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When a Game is Too Long - Respecting a Player's Time - Extra Credits (Patreon)

Published:
2020-08-11 17:30:01
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

If you ever need a masterclass on how to design open worlds with stuff that should be grind quests but feel fantastic: Yakuza 0

Files

Previews only

When a Game is Too Long - Respecting the Player's Time - Extra Credits

With games that continue to expand into vast open worlds and the number of hours a game takes to complete goes up and up and up, we have to ask ourselves: is this game really worth my time? Is this 90 hours of engaging material? Or is it 5 hrs of engagement stretched over 90? How do you design around potential grind fests, even when you're working in a genre that needs them so the player doesn't burn through new content, like MMOs? Even small changes to game design choices and UI design can save players some time and prevent people from burning out. Subscribe to Extra Credits for more episodes every Wednesday! http://bit.ly/SubToEC Get info about all our shows at https://extracredits.site ___________ Get your Extra Credits gear at the store! https://extracredits.store Thanks for participating in this week's discussion! We want you to be aware of our community posting guidelines so that we can have high-quality conversations: https://extracredits.site/extra-credits-community-code-of-conduct Contribute community subtitles to Extra Credits: http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg&tab=2 Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): http://bit.ly/ECTweet Follow us on Facebook: http://bit.ly/ECFBPage Chat and play games with us on Twitch http://bit.ly/ECtwitch Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/ECisonInstagram Follow us on Tumblr: http://bit.ly/EConTumblr ___________ ♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM http://bit.ly/1eIHTDS ♪ Credits Music: "Popsicle" by James Wong https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03470

Comments

Farzad Mansouri

I think a lot of AAA game publishers and developers need to hear this talk because the only thing they care about is monetary acquisition.

Øyvind Wallentinsen

The problem with open world games like Skyrim (other than that when the game world is too big, a lot of the contents end up being pretty shallow and forgettable) is that they add this huge overworld, to borrow an old term, and then they don't really fill it with anything. You'll have some encounters with bandits, an NPC who gives you a generic quest, or some backwater town or copy-pasted dungeon, and you might see some pretty sights along the way, but the travel itself is really just busywork. I wish these games had more survival aspects, something to do and challenge yourself with while you were out in the wilderness. Also make terrain features more than an obstacle or a backdrop. For example, I loved how you can climb cliffs in Breath of the Wild, giving you a challenge and also making mountain sides an actual part of gameplay.

Bill Lemmond

I've happily put thousands of hours into Sid Meier's Civilization 5 and 6, and the only little bits that drag are when the rest of the game is going so well, I simply hit my space bar for many units that now have nothing to do. But those are split seconds, during which I get to hop around the map, always a visual treat. The design does allow me to streamline anything that doesn't really matter to me. Thanks for this look at thoughtful design. I'll apply it to creating comic strips, that I hope will get to the points, always in interesting ways.