How long does a game have to catch your interest?

[danzibr]

Suppose you haven't really heard anything about a game (good reviews, praise from friends, etc.). How long does it have to get you interested before you give up? Intro? Tutorial? First level?

I imagine we all know at least a little about a game before we try it out. For me, I don't give it much time to be honest. I have a whole crap ton of games I haven't played because of this. If one gets me hooked I'll play it to completion. I'll flit around between games I'm fairly interested in. When I exhaust those I move to ones which seem alright. Then the rest... I just keep around because I might play them at some point.

[Zevox]

:smallconfused: Seems like a strange question to me. If I'm playing a game at all, it caught my interest already. I'm not sure why I'd be playing it otherwise.

I mean, I guess I could go out and download demos for or rent random games, but that doesn't seem worth the time (and money in the latter case).

[danzibr]

:smallconfused: Seems like a strange question to me. If I'm playing a game at all, it caught my interest already. I'm not sure why I'd be playing it otherwise.

I mean, I guess I could go out and download demos for or rent random games, but that doesn't seem worth the time (and money in the latter case).
Hmm.... yeah. If you get a game at all it likely has at least a sliver of your interest. I meant more along the lines of... deciding to shelf it or not.

I also download a lot of free games. A lot. But even then, many on my shelf cost decent $.

[Zevox]

Hmm.... yeah. If you get a game at all it likely has at least a sliver of your interest. I meant more along the lines of... deciding to shelf it or not.

I also download a lot of free games. A lot. But even then, many on my shelf cost decent $.
I very rarely shelf a game without finishing it once I've started playing it. It needs to seriously disappoint me for that to happen. Though on occasion it has happened when I was playing older games and had a new one I was looking forward to come out, but that's rare too.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's not game length that will catch my interest so much as replayability. If there's little replayability, there's very little interest in it for me.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's not game length that will catch my interest so much as replayability. If there's little replayability, there's very little interest in it for me.

You misunderstood the question. I made that mistake looking at the title, too.

[SuperPanda]

It really depends on the game - type of game - how it spark enough interest to get to the point of playing in the first place.

Example 1:

The Witcher - A friend gave me the game on Steam. I'd heard nothing about it until they started singing its praises. This friend and I have our favorite games in very different spheres with some occasional overlap and he recommended it based on its similarity to that overlap.

I tried several times to get into the game. The aesthetics of the game were a miss for me - the game play was neat and nuanced (which I usually like) but felt like it dragged a bit much. I wasn't sold on the setting, mythos, or character and the game needed me to dive into all of those right away. Its still sitting in steam - unfinished with number 2 which is untouched.

Example 2: Dragon Age Inquisition - Had played previous games in the series and been hyped for this one since it came out. Already felt an investment in the mythos and mechanics and so never felt like I had to "work" to play. The introduction sequence with the exploding start screed was all I needed. I fully intended to do a second and third playthrough to try and see everything, hunt every dragon... I played the story voraciously when I got it and haven't launched origin more than three times since I beat it.

Example 3: Kerbal Space Program - When I heard the concept my first thought was 'There is no way a game could pull that off.' When I first started playing my thought became 'I'm just not smart enough to pull this off... I'm not going to be able to do this without cheating.' I've logged more time in that game now than any other game I've ever played - I've studied past space missions, learned actual physics, and just been pulled in.

I'm currently taking a break from it - but I can feel the itch coming back. Example 1 - piqued my interest but failed to catch it. Example 2 - caught my interested and satisfied an itch. Example 3 - captured my imagination and allowed me to explore an old dream.

If I've got a game I typically give it a few play sessions to "catch my interest" - but most of the time I wind up back on Kerbal.

[Rodin]

First impressions are very important. Take The Witcher 2 - it begins with a long and frankly boring tutorial which throws a lot of advanced techniques at you very quickly. There was then a very lengthy set of cutscenes and dialogue, which wasn't neccessarily a downside but did make it difficult to remember everything I just ground through in the tutorial. Then I went into the first "real" fight in the game and died repeatedly.

After wiping on the first group of enemies a dozen times, I said screw it and went and played something else. I've never been back to the series as a result. I did try one time right before the Witcher 3 came out, but that tutorial hadn't improved with time and my game crashed right near the end of it, which would have forced me to do the entire thing again. Yeah, no.

Bad graphics can have the same effect - and I'm not talking about state-of-the-art, but rather that the graphics should look good for the level they're built at. One of the more recent Heroes of Might and Magic games turned me off because the graphics just looked amateurish, while Legends of Grimlock with ostensibly "worse" graphics had obviously had a lot of care put into the design and the game drew me in.

In terms of overall time, I'd say the game probably has about an hour. If I'm not invested in the game by that point, I'm probably never going to be. There are enough games out there that I feel no need to suffer through a poor early game to get to a meaty middle-to-late game.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You misunderstood the question. I made that mistake looking at the title, too.

Ahh, so I did, it seems. :smallredface:

While a lot of people tend to skip the tutorial unless you have a lot of mechanics to introduce to the player, I will say that for most level-based games, the first level is so important. You need to show me, in general, what my expectations can be for this game. Your first miniboss or boss battle should show me just how much further I have to go.

As a perfect example, Megaman X. There's no pop-ups telling you what to do, the level design itself imparts everything you need. In part, they can get away with that because the mechanics are so dead simple. You really have three options: jump, shoot, or all of the above. But the level design is so clever, that you cover concepts like wall-slide and wall-jump intuitively based on how you move around with your first miniboss. Everything you need to know about the game is introduced in this very first level. And the boss at the end gives you a teaser about how far you can go.

Now, when you have a game with more complex mechanics, you can't always do this kind of intuitive learning, however introducing your mechanics has to be done smoothly. Stopping the action with a freeze-frame pop-up "OMGEGGLE DIS TING HERE!!! OMG! IT IS TOTALLY A THING!!" is about the worst thing you can ever do, in my opinion. Typically, I would introduce the scenario where the concept needs to be used, and if the player can't figure it out in the first couple of tries, I'd start offering hints.

For a more open-ended game, like something Bethesda would offer, you need a tutorial area where the concepts are introduced. However, Bethesda generally is pretty bad about this, particularly with Skyrim. The whole intro was pretty much pure dialogue and running through the plot with zero interaction. The intro to Fallout: New Vegas is a lot more intuitive, and a heck of a lot less intrusive.

If I'm not engaged by the first half hour or so of game-play, you've lost me.

[Starwulf]

:smallconfused: Seems like a strange question to me. If I'm playing a game at all, it caught my interest already. I'm not sure why I'd be playing it otherwise.

I mean, I guess I could go out and download demos for or rent random games, but that doesn't seem worth the time (and money in the latter case).

While it's true that's not how it goes nowadays, when I was growing up there wasn't any way to know if a game was worth renting besides looking at the back of the box in the video store and maybe word of mouth if you happened to be lucky enough to have another person interested in video games in your area(I was pretty much the only person, and was picked on mercilessly for it).

Still, sometimes reviews and looking up information on a game can be misleading, or just not enough to warrant not checking a game out, in which case I'd say a game usually has 1 hour to bring me in. If it has a particularly long starting period I'll give it two hours, but that's it. It'll be in that 1-2 hour timeframe where I make my final decision if the game gets to be played all the way through and sit on my shelf in my collection of games, or if it's going up on Ebay immediately.

[factotum]

I have a virtual stack of unplayed games that will probably last me years, and that's without having bought time sinks like the Witcher 3 or GTA5 yet. That being the case, a game has to grab me very quickly indeed once I start playing it--if it hasn't got me inside the first couple of hours I'll likely uninstall and move on to something else. Oddly, how long I'll persist before giving up will depend to some extent on how much I paid for the game--if it was something I picked up for a fiver in a Steam sale then I can quite easily tell myself that there's no point in throwing good time after bad money; conversely, if I spent £20-30 on it, I'll really want to get some money's worth out of it before deciding it's not for me.

This, of course, is why I pretty much never buy games without looking up reviews or even Let's Plays on Youtube to decide if it's for me or not, unless the price is so low that I feel I can afford the risk.

[Yora]

I almost always buy only games that have been out for a year or several months and by that point still have glowing reputations. (I got enough games already, it takes quite a lot to convince me to get new ones.)
It's very rare that I stop playing because I really don't like a game. But usually I'll play three or four hours or so and then either continue playing the next day or I don't. I rarely decide that I don't want to play a game anymore, but often I just don't feel like starting it again and either play something else I am more excited for or don't play anything at all for a while.

[snowblizz]

Hmm.... yeah. If you get a game at all it likely has at least a sliver of your interest. I meant more along the lines of... deciding to shelf it or not.
With things like Steam you get free-play week-ends and stuff, so you can literally try things out for free.
I usually know by Saturday if I want to buy or not. Tropico5 and ARK Survival Evolved I got that way.
Though there are games which end up in a "I could buy it, but I think there's going to come extra content versions later so might as well hold out". Civilization Beyond Earth fell into this category for me.

[Cheesegear]

How long does it have to get you interested before you give up? Intro? Tutorial? First level?

On Steam? Exactly 1 hour and 59 minutes. :smallamused:

[Cristo Meyers]

Most of my games get a couple of hours at least, though it's rare for me to lose interest in a game that I haven't completed. If I bought it, I've a pretty good idea that I'll remain interested to at least finish it once.

Once I find myself wondering why I'm bothering to play this game over that game, that's usually when I give up. Though I can only think of three games off-hand that I've stopped playing mid-game (GTAV, Vagrant Story, Arkham Origins), and only two of them were because I lost interest (Vagrant Story, Arkham Origins). Vagrant Story had about 8 hours logged over a week, I think, and I must've been halfway through Arkham.

[Murmaider]

You know what, I just wrote half a page about how games don't need to catch my interest as soon as I play them, but instead just have to not put me off. I wrote that those two things are not the same, but I came to the conclusion that they are, so... I'll just give you the numbers instead.

According to some games in my Steam library, which I did not enjoy, it takes me between 30-120 minutes to figure out if I'm interested to play more of a game.

There are of course outliers on both ends of the Spectrum. Some old games, where I couldn't get over the graphics or UI, I ended sooner. By others(mostly open world non-rpgs) I get a bit intrigued by the story and then give up after several hours because I get bored. I guess those don't really count because they had to catch my interest in the first place to keep me playing for so long.

[lesser_minion]

First impressions matter, but on the other hand, I had no real problem playing reasonably far through The Last Remnant, a game whose first two hours are basically a lovecraftian horror made of pure, unadulterated cringe-inducement. At least in that case, I'd played the demo and knew that the game got a lot better later on.

I also have something like 1600 hours logged in Final Fantasy XIV, which has something like half an hour of cutscenes before you see any gameplay at all -- and then, the gameplay you get to see is a solo instance consisting almost exclusively of clicking on things with arrows over them.

I tend not to randomly try games on my own, though -- a lot of what I play does have come with at least some kind of recommendation attached to it.

[LibraryOgre]

Years, sometimes. If I'm playing it, I likely own it. At some point, I may get the urge to try it again. I know other games I've given hours of playtime to get my interest... I played Dragon Age Origin through a couple of the questlines and finally chucked it because I was sick of its bull**** system... but even then, I might go back one day. I mean, I played Betrayal at Krondor to the end more than a decade after it came out.

[Raimun]

Now days, if I'm buying a game, I have researched it. First I hear about a game. Then, I either read a few reviews and watch one or two (non-trailer) gameplay videos. That or, it's a familiar series that I've enjoyed in the past, which means I need to buy.

Most of the time time this system works. Games I buy tend to be great. Dragon's Dogma is the prime example of when it works. A new franchise that looked interesting and exciting after reading about it and watching some gameplay videos. I then just went and bought it. I had plenty of fun playing it through and I've always thought I should play it again as a more magical character. If they ever make a sequel, I will buy it.

However, sometimes you just can't win. I once bought Dragon Age: Origins because a lot of people were talking about it and a Bioware RPG didn't sound that bad. To this day, I have no idea how this isn't mostly a half forgotten franchise with a small but semi-devoted fanbase. I didn't try the series after this... until they released Dragon Age: Inquisition. It seemed like it would be an improved version of the series, with new fighting system, actually good graphics for its time and I liked the sound of leading an inquisition. A few hours in to the game and now I'm officially done with the series. I'm not buying more and I wouldn't be that surprised if my copies of Origins and Inquistion will collect dust until the end of times. Everything in the game seems so... uninspired.

The tale of Assassin's Creed II is one of the more curious. I had been interested in the series after reasearching it and I bought it once when it was on sale. It was pretty fun to play it... until I realized how repetitive everything is and I couldn't for the life of me tell anything about the story or the characters, except that it happens in italy and every is italian. I think I was pretty close to the ending when I sort of just wandered off. I don't think I will ever finish AC II and I don't have much interest in other titles... except for Black Flag because you have a pirate ship and I hear there's no Desmond who is the weakest link of the series.

Of course, if a friend lends me a game, I'm just going to pop it in and start playing to find out.

Either way, to sum it all up, a good game should catch your interest for its entire run. You hear the basic premise? You're interested. You read about/watch gameplay? You're still interested and go to buy it ASAP. You buy the game and start playing? You're interested enough to finish the game. If the game has achieved this, it has fulfilled its purpose and it's obvious you'd be interested to play a sequel. Some games go even further than that and you feel interested to play it a second time or more.

[danzibr]

Hmm. I had similar experience with the aforementioned dragon games. Dragon's Dogma? Looked good, read about it, got it, loved it. Dragon Age? Forced myself through the first one, didn't get the second, got Inquisition and couldn't finish it.

[Crow]

Hmm. I had similar experience with the aforementioned dragon games. Dragon's Dogma? Looked good, read about it, got it, loved it. Dragon Age? Forced myself through the first one, didn't get the second, got Inquisition and couldn't finish it.

Why is that you think? I couldn't finish Inquisition either.

[Knaight]

I'd say about fifteen minutes, but that's a flexible number. If some aspect of the game sounds really promising, that goes up - I wasn't into Dominions 3 after 15 minutes, but there was obvious promise just beneath the surface, so I kept at it. Games can also chip into that number pretty well, if the first 10 minutes are just terrible it's probably not getting the full 15.

This also only asks for a bit of interest. The standard there is "pretty good, with something distinctive", not "great".

[danzibr]

Why is that you think? I couldn't finish Inquisition either.
For me... it's hard to put my finger on.

I mean, I liked the original one enough to try Inquisition. I didn't love it, but I liked it.

When I started Inquisition it seemed pretty cool. My only beef with the character creation was how bad all the hair looked. I liked the different classes and specializations and stuff. I got through the intro, was building relationships, started exploring places and building my army, then... just got kind of bored.

I guess I can put it like this: there's nothing about it that really caught my fancy.

[Dienekes]

I can only afford to buy 1 game a year. So, I guess the answer is: However long the trailer is. If it doesn't catch my interest off that, then I'm not going to play it.

[The Hellbug]

With no context: an hour, I'll give anything at least an hour (ever Star Ocean 4...grrrr). I've been in that situation a lot because I've had a few friends who were super nice about loaning games to me (my roommate also subscribed to PS plus a few years ago and we kind of alternated who'd play through the single player games).

It's actually funny that Dragon's Dogma has been mentioned here, because that was a game that, when it was free to me via the roommate's stuff, I gave a couple hours because I really wanted to like it but just couldn't get into it. A couple years later, I bought it used and loved the hell out of it so I guess there's something to be said there.

[Giggling Ghast]

Kinda varies. I got about a third of the way through GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV before I realized I wasn't having much fun, so I stopped. I gave the Kingdoms of Amalur demo two run-throughs before I decided against buying it.

[danzibr]

With no context: an hour, I'll give anything at least an hour (ever Star Ocean 4...grrrr). I've been in that situation a lot because I've had a few friends who were super nice about loaning games to me (my roommate also subscribed to PS plus a few years ago and we kind of alternated who'd play through the single player games).

It's actually funny that Dragon's Dogma has been mentioned here, because that was a game that, when it was free to me via the roommate's stuff, I gave a couple hours because I really wanted to like it but just couldn't get into it. A couple years later, I bought it used and loved the hell out of it so I guess there's something to be said there.
I can *sort of* relate with Dragon's Dogma (maybe a little contrary to my first statement).

At first I didn't get into it. Got to about level 10 with a warrior. Then rolled archer and freakin' loved it. Archery in that game is the best (fun-wise, to me).

[factotum]

I have a current example of this: I bought Dying Light a few days ago because it was on sale (a mere £24 compared to the usual £40). I've played it for 8 hours, and uninstalled it a few minutes ago when I came out of the game to check something online only to realise that I was actually feeling angry--I'd got so frustrated playing the game. WTF is the point of playing a game that's making you feel that way? I play to enjoy myself, not get into a rage over the janky game mechanics and poor design decisions!

If that game had only cost me £5 I reckon I would have given up on it after 2 or 3 hours at most...

[Murmaider]

If that game had only cost me £5 I reckon I would have given up on it after 2 or 3 hours at most...

It's a shame you didn't give up earlier, because you could've gotten a refund.

[danzibr]

I have a current example of this: I bought Dying Light a few days ago because it was on sale (a mere £24 compared to the usual £40). I've played it for 8 hours, and uninstalled it a few minutes ago when I came out of the game to check something online only to realise that I was actually feeling angry--I'd got so frustrated playing the game. WTF is the point of playing a game that's making you feel that way? I play to enjoy myself, not get into a rage over the janky game mechanics and poor design decisions!

If that game had only cost me £5 I reckon I would have given up on it after 2 or 3 hours at most...
Huh. That game actually looked really good.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Huh. That game actually looked really good.

Most of the complaints I've heard are about the poor story. Though I hear the parkour starts off a bit clunky because you get more adept as you unlock abilities.

[Traab]

Suppose you haven't really heard anything about a game (good reviews, praise from friends, etc.). How long does it have to get you interested before you give up? Intro? Tutorial? First level?

I imagine we all know at least a little about a game before we try it out. For me, I don't give it much time to be honest. I have a whole crap ton of games I haven't played because of this. If one gets me hooked I'll play it to completion. I'll flit around between games I'm fairly interested in. When I exhaust those I move to ones which seem alright. Then the rest... I just keep around because I might play them at some point.

I generally give a new rpg an hour to grab my attention. If it hasnt shown me something that makes me want to play it I generally stop.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I generally give a new rpg an hour to grab my attention. If it hasnt shown me something that makes me want to play it I generally stop.

So... you decide whether you like it as soon as you're finished with character creation? :smalltongue:

[factotum]

Most of the complaints I've heard are about the poor story. Though I hear the parkour starts off a bit clunky because you get more adept as you unlock abilities.

I actually enjoyed Techland's previous zombie games (Dead Island et al.). My problem with Dying Light wasn't the parkour--that aspect is at least better than the Assassin's Creed series in that it requires you to master more of an interaction than "Press button and run at wall". It was that the bad aspects of Dead Island were still there (weapons apparently made of chewing gum and paperclips, judging from how fast they break, and if you die the game transports you to the nearest safe area--which could be a long way from where you were--but still with the same damaged weapons), but they made the combat far more random. In Dead Island, if I aimed at the head with a level-appropriate weapon, I could reliably take one of the weaker zombies down in one or two hits. In Dying Light, it might take one hit, it might take six or seven, it seemed impossible to tell. Add to that the much larger crowds of zombies around, and the fact more would inevitably spawn in and attack you from behind while you were busy with the first lot, and I died. A lot. I then had to work my way back across the map to where I was in order to continue what I was doing. Rinse and repeat for several attempts and I'd finally achieve what I set out to do, with all my best weapons broken beyond repair and probably with fewer Survivor experience points than I started with due to the death penalties. Not fun!

[Traab]

So... you decide whether you like it as soon as you're finished with character creation? :smalltongue:

Nah of course not. I mean once the game starts I basically give it a play session to do something, anything to catch my interest. I cant even be specific about what grabs me. All I know is, if it hasnt given me a reason to come back, then i dont. Though too be fair, pretty much none of my games have "character creation" Cloud is always cloud, etc etc etc. Closest I came to that was playing the various oblivion games on my computer.

[Rodin]

I actually enjoyed Techland's previous zombie games (Dead Island et al.). My problem with Dying Light wasn't the parkour--that aspect is at least better than the Assassin's Creed series in that it requires you to master more of an interaction than "Press button and run at wall". It was that the bad aspects of Dead Island were still there (weapons apparently made of chewing gum and paperclips, judging from how fast they break, and if you die the game transports you to the nearest safe area--which could be a long way from where you were--but still with the same damaged weapons), but they made the combat far more random. In Dead Island, if I aimed at the head with a level-appropriate weapon, I could reliably take one of the weaker zombies down in one or two hits. In Dying Light, it might take one hit, it might take six or seven, it seemed impossible to tell. Add to that the much larger crowds of zombies around, and the fact more would inevitably spawn in and attack you from behind while you were busy with the first lot, and I died. A lot. I then had to work my way back across the map to where I was in order to continue what I was doing. Rinse and repeat for several attempts and I'd finally achieve what I set out to do, with all my best weapons broken beyond repair and probably with fewer Survivor experience points than I started with due to the death penalties. Not fun!

I had pretty much the same experience. What finally did it for me was the first night mission. Instead of spending all my time killing zombies, I was already parkouring all over the place (which I didn't get the game to do, I got the game to kill zombies), and then they throw in long stealth sections with poor mechanics?

Nope.

The story itself was poor, but no more so than any other zombie game/movie/film. I think the only zombie game that's had a decent story is The Walking Dead, which bizarrely had a far better story than the TV show.

[GungHo]

Probably about 5~10 minutes for a freemium game. If I don't smile or find one cool thing about it, I have no problem deleting it.

For paid games (like buying off of Steam), well, I've already paid for them, so I will try to find something to enjoy even in a stinker. However, I still have my limits and will drop things that become annoyingly repetitive.