How The Best Game of 2021 Respects Your Time By Ending Too Soon
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2021
- Endings are something that we don't appreciate enough, we spend so much time trying to squeeze every drop of content from games that we often don't get around to finishing them at all - and worse yet, some developers don't even want you to finish their games, leading to a malaise that's afflicted videogames for close to a decade.
The solution? We need to embrace the shorter, more imperfect endings that video games have to offer, and after blinking their way through time and across the boundary of mortality, The Architect has some wisdom to share about how some of the best games of the year so far can create satisfying conclusions that mean much more because they aren't complete.
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You Saw:
Before Your Eyes (2021)
Fire Emblem 3 Houses (2019)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)
Pokemon Fire Red (2004)
Portal (2007)
Monster Hunter Rise (2021)
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
Fallout 4 (2015)
Fortnite (2017)
Genshin Impact (2020)
Final Fantasy 7 Remake (2020)
Hearthstone (2014)
Pikmin 3 (2013)
A Short Hike (2019)
Kirby Star Allies (2018)
The Stanley Parable (2013)
Sonic Unleashed (2008)
Pikmin (2001)
Gorogoa (2017)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension (2020)
BABA IS YOU (2019)
Minit Racer (2021)
Farcry 5 (2018)
Grow Up (2016)
Pyre (2017)
What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)
Hypnospace Outlaw (2019)
Gunpoint (2013)
Inside (2016)
QWOP (2010)
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013)
Doom Eternal (2020)
SNKRX (2021)
Metal Gear Rising: Revengance (2013)
Wonderful 101 Remastered (2021)
Nier Automata (2017)
Bayonetta 2 (2014)
Astral Chain (2019)
Mass Effect Trology (2021)
80 Days (2014)
Overboard (2021)
Hades (2020)
Dead Cells
Rimworld (2018)
Slipways (2021)
Despot's Game - Not Out Yet
Monster Hunter World (2018)
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (2011)
Life Is Strange (2015)
Hitman 3 (2021)
New Pokemon Snap (2021)
Batman Arkham Knight (2015)
Apex Legends (2019)
Assasin's Creed Valhalla (2021)
Battlefront 2 (2017)
Disco Elysium (2019)
Raid Shadow Legends (lol who cares)
Knockout City (2021) - เกม
![[Live] : ONE 167 วันนี้!! "ตะวันฉาย vs โจ"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D9_dvfIa6Ao/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey, you might've noticed the title for the video changed! I thought it wasn't very clear what the video was about (plus it wasn't doing too well in terms of views!) so I changed it - just a little bit of transparency!
Why spend your money on games that aren't worth your time when you could give it to me so I can buy more chocolate? Seems like a fair deal: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
If you want to complain about that sneaky trick I pulled, please take it to my trash pil- Sorry, I mean twitter.com: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
what was the original title? only just got recommended to me now even though ive binged this whole channel's worth of videos
@@RustoKomuska "Why Before your eye's ending leaves you wanting more" - if you didn't know about the game already it was very confusing!
For those without a VR headset and webcam, can this game be played where a timer automatically advances the scene?
Seriously I might be missing some but those Aseran, Brian Notariani and Chao are some good people with deep pockets that support a ton of content creators, I've seen their names mentioned in so many videos I watch from different creators, and I just want to say thank you to them for helping us get some nice stuff to watch here
Speaking of your videos, this one and your last one is missing from your playlist.
"its ok to leave thing unfinished"
*clicks off of video before its done
Lol that’s what you call a pro gamer move.
wait no not like that
@@ArchitectofGames "You weren't supposed to do that"
No, thats not how you're supposed to play the game.
sees this comment and just skips the video all together
It's funny, literally as I'm writing this, my wife is sitting next to me playing Xenoblade 2. She loves it so much that she literally refuses to fight the final boss until she feels like she's explored the world thoroughly enough. She's aware it has New Game+, but wants to experience the game in one complete package. This is the first JRPG she's ever seriously played, and only decided to play it because she thought it looked pretty. For me, this was a game that didn't stick the ending for a simple reason- the conclusion to the game's story can be lost in a glut of side content. For me, when I went back and watched my wife play the game, I fell in love with the characters again, and realized that when I finally fought the final boss, I hadn't spent time with any of the main characters in about 20-30 hours. The main story of apocalyptic proportions had taken a back seat to fixing up some rice balls for a nice family in Gormott. So when I watched those last ending cutscenes in my own playthrough, all those characters had been reduced to memes and 2D caricatures rather than the fleshed out characters they were.
Exploring a world that a person or a team of people put many many many hours into developing is a reward on it's own =)
@@paypercutts Absolutely! And I love the game! I just felt that the consequence of such a large handcrafted world like that was that the main story can easily fall to the wayside and feel trivial. You can fast travel out of areas that story-wise you're meant to be trapped in, as an example. It's great for freedom and exploration, but it's just a shame that it trivialized the impact of the story beat.
@@Gaming_Amateur I've had that noticeably with Final Fantasy 15. Which imho isn't a good game no matter how you look at it.
But because I tried to do all side quests when available - and essentially all of them are fetch quest without even a pretense of story writing - I've destroyed the entire pacing of the story. The one thing crucial to good writing. And the few good character moments felt spaced out to non-existence nust as the memorable places became a drag to revisit. I essentially reduced a mediocre game to an awful one and in all honesty to its polar opposite: work.
The only two places where the game feels to me like it does know what it's trying to do are the Floating City, the subsequent trainrides and the swamp- simply because there are no distractions, despite the game still allowing for limited exploration.
I find that re-realization doubly funny and somewhat disconcerting because I spiritedly argued that short stories are better than novels due to their conciseness a couple of years ago.
@@adahnliegl740
In Final Fantasy 15 there wasn't much impetus to push through the main story.
The road trip, the small charming cutscenes, photography feature, optional collaboration quests ... indicates the Developers intended it to be almost a relaxing vacation simulator. I can imagine that treating it as primarily an action game and rushing through objectives would become tedious.
The vaction "vibe", which doesn't exist in any other game, was personally worth it.
This mans alliterative skill is criminally under praised
also his skill to make the narration and background gameplay relate to each other!
This artist's alliterative ability is unethically underappreciated.
Adam's alliterative abilities amaze and astound any audience
Adam's alliterative abilities are absolutely amazing.
every sentence starts with the word content so I guess that counts literally I can't fucking stand hearing it anymore
Wow, just wow. I went into this video expecting just a review of Before Your Eyes but left with a different perspective of video games as a whole. Well done sir, this is good content and you deserve more recognition for this.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Glad you said this. I almost clicked away when I was losing interest. Every gamer needs to watch this.
Welcome to the channel 🦀
I'll quote the top steam review. "Hard not to blink when you're crying"
The idea of simply enjoying a game rather than trying to do everything is profound.
I couldn’t finish the botw dlc because it wasn’t fun and I shouldn’t feel bad for missing out. Though I found almost every shrine without reference simply because I enjoyed combing through an empty area. I COULD look up a map to get the remaining shrines but I find the idea of finishing the game with most of them found through my own curiosity much more rewarding.
Its so freeing I "got it" with oblivion and never looked back. Once you stop tying value to length and completion you enjoy things more and have more time to enjoy more things its awesome. Also why I'm loving the give it a shot till I bored gamepass approach.
If you have gamepass I highly recommend the subsection of "game breaks beatable in a couple of hours."
Carto is a great one for example.
When I played Botw and did all the shrines and told one of my frinds, he said to me:You really wanted that Link armour set right?
My response: there is a Reward for doing all of those?
Doing all of the Shrines felt amazing in its own right
I mean, sometimes doing everything IS someone's definition of fun. I know it's part of mine. But it shouldn't be forced to be everyone's.
Couldn't agree more. For me playing the game is the fun part. Not ticking all the boxes. Though I agree others have different ideas of what's fun and rewarding in a game
I got so far as finding quite a few more korok seeds than needed before looking up the rest on a map. At that point I was quite done with searching for stuff but was still enjoying traveling around the world climbing, shield surfing, gliding and motorbiking. The seeds were just a convenient excuse to do so. So if you have good, fun base mechanics it can still be a good idea to add a bunch of "pointless" collectable to your game.
I gotta admit the title of the video got me confused at first hahaha. Never heard of that game before, but nice to watch the content!
HO BOY, you really need to play it soon. Don't watch any more gameplay, but play it directly
@@frds_skce nice try, marketing team!
@@DamianSzajnowski Bro, wtf? I'm not even with the game team whatsoever. Sure it would be nice if i did, but nope. I wasn't
This game was one of the hardest times I've ever cried playing a game before I was ugly sobbing so loud I felt like my neighbours might file a complaint. Fabulous experience would do again
I mean, it's difficult not to cry when you're not allowed to blink. :/
@@ThePC007 Lol, you being cheeky, homie;
Is this game really that good, though, ya'll??
@@nosajsamaniego4512 No it's not lol, it was an interesting idea but they failed in their execution of it. Neither me or my girlfriend felt anything at the ending, pretty much just "meh, its over I guess. 6/10"
Thank you so much for the shoutout, so glad you like the playlists 😊❤
Me, a staring contest veteran: Aaah, finally! A worthy opponent!
When your crying its impossible to keep your eyes open
Recently I've been realizing that most of my all-time favorite games have play times in the 3-10 hour range. They're games that provide a fantastic, memorable experience in a few play sessions and then come to an end with a satisfying conclusion.
Meanwhile, there are other games I've played for 30 times longer that I gradually came to realize I... didn't even really enjoy playing? Most of those hundreds of hours were spent doing the video game equivalent of chores. I just keep grinding away at them until one day I realize that I don't even know what I'm grinding for anymore.
And it's funny, because when I play those shorter games, I always come out of them thinking, "Man, I wish this game was longer! I want more!" But I'm starting to think that it's much better to be left wanting more than it is for a game to overstay its welcome.
First rule in most of the entertainment industry is just that: Always leave the audience wanting more.
19:44 You have a beautiful face, Adam.
With a face like that, this man is no stranger to love.
Oh I guess i better see how he looks like...
@@TheMinecraftMan757 he knows the rules, we do as well.
This feels too familiar. Just a few days ago I caught myself getting 100% in a game while thinking "Wait. I'm not doing this for fun anymore."
The urge to get everything out of a game can be pretty strong, at least for me. It's kinda refreshing to have one telling you not to do that.
Imagine speedrunning this game. Just blinking like crazy...
Imagine a 100% run of the game. Discover everything that can be discovered over the course of multiple runs.
I knew straight away that was Astley, lol.
While I agree with the "Play games to enjoy the adventure" approach, I do feel it is not applicable across the board. Most notably games that lack a definitive conclusion (certain sims and racers, most rhythm games, plenty of sport games) are simultaneously never capable of this sort of pacing, while also having the prime potential for the player to set their own "end" in the game by deciding when they have gotten enough out of it. But even within the examples provided in the video, this then leaves questions on how to actually make the player not feel like they're missing out.
In Baba is You, you can access the ending after obtaining 3 flowers, which is usually a few dozen levels into the game, and a very small portion of the 200+ puzzles the game has to offer. It makes you miss out some great moments within some puzzles, but the player can go and choose to actually finish the game at any moment similarly to BotW. And yet the awareness of existence of "more" seems to be enough to drive the feeling you expressed of "being too big to finish". Doing quick theory crafting here, this could be due to the nature of omitted content. Baba will almost encourage you to try out alternate levels if you're stumped on one of them, because you can come back to anything at any time, and you can almost always pick from multiple levels available. Meanwhile BotW has a more continuous cycle of exploring an area, and moving on to the next area to explore, and while you may not gather everything in the area, for the most part it is either something you will certainly gather before finishing, or something you'll forget about or something you never cared to collect in the first place. There is much less longing for things that have been missed, possibly due to said things being no more important than things that you can still find in new places across your adventure.
But this goes even further. While "infiny-games" such as a lot of current AAA content, certain auto-generated games and "leaderboard chaser" games as I'd call them - ones where the main point is to get a better score than your previous one; all of them can provide you with that same satisfaction that a conclusion to an epic story does. Yes, that satisfaction is likely to be shorter, quickly uprooted, and most of the time less-lasting; but they're also able to provide it many a time without the player ever expecting it. It is a different type of enjoyment, but it is too a valid one that should not be ignored, despite it's ease to be overshadowed by the manipulatory tactics present in the most popular of infiny-games out there.
To me the first ending feel like a fake ending more akin to a troll.
The game let you access very early this ending level than while being harder than the firsts levels, is clearly not the most challenging one, while showing you how little of the game you've actually done .... and it's even more insignificant when you discover how endless the secret meta game of baba is you seem to be.
I have tics that make me blink compulsively so I wonder if that would affect how I play lol
You'd go through life so fast, you automatically win the game
@@Parlepape True maybe it'll give me a speed run advantage xD
You can switch off eye detection and use mouse clicks. Slightly affects the experience but means you can still play :)
Are you interested in speedrunning?
You can just blink normally, it will make the game feel more like actual memories, it would probably be pretty interesting. You still get all the narratives you need without holding off on blinking.
this game carries a very strong message, "carpe diem", witch means to enjoy every day, each day at a time. It seems that the more time passes, the more our lives get rushed and we worry so much on what well do on our free time that we end up not enjoyng it at all. In the end, its all these small happy moments that life is made of, so make sure to enjoy them, live the moment.
Absolutely! If the sun comes up, it's a good day! =)
I really agree on those points, and that's why I changed my approach. Before I was a hard 100% completionist but more and more I felt burned out and forgot what fun meant. Now I instead play through the main story of a game, without worrying about reading guides or side content, enjoying fully the intended experience. And if I really loved a game, then I would seek out to do those extra goals, but there wouldn't be as much pressure since I already had what I wanted from the game and this is just a bonus continuation of it, a light reminiscing even if a bit mindless.
I am now free of stress and guides paranoia to not miss anything when playing games, it allows me to appreciate them fully. I remembered what having fun meant.
That's something I'm struggling with in crpg. For the best part of 20 years, they were by far my favorite videogame genre. But the last decade, I find myself trying to minmax them to death. And I'm not talking about character level or inventory, those don't matter. I'm talking dialogues, secrets, quests, locations, content in a nutshell.
So, get in a new area, new town. And just do a grid search of every npc, container, house, and so on. It's checkboxing a content list, instead of just accepting missing things (I *very* rarely replay games that aren't designed for it, Tetris or Civilization style).
I have this really annoying habit that I can't seem to kick, where I feel the need to complete and 100% every game in my library before I can buy another game "or not I am wasting my money".
Not only does it end up making me miss good sales on other games, or makes me feel guilty whenever I do buy a game but still have a backlog of other games to 100%, but I realise it also really ruins the fun I get from playing them. Instead of experiencing the world and enjoying all it has to offer, I ended up just searching online guides to get every collectible, and I ended up despising the last game I 100%.
So yea this video is brilliant, thank you so much for it! I think you are the better Adam when it comes to incredible videos.
12:00
And then you have Into The Breach, where I haven't seen the final boss even once, because I refuse to challenge it before having done all of the other islands, and I always fail at the 4th.
it's crazy how many interesting suggestions come into my to-do game list thanks to this channel. I had already heard about Before your eyes, glad I heard about Overboard too, I really liked Heaven's Vault
Very eye opening. I have once again some thinking to do! Thanks!
20:50 Best wishes to Alex Deloach, wherever he has gone off to. We shall miss your name in the credits.
The issue is that developers are currently incentivized to make games that keep people playing as long as possible just to turn a profit.
First off I love your content that being said, the ending part of your video where you said " Thanks for 100% this video, it means a lot to me" is exactly why I 100% every game I play no matter how tedious, you may think that one thing is boring but then you remember that someone sat down and spend hours trying to make that thing so that the player enjoys it, and when I leave it alone I feel like I'm not giving respect to the person that made that thing and is probably very proud of it, just like you are proud of the video you made, so by 100% the game I know that I saw everything the developers made and wanted me to see.
Most games are not designed to be completeted 100%, whereas videos are meant to be watched all the way through. The equivilant of completimg a game 100% would be reading the description, not skipping through any sponsors, reading alle the commemts, ect. Playing the game as intended is also a valid way of respecting the developers.
Damn you really didn't watch the video did you. He said that games are better enjoyed when you don't care about experiencing everything. Re watch it man, good developers don't want the player to min max, they want them to experience the game without having to deal with filling out all the achievements. Also play before your eyes
To even get started on most of the backlog of games I own, let alone finish any of them, and to keep this hobby fun and not a sociocultural-cred chore, I've kind of just conditioned myself to see 'grokking' a game as having finished it, rather than whatever final ending a game had planned for itself. Have I seen all the game's systems that feel nice to discover, and is my curiosity sated for enacting its world, themes, drama, and plot myself? Yes? Then it's been fun and done, and I can look up what I missed on the internet. A game's intended end point rarely aligns with this, but in terms of time/money costs versus entertainment benefits, at least compared to other hobbies, more games are worth it for me when engaged like this.
I've rarely felt like missing out on anything beyond the point of grokking a game, have rarely felt like playing games is a second job now, and have learned to recognize, recoil, and reconsider, whenever a videogame's addiction cycles get to me. Whether I commit or just casually play a thing feels way more in my hands now.
I quit playing Nier: Automata about halfway through B cycle (9S playthrough) and then looked up a video about it. I may get back to it just cause I like the style and gameplay, but I'm satisfied with not doing so too.
This will be an interesting game to see the Completionist tackle.
My perspective has been changed yet again, well done. No wonder I only aimed to 100% complete short games I loved: they weren't massive time sinks and it actually felt somewhat fun to run through them again.
one of the best things about watching your videos is that I get information about so many interesting games that I've never even heard of before through taking examples from different games. on my wish list they go.
I was just telling people to play this game! This game fucking made me bawl my eyes out, it’s one of thats games that really hits you hard and it just goes to show how games really can be art in so many different ways, despite what a lot of really stupid art snobs might say.
@@stlm Effective immortality makes one bored, especially without a daughter to take care of now.
Oof.
Gorogoa needs more exposure. It's one of the best puzzle games and by far the best mobile game I've played.
I have always enjoyed your opinion on games and how you connect many aspects of different games but this video hits different. I love the premise and how you developed your argument through many examples by outlining the positive aspects of short and/or unfinished games whilst discrediting longer form unending messes. Great video, and definitely one of my favorite video essays to date. Respect.
No channel gets me thinking about games like this one, only 5 min in but great vid
Reminds of Bill Burr when he said one guy he heard died happy (I can't remember his last words) but he also heard there was a famous guy who played arenas and shit he was livin the life. His last words on his death bed was "So much wasted time".
Anyone else expect "repetition legitimizes" to be repeated instead thanks to another very good Adam on youtube?
I will need to come back to this video few times in the future, I think. I liked it very much and I am intrigued by the themes and ideas (also the mentioned games) walked through.
Thanks Adam! Keep up the great work!
@Adam Millard - The Architect of Games , you truly are a man of culture. I have to admit that the little Hades credits warning in Greek was pretty spot on (and also funny for a native speaker). I applaud you!
Bruh! you teaching so much about my bad gaming habits!! it is unbelievable I wish I knew this things before it would have made gaming so much easier, I end up finding this things the hard way after getting frustrate with some games, now i do not try to do everything but just to have fun, if i finish the game with everything is fine and if i do not is also fine but it takes so much effort to break the habit of trying to get everything in a game but little by little I am learning to just do what makes the game fun and avoid the pointless 100% completion! such great content man!
I hope Alex Deloch is doing alright, almost clicked off the video before realizing that I didn't hear his name. I've watched these videos too much as it would seem. Great video none-the-less, I really agree as someone who has to fight the urge to get all the steam achievements.
Before your eyes is masterpiece in storytelling and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees with me on a pay per view special in which I lose in the 4th round by taking a fall and we both cash in our fat paychecks.
Nice video as usual, thx for the content, gameplay hours and quality hours of a game is becoming a thing more and more, hopefully, it'll become the norm in the future.
This video was almost exactly as long as my commute home. Perfect length, just like the focus game!
I wish you'd mention "The Longing" at some point since we're talking about game lengths, since that game's twist is about how long it is and you've made an entire video about it previously
As a wise book series said (and I think is a really good summary of this video), "Journey before Destination"...
Allow yourself to play as much as you want, but make sure to enjoy it during the whole process
Adam, you make a good point: short, high-quality games with good stories are way better than long ones that feel like long, expensive digital chores.
You're in a unique position to be able to collect, highlight, and analyze games of this sort to spread awareness not only for the games themselves, but for their impact on game culture. In other words, you're able to influence gaming culture toward games that are actually good art, not just shallowly "fun" experiences.
Hope to see more like this!
13:00 which brings me onto...U̶n̶d̶e̶r̶t̶a̶l̶e̶ Before Your Eyes
Dude, I just went through this game, it's awesome! Thanks for covering it!
Hey man, just want to let you know that I love your videos, they always brighten my day
Always a joy to watch your videos. Thank you for your time. :)
Excellent video. I fully resonate with that feeling of trying to extract everything out of a game, putting myself in the meat grinder and forgetting to have fun. I may not be able to see endings say when I recently played Shadow of war due to its ridiculous grind but just stepping away and saying I’ve had my fun other than to keep going and spoil what I and
many games (single player) lost "catharsis" moment... when you just sit there speechless...
I still remember finishing MGS for the 1st time and just listening to "The Best Is Yet To Come" as end credits roll
this was an amazing video. thank you and please keep at it! ^-^
This, in my opinion, is the best video you have made to date. Thank you for making it.
This video came out just at the right time. I have recently talked to a friend about this exact topic and how i enjoy these short games so much more.
Yeah dude - as others have said, this is one of your best videos yet.
So well written and constructed.
Keep up the awesome work! Us in the industry rely on you :D
Amazing video just like always Adam, you always find the best mix of a good topic along with awesome game recommendations.
One point I'd like to bring up however since you never mentioned it, is that I feel that it's also okay for you to let yourself enjoy the mindless grinds, repetitive content and games without any sort of conclusion if you truly enjoy what you're doing. I've played League of Legends for 7 years straight before realizing I could've spent a lot of that time progressing through my game backlog and started forcing myself to play other games instead. The result is that even though I've managed to get through some amazing experiences thanks to that, I would sometimes find myself wanting to play a game like Minecraft or WoW and go against my wishes because "it wasn't an efficient choice".
I've meanwhile thankfully managed to find a balance, and am currently enjoying Genshin Impact despite all its flaws since I enjoy the gameplay loop, constant updates and characters, whilst also slowly making progress on some long story oriented games and haven't had this much fun in gaming in years.
I know you're not advocating for us to play certain kinds of games instead of others, but wanted to leave my experience here in case there's other people that went or are going through similar experiences :)
Definitely. I play games mostly just to relax. My husband can't play Minecraft with me because he always wants to build something together and I wander off just near mindlessly cutting trees and digging holes. We did build the outside and some of the entrance of a giant castle entirely in survival mode once mostly using stone (and dirt for climbing around) that I'd dug up.
Man Adam this is an important video dude. Meaningful stuff
Adam I have played ape out. The ending of the main story was so brilliant I ended it right there. I don't need anything else. I'm so happy your video adds to this feeling. Choose your ending and be happy
This video had some profound messages for me, so you've earnt a sub.
The beginner's guide is one of those few games I feel no one should play more than once, for the same reason this beautiful title really ends in such an impactful way.
damn, foiled again!
thus continues our quest to find out what the disembodied voice looks like.
Ya know, I feel like the more I watch your videos the more I enjoy games now.
Great video as always!
Another amazing episode!
I'm reminded of PMB Explorers of Sky where the post-game content is so expansive it often gets called the second half of the game.
absolutely agree with everything here but you put it so much better than I've managed (as always). Also one of the vids where I saw at least a dozen games I want to play right now!
My biggest bugbear on this theme is how the 'real fans' are usually the ones that complain loudest about a game.
"I've got 1000 hours in this early access gem and I'm bored!"
no shit, go play something else, you only paid £15 for a 1000 hours of entertainment and you're complaining?!
But then too many devs pander to these people instead of say refining the early game to attract new players, or rounding off the ending to give (wait for it) a satisfying conclusion
I love discovering a new game, being explained how all the mechanisms work and what i accomplishes. great video as always
"An ending is the point where you're happy putting a game down"
*Shows cutscene from the incredibly premature ending in Monster Hunter Rise*
I wish developers would be more concerned about the game overstaying its welcome than hitting some content threshold.
from a profit standpoint, and depending on the type of game, isn't it better if the game overstays its welcome?
*cough* fortnite *cough*
7:26 incredible transition
"This is the end, beautiful friend.
This is the end, my only friend, the end." - Jim Morrison.
Remember flash movies which sometimes had clickable secrets which would play hidden scenes?
So many new names at the end! Nice!
Man, you're very insightful but I've watched a dozen videos of yours in a row just now and the gist of every single one of them is you having problems with stuff I either never think about, never care about, or actively enjoy lol
Wow...This man just skillfully communicated feelings that I have never been able to describe before regarding every game I have ever played. Well done!
Great video. My favorite games are usually those that I can finish. As someone in his forties, self employed, married, with other hobbies and obligations, there's just no way I can enjoy playing through a 100+ hour open world. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy GTA V or The Witcher 3, but I just never made it over the 30% mark in these. (I don't mention newer games for a reason - I stopped playing the huge ones at some point).
I loved the likes of Firewatch, Gone Home, Return of the Obra Dinn, RiME, A Short Hike, Eastshade and What Remains of Edith Finch (and others) because I was able to finish the story and get "closure" before I got bored. This is the main reason why I'm into indie (or maybe call them semi-indie) games more than into most AAA titles. Of course due to my age and the career I built over time, nowadays I'm fine spending 20 or 30 bucks on five hours of gaming fun - this used to be different when I was still a poor student.
Great video!
I ran into this dilemma recently with Axiom Verge. It's a fantastic game and I was enjoying it so much that I started to think I'd want to 100% it. But once the final area was opened and I decided to go back through the rest of the game with a map to comb through it all, while it was a fun treasure hunt at first, it slowly started to get pretty boring, then frustrating (seriously, the secrets in that game are rough), and now I haven't touched the game in a few days.
I think it's about time I go back and finish it up before I grow to resent it completely. I'd rather see the ending while I'm still interested and satisfied with the amount of stuff I found on my own, instead of burning my eyes out staring at a map trying to find that last health node fragment that probably won't make a big enough difference anyway.
Great video, by the way. Something developers and players alike should try to keep in mind.
your videos have singlehandedly started giving me an endorphin rush every time I see the youtube notification symbol lol. Thanks for the lovely content :D
Thank for you this!
Here's a novel concept - how about game developers stop putting worthless filler content into their games? Then we can 100% quality games that are worth our time.
We cannot control the actions of others, we *can* control our own actions, we can influence our own values. If 100% a game is not worth our time, then why 100% them? So what if we miss something? Does missing some small scene inherently ruin the rest of the game? If the rest of the game isn't enjoyable without that scene, and the process of earning that scene isn't worth it, then why bother with the game at all? I've stopped 100%ing games these last few years, and let me tell you, it's far more enjoyable to me, playing this way.
When we watch movies, do we feel shame, or disappointment that we don't see everything that happens in the background of shots? Do we tell someone that didn't catch every little detail on their first watch that they didn't truly experience the movie? No. We feel amused and intrigued and proud for the things that we do notice, and everything we don't notice is simply that, unnoticed.
Ahhh Adam, you're gonna hit me with that Short Hike OST and get me all sentimental huh?
a short hike. 1-2 hours first playthrough. then visiting the island for half an hour every once in a while to chill.
For me, I feel like I have to do everything because I'm only ever going to play a game one time unless it makes into my top 5. If I don't see it on the first playthrough, I'm probably never going to. There's just not enough time.
thank you so much for recommending this game, it was awesome.
Really great points on game completion and finishing games but here's another angle to consider - Some people, like me, deal with some compulsive issues that just make me feel obliged like I have to 100% everything, otherwise I am not satisfied, especially if there are real % and completion indicators in the game.
Which leads to this weird dichotomy where I might be really annoyed with a game for not respecting my time and making me do busy work but also feel really good about seeing that % tick up until that magic 100%. And conversely, I might be enjoying my time with a short game but feel ultimately unsatisfised no matter how good it is because the game didn't give me clear completion metrics, didn't show me all checkboxes checked of everything. Games that both track completion and are satisfying experiences without repetitive nonsense are very rare so as end result, I end up really not enjoying most games I get into for one or the other reason.
I think it would be interesting to explore more how game showing completionist metrics can affect how we feel about the game, whether it's showing 5/10 side quests completed vs. just unknown number or similar. I've been trying to fight against my compulsive issues for ages but with limited success so far.
19:44 you bloody bastard, I respect it
Man, I remember playing the old slipways from on coolmathgames, Nice to see it got improved and expanded upon.
Reminds me of Ender's Shadow, when Bean insists on taking down the scoreboard.
7:30 *STANDING HERE I REALIZE*
If you haven't played it, I absolutely reccomend the Witness. The loose metanarrative is basically all about the "contentification" of video games. A stand out example is how the reward for solving one of the toughest batches of puzzles in the game is basically a dissertation on why its bad to hide the most interesting or coolest content in a game behind hoops that means no one will see it.
Damn, I have to aquire a human face? Where the hell am I suppose to get one of those?..
I have varying degrees of completionism in myself. Basically, I care about completing a game as much as the game cares to reinforce my progress. If there's something akin to an in-game checklist for my accomplishments, I am very likely to go for absolutely everything, whereas with something such as Breath of the Wild, I would never even dream of getting all of the Korok seeds because all it does is give you more of an expendable resource without giving you much of an indication that you accomplished anything at all, which is perfectly designed in my opinion. I think it's a _very_ good thing that korok seeds don't feel any more satisfying to obtain than they do, because then I would feel compelled to collect them all, which would just be an absolutely horrendous experience. Some of my worst experiences with games are when a game reinforces me to experience every little thing it offers, despite the fact that the vast majority of it is mundane and thoughtless.
"Can you suscribe and like without blinking?" LOL
My blinking rate has increased significantly while watching this video.
The gaming industry has learned that fun is a commodity and that being as miserly as possible with it is the key to a profitable game. There are so many games with lots of potential that has gone undeveloped because the developer's goal is usually to make the game less fun, not more. I realize that this video was mostly about how to appreciate games as a gamer, but developers and even lawmakers really need to understand this issue and the harm that happens when it isn't accounted for, or else we're going to keep going farther and farther down the road towards every game being a gacha and every purchase being a loot box.
I thought you would talk about Hollow Knight too, that's a great example of stratification for different kind of players.
Great video 😊👍
Your writing is incredible