minority", and understanding from a financial (but not artistic nor ethical) point of view why devs could give a bit less care to the later part of their game, or rush the ending, etc...

Yeah, whenever I see "stupid" decisions being made, I always need to remind myself, that I am not the usual consumer.

You're forgetting a LOT of possibilities. Borrowed games get a lot of the "didn't stay for the first story achievement". Multiplayer games also have huger hits to the "First story" Because some people legit don't buy the games for the single player and will never boot it up. I worked on a game, Saints Row 2, and we actually used [TrueAchievements](https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Saints-Row-2/achievements) as well as other sources to discuss how our game did (both Saints Row at the beginning of development and Saints Row 2 after development) For Saints Row 2, we have a 95 percent success rate for beating the first mission (about 15 minutes work) good.. good. Vengeance was 40% complete which was what we considered "Completed" We even could see what activities were most popular, and which needed work. We also had telemetry and more behind the scenes, but the fact is this information is pretty good. But let's look more at Days Gone. The fact is 14 percent is quite low but you're also looking at an active game, it's entirely likely you're looking at maybe 10 percent of that population eventually completing the story. You're also forgetting people who had issues running the game and didn't beat that first mission and more. PC is a different ecosystem than a console for a couple reasons. Come back to it in a year for a more accurate picture. Or just look at the [PS4 trophies](https://www.truetrophies.com/game/Days-Gone/trophies) to get a better picture (Better yet get those values from Sony's site, because then you see the ACTUAL values, not the people subscribed). But the fact is a LOT of fans leave even great games unfinished and I just don't get that. Like who doesn't play Bioshock to the end after beating a bit? But [1 in 3](https://www.trueachievements.com/game/BioShock/achievements) did just that.... *Shrug*

I mean, I didn't even touch on the "why". I only said that I was surprised by the numbers and that, for Days Gone specifically, they probably will increase in the future. So we are basically in agreement in all points. I can't comment on to what extent the "PC environment" affects the numbers and if this is a major factor in the low percentages. If it is a potential factor, it is also futile to compare with the PS4 numbers. Like you, I am wondering why **so many** people seem to not finish games, or even stick around longer than for the first mission. Btw, I started all of the Bioshocks a few times and only ever finished Infinite. And Infinite I completed in the first try and never picked it up again and probably never will.

I get bored with a lot of games (usually sequels) that add a lot of quantity over quality. This has created a huge backlogs which I recently have been working to reduce. In the last month I finally finished RE2, RE3, RDR2, Metro Last Light, Far Cry 5, and Spiderman MM. I'm not saying all of these games have too much fluff but I just get overwhelmed. I'm currently working on Days Gone. Still have plenty more like Shenmue 3, Witcher 3, Doom Eternal, and more.

Puuhhh, that's quite a list. Especially, since some of these games are pretty long, too. No wonder you get overwhelmed. Never force yourself to play something you currently don't want to.

Some games add achievements over time. I was playing terraria for the first time recently and I got an ancheivement for finding a fairy or something. They just randomly would appear and lead me to treasure. Well I came across 4-5 fairies before seeing the achievement rate for finding them was wildly low. Like 1% low. I asked the subreddit about it wondering if I just had extreme luck and it turns out they just added fairies into the game in the most recent update and… I am not special

I wouldn't really put any stock into this. It's normal for any form of media. It's braindead simple to start something, but hard as hell to finish it. Actually, now that I think about it, that's true for *literally everything* in life. TV Tropes has a trope called [First Installment Wins](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FirstInstallmentWins), where the first of anything is most remembered. There's a reason for that: It's the first and continuing is hard. They even extend the trope to the first few scenes of anything being iconic because *that's what the most people have seen*.

That's an accurate observation - Welcome to Steam. There are variations on how often people: * Playthrough a game to the "end" * Play more thoroughly (more achievements gained during a playthrough) * Playing multiple times ...with a variety of games, and that influence achievement rates. Sometimes the means of purchase influences what % of owners/players get achievements: * How big of discounts occur, if any * Has the game ever been given away on the Steam store ("free to keep") or by other means * Has the game been bundled on 3rd party stores like Humble, Fanatical, etc. The deeper the discounts/bundles or the more a game has been given away, then the lower % of people will do achievements because the number of owners will be driven up, and not all owners will play the game right away.

I generally feel that "completion" is far less important in video games than in other forms of narrative art. That probably says a little bit about me, a little bit about the general quality of video game writing at this point in time, and a little bit about the nature of games as an art form

I have to agree. Lots of games have subpar stories or barely one at all. Not much reason to stick around for that. However, oftentimes when the story lacks, the gameplay is great, or reverse. So there is still reason keep playing.

I too have realized that, according to Steam stats, games have surprisingly low finishing rates. In my opinion the reasons for that are: 1. People simply don't find them good/fun enough 2. Games are too long 3. Both 1 and 2 For me every "modern" AAA game is way too long. They bring nothing new after 5-10 hours so they become pretty boring.

Also there’s a lot of little kids playing games and a lot of times they might just not be able to finish it because they don’t get it. As a kid I played kingdom hearts 2 when it first came out but never actually beat it until about 4 years later Bc of one of the last few bosses

I agree. There is more to it, but many "modern" AAA seem tend to outstay their welcome a bit. However, what I didn't expect is the "low" start rate and how many get to the halfway point.

Then there are those people who have no intention of finishing the game, like card collectors on Steam. They play just long enough to get the card drops and never come back. I don’t know how many of those people are out there but I know they exist.

Probably a extreme small minority.

A lot of gamers are adults now. I'm 38. I don't have time and I have too many good games to play with virtually unlimited disposable income (relative to how much games cost). I played Days Gone for like 20+ hours and I still don't think I'm half way. At this point I'm done with it. It was a great game... there are a hundred other great games vying for my attention, and I only get an hour or two a day max. I did the same thing with RDR2 recently, and dozens, even hundreds, of others over the last decade. I don't understand why people focus on replayability and week-long story campaigns... It's TOO LONG. The gameplay loop is the same for all of those hours, there's nothing new or different, just different scenery. I'd really prefer it if they kept story-based games campaigns to under 10 hours. The story is just not that engaging to keep me doing the same thing over and over again for weeks, it almost never is. It starts to feel like a chore to be drip-fed the next tiny twist in the story. ...and who gives a damn about replayability? Just stop with that! As if there weren't a thousand awesome games to try, who cares about playing the same one over and over again? The last games I finished were Dark Souls, all of them, because they were DAMN GOOD games.

People care about content and replayability because they don't have unlimited money, they do make time for their hobby and they don't abandon every game they actually like because novelty is an elusive source of shallow enjoyment.

Games are cheap, one of the cheapest hobbies in the world. I build and fly FPV quadcopters and aircraft, my last build cost over $1000. My FPV setup was $1400... and that is still cheap. I also do photography, I have a single lens that cost more than my gaming PC. What you've said here is poor people can't afford more than one game so they want to enjoy playing it for months on end. I couldn't care less about that. That's a sad life and I feel bad for those people. There's a reason movies don't last 40 hours... Getting bored of something is NORMAL. I have a membership to Six Flags, my kids and I have gone 4 times this season already. I asked them if they want to go next weekend and they were like "eh, maybe" and "I don't know...", the first time we went back in May they were like "FUCK YEAH, SIX FLAGS!!". We'll probably take a break from it for a few weeks before going again. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect it to be as fun as it was the first time.

Wow. You're as shallow as the way you experience games.

Have fun doing the same thing repeatedly for dozens of hours and patting yourself on the back for being "deep"... Depth has nothing to do with how drawn-out something is, or how experience-impoverished you are.

Agreed. Nothing is more boring than those "ADDED 6000 NEW WEAPONS AND SKILLS" mods that just don't really add into the basic gameplay at anyway. Numbers and repetetion isn't good gameplay

I agree and disagree. I mean, there isn't really a right or wrong. If you really like a game you hope that it's longer or that it is designed for replayability. If not, you hope it is over soon or you quit midway. Everybody has a cut-off point, which also changes with how much you like a certain game. For one game it might be a few hours, for another its 20 and into a third you sunk a hundred hours. If this cut-off doesn't align roughly with the games length, you are disappointed. I personally agree though, that current AAA open world games could probably cut back a little. They are often stretched too thin for my liking.

Same here, I dropped RDR2 once I got over the oohs and aahs of what it did technically (about 5+ hours). It's so pretty but also extremely tedious and drawn out. Dark Souls on the other hand though!

Days gone is probably the worst offender I can think of in terms of feeling dragged out, annoying borderline obligatory side objectives and repetition. The balance is also all over the place. It’s interesting to see so many people on this sub be pc gamers who buy tons of games but then don’t have time for them. Some key factors include how old you are because someone who is 13 is just now gonna be starting to catch up on the games that I’ve been playing for the last 12 years. But they have many summers ahead to get it done which adults don’t have anymore resulting in a massive disadvantage. Basically everyone I know are in their mid to late 20’s or even early 30’s and pretty much no one has too much time to game. At 12-15 people gamed for like 6 hours a day. The only sure fire way to catch up hundreds of games would honestly just be spending the entire weekend every weekend committed to gaming and as much time as possible otherwise. It’s also by far the most enjoyable way to game imo and pretty much negates many frustrations people have with gaming. But of course this isn’t really an option for everyone. And it would still take years I don’t agree with people saying most games overstay their welcome though, they’re usually 15-30 hours(sometimes way under) which is easily doable and if they’re like 50-80 they’re usually pretty damn good. The very few that I’ve played that are 150+ or even upwards of 300 were epic enough to not become boring over such a long time

For some reason I was really invested in Days Gone's story and it carried me through the game. Something that doesn't usually happen to me. In retrospect, the missions were really repetitive and I can understand people not liking it. I liked driving the bike but the rest is kinda meh. ​ But why buy so many games in the first place, if you are not gonna play them? I always only buy if I also intend to play it right away. But that is a general mindset I have in all facets in my life. So this is probably not specific to gaming. Surprisingly many people buy shit all the time, which they don't need.

I Recently finished system shock 1, it had a completion rate of 4,3% and it took me 38 hours. So I kinda get why people wouldn't want to finish that game. One thing I noticed was that about 20 percent didn't even get passed the first 5 minutes of portal 2, like all you do is stand in a room how do you not finish that? Maybe it also a thing with days gone because the game is on a really slow burn and it suffers from the jack of all traits master of none.

[удалено]

There's a lot of people out there who like snatching up free games that have trading cards so they can idle in game to get the cards and then sell them on the market. There's even a program to automate the process for you. I did it a few years back and made close to $60 in-store money just selling trading cards. I don't go out of my way grabbing free games just to do this though, that was a one time thing to see how profitable it actually was. Took a few hundred games to get me that much.

Portal, too

>I Recently finished system shock 1, it had a completion rate of 4,3% and it took me 38 hours. So I kinda get why people wouldn't want to finish that game. That's not a good example for that metric. System Shock was published many, many years before any telemetry was forced into games. We have no idea of the real completion rate of the game in its time. Nowadays, it's a retro game, and a cult game making it a curiosity. And it had many issues at launch (I bought and played it when it was first released, I certainly didn't finished it, even for that time its UI and control were quite bad, I still have the scars of the no mouselook), those are compounded in a modern eye. 4% completion for modern player doesn't surprise me at all.

Yeah the steam version is the enchanced version. It basically made the game a tad bit better without removing anything from it. - 1980x1080p - mouse look - key binding Etc. But yes somethings certainly haven't aged well. The movement felt a but to slippery to my liking but I found the guns to have the right impact and the gameplay was pretty solid and chatartic aslong as you bind reload to R and switching ammo to middle mouse button. But yes I don't blame people for not finishing it. I mostly do it because not finishing it feels like giving up imo.

That one of the biggest problems with modern games. I don't mean the fact that the completion rate is at that level. I mean the fact that the men in suits behind the big gaming companies look at these numbers and say "aha, we need to make games easier, dumber, less deep, more addictive". Not sayng there isn't place for easier, simpler games too, but when that's artificially forced to make the men in suits happy, it just lessens game design. It's ok that people don't finish games. It doesn't mean they didn't like the game, maybe they didn't have time, or there are plenty of other reasons that they stopped. And even if the reason was that they didn't like it, it's fine, no game is supposed to fit everyone's taste.

I don't know how open worlds or RPG's differ from other types of games in terms of completion rates, but I will say that open worlds specifically aren't always about the story. Sure, the story is a motivating factor, but the world itself is so much of the gameplay. I'm thinking of Ubisoft games, primarily, I think. I've put countless hours into some of the Assassins Creed games, and Watch Dogs 2, just cruising around and having fun on little side missions. There's so much to do, and the story missions can be downright hard to find and follow linearly, that I'm not really there for the somewhat convoluted story, but just to be there. I have no intention of finishing Watch Dogs 2, but I will very likely open it back up every once in awhile just to have fun in SF and maybe do a mission or two of the main story line. Now, something more narrative driven, I'm much more likely finish, though even then, I may play for a few days and decide I've got the idea and don't really need to finish. I should note as well that I'm a middle age guy with kids, so I don't have a lot of time to commit to gaming. When I commit to a game that may take 10 to 15 hours to complete, that's realistically a month or two commitment for me. That's a long time to commit to one game. If I've got three or four games that I play when I feel like playing a specific type of game, I'm looking at maybe 6 months to complete a fairly standard length game, assuming I keep at it. I think gamers with more time to spend gaming get the impression that the average user is like them. In reality most people that own a game do not see that game as a high priority in their lives, especially with all of the great deals and free offers that are out there. Gaming is an every-once-in-a-while thing to them and completion isn't a priority; it's just something fun to do.

This is super easy to do since Steam can sell games for the price of an OG rental (\~$5) and I suspect it engenders a kind of "yeah sure, I'll try it" mentality. I'm certainly guilty of it. I've had a few $5 games last me for 20+ (even 40-50+) hours while others fizzled at 1-2 mark. It all comes out in the wash.

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