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For finite session repayable games is there an ideal game duration?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Arowx, Jun 24, 2019.

  1. Arowx

    Arowx

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    I enjoy playing games FPS style games and found the Battle Royal games to be very addictive, I was thinking that the game survival mechanics were the main aspect of this...

    1. However does the about 20 minute game play time also factor into this?
    2. Is there a sweet spot time duration for repayable games?
    3. Have you become hooked on a re-playable game and how long was it's session duration?
    4. Or if you put a countdown timer that ends your game at a fixed session time would it boost player rates or reduce them?
     
  2. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    Answer your own question, based on session duration of:

    Sudoku
    Flappy birds,
    Civilizations series,
    Simcity series,
    WoW,
    WoT/WoWs,
    Dota/LoL
    CS / Quake / Unreal,
    Starcraft / Anno / Total Anhilitaion / Zero-K,
    Minecraft,
    Second Life,
    Diablo series \ NeverWinterNight,

    Just to name few.
    You can judge time frame of each game session.
     
  3. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    I'm guessing it's like Netflix. You do for as long as you can.

    Teenagers are binging every weeknight, adults are binging on the weekends.

    Nobody eats the recommended serving of potato chips. You eat the whole bag.

    My question, why do we want to design games to make people play for longer? Who does that do a favor for?
     
  4. Arowx

    Arowx

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  5. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    "Under this new regime of free-to-play, players are often forced to wait (or pay)..."


    Top 100 as in, biggest earners? If so, I think the correlation is clear...

    Just another trick for the greedy to F*** the gullible.
     
  6. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    @Arowx are you actually reading links what you are posting? Because usually is not the case, as per your own threads alike, picking often something out of context.
     
  7. TheGaul

    TheGaul

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    I used to eat whole packets of biscuits. No wonder I need fillings.
     
    Antypodish and BIGTIMEMASTER like this.
  8. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    There isn't one. It depends on the game and the audience the game is targeting.
     
  9. Rasly233

    Rasly233

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    Obviously its 30.
     
  10. Arowx

    Arowx

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    What about the arcade era surely arcade machines would have aimed for a difficulty progression rate that ensured a balance between coin flow and replay?
     
  11. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    As somebody who actually played arcade games?

    That has nothing to do with session length.
     
  12. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    What do you want actually to discuss?
    Or
    "session repayable games"?
     
  13. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Personally I feel boxed in. I like games like DayZ more were a potential fight can take hours
     
  14. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    What about a SpyHunter-esque style score-time meta? That S*** was da bomb on the gameboy. :D I had a cartridge with both SpyHunter AND MoonPatrol on it. Man. Those were the days...
     
  15. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    You need to include the units.

    So obviously it’s 30 parsecs.
     
    EQLucky and Antypodish like this.
  16. Rasly233

    Rasly233

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    I feels like im being rude to people when pointing out obvious. Its like, would you like a cup of juice.. to drink.
     
    Kiwasi likes this.
  17. frosted

    frosted

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    big factor here is losing. The longer a session is the more losing sucks.

    A lot of games where you can lose will have like 10-15 minute sessions as ideal (you're kinda invested so you care, but not so invested that you get really mad). More than 30 minutes for a game you can lose is really pushing it.

    Longer session = more investment.
    More Investment = More feelsbad when you lose
     
  18. AcidArrow

    AcidArrow

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    Ehh, maybe I’m the exception, but I don’t really care about losing that much if I had some fun.

    I don’t mind losing in FTL for example.

    I played Apex for a while, and actually the most annoying part in that game was when I died early, I think above all else that’s what made me stop playing that game.
     
    Kiwasi and angrypenguin like this.
  19. Arowx

    Arowx

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    I wonder maybe Neuroscience research could give game developers the ideal game duration.

    If you analysed the brains reward chemistry and the ideal cycle time for it to go through a full cycle then you would have the ideal game duration or session duration?

    And what about the Flow state, when people get into a game and lose track of time, how does the neuroscience of that work into game session times?
     
  20. frosted

    frosted

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    You don't really need brain chem for most of this, you just look at analytics.

    "Ideal" also changes depending on what you're looking for. A lot of games are more interested in building habitual daily behaviours than anything else.
     
  21. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Maybe we can combine neuroscience, quantum computing, and 64 bit floats to find the best way to solve this problem that doesn't exist in any meaningful context.
     
    Kiwasi, IcyPeak, Ryiah and 3 others like this.
  22. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Yeah, no kidding.

    You don't need neuroscience to make games. The brain is still largely a mystery in science, and from what I've seen it seems science is still a mystery to a lot of developers (and humans in general.)

    Build your game for an audience you understand, and test it out. Get more efficient in production so you can iterate more quickly. Save time, save money, make the best product without deluding yourself with phony science.

    The irony of all this is, people who haven't the faintest understanding of themselves think a few insignificant studies can deliver them understanding of the species at large. Thats why you end up with all this predatory garbage that turns off the large audience -- killing the companies future -- all to bleed a few "whales" with problematic impulse control. Short sighted twits.