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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

30-hour is qn "epic" game? If a game provides lese than 100 hours of fun then it should be called junk imho. Aim for that "middle" if you want, but i wont buy your game.

A developer that cranks out a dozen little games will inevitably rely on trickery and deceptive marketing in order to convince consumers thier games are worth anything. Most of the games i play are from a developer dedicated to the continued improvement of a single title across many years. Factorio, subnautica, prison architect ... such games take focus. Entire careers can be dedictated to improving a single game (minecraft). The modern indi market demands long term commitment, not fly-by-night studios attempting is get in and out in months Among Trees burned many bridges with indi gamers willing to buy into games early.

Or you can develop mobile games powered by addiction and microtransactions. I guess that is a "market" too.

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From a player perspective, you're wrong. Go play something like Outer Wilds, you'll finish it in a few hours, and the game will never be the same after you finish, but it will leave an impression as strong or stronger than 10,000 hours in Factorio.

From a game publisher perspective, you're right, you want to create "lifestyle games" that players can put 1,000 hours or more into. These games are more likely to sell because YouTubers and streamers will find a niche publishing content for these endlessly repayable games, and that will attract a lot of eyeballs and drive a lot of sales. If your game is "just" an incredible story and experience, then a lot of people will experience it by watching their favorite streamer play the game, and then they will never play it themselves. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIqz5xmQKnc

Outer wilds is not a 30-hour game. Ive replayed it many times. It is full of interesting, replayable, content.

You’re confusing Outer Worlds with Outer Wilds, both confusingly released around the same time.

Outer Wilds is an indie game where exploration and knowledge is the entire point of the game. It unfortunately has zero reply value as once you’ve pieced together the mystery and how to end the game it’s over. I say unfortunately because it’s honestly the best game I’ve ever played and I sometimes wish I could receive just enough blunt force trauma so I could experience it for the first time all over again.

Your description of Outer Wilds is accurate. The game is over once you've figured it out, but I suppose the art remains. Sometimes I want to load the game just to look at the world, just to enjoy the world; nothing to figure out, just look at it, like a painting.

Gamers today are much older than 30 years ago, and older people don’t have the time to grind on side-quests for 100 hours.

30 years ago, I wasn't playing 100-hour games because they were shorter. Final Fantasy IV (or II as we called it back then) was 30-40 hours, and we thought that was huge.

Games aren't really 100 hours though, they're still generally 40-60 hours with side content that's usually mind numbing.

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