Anyway, three things tend to keep me going through a long game — story pacing, OCD completionism, and exploration (of the world, or the rules). With Oblivion, it was the OCD bit (must… complete… all… quests…), but with Dwarf Fortress, I’m constantly discovering new gameplay mechanics over time. That kind of sandbox complexity might be the way forward for those of us that like to sink hours and hours into a game.

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Replayability, however, can often fix this problem. Stalker may not be a long game, but I would be willing to finish it many times. Deus Ex was a long game, and I’ve probably finished it a half dozen times.

The only short game I can recall that I truly enjoyed was Portal. Other than that, almost every game I truly love will be long in time to beat. Also, what defines a longer game? Does Civilization count as long, or short? Does something like Starcraft count as long? What are multiplayer only games?

I think the focus on short games is a bad one, because people will simply become bored of playing the cookie-cutter version of the last short game they played. Longer games are often forced to be unique, and the gameplay is all the more fun.

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How can you even properly build narrative through atmosphere and different experiences and build the different factions relations if the whole game lasts a couple hours? By using cheap cut scenes that explain everything that’s happening in 60 seconds or what?

So, yes, Deus Ex’s length was a factor in its overall quality and everyone remembers it as the epic adventure that it was for good reasons.

I can give examples of epic games like Deus Ex, Fallout, Planescape Torment… How about you name some equally great games that were actually very, very short? I know there are some FANTASTIC short games, but we’ve been talking about this open ended not 100% linear structure of Deus Ex right now so, bring it on and I’m sure we can tear them apart for being much inferior to these examples. Narrative’s required as part of their quality so don’t go mentioning all the roguelikes you can think of which offer completely different things.

Mind you I’m not saying we SHOULD be talking just about Deus Ex-like games since mr warren was pretty vague in his statements, but it’s what you guys have been focusing on and it’s an easy argument to counter so, yeah.

Also can we please stop acknolweding that 100 hundred hour games are on the way out since they were never on the way in? He’s obviously exagerating to make his (stupid) point as none of the games he worked on took 100 hours and there are NO games that take 100 hours to complete unless someone deliberately avoids doing so for whatever perverted reason (Oblivion fanboys I’m looking at you).

If he was being literal then I’d agree with him and say “yeah, don’t give us 100 hour games, Deus Ex length is just about fine for us!” so, yeah.

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for the record i keep deus ex installed too and go back to it and finish it about once a year cause i think it’s the best thing eva! and i could bear to ask for any part of it to be cut i love it all, when i went to new york this year all i done was talk about parts from deus ex to my girlfriend, particularly the into, which i thought was a bit sad but i couldn’t help it.

but I’m not expecting anyone to come up with the same experience again and in a lot of ways I’ve moved on from it anyway, i defiantly exited to see a well made game set in a Disney universe much like kingdom hearts except square and their games don’t generally appeal to me so i missed out on that one.

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Deus Ex’s strengths came from it’s core design not the extent of its content and in terms of that core design Warren has never said anything about radically changing it.

He does however talk about “differentiate” themselves (Junction Point), which goes back to his previous comment about not wanting to make games about “guys in trenchcoats with guns” again.

Junction Point’s Mission Statement is a clear indication that although he has made some concessions to commercial realities, the core design philosophy that birthed Deus Ex is intact.

For games like that length doesn’t really matter, because you’ll almost certainly be playing it again several times, in different ways. To me that’s far more appealing than a game I might spend weeks with but will put away for good when I’ve finally finished it once.

I still have Deus Ex installed, but I’m remiss to invest too much time it in again because when I start it I want to finish it, and I know I’m unlikely to do that given the time I have and the other games I want to play. If it had been a shorter overall experience, I would almost certainly still be actively playing it, knowing that I could take a different character through the entire game and not feel like I had to abandon it at any point.

One hundred hours for a game in totality, sure bring it on. But one hundred hours before I even finish it the first time? I’m not interested.

On reflection GTA was a bad choice to make an example of because it’s the kind of game that you can continually dip into over the course of months, even years. A play style I understand, even if I don’t share it.

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maybe your right but you need to take the interview in the context of who it was coming from and what he’s said on the subject before and what experiences he’s basing his knowledge on.

It’s no secret he feels deus ex targeted a market it’s very difficult if not impossible to profit from and didn’t turn a huge profit for ion storm at least where as the example GTAIV made a stupid amount of money, they’ve returned on their investment after a few weeks on sale.

GTAIV had no input from him and he has no experience in that genre of game, i believe he’s speaking personally despite saying “One-hundred hour games are on the way out” this statement falls down pretty quick i think when referencing GTAIV but not when talking about Deus Ex, GTAIV was used because it’s a good example of a game with arguably 100 hours of content that the vast majority of people don’t get to the end of, but it’s not a good example of a failed or failing business model which would be cause of a game being on the way out, deus ex is however.

he’s very clearly saying, i think, that his next game isn’t going to be deus ex or even deus ex with mickey mouse in it, specifically when he says “If we’re spending $100 million on a game, we want you to see the last level” he’s not saying that about Rockstar or any other dev that’s junction point he’s talking about.

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Again, he specifically mentions GTA when talking about game length. He didn’t bring up Deus Ex, or even Invisible War. Maybe he doesn’t want games as long as Deus Ex, but maybe he does. All that can be taken from this interview is he doesn’t think games like GTA can remain financial viable as costs increase, and that makes sense. Rockstar had almost guarenteed sales of at least a million units before it was even released, few other companies have that so they can’t afford to put as much content in as a Rockstar or a Blizzard can.

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@Al3xand3r
most of the critisism of invisible war was about it’s more focused/limiting approach and this is what he’s talking about when he’s saying a game which isn’t 100 hours long.

i believe he’s saying a game like deus ex is which gives individually crafted choices will be forced to either become a more linear experience or a sandbox which give choice through procedural means.

this is not a new stance from Warren Spector he’s repeated this position more than once.

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Also, IW wasn’t just shorter, it was also far crappier. I’m not even sure I read much criticism about the sequel’s length, it was mostly about its quality, so I’m not sure why IW was brought into this discussion early on.

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First; you’re reading a lot into what was a very short quote. There’s simply no way either of us can be certain whether Warren meant Deus Ex length as opposed to Final Fantasy length (Which is what it sounds like to me) or Invisible War length as opposed to Deus Ex length (Which is what is sounds like to you).

Second; it took me roughly the same length of time to complete Invisible War as it did to complete System Shock 2. In the long run I’m much more likely to play Shock 2 again, but first time through both were very similar in length for me.

Third; I completed Invisible War in one fairly solid chunk. I’d left Deus Ex unfinished for months because around about the Undersea Base level I started to feel like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I had to force myself to keep playing, and I’m very glad I did. But if Deus Ex had been a few levels shorter I’d have had a noticably more engaging time playing it.

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