Too Human developer Dennis Dyack, "Gamers don't like 100 hour games"

This is the first time I have heard something this stupid. I am not going to be mean or anything but, I was kind of into Too human before this (note that I am in a too human club). I don't know about this game anymore, now that I have seen weak gameplay, and now hearing that this game is going to be short.

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=111784

Denis Dyack, one of the more outspoken developers of the upcoming Silicon Knights title Too Human, recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz and gave his opinion on what gamers these days are looking for in terms of length. One of his previous titles, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, offered about 60 hours of play, but Dyack feels that players no longer want to devote nearly that much time to any one specific game in this day and age.

"[G]ames have changed. People don't want that any more," he opined. "I don't care how good the game is -- I don't want to play something that's one hundred hours long. As much as I love World of Warcraft, I pulled myself out of it."

In contrast to the 100-hour epics of old, Dyack has stated that his upcoming game Too Human is going to be released as a trilogy, and he believes that offering it in three equally divided parts is going to be more beneficial to gamers.

"If we're going to craft an epic story, we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer," he later added. "At the same time, we wanted to do a game that has a chance to evolve and take advantage of development changes. We think the future is all about content."

However, Dyack does admit that the script for Too Human is "three times bigger than anything [Silicon Knights] has done before", making it an epic game in its own right. GI.biz later made the point that gamers would be forced to buy all three games in order to get an overall sense of the story, but Dyack denies this, claiming that all three games will offer their own self-contained plots.

"Too Human will be self-contained across each game of the trilogy," he affirmed. "There'll be more background for those that play all three. It's not a hook, it's a promise that if players want something epic, this is where to come. What we're trying to do is create something that moves the industry towards a very content-rich environment. I love trilogy books and series. We've got a lot of things to say in Too Human and we couldn't do it in anything shorter than three games."

Yeah, he's right.  I mean most gamers don't.....not all

He's right, not many gamers anymore like 100+ hour games, seems nowadays that 20-60 hours is a sweet spot.Zenkuso

[QUOTE="Zenkuso"]He's right, not many gamers anymore like 100+ hour games, seems nowadays that 20-60 hours is a sweet spot.drsports1980

Yeah i know theres gotta be standard now days to stay above, some games specially the graphical whores are really short so hopefully they can keep the graphical shine and pick up the game length. 

he seems to be forgeting about Oblivion I've put more then 200 hours into that game and never got old.......link-a-link

Yeah, that's a good reason why Oblivion gets such high ratings....because of the greatness of it, expanded over the amount of time you can play it.  I mean it's extremely hard to even be able to make a game that is 100+ hours and can be as good as Oblivion is over the whole 100 hours.

he seems to be forgeting about Oblivion I've put more then 200 hours into that game and never got old.......link-a-link

Not for everyone. TO me after 3 hours I felt that I wasnt progressing and there was just too many things to do. 

Open ended games like Oblivion are different. You could beat the game in less than 40 hours if u want. Its the ability to keep doing stuff your way that allows it to be that long.

Standard-narrative games should not ever be that long. Whenever I play an RPG after about 50 hours I'm ready for it to be over, even if its good. Shooters, platformers, et al need not be more than 20 hours as that lenth allows for more than a single play-through. I have never beaten an RPG twice, it takes too much time.

[QUOTE="link-a-link"]he seems to be forgeting about Oblivion I've put more then 200 hours into that game and never got old.......MR_SMI13Y

Not for everyone. TO me after 3 hours I felt that I wasnt progressing and there was just too many things to do.

cant argue with that, It go so overwhelmengly huge at the start of the game, but it kinda faded as I progressed 

I like a long game. This is one of the reasons why I prefer RPGs. With a RPG you more often feel you get your money worth because you get depending on game 30-70 and sometimes like Oblivion 200+ hours of gameplay.Eltroz

I'm not a child.  I don't get games for free. I purchase my own games.  I expect, and value, as much content as my dollar can buy.  I am insulted, offended, and disgusted by the fact that a developer might think that I do "not like 100 hour games."

On the contrary, I love one-hundred hour games.  Such games are, quite literally, the best buy I have for my scarce source of income.  A game of that size show cases, most of the time, a certain level of commitment and concern for the customer.  I don't want a game divided into 4 20-40 hour chunks; it's less game for my dollars.

I'm not a child.  Developers don't need to "divide up a game into managable chunks."  I am more than willing, and actually perfer, if you slap a proverbial table full of jaw-dropping gameplay infront of me and allow me to divide the game up as I see fit.

[QUOTE="link-a-link"]he seems to be forgeting about Oblivion I've put more then 200 hours into that game and never got old.......MikeE21286

Yeah, that's a good reason why Oblivion gets such high ratings....because of the greatness of it, expanded over the amount of time you can play it. I mean it's extremely hard to even be able to make a game that is 100+ hours and can be as good as Oblivion is over the whole 100 hours.

Yeah but the growing gap nowadays between casual gamers and hardcore gamers is just amazing, most casuals can't sit around playing oblivion like the majority of us hardcore gamers can, they just go nuts. I got extremely bored of games like FFXII and WoW after awhile because they were just time sinks, you never got time to do much else it was all or nothing whilst playing the game and they just dragged on to no avil. 

Although i think alot of gamers, specially around here are getting sick of these developers on both ends talking about what we gamers are like and what we want, they need to get over themselves and just listen to the communities because we know what we want and not them. 

It depends on the type of game. I prefer a tightly produced game of 10 hour length than a 25+ game with a protracted storyline and unnessasary 'filler' sequences to drag it out. Very few games can carry themselves over a lengthy period (some can admitedly). I'd rather finish a game within a reasonable time, enjoy it, then move onto the next. 100 hours? To finish it within a reasonable time frame you'd either miss out on other great games, lose your job or get divorced during the process.

I'd prefer something LIKE a trilogy, but all on one disc. Split it into acts or something. Like split it into 4 acts that are comprised of 25 hours each, and each offers closure, but also more questions and suspense until the final act.

I'd totally love that. . . 

[QUOTE="MikeE21286"]

[QUOTE="link-a-link"]he seems to be forgeting about Oblivion I've put more then 200 hours into that game and never got old.......Zenkuso

Yeah, that's a good reason why Oblivion gets such high ratings....because of the greatness of it, expanded over the amount of time you can play it. I mean it's extremely hard to even be able to make a game that is 100+ hours and can be as good as Oblivion is over the whole 100 hours.

Yeah but the growing gap nowadays between casual gamers and hardcore gamers is just amazing, most casuals can't sit around playing oblivion like the majority of us hardcore gamers can, they just go nuts. I got extremely bored of games like FFXII and WoW after awhile because they were just time sinks, you never got time to do much else it was all or nothing whilst playing the game and they just dragged on to no avil. 

Although i think alot of gamers, specially around here are getting sick of these developers on both ends talking about what we gamers are like and what we want, they need to get over themselves and just listen to the communities because we know what we want and not them. 

Yeah, exactly.  Like I don't want a 100 hour game where 1/2 of it is "time sink" as you put it (I like that BTW).  But anyways, it's a trade-off IMO.  I  want a dev to put enough stuff in a game to where I'd want to go through all the stuff.  If you're gonna fill my game with BS and garbage just to make it longer.......well then don't bother

20 hour single player = teh sweet spot. then, endless replay via online mp with downloadables= another sweetspotuseLOGIC

^^^^^^^agree 

I'd prefer something LIKE a trilogy, but all on one disc. Split it into acts or something. Like split it into 4 acts that are comprised of 25 hours each, and each offers closure, but also more questions and suspense until the final act.

 

I'd totally love that. . .

BK-Sleeper

You just reminded me of playing FF7-FF9, Chrono Cross and Legend of Dragoon ^_6 

I'd prefer something LIKE a trilogy, but all on one disc. Split it into acts or something. Like split it into 4 acts that are comprised of 25 hours each, and each offers closure, but also more questions and suspense until the final act.

 

I'd totally love that. . . 

BK-Sleeper

Yeah, that would be awesome, and only possible on blu-ray.  ;)

20-30 + Lasting replay value = Sweet Spot 

Some games like Zelda should be +50-60 hours though 

Please do not try to apologize or rationalize this industry's attempt to milk us of every dollar-and-cent in our pockets.  We should not demand or lower our standards to accept 20-30 hour gameplay.  Why do you think games can be saven now at virtually any point?  It's not as if the "average-gamer" is being forced to endure all of this gameplay in one sitting.

When do we draw an aritifcal line?  Has this line not changed?  Why should we set concrete standards?  I present you with a more pragmatic and consumer friendly alternative:  we should value and demand as much gameplay as a developer is willing to supply us for the average price of a game.

Some of you speak as if you must be glued infront of the game for 4-5 hour intervals to enjoy the 100+ hours of content that a large game provides you.  You speak as if the ideas or plot in the game are so fragmented that you cannot grasp them after stepping away from the game for a day.

Some of you speak as if the size of content, in porportion to your valuable dollars, does not concern you.  We should demand and LOVE as MUCH gameplay as a developer is willing to provide us for the average price of a game! 

You can pay 50 dollars for 100 hours of content.

Or you can pay 150 dollars for the same 100 hours of content divided into three small chunks.

I'll chose to save the extra 100 dollars, any day of the week.

AS an RPG veteran this comment pisses me off. Ok, maybe most don't, but I do and quite frankly, what's wrong with that? I've put in 125 hours on FFXII, 180 hours on FFVIII. Hell, half that time was just screwing around cause I love the games so much. My psone data for The Legend of Dragoon is at 203 hours....and I love every second of it.

If the opportunity is there, I'll put in 100+ hours on Blue Dragon, Lost Odyseey, Final Fantasy XIII and Folk's Soul. Why not? If they're fun, filled with optional quests and tough optional bosse, I'll put in 100+ any time to get the full gaming experience. It certainly doesn't half to be stretched out to 100+ hours, but if it's good, who cares?

i think a game should have a 20 hour minimum single player

 id prefer 30-40 hours though

seriously most games I can beat like in 10 to 15 hrs.

what they really need to do is make easy mode alot more harder cause most people just do easy and beat it.

seriously most games I can beat like in 10 to 15 hrs.

what they really need to do is make easy mode alot more harder cause most people just do easy and beat it.

gamer4life85

Easy is supposed to be easy, thats why its called easy.

Quality and length should not be confused. You can spend a few hundred bucks on a parachute jump that lasts 30 intense seconds. If it lasted for 30 hours it would dilute the experience. A 6 hour game would be good if it was a f**king intense 6 hours.

[QUOTE="MikeE21286"]

[QUOTE="link-a-link"]he seems to be forgeting about Oblivion I've put more then 200 hours into that game and never got old.......Zenkuso

Yeah, that's a good reason why Oblivion gets such high ratings....because of the greatness of it, expanded over the amount of time you can play it. I mean it's extremely hard to even be able to make a game that is 100+ hours and can be as good as Oblivion is over the whole 100 hours.

Yeah but the growing gap nowadays between casual gamers and hardcore gamers is just amazing, most casuals can't sit around playing oblivion like the majority of us hardcore gamers can, they just go nuts. I got extremely bored of games like FFXII and WoW after awhile because they were just time sinks, you never got time to do much else it was all or nothing whilst playing the game and they just dragged on to no avil.

Although i think alot of gamers, specially around here are getting sick of these developers on both ends talking about what we gamers are like and what we want, they need to get over themselves and just listen to the communities because we know what we want and not them.

I absolutely agree with this. One of the perfect examples of an addictive gameplay system is Phantasy Star Online - when you get into the game, it's simply addictive, the hack-n-slash gameplay, the growing power, the item discovery, unlocking new enemies and story.

Yet one of the perfect examples of going too long is also Phantasy Star Online. From about thirty hours in to about the eighty hour point becomes somewhat of a grind, you're finding new items and gaining levels, but you're basically re-running the same few areas over and over at higher and higher levels of difficulty, simply because that's where the exp / item mix is best.

From the one hundred to two hundred hour point, there are no more item drops, it really is a straight grind. You're looking for stat boost items, which you know come at regular intervals, but every rare you find is the same. Every twenty or so hours you can unlock one of the "ultimate" items, at pure random chance of course, if you're really lucky and kill the same enemies over and over again. You've got a game with thirty hours of "meat & potatoes" and 170 hours of cabbage soup with a distant hope of finding a chunk of ham.

I'd rather Too Human be aimed at a shorter game experience, I want to have the best set of armor in the first game, max out my character, and really enjoy trashing enemies with friends in the end game at around the 40 ~ 50 hour mark. At a certain point I'm going to have seen every enemy, item, level, et cetera - I'm going to know the story, I'll have completed the missions. Given the choice between filling those last hours with fetch quests and forcing me to grind for dozens of hours for items, I'll take a shorter game.

I'm not a child. I don't get games for free. I purchase my own games. I expect, and value, as much content as my dollar can buy. I am insulted, offended, and disgusted by the fact that a developer might think that I do "not like 100 hour games."

On the contrary, I love one-hundred hour games. Such games are, quite literally, the best buy I have for my scarce source of income. A game of that size show cases, most of the time, a certain level of commitment and concern for the customer. I don't want a game divided into 4 20-40 hour chunks; it's less game for my dollars.

I'm not a child. Developers don't need to "divide up a game into managable chunks." I am more than willing, and actually perfer, if you slap a proverbial table full of jaw-dropping gameplay infront of me and allow me to divide the game up as I see fit.

FoamingPanda

Mr Dyack is wrong, dead wrong. Do you think the amount of people that play world of warcraft would be if the majority of the game could be seen in 8 hrs? I don't think so. I've probably put three digit hours up on a few titles, and if I hear complaints that Too Human is short, i'm gonna have a problem with it. I'm pretty good at most games, so a short game to even a pro reviewer is even less lengthy to me. If Silicon Knights want to do a good actionRPG they should make sure they nail the epic quest good RPGs need to have.THETRUEDOZAH

Silicon Knights is giving you the same amount of game regardless as to whether they aim for thirty hours or one hundred hours. How much of World of Warcraft if "exploring the world" and how much of it is doing quests, grinding, et cetera because you're not strong enough to go to the next area yet? Exploration doesn't happen without hours of grinding, which is something I for one would like to see removed.

I don't want to have to put in fifty hours looking at areas and enemies I've already seen in the hopes of getting enough money for some item, or finding a rare version of an enemy that drops the item I need to survive some "epic" area of the game.

You're all acting like he's said "I'm taking away seventy hours of content" instead of "we're tuning this so you can see the entire game in less than one hundred hours".

[QUOTE="subrosian"]

[QUOTE="THETRUEDOZAH"]Mr Dyack is wrong, dead wrong. Do you think the amount of people that play world of warcraft would be if the majority of the game could be seen in 8 hrs? I don't think so. I've probably put three digit hours up on a few titles, and if I hear complaints that Too Human is short, i'm gonna have a problem with it. I'm pretty good at most games, so a short game to even a pro reviewer is even less lengthy to me. If Silicon Knights want to do a good actionRPG they should make sure they nail the epic quest good RPGs need to have.THETRUEDOZAH

Silicon Knights is giving you the same amount of game regardless as to whether they aim for thirty hours or one hundred hours. How much of World of Warcraft if "exploring the world" and how much of it is doing quests, grinding, et cetera because you're not strong enough to go to the next area yet? Exploration doesn't happen without hours of grinding, which is something I for one would like to see removed.

I don't want to have to put in fifty hours looking at areas and enemies I've already seen in the hopes of getting enough money for some item, or finding a rare version of an enemy that drops the item I need to survive some "epic" area of the game.

You're all acting like he's said "I'm taking away seventy hours of content" instead of "we're tuning this so you can see the entire game in less than one hundred hours".

If Too Human is anywhere near less than ten hours long, i'm most likely going to hold off on a purchase. I'm sick of games I can beat in a day.

This is the first time I have heard something this stupid. I am not going to be mean or anything but, I was kind of into Too human before this (note that I am in a too human club). I don't know about this game anymore, now that I have seen weak gameplay, and now hearing that this game is going to be short.

 

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=111784

Denis Dyack, one of the more outspoken developers of the upcoming Silicon Knights title Too Human, recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz and gave his opinion on what gamers these days are looking for in terms of length. One of his previous titles, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, offered about 60 hours of play, but Dyack feels that players no longer want to devote nearly that much time to any one specific game in this day and age.

"[G]ames have changed. People don't want that any more," he opined. "I don't care how good the game is -- I don't want to play something that's one hundred hours long. As much as I love World of Warcraft, I pulled myself out of it."

In contrast to the 100-hour epics of old, Dyack has stated that his upcoming game Too Human is going to be released as a trilogy, and he believes that offering it in three equally divided parts is going to be more beneficial to gamers.

"If we're going to craft an epic story, we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer," he later added. "At the same time, we wanted to do a game that has a chance to evolve and take advantage of development changes. We think the future is all about content."

However, Dyack does admit that the script for Too Human is "three times bigger than anything [Silicon Knights] has done before", making it an epic game in its own right. GI.biz later made the point that gamers would be forced to buy all three games in order to get an overall sense of the story, but Dyack denies this, claiming that all three games will offer their own self-contained plots.

"Too Human will be self-contained across each game of the trilogy," he affirmed. "There'll be more background for those that play all three. It's not a hook, it's a promise that if players want something epic, this is where to come. What we're trying to do is create something that moves the industry towards a very content-rich environment. I love trilogy books and series. We've got a lot of things to say in Too Human and we couldn't do it in anything shorter than three games."

drsports1980

I agree with Dyack in a few ways.

If a the stroy mode lasts more than 20 hours, especially on games that are not broken down into level structures, like Zelda and, Metroid and Final Fantasy etc, I very rarely finish them. If they are level based at least then I tend to just take longer and eventually finish them, one level at a time, sometimes over a very long period.

I like games that have a lot of replayability, possibly offered by a great multi-player mode, or by such strong design that you keep coming back to try new things and just play in the world, like I did with Halo. I don't however see that it is a neccessarily good option to have games that are so large that most people never even get to see half of the content.

Make them slightly shorter but add in massive replayability. Halo was a perfect example of game design in this respect, far more so that games like Zelda and Final Fantasy can ever be, based on the very way they are structured, IMO...

This is the first time I have heard something this stupid. I am not going to be mean or anything but, I was kind of into Too human before this (note that I am in a too human club). I don't know about this game anymore, now that I have seen weak gameplay, and now hearing that this game is going to be short.

 

http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=111784

Denis Dyack, one of the more outspoken developers of the upcoming Silicon Knights title Too Human, recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz and gave his opinion on what gamers these days are looking for in terms of length. One of his previous titles, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, offered about 60 hours of play, but Dyack feels that players no longer want to devote nearly that much time to any one specific game in this day and age.

"[G]ames have changed. People don't want that any more," he opined. "I don't care how good the game is -- I don't want to play something that's one hundred hours long. As much as I love World of Warcraft, I pulled myself out of it."

In contrast to the 100-hour epics of old, Dyack has stated that his upcoming game Too Human is going to be released as a trilogy, and he believes that offering it in three equally divided parts is going to be more beneficial to gamers.

"If we're going to craft an epic story, we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer," he later added. "At the same time, we wanted to do a game that has a chance to evolve and take advantage of development changes. We think the future is all about content."

However, Dyack does admit that the script for Too Human is "three times bigger than anything [Silicon Knights] has done before", making it an epic game in its own right. GI.biz later made the point that gamers would be forced to buy all three games in order to get an overall sense of the story, but Dyack denies this, claiming that all three games will offer their own self-contained plots.

"Too Human will be self-contained across each game of the trilogy," he affirmed. "There'll be more background for those that play all three. It's not a hook, it's a promise that if players want something epic, this is where to come. What we're trying to do is create something that moves the industry towards a very content-rich environment. I love trilogy books and series. We've got a lot of things to say in Too Human and we couldn't do it in anything shorter than three games."

drsports1980

I agree with Dyack in a few ways.

If a the story mode lasts more than 20 hours, especially on games that are not broken down into level structures, like Zelda and, Metroid and Final Fantasy etc, I very rarely finish them. If they are level based at least then I tend to just take longer and eventually finish them, one level at a time, sometimes over a very long period.

I like games that have a lot of replayability, possibly offered by a great multi-player mode, or by such strong design that you keep coming back to try new things and just play in the world, like I did with Halo. I don't however see that it is a neccessarily good option to have games that are so large that most people never even get to see half of the content.

Make them slightly shorter but add in massive replayability. Halo was a perfect example of game design in this respect, far more so that games like Zelda and Final Fantasy can ever be, based on the very way they are structured, IMO...

20 hour nowadays is whats considered 'nice.' Its a shame really considering how much longer they were back in the day, but thats because games are a lot more complex and deep now as a result of evolution. Pong has infinite value, GeOW doesnt. But then again, Sheep will say its 'teh graphicz:cry:'

Yeah innovation comes through greater creative freedom as a result of greater hardware to do so...