What do you think of the game's length?

[flcn27]

A major negative point in reviews have been the game's length of 6 - 10 hours, which some consider too short. I have written a longer post about it here:
http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2010...ength.html

What are your thoughts on this? Please answer the poll and tell us what you think (here or in blog).

Please also state how long you estimate that you played the game. And if you did not like the length, tell us what would have been optimal.

I really hope that you guys are not taking that criticism too seriously. It's easy to make a game longer by forcing the player to backtrack, revisit old areas etc. but that's bad for the overall quality of the game.
I think the quality of those hours > the amount of playtime. 6-10 hours is a bit short but still around 2-3x longer than full budget games like Call of Duty: Black Ops and Medal of Honor (MoH took me 3 hours ). Plus, it took me around 15-20 hours to finish Amnesia. But I looked around a lot and had to replay certain parts when the game crashed but that didn't really annoy me because this is such a fantastic game!
Anyway, for a 'low budget' game ~10 hours is perfect. If you make it any longer the storyline might suffer a bit.

[Bourlingueur]

It took me about 10 hours to finish the game, but they were nicely filled both story and horror-wise. :p

For 20$, I think the lenght was perfect. Plus I'm planning on trying out some of the custom stories out there. So the fun isn't over yet.

[machinouze]

I voted #3. Last time I was scared by a game was when playing RE on psx, but then I was only 10 years old.
I didn't think I could live a scary videoludic experience again. This is nothing like RE, it's much much better. I played this game accross two weeks, because of the way it scared me, and the only thought of having to go back and finish it did scared me too ( and also because my girlfriend would mock me for the noises and loud breathes I take while playing). Especially when I had to run away from this water beast... I loved the experience in the Penumbra's, I loved it even more in this game, and am looking forward to the next experience that you will bring us.

I think that an experience of this intensity and quality, would it last only two hours, would be worth the money.

[Istrebitel]

I dont understand people tieing game length to its bucks. Its like if you consume the game and throw it away. Well, if games would be some sort of sustinence, then you could compare their lengths to prices...

It depends on why you play the games. I always played the games for two things:
1) Competition. Like League of Legends, World of Warcraft PVP etc
2) Sudying the alternative reality, finding ways to be effective, learning the game world, beating the game with different strategies, increasing my difficulty. This was the best experience i ever had - in games like X-Com, Might and Magic, Jagged Alliance... they do not make such games anymore

And Amnesia gave me a third reason. This is the first game that really, REALLY immerses myself in the story. It gives me pure emotion, like you know, Transformers that fed on pure energy - Energon... Same here. And i never had it before with other games, honestly i never even considered playing "horror" games since movies sucked and i didnt see any good games around either.

Therefore, Amnesia did not only give me the play value of X hours (which i have not yet done, i think i'm going much slower than others since i am a carebear, i thread carefully, build shelters out of boxes just in case, etc.).
* It gave me a hell lot of lulz watching videos over the net how the people FREAK OUT (youtube for "amnesia what the fuck" - its insane!)
* I will for sure replay it again to hear all the dev commentary (another X hours of play)
* It gave me something to share with my wife (we play it together since she absolutely loves horror movies so she likes to watch me play)
* It gave me a new insight into game design and completely new vision of videogames
* It gave me a new whole geanre to try out i thought i'll never have fun with, however i fear that only Penumbra game series would give me something similar, since from what i heard, alot of other horror games arent that terrifying
* It gave me something to talk to about to people and share
* It gave me a very interesting blog to read that takes on very important points
* It is like second in the last 10 years game that i bought and did not regret it (other was World of Warcraft). Yeah i'm a pirate and this is the way to live, because in our era, computer games mostly SUCK. I bought some games and i totally regret it (can remember Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Demigod, spent some money on League of Legends, Minecraft...) since either the game was crap (first 3) or the game was buggy and support was nonexistant (last 2)
* It gave me emotions i will remember and time that i spent with great pleasure. Honestly, i never thought being scared could be so great! Its almost like you regained something you had before but since long lost or forgotten..

And i think i can go on and on!

So, how can we just tie the game length to the game pricetag?
Maybe i am unique in that sense, but i often either think "this shit aint worth a dime" or "i'd pay way more for this if i'd be asked to".
Of course in current world with piracy around, which i think is not bad as it is, still provides temptation. And it was easy to win against the devil and give away 20$ for this game (even after i was already playing a fully functional pirated copy, and KNEW i could never worry about paying), it would be harder to give away 40$, and even harder to give away more.
Still, i must say this experience is worth to me MUCH MORE for that.

Think about it in this way: game worth isnt what you would pay for the box (dont wanna pay just pirate it and forget it). Game worth is a sum you would agree to exchange for all what the game gave to you.

I mean: ask those who bought the game and enjoyed it - would you agree now to be stripped of all those emotions, have all those good (or awful, however you describe fear and horror) times you had playing Amnesia removed, destroyed, taken from you with a 20$ bill as a compensation?

I doubt anybody would agree.

This means that a good game is worth much more than that.

Bottom line:
Game must not be X hours long per Y $.
Game must give you something that would make your time spent on it absolutely worth it, and leave you wishing for more, but on the other hand should not leave you with any anti-climatic feel (I can suggest you the Duke Nukem Forever ending to understand what anti-climatic means... or if you are anime fan, ending of Akagi would fit...)
Then you would never feel you got cheated on the value...

[finosi]

As some people said before, i think that too long games tend to be dull and boring.
I really enjoyed the lenght of Amnesia. It's perfect to me. And, you also gave us the tools to make little "expansions" of our own (custom storys).
So i really thinks that this is the right lenght for this game

[Brennenburg]

Thomas, 'AAA' game publishers like Activition and such do not even compare to you in my opinion, Frictional Games, by quality and support, are so perfect for me I really would pay $80 for another good game from you guys then a shitty Call of Duty game for the same price. Re-Playability people! Also keep the HPL3 development new coming through YouTube, really interesting!

[Istrebitel]

Honestly, i think not many people would agree to pay 80$ when fully functional pirated game is available.
What i think is that OST was the right direction.
There are people out there who'd LOVE to support Frictional Games, give them such chance!
Offer some bonus stuff for additional fee - i dont know, maybe a boxed version? Some kind of book or manual or something? Marketing dudes know better how to profit on that, but fact is: there are people who'd spend more than 20$ on the game and this shouldnt be ignored, however, making a high price for anyone would not be the best desicion imo...

[BendyBread]

Dont worry. You have a fair price and LOTS of good gameplay.

Dead Space 2 costs a lot more and the game isnt that long either.

[Sexbad]

Dont worry. You have a fair price and LOTS of good gameplay.

Dead Space 2 costs a lot more and the game isnt that long either.

Actually DS2 costs $30 on Steam and has about the same length along with replay incentives like multiplayer and new game+ mode.

[dph314]

I think it was great, considering the fact that quality is much more important than quantity. I would rather pay a certain amount for one hour of such an unprecedented thrill that I would be talking about it and recommending it to people for a long time, rather than pay that same amount for a 30 or 40 hour game that will probably never cross my mind again after I finish it.