

Why most people don't finish video games - nickolai
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-17/tech/finishing.videogames.snow_1_red-dead-redemption-entertainment-software-association-avid-gamers?_s=PM:TECH

======
jonnathanson
A lot of this is probably a function of genre, and the popularity and
prevalance of genres has changed substantially over the last 30-odd years.

This observation is based on a sample size of n=1=myself, so take it with a
grain of salt. But the games I've finished have usually been the ones that had
some sort of tangible or intangible progression dynamics built in. In other
words, the further I got in the game, the more powerful my character became,
and/or the richer the gameplay became. RPGs, adventure games, open-world games
in which the player could grow more powerful or collect items, games where you
built or developed something, etc.

Think back to the original Legend of Zelda. I bet that game had a much higher
percentage of finishers than many games of its era had. Some of that had to do
with novelty, sure. But a lot had to do with the progression of the character,
the acquisition of phat lewtz, and the unlocking of secrets. Endgame Link was
a substantially different character from n00b Link, and the progress from A to
B was remarkably -- if simply and elegantly -- engrossing.

Interestingly enough, you didn't really think of it that way when actually
playing the game. You didn't say to yourself, from the outset, "I can't wait
to slay the demon and save the princess." Instead, you concentrated on the
incremental step ahead of you: finding that next level; upgrading the sword;
finding the boomerang, or shield, or wand, or what have you. You were very
much in the moment, and not always (if at all) cognizant of the linear
movement from beginning to end.

Contrast this with an FPS or platform game. Your character isn't remarkably
different from beginning to end. The only thing that really changes is your
skill level, and/or the items you collect (but which are usually expendable,
or lost upon death and respawn). The gameplay is interesting, but it's self-
contained in its satisfaction: you can derive the same amount of enjoyment
from endlessly replaying a handful of maps in Modern Warfare that you get from
actually finishing the story mode. And then there's multiplayer, which in many
cases is so much more satisfactory than single-player that many players never
even _begin_ the story mode.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
> Contrast this with an FPS or platform game. Your character isn't remarkably
> different from beginning to end. The only thing that really changes is your
> skill level, and/or the items you collect (but which are usually expendable,
> or lost upon death and respawn).

I believe the term you're looking for is "emergent gameplay," where the
player's deeper understanding of the game is rewarded with new gameplay
mechanics, perhaps forcing them to revisit what they already know. And I'm not
simply talking about unlocking new guns. I'm speaking more of new abilities
that put new demands on the player. Things may be harder in the short term.

One example would be the portal jumping that the original Portal required. One
of the last levels in the game had you peering several stories up in a room
and realizing you had to get there, and you had to figure out how to do that.
The portal jump could be frustrating to learn, and yet, the game required you
to do so on one of the final levels.

IMO, most modern games falter when they require too little of the player. The
same basic gameplay is rehashed over and over with tiny tweaks applied each
year -- Call of Duty is essentially the Madden strategy applied to FPS games.
The skill curve is far too shallow, but if it were deeper, then they may not
buy the next version. This is probably because people don't necessarily want
to learn some fresh and interesting way to compete, they just want to take
what they already know and go at it.

~~~
zephyrfalcon
Wikipedia seems to have a different definition: "Emergent gameplay refers to
complex situations in video games, board games, or table top role playing
games that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay>

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Yep, that states it better. It is similar to how a *NIX CLI gives you a few
primitives that can interact with each other in powerful ways. You can see all
the primitives individually, but you probably won't grasp the myriad of ways
they can be combined until it is required of you.

------
wccrawford
More "shorter games" propaganda, huh? -sigh-

Players don't finish games because they get bored, or they can't. Not because
they don't have time. Because something else is more interesting.

Red Dead Redemption is an excellent example! I love GTA-style games. I fully
expected to love RDR. I played about 10 hours and then felt I had done
everything that I cared to and quit.

It was boring. The open world was too open, and not enough world. Travel took
too long and had nothing interesting along the way. Quests were simple and
boring, and didn't require any thought.

It might have gotten better, but I'll never know because I got bored and found
something better.

Other games (GTA San An, Oblivion, FO3, FO:NV) held me to the end and then
some. They kept me interested the whole time and I kept coming back for more,
no matter how busy my schedule got.

~~~
jpd
"Players don't finish games because they get bored...It was boring...Quests
were simple and boring...It might have gotten better, but I'll never know
because I got bored..."

You're kind of sending mixed messages here. You say it's not boredom, then you
say you quit because you got bored... But I think I understand what you are
trying to say. That people stop playing these games because they no longer
expect good games, they expect inspired games. If the games just keep
repeating the same thing over and over again it's going to start feeling like
work.

I think a good example of the problem of repetition is the game reviews for
Alice: Madness Returns, where they said the first 5 hours of the game were
flawed, yet fun, and then kept going. And going. By the time they reached the
end they were just sick of it. If a designer can't make a game that can hold
your interest through the entire gameplay they are doing something wrong.

------
patio11
Another reason, not covered in the story:

Of your production budget for games of yesteryear, ~90% went to creating
art/story assets (which can be trivially stolen) and ~10% went to creating the
multiplayer mode (which, if you host it on your servers, can't be trivially
stolen). Multiplayer programming is more sophisticated these days than it was
previously, but hasn't increased in expense by orders of magnitude. Asset
budgets have gone up by over an order of magnitude.

Gamers influence the production of future games by voting with their wallets.
They overwhelmingly vote for value locked down on servers (or consoles, I
suppose) because _that is what they actually buy_.

Similarly, why do games with persistent characters keep doing well? Is it
because gamers are completionist and we are learning how to push their buttons
with regards to avatar attachment really well? Yes, true to a point. Is it
because persistence is achieved via the server and this acts as DRM-by-
stealth? Also yes.

~~~
Goladus
That's a reason why there are more and better online games available now, but
that isn't a very satisfying explanation for the initial statistic. There are
still plenty of non-multiplayer games and 10 years ago the game completion
rate wasn't much better.

------
tseabrooks
Red Dead redemption is a poor example. The only reason I didn't play the "last
mission" is because I didn't know it was a damned mission. Something HUGE and
traumatic happens... Then the game sort've feels like it's over and there are
no missions on your screen... I only found out about the mission later from a
buddy after I'd sold the game that if you just kind of hang out for awhile
eventually you get another mission. This is a massive failure on the
developers side IMHO.

------
petercooper
I don't buy this "time" argument. In my case, I know exactly why I don't
finish many games. Because the novelty wears off!

The dopamine hit wears off after a while and unless the game is extremely
varied (Minecraft, GTA IV) _or_ can be easily completed within a week (Portal
2), I'm not going to finish it. After that point, it's just like all the other
games on the shelf.. interesting to me once but no longer "wow, cool!" Even
though I have the time, I'm onto my next "hit", as it were.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
Great multiplayer games are immune to this because they require something of
you, and reward you for the increased skill. (They _dont'_ generally reward
you outright for time investments in the way a heavily behavioral game would.)
So you will still have the initial newness hit, but then it settles into a
stable relationship where you agree to continue learning the ins and outs of
the game, and it reveals more depth to you, much like a relationship.

Such games are rare, but they do exist. Here's a way to spot it: if you hear
other gamers complaining a certain game is "elitist" (or similar rhetoric), it
might possess those attributes. Examples: Starcraft, Tribes, Marvel vs Capcom
(high level play), plenty of others.

------
nske
_"The future? Shorter games"_

Then I'm glad that, being in my late 20s, I got to experience a bit of the
past.

The 2 points I can perceive seem valid to me:

1) Some people were introduced to gaming in an era were 3d graphics were not
much to show of, so it was popular for companies to invest in deep scenarios
and gameplay -and if a company invests in such things, it makes economic sense
to make fewer, longer games, as these things are less reusable than i.e. a 3d
graphics engine. Those people are now older and have less time for games in
general.

2) Today's teens are introduced to games in an era where 3d graphics have made
huge progress and games are more popular to non-geeks (I think popularity
always pushes things to an easy, shallow direction), so the current majority
tends to value graphics and fast action more than other qualities. Also it
makes sense that modern trends such as "social networking" sites might be a
distraction, since they can loosely be categorized as "computer
entertainment", and there is only so much time "normal" people can sit on
their computer.

I'm sorry the game market is driven in that direction. I just hope there are
enough of us to justify enough exceptions that won't be lost in the noise. So
far I can compromise with games such as Dragon Age -even barely.

~~~
Deestan
> I'm sorry the game market is driven in that direction.

Established companies and the media go in that direction, but there are plenty
of indie/underground/weirdo games that stick to the old principles of depth
and originality.

<http://www.showmethegames.com/> has a nice index of good non-blockbuster
games.

~~~
nske
Thanks, I am positively predisposed over indie titles, though the only indie
CRPGs that I really liked were those from SpiderWeb.

~~~
Deestan
SpiderWeb is the only CRPG developer that doesn't just throw in experience
points and swords and calls it a day.

------
pragmatic
Why I don't finish games:

1) Lose interest - the game mechanic seems repetitive (puzzle games), I've
seen this level before, now it's a little bit tougher or it's a different
color.

2) Sudden ramp up in difficulty - I'm enjoying a nice casual game (Terraria
comes to mind) and suddenly I have to beat a boss character. As I play on a
laptop on the cough, I'm not as agile on WASD keys + mouse, which didn't
really matter until it suddenly went from minecraft to a platformer.

3) Needless frustration - either from 2 above or from dumn things. I really
hate consoles b/c I can't save when I want. I have limited time so when I need
to stop, I _really_ need to stop and save, not when the game designer decides
I am allowed to save.

Also glitches.

4) Choice - I've been playing since the NES/Dos days. We've never had so many
awesome and fun games. You can get a great game now for a few dollars on sale.
If I runt into frustrations (see above) I just quit and switch.

5) Laptop friendly. I can't sit at my desk on Saturday morning like I used to.
It's easier to play on a laptop when I have time or while my son is watching a
video (after our Obama mandated exercise time). Get home from the pool in the
summer slump onto the couch and nice laptop friendly game is nice.

Some recent examples:

Witcher 2:

Man is it tough (for me) to get started. But Normal is too hard and easy is
too easy.

(fun game, stopped playing it, can't remember why, probably pick it up again)

Terraria:

Fun game but sudden ramps up in difficulty, plus being a platformer and a
"mining" game makes it somewhat frustrating.

God of War (Series): Made me return my PS3. Again sudden ramp up of difficulty
as I had to do some kind of triple crazy jump. I just don't have the patient
to practice some stupid arbitrary move.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

I think there is a great niche for casual games (brilliant, right?) that
aren't diner dash but are still fun for the "aging" game like myself.

~~~
pragmatic
Also, I have a lot of "distractions." Wife, son, get an email, etc that I
really need to take care of.

When a game only tells me something relevant once and then is gone, It's
really damn frustrating.

Put in a quest log for zeus's sake. I may have been looking away or talking to
someone or doing something else on the side.

This is good advice for a program too.

Young people (man I can't believe I'm saying that) don't understand. You think
your app is the center of the universe. You don't understand that someone may
get interrupted while filling out your online mortgage application.

The kids may wake up, the wife wants something, you get a phone call. Don't
_punish_ people for this. Don't let my session time out, etc.

~~~
jerf
"Put in a quest log for zeus's sake. I may have been looking away or talking
to someone or doing something else on the side."

... or coming back to a save point halfway through the game after two years.
My game of Persona 3 spanned three years, I think. Didn't have a reason to
finish it until suddenly my evenings were tied down with caring for a new
(sometimes colicky) infant, which isn't a literal 100% of your time job, but
the shattered remnants of your evening left over certainly aren't useful for
much else.

------
cbs
This article seems to ignore the fact the point of a game isn't about reaching
the end, its almost by definition about the journey. Just because someone
didn't tick that particular checkbox it doesn't mean that there was too much
in the game, just that they didn't tick that checkbox.

Unless the game is single player only and very tightly on rails, completion is
really dumb metric of game quality. Even when it is one of those games, is it
a bad thing if a game contained enough content to deliver a satisfying enough
experience that someone is full before then end? And still has more to go back
to if they get hungry again? A game can have an unnecessarily padded length
that turns a player off, but thats a separate issue. That case is an issue of
level design and game quality, which are not measurable only by completion
rates.

I know games are software Skinner Boxes, but if they actually care about
player experience, they're optimizing towards the single goal of completion a
surprising amount. On this issue they don't, it's the business side thats
driving the look at length and completion rates. They care about being able to
sell more titles. This article is a showing where the industry (as far as the
AAA space) is going, shorter games.

Less in a single package means more sales. If completion rates are low,
someone who wants more of game X can just go back to the software they have on
the shelf. If the game is designed for a high level of completion, it drives
DLC sales. A lower average time per title means that it will be sooner that
the next title is bought.

------
spartyfan10
I loathe online multi-player. A good, long single-player campaign is still all
I want. While 10 hours of awesome is better than 20 hours of meh, why can't I
get 20 hours of awesome? $60 is still a lot of money for a game and I'd
appreciate a high time, high awesome ROI.

~~~
wazoox
The problem with online multi-player is that generally, if you're a normal guy
with just an hour to spend, you simply get instantly destroyed/swept the floor
with your guts by the no-lifers that are spending their whole lives playing
the very game you're trying to get into.

~~~
samlevine
If just now learned how to play chess and only played it for an hour every
week you'll likely find that people that play it every day (and have been
playing it for years) have an advantage over you.

This isn't the fault of the game, it's a problem with not matching you with
players near your skill level.

~~~
wazoox
In fact the only MMOG I'm playing regularly only allows people to play two
turns a day, preventing actively anyone from spending hours a day on the game,
and that's a great idea.

------
dazzawazza
I don't think it really matters that people don't finish games. The point is
that for £40 I can get between 10 and 100 hours of entertainment (Portal to
Zelda). That is a bargain and it much better value than many other forms of
entertainment (cinema, DVD, Gig, Pub, Theatre). The only thing that beats it
is a book.

Although there can be a feeling that you've paid for N levels so you should
get to see N levels that just isn't going to apply to some games.

------
rickdale
I was speaking to one of my students (11yrs old) about the length of video
games just yesterday. He explained to me that campaign mode in video games is
just for fun and to be replayed, the real game is online. We both agree that
most next gen games are short.

Remember the original Ninja Turtles game for nintendo? 20+years later and I
still find myself a few weekend nights/year trying to get to another part of
the game.

------
kbatten
Probably the biggest reason I will leave a game unfinished is if it takes too
much effort to get back into the game. There are plenty of times I will take a
break from a game, even one I really enjoy playing, and more often than not it
is _easier_ for me to start the game over than to try and figure out where I
left off, what I have to do and even the general gameplay (key-commands,
items, etc.)

When I was a kid I could play a game from beginning to end without stopping,
and I had a lot fewer games available.

One thing that has helped me is game walkthroughs, I scan up to the point
where I'm at and get a good idea of strategies I had previously learned, as
well as the story.

One thing that game developers could do is actually provide this information
to the player. Basically create a walkthrough based on what the player has
done, up until the current point of the game.

------
Zarathust
I try very hard to find original games but new, triple-A games are always very
similar. I've killed a gazillion of guys with a shotgun in my gamer life, up
to a point that it doesn't feel so exciting anymore. So I pick up a game,
discover the environment setting (sci-fi, medieval, ancient times,...), learn
the quirks of your "game changing engine" then realise I will do exactly the
same things for 5 - 10 more hours. No more progression, no more new levels, no
more new items, no more new KINDS of quests. Same copy/paste of the past
previous 5 hours. This is usually where I quit.

------
panacea
The average age of gamers is 37? I find that a bit incredible.

~~~
josefresco
37 is not inconceivable if you factor in the massively popular RPG games like
WoW. A genre I believe that is dominated by non-conventional gamers like older
women.

~~~
corin_
Actually no, WoW is certainly one of the games that a lot of older people
play, in my view that's because if you get addicted to a specific game (which
for games like this does genuinely happen), you are less likely to stop and
think "what do other people think of me playing this". But certainly WoW is
dominated byy younger plays in their teens and 20s.

The real thing that skews these stats is that "gaming" includes angry birds,
it includes facebook games, it includes... etc. etc. Those are the games that
skew the stats.

People actually in the industry see past it, when marketing WoW, or Call of
Duty, or whatever latest big title, the focus is generally described as 18-30
(or sometimes 18-25), with the assumption that despite not saying it,
naturally you also want to attract the under 18 market as well. It's just the
media who get fooled by the figures into thinking gaming is for the old, now.

Edit: that's not to say that it isn't going to go up (and has already begun),
because obviously as the generations move up, they carry with them acceptance
for gaming. But it hasn't yet happened nearly as much, for what we think of as
big video games at least, as numbers suggest.

~~~
ajross
When you say "WoW is dominated" you're probably talking about the median age
of a player online. That's a different metric than the median age of all
players. Young folks have more time to spend on leisure, and routinely spend
8+ hours at a session. Older people with careers might play much less, but
they still play.

And more to the point: as game billing is generally per-seat or per-month,
it's these older players that actually dominate the revenue.

~~~
corin_
I haven't done research, but my comments above come based on what I hear from
working with companies such as Activision Blizzard, Codemasters etc.

------
int3rnaut
Selection is a big reason for this. There are so many good games popping out
each and every week, and I have certainly found myself unable to keep up with
the supply--I think a lot of people get that, "I've got to play this game
because it's hot right now and everybody's talking about" itch, and then drop
whatever they are currently playing and never actually revisit it--it's the
same with a lot of things not just games.

------
rexf
Try not even open/install/start most games.

With (great, affordable) packages like Humble Bundle & constant
Steam/Amazon/etc sales, my % of started:purchased games has gone way down.
Instead, I focus on core games with friends like Starcraft2.

------
Goladus
I don't really see that statistic as a problem. It seems to me that shipping
slightly more content than most players are expected to finish is actually a
good thing, especially in traditional game development where you are selling a
more-or-less complete product (where the business plan doesn't involve
skimping on the core product to explicitly to sell expansion packs and other
add-ons). It means there's enough content for most of the audience.

There's very little correlation between content completion percentage and
overall game enjoyment / purchase satisfaction.

------
bryanlarsen
What's the percentage of games that don't even get started? I've got about 30
games in my Steam account, and I've only played about 3 of them more than 1
hour. Most of those games came in through bundles so I probably had no
intention of playing some of them, but many of them I purchased with the
intention of actually playing them.

Partly it's lack of time but the number of hours I've put into Civilization
puts the lie to that. I play on my downtime and it's just easier to play
something I already know than learn something new.

------
yeahsure
I actually like long games. I don't think I've ever played a game without
finishing it. Maybe I'm a bit obsessive, that's why I try to not play video
games any more!

------
bane
I remember when games got low scores if they didn't offer at least 40 hours of
playtime in some fashion.

------
yumraj
So if the age of average gamer is rising, what are the young people doing now,
Facebook/Twitter/*Ville/...(ing)?

~~~
baha_man
The average age is rising not because young people today aren't becoming
gamers, but because people who started gaming, say, 20 years ago, are still
gaming.

Today's younger gamers probably make up a large percentage of the minority of
all gamers who actually finish games.

------
eru
The article is almost devoid of information.

(But the title would make for a good article in the Onion.)

