作者：David Rosen

多长的游戏才值得你花30美元呢？

这是个很复杂的问题，我会先独自分析每个部分。首先，我将探讨的是“长度”对游戏的含义，随后我们将看看游戏的“价值”，最后我们再把二者结合起来。

游戏的长度

人们普遍认为游戏长度指的是玩家从开始玩单人叙事游戏到结束所需耗费的平均时间。比如，《合金装备4》任务关卡的完成需要10个小时，过场动画总计6个小时，所以游戏的长度为16个小时。《镜之边缘》含有3.5个小时的故事和关卡以及0.5个小时的过场动画，所以总时间为4个小时。

镜之边缘(from customizemyi.com)

对我来说，这种游戏长度的概念过于狭隘，这只是游戏构建、线性和叙事层面的长度而已。这种计算方法完全忽略了《合金装备4》中的多人模式部分和《镜之边缘》中的计时测试，而这两者比故事模式更加重要。而且对许多游戏而言，这种长度概念根本不适用，比如《模拟人生》、《Team Fortress》和象棋等。

即便对游戏的叙事部分，这种概念也不一定有效，因为许多玩家半途便离开游戏。比如，只有1/4的《侠盗猎车手4》玩家会打通游戏，甚至连像《半条命2：第二章》这样的短游戏也只有50%的完成率（游戏邦注：这是2010年数据）。

我认为只有一个度量可以准确有效地衡量“游戏长度”，那就是玩家在游戏中花费的平均时间。也就是说，撇开游戏的叙事层面，游戏能够娱乐玩家的小时数。

游戏价值

在游戏中花更多的时间是否就意味着游戏有更大的价值呢？比如，我在《Puzzle Quest》中花了5美元，去年的游戏时间共计20小时。我花15美元从XBLA中购买《地狱边境》，这款游戏只给我带来了4个小时的娱乐时间。5美元换来20个小时，15美元只换来4个小时？这种价格是否不恰当呢？

我不这么认为，我购买这两款游戏的目的并不相同。我用《Puzzle Quest》来打发时间，让我产生自己并没有在浪费时间的感觉。比如，我会想：“尽管我在火车上浪费了1个小时的时间，但是至少我在游戏中完成任务并且升级了！”这是项很有价值的服务，之所以价格如此之低是因为市场上存在许多同类的打发时间的游戏，比如《Drop7》、《Zen Bound》、《Cross Fingers》等。

但是，我玩《地狱边境》是为了感受其独特的氛围和游戏设计的特别方法。这种独特且精心制作的游戏数量极其有限，每年只会出现2到3款。即便《地狱边境》提供的娱乐时间更短，但是它们比起《Puzzle Quest》所产生的乐趣来说更不可替代，所以自然就有更高的价格。

游戏长度和价值的关系

我未曾发现它们之间存在直接的联系，但是间接联系确实存在。价值与高质量内容和游戏机制有所关联，而玩家在游戏中花的时间越长，就越有可能发现更多的内容和机制。这意味着，短游戏存在价值上限。比如，如果你只在游戏中花两分钟的时间，你只能体验到两分钟的高质量游戏玩法。

但是，如果你某款游戏中花上10个小时，也不能确保你能够获得10个小时的高质量游戏体验。拥有长篇叙事内容的游戏通常会有大量的低质量内容，或者不断重复少量高质量内容直到玩家对此感到腻烦。

总的来说，叙事游戏长度并非真正有用或通用的衡量标准，讨论玩家在游戏中花多长时间更有意义。单个小时的游戏可玩性不仅取决于游戏质量还于游戏的稀有性，游戏价值和叙事长度之间并不存在直接的联系。

就制作游戏而言，我更偏向于那些以合适的频率展现深层次游戏玩法并且能够完全探索的游戏。撇开叙事不谈，我更关注的其支持的模式、挑战性关卡和其他形式的非叙事游戏可玩性。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2010年8月17日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Game length and value

David Rosen

If you pay $30 for a game, how long does it have to be to get your money’s worth?

This is a complicated question, so I would like to look at each part independently. First I would like to discuss what ‘length’ means for games, then we can look at game ‘value’, and finally, we can think about how they fit together.

What is game length?

The common idea of game length refers to the time it takes for an average player to start a single-player narrative game and play until the end credits roll. So, for example, in Metal Gear Solid 4 it takes about ten hours to complete every mission objective and another six hours to watch the cutscenes, so the game is sixteen hours long. Mirror’s Edge has three and a half hours of story levels and half an hour of cutscenes, adding up to four hours.

To me, this concept of game length is uselessly narrow — that’s just the length of the structured, linear, narrative portion of the game. It completely misses the multiplayer portion of Metal Gear Solid 4, and the time trials for Mirror’s Edge, which are arguably more important than the tacked-on ‘story’ mode. For many games the question of game length doesn’t even make sense. How long is The Sims? Spelunky? Team Fortress? Chess?

It doesn’t even necessarily work for the narrative portion either, since many players quit halfway through. For example, barely a quarter of Grand Theft Auto 4 players made it to the end. Even a short game like Half-Life 2: Episode 2 only has a 50% completion rate.

There is only one metric I can think of for ‘game length’ that is in any way useful or universal. That metric is the median amount of time that players spend with the game. That is, the number of hours of entertainment that it provides to people, regardless of the narrative.

What is game value?

If you spend more time with a game, does that mean it’s worth more? For example, I spent $5 on Puzzle Quest, which I played for a total of about twenty hours over the last year. I also spent $15 on Limbo for XBLA, which provided only four hours of entertainment. $5 for twenty hours compared to $15 for four hours? Are these prices as crazy as they seem?

I don’t think so. I bought them for different purposes that have different economics. I used Puzzle Quest to make frustrating delays more bearable by masking them with the illusion of labor: “I wasted an hour on a broken-down train, but at least I leveled up and completed that quest!” This is a valuable service, but the price is driven down by the supply of similarly well-crafted time-killers like Drop7, Zen Bound, Cross Fingers, Peggle, and so on.

On the other hand, I played Limbo for its unique atmosphere, and unusual nonverbal approach to game design. The supply of such distinctive and well-executed games is very limited — there are only two or three of them on a good year. Even though Limbo provided fewer ‘hours of entertainment’, they were more irreplaceable than those provided by Puzzle Quest, so it’s expected that they have a higher price.

Are game length and value related?

I don’t see a direct link there, but there is an indirect one. Value is related to quality content and game mechanics, and the longer the player spends with a game the more potential there is for exposure to new content and mechanics. This means there is an upper-bound to the value of really short games. For example, if you only spend two minutes with a game, you will not experience more than two minutes of high-quality gameplay.

However, if you spend ten hours with a game, there is no guarantee that you will experience ten hours of high-quality gameplay. Games with really long narratives often use large quantities of lower-quality content, or repeat a small amount of high-quality content until it gets tedious.

To recap, narrative game length is not really a useful or universal metric, it’s more useful to talk about how long players spend with the game. The value of an hour of gameplay varies not only with quality but also with scarcity, and there is no direct relationship between the value of a game and its narrative length.

For Overgrowth, I would like to make the game as long as it has to be to introduce deep gameplay mechanics at an appropriate rate, and to explore them completely. Aside from the narrative, I would also like to focus on mod support, challenge levels, and other forms of non-narrative gameplay. (Source: Wolfire Blog)