I hope that in the future game designers start designing short games with a higher content/time ratio with the intent of targeting them at adults. Adults in general have more money than time, and are not going to feel cheated paying money for a short game. On the contrary, they'll be happy that they had the time to enjoy it, and that the experience during that time was the best it could be.
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I have long felt this way as well.
Unfortunately, there is a very vocal minority of gamers who scream this idea down. These are the people from which the "game-playing loser" stereotype comes from - the people that really do spend nearly every waking moment churning through long game after long game.
They flood forums and Amazon reviews, screaming at how a fantastic 6-hour game was a "rip off".
I think there are a lot of adults who lead productive lives and would love to be able to play games that are finishable in a normal person's available free time. But they're not nearly as visible.
The problem isn't the vocal minorities. The problem is that if a game is too short it actually hurts sales. The game is rented for a weekend, or returned to the store to be resold as pre-owned.
An unfinished game is far less likely to be returned. You know, maybe some day you'll get around to finishing it.
Try looking at more indie games: Cave Story, Spelunky, Hero Core, and N all present polished gameplay experiences for the convenient price of free. There's plenty more where those came from, and as you branch into the multi-person studios who have the gall and audacity to charge a nominal fee, you find mid-length games in more and more genres. (I'd point out Aquaria, World of Goo, and Knights of the Chalice.)
To add: Desktop Dungeon with Derek Yu's tile set. Short-form "roguelike" that is actually more of a puzzle game. Takes less than 10 minutes to play a complete game.
I am on mobile right now, but search TIGsource for full links.
And to add to the discussion: games that I play the most are either online, procedural, or score-based. But games that I have enjoyed the most have all been highly focused, incredibly polished single player experiences. 10 years ago, these were long (30+ hour) games. But the cost of producing content has risen so much lately that you can only obtain this level of polish if you keep it short.
Speaking of mobile, I'd love to have that on my phone
The games I've enjoyed recently are mostly indie for this reason. Braid, World of Goo, Osmos, Lugaru. I'll check out the free ones you mentioned. I've heard of Cave Story but not the rest.
Spelunky takes ages: You can't just stop after one game of Spelunky.
Yes. I hope in the future there are more games of a similar length to portal & braid. Thats about the maximum I want to play a game. I'm in the middle of GTA4 at the moment, and the game is completely fantastic, but I'm getting to the point where I am hoping it will start wrapping up and giving me closure, but I just unlocked the whole map and don't even have all the weapons...
Some massively long games like GTA really need more 'skip' options available. I've played through the first 25 intro chapters a handful of times (different xbox systems). The first time they were annoying, and the third time they were absolutely tedious. I don't want to hear the long dialogue for a third time. I don't want another 'instructions' mission if I already know how to pick up a gun or deliver a car.
Game designers have created this logic that you must do X before you can see Y. If you haven't done X then you don't deserve to see Y. Yes, it can make it 'too easy' if you can skip anything, but I'm the one here making my own entertainment. If I've already read a novel and want to skip a chapter that was boring, I can skip it with the turn of a page. No author tries to stop you from doing that. Same with a movie. Just press Fast Forward.
What really bugs me is driving games. I used to enjoy driving games, but nowadays it seems that every driving game wants me to start off by doing dozens of laps in some crappy car to save up enough in-game cash to buy a slightly less crappy car, with which I repeat the process over and over until eventually I've saved up enough to buy the shiny supercar on the game's box which I wanted to drive in the first place. No thanks: been there, done that.
If you ask me, the best driving game of all time was Outrun. It plonks you in a Ferrari at the start line of a race, and you drive as far and as fast as you can in the time allotted. The more you play the game, the better you get, and you're rewarded by being able to see more of the world, but it doesn't reward you for just slogging through.
Exactly. If I have paid for a game, it doesn't make sense to prevent me from accessing large portions of it. At least provide cheat codes to unlock "undeserved" content.
I would have no problem with shorter games if the games were also reduced in price to compensate for the reduced amount of content.
Since that is not going to happen, I have a hard time agreeing with your wish that developers make shorter games. I mean, I'm not exactly in the poor house, but I'd balk at paying $60 for four to six hours of gameplay, even if that was a pretty amazing four to hours.
Braid, Portal, and World of Goo, three games that are going to feature in any conversation about shorter games, combine for a price of at most $60.
Also, cf. movie theater prices.
Well, those games are definitely the exceptions to the rule and I don't think they were the types of games that poster I was referring to was talking about.
This is exactly what is happening now for mobile devices like the iPhone - lots of casual games where you might play for a few minutes while waiting for the train. I find myself playing these quite often, and I haven't played video games in years.
Thats where the iphone store / congregate / etc come in IMO