Ben-DutkaWhether it is or it isn't, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
We all heard the report that Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes might be only about two hours long . Recent reports have indicated that in fact, it's longer, while the developers seem to have acknowledged the two-hour estimate by defending it.
I know everyone's all up in arms about this, and I understand why. After all, you paid a certain amount of money and if you feel you were short-changed, that sucks. So, if you pay $40 for the physical retail copy of Ground Zeroes on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, and it only lasts two hours, you might be annoyed. However, I'm not sure I would be…I mean, provided I felt satisfied. "Satisfied" is a very subjective term, but I think everyone knows where their satisfaction level lies for each game.
The bottom line is that quality is not contingent on length. Sure, you might want more of a great experience, but that's not what I mean. If the game is great, if it didn't have a lot of filler to make it seem longer, if it didn't feel rushed, you're going to enjoy yourself. You'll finish it with a smile on your face. This is ultimately what matters, and I believe I can smile at the end of a 2-hour adventure and a 200-hour adventure.
Related Game(s): Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
"high end" and "backpage" don't compute together 😉
This series was never PS exclusive.
Ac4 was super good.
MGS was on the first Xbox
mgs has never been exclusive, we had mgs2 on xbox i believe and im pretty such the hd collection is on 360
Also Metal Gear Solid wasn't the first in the entire series, even if you don't include the spin-offs.
Metal Gear was released in 1987 on MSX and NES, Metal Gear 2 was on MSX2 and later PS2 before the HD Collection. MGS (sequel to both previous titles) was on the PS1 and PC, and also emulated on the Dreamcast. MGS2 was on PS2, but the expansion MGS2: Substance was released on the Xbox first then the PS2. MGS3 was also the only one not to be released on other consoles until the HD collection and remaster to the Nintendo 3DS. Then you know the rest with MGS4 and after.
I would never pay $40 for 2 hours of gameplay though I doubt it only contains 2 hours worth of gameplay.
Well knowing Kojima, about 1.5 hours will be mostly cutscenes. The rest will be gameplay.
😉
What if you weren't getting it for free though?
Free changes everything.
I do care about paying $40 for a two hour long game though… That's $20 an hour and just seems like a total ripoff regardless of the quality of the demo/game.
This game will bomb. No way anyone can justify a 2 hour game for 40 or 60 bucks.
You cant just justify a 2 hour game for 20 bucks for me.
Like other MGS games, it will require at least 5 playthroughs for the platinum. 10 hours right there.
I know Ben said that its 2 hours long.
But Game Informer actually said (in the magazine) that its less than 2 hours long on a first play through.
I've played demos that are longer than that and those are FREE, not $40 bucks.
Actually, it seems that it IS 2 hours long.
But once you know what to do, you can speed through it in 5 minutes.
^^^ From the same source.
I guess the money to pay Kiefer Sutherland had to come from somewhere, right?
Imagine the person who buys this not knowing how short it is. They're gonna flip when they see the credits start to roll.
Yeah that is a really bad thing though.
This is going to be the first simultaneous multiplat MGS game. For MANY people this will be the first MGS they play, and they are going to be SO disappointed.
I'm a bit miffed at the length, but I don't care I'm totally excited for it and can't wait to play this bad boy on my PS4. Glad it's not too long as FFX releases the same day and the week after inFamous Second Son. So MGS5 would have been on hold anyway.
I'm all about the quality, but I still require a certain amount of quality that is equally proportionate to the amount of money I spend.
I just don't see any game of any quality being less than 5 hours long and being worth $40, but hey, I'm cheap.
Length may have no impact on quality, but it does has an impact on experience.
It's like short movies – I do prefer full length movies. Short movies can be true gems in themselves, but once I enter a universe I like to stay there for a while.
That's subjective. I don't think it has any impact on the experience at all. My experience with Journey was far better than most other games that were ten times as long.
And there are also very masterful short movies out there.
But Journey is a perfect "short story" game. Not too complex, not too heavy narrative, not too detailed, more like a watercolour painting than a heavy oil painting. Almost abstract, and definitely not something they *could* keep going for too long.
A perfect short game.
To have a driven game like we talk about here, now that's a different matter altogether.
I have to agree with Beamboom on this.
Length may not be an absolute requirement for enjoyment, but it does tie into the overall quality of the title.
Also, the length of something can affect the enjoyment, only because the longer it is the more chances there are to enjoy it, and create memories.
You could say that Resogun is only 2 hours long. But I have played Resogun for 15-20 hours because it has such high replay value. I don't see MGS:GZ having the same level of replay value. I think i've played through MGS4 maybe 4 times? And that was to get the special items.
Last edited by Akuma_ on 2/9/2014 6:33:43 PM
Keep in mind that's 2 hours for a prologue, after which you have to buy the full priced game to finish whatever story this starts. Sure, quality can make up for a short game, but it'll have to be the greatest masterpiece in gaming history to justify 40 bucks for a short prologue. As much faith as I have in Kojima, even he can't pull that off.
Don't have a problem with it being only 2 hours. What I do have a problem with is paying $40 for it
Just like I wouldn't pay £10 for a 20 minute movie nor £5 for a 20 page book, I wouldn't be comfortable paying £30+ for a 2 hour game.
Okay, I know that the entire experience is more than two hours, with the side missions and whatnot, but with very rare exceptions, I tend to stick to the story before engaging in extraneous activities and for me, a two hour campaign is only excusable when it is for a game like Gone Home, which is incredibly straightforward and strongly narratively driven to the point that it could justifiably be referred to limited. This is because its limitations is what results in the final length; not some desire to be a prologue, or give gamers a taste of the game before the final dish.
Quality is king, yes, but here in Australia, the PS4 and X1 versions of Ground Zeroes will retail for $90AUD!!! I'm sorry. But that is simply unjustifiable.
Hey I didn't know you were a fellow AUSSIE MATE.
I also didn't know it was going to be $90 here. Is that RRP? Surely JB will have it far cheaper. Tomb Raider retails for $80 with most people selling it for $70.
But you're right, if THAT is how much they want to charge for it, I will pass.
Now that I think about it, why is this such a problem? ICO is normally 4-5 hours long right? But there's a trophy that unlocks after completing the game in under 2 hours. Must be the price. $40 for Ps4 seems too short.
There are two problems, the principle and the price.
A lot of people are okay with this, because this is just one game. MGS is the only series to have done this so far, to release what is essentially a demo and charge large amounts of money for it.
We should not allow this to simply pass by and accept it, once we accept it then we open the door for other devs to do this as well.
lenght of a game is a important factor in value of a game.
2 hours for 40 or 60 bucks?Never!
Then again. Can spend that on a nice lunch or dinner taking the wife out of an evening, so entertainment dollars are a fickle mistress.
If you love MGS buy it full price. If you wait, I am sure it will be cheaper after a month. If you buy it and it is short, play it again on hard and try to platinum it. I'm sure that will take a while.
Sorry but 40 for 2 hour is just wrong , no matter how you look at it .
not only value for money, but it hurts the experience as well.
countless times ive felt a game could of been so much better if it was a little longer, had a little more time to develop things.
hell thats the main reason why i hate buying downloadable games, i always feel half done.
R&C into the nexus a perfect example, a true return to R&C formula, a fantastic game, but could of been SO much better if it had the budget and ambition of ACIT.
People are so desperate to play mgs. This is a demo at best.
I see where the console exclusive missions come in, this is another slippery slope where we will start paying for demos.
I think that's a lot of nonsense. The game isn't aimed at being 2 hours, there is something much larger at work here. This is not like Journey which was a couple hours and you felt satisfied at the end. Journey was designed to be 2 hours or a short length anyways. This game is more than that building up to the next MGS. Their might be some satisfaction in that you got a taste of what's to come. However with the price point, and this basically being a demo, I'm not sure you can get the satisfaction that is desired.
This is stupid to me, the way the industry is nickel and dining everything.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 2/6/2014 11:16:54 AM
I've cooled down a bit from yesterday… but I'm still ticked. It's no one aspect of this situation that rubs me the wrong way, but rather the confluence of three big factors:
I'm a huge advocate for variable game length and some of my favorites are very short (like Journey). But a self-contained game like Journey is a complete vision, a final artistic statement. Ground Zeroes is literally titled a "Prologue" to the much bigger, final game. I haven't played this yet, and who knows? Maybe it will be well worth the price of admission. From where I'm standing now, I'm skeptical that will happen.
$30 for a self-contained game might be ok, even if it's short. But wouldn't everyone have been very reluctant to buy Journey if it was $30, and not $15 or less? I don't think many of us would be annoyed if Ground Zeroes cost, say, $10.
Finally, I just think this is not a consumer-friendly business practice. MGS's brand is still really, really strong, especially with serious gamers of a certain age (like me). I've bought at least three different versions of Metal Gear Solid 3 alone — I REALLY like Metal Gear. I think Konami looked at their sales data and concluded, not unreasonably, that megafans like me would probably be willing to pay considerable sums of money for a two hour sliver of a full game. They may be right about that — I may very well cave and buy this thing when it comes out, because I just LOVE Metal Gear that much — but I think it's wrong for them to use such a cynical approach.
I can, and may, vote with my wallet. but I'm also happy to voice my frustration on internet forums too. I hope Konami takes notice.
You hope that they will take notice? Konami will only care that you paid for it.
They don't care how much you yell or rant about this business practice being a sign of the times. Because paying that much money for something like this, will only motivate them to keep on pulling the same crap the next time they feel like it. Why would they do otherwise?
Look at Electronic Arts. Do you think they give a damn that 2K was able to produce better NFL games than they could ever do with their Madden series? EA never cared about any complaints about Madden not taking advantage of new hardware & being in a decadent state. Not as long as people paid for it. And because they do pay for it, EA won't lift a finger to fix anything about Madden.
I suppose it isn't terrible. Kojima has done OK with short games in the past (zone of the enders). But those seemed to be closer to 4-5 hours–at least for first runs.
But I definitely won't buy at $40.
One could say a night at the movies runs $40 for about 2 hours of entertainment–but at least at the theatre it is a better (different) experience than at home.
If I could play the story in a theatre for $40 I most likely would. That actually sounds awesome. Instead I'll play through the MGS HD collection waiting for the price to drop under 20
Kojima must be on some pretty hard drugs if he is crazy enough to think that I'm spending the asking price for Ground Zeroes for a paltry two hours of gameplay.
Or, in reality, one hour and forty five minutes of cut scenes, and fifteen minutes of actual Big Boss control.
Last edited by JROD0823 on 2/7/2014 2:02:46 AM
The thing you need to ask yourself Ben, is it is acceptable for all devs to start doing this?
Let's break this down to basics, MGS:GZ is essentially a demo for MGSV. Kojima has basically confirmed this himself. So is it acceptable for all devs to start charging near full retail price for demos??
Most people would answer hell no.
Once we begin to accept this as the norm, then it blows the doors wide open for other devs to do this.
Last edited by Akuma_ on 2/9/2014 6:22:51 PM