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From a personal view, I finish less than 10%, probably something like 5% of the games I start playing.
This used to be much higher but I've got so many games now, so when a game starts to get boring I move on to another one even though I've put hundreds of hours into them.
I play all of my games. My "backlog" is minuscule, and most of it is composed by official store giveaways I grabbed even when I wasn't really interested in them. Who knows! Things may change, maybe I'll be interested later or get curious and try.

Still, when I buy one (or enter the Community Giveaway) you can be sure it will be played in a natter of weeks.
I do try to play all of them. It's just that I think it's directly related to how many games I bought at the same time. If I bought three games during the same time frame, I'd try to distribute my time for all these three games and ended up not finishing all of them.
The games I have on GoG, whcih arent many, I have all finished.

Except for BG3, because its so extremely long and I will need to take a vacation and just play for a week or two to get through that.

Its kind of funny because when I played BG2 I was really sad when I got to the end I wished it would have gone on some more, haha.

And I guess except for No Man's Sky because well, you can play that as much as you want, there isnt really an ending as such. Last time I played I lost motivation once I hit max money. I already hit 3.5 billion though and AFAIK the ceiling for money is still 4 billion, so my current game is technically already finished again.
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Breja: What really surprises me about this, is that it's apparently worthwile to make sequels to games most people didn't finish. I can understand not finishing a game because you didn't like it enough, absolutely, it's not like I played all of Horizon Zero Fun... but apparently a ton of people will pay a hefty sum for a sequel to a game they never completed, instead of playing that second half of the game they already own, and apparently like enough to pay for more of. And it's not some singular case, but a sustainable business model. It really ties my brain into a knot.
I think it is "common knowledge" that sequels tend to sell fewer units than their initial entries because customers want to start "from the beginning" and there are likely some cases that people bought the first game, didnt like it, so arnt bothering with the sequel (honestly my feeling with HZD and TLoU). This is the argument presented by companies when a sequel doesnt sell as well (Spiderman 2 and Final Fantasy VII rebirth didnt sell as many copies as their first entries iirc). I do try to finish my games so cant really say for sure.

Also as some people mention, people like to collect games. I also find that sequels tend to become easier with more stuff or the gameplay is different enough that it can be considered a different enough game. If the person enjoyed the game but couldnt finish it due to a difficulty spike (which can happen in the PS2/3 era), an easier sequel with improved mechanics could draw a player back in. Given the fact that sequels can also just be sequels in name only (Horizon Forbidden West has Aloy but the story is quite different and unrelated from HZD, Final Fantasies are completely unrelated, Yakuza series new entries can be enjoyed without having played the previous games, etc). I find alot of video games tend to have self-contained stories with maybe an overarching story to tie them together so a player can still enjoy a sequel without having played the first.

Finally, unlike movies or books, I do think alot of players play games because of the gameplay and story takes a back seat. A player may get sick of a game after 8 hours despite the full game being 16 but a sequel with better graphics, new mechanics, and new "stuff" that brings them back for another 8 hours. This is all speculation though so I could be completely wrong.

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Ancient-Red-Dragon: But you are a big fan of the Yakuza series of games though, right?

All of those games are chockful of the exact same kind of stuff that you are complaining about in that quoted post, although you designate your complaints under the "Achievements" umbrella.

But even if those games had zero Achievements, then they'd still be every bit just as much chockful to overflowing with repetitive, tedious, grindy, very aggravating & very unfun gameplay that is necessary to do if you want to complete all of the tasks on the players' "completion lists" for those games.

Ditto for pretty much every "open world" game out there, which almost always contain tons of grindy, repetitive, copy & pasted tasks that the player is expected to do over & over again ad nauseum, forever.

And again, that has no relevance to Achievements being present or not.

Modern games would still have all of that crap remain being ominipresent in them, even if Achievements did not exist.

So to scapegoat all of those kinds of problems onto Achievements really isn't fair.
Im a fan of the Yakuza games as well but player lists/climax battles/Amon fights/etc dont need to be completed to beat the game or even get OP stuff. They are just more content added to the game so the player has more stuff they can do and not all minigames are bad. Is Gwent "unfun gameplay" because its a card game and not traditional swordplay?

Games in the past were much more compact with less "sidequest stuff" to be honest (Im thinking Megaman and Megaman X series where there isnt much beyond platforming and finding some secrets) which could be beaten in a day. However, modern gamers are very greedy in terms of what they demand from games (listen to the outcry if the time to complete a game is less than 30 hours even though 80% likely wont even play those last 15 hours). While it would be ideal if developers put in fun concrete stuff to add to gameplay (more unique levels and bosses), devs also are still working on a limited time and budget and so add in minigames to change up gameplay and add content which will still entertain while not strianing the budget.

I agree the emphasis on everything being open world and 100 hours long needs to stop but thats as much on the normie customers as it is on the devs imo.
No comment, with reservations.
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mqstout: And (this is part of "achievements are crap"), so many games have stupid decisions in their achievement systems: like disabling them if you mod [not so common on GOG], or only counting the game as complete if you do all sorts of stupid other things like get to max level, or only count it as finished if you play 4 times to see every ending.

So, while these low percentages give us some valuable insight... the gaming world would be better if achievements never became a thing.
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: But you are a big fan of the Yakuza series of games though, right?

All of those games are chockful of the exact same kind of stuff that you are complaining about in that quoted post, although you designate your complaints under the "Achievements" umbrella.

But even if those games had zero Achievements, then they'd still be every bit just as much chockful to overflowing with repetitive, tedious, grindy, very aggravating & very unfun gameplay that is necessary to do if you want to complete all of the tasks on the players' "completion lists" for those games.

Ditto for pretty much every "open world" game out there, which almost always contain tons of grindy, repetitive, copy & pasted tasks that the player is expected to do over & over again ad nauseum, forever.

And again, that has no relevance to Achievements being present or not.

Modern games would still have all of that crap remain being ominipresent in them, even if Achievements did not exist.

So to scapegoat all of those kinds of problems onto Achievements really isn't fair.
There's a thought in the back of my mind that has been bothering me all these years, that some entertainment is somehow, for some reason, modeled after a basic job instead.

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Breja: This can't be real. Am I reading this wrong? Or have I just lost my marbles, like Toodles in Hook?
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Timboli: Nope, it suspect it is totally the case, and some of it just a product of the times.

There are certainly many reasons why this might be so.

Back in the day, some 30 years or so ago for you youngsters, most folk would buy a game, and play it to death, because often the price and finances meant you needed to.

Now we have so much variety at our fingertips and in many cases real cheap. Hell with all the discounts and freebies of the last five years or so, you could have a good gaming life for bugger all money now.

With all that variety, and a desire to keep trying something new, it isn't surprising that many folk just dabble in many games, never really finishing them, though perhaps thinking they will one day. Variety as they say, is the spice of life.

It is also true, that games can be disappointing in many different ways, and so why tolerate or hang in there putting up with something less enjoyable, when you have some great games (or potentially so) just waiting to be installed and played.

I suspect many gamers now, don't subscribe to the mentality of many game developers, where they get an ego trip out of making things real hard. So not being able to save regularly or not being able to rebind keys or no controller support or no proper mouse and keyboard support, all play a part in what we (they) will tolerate.

I also think gamers are to a large degree fussier now than in years gone by,

On a personal note, since getting back into gaming in 2017, I have mostly been collecting not playing games, especially as many life circumstances have made playing difficult for me. The desire is there, but obstacles currently remain. My ultimate aim is to play more though, and hope life will allow that.

Still, like any hobby, collecting can be fun all on its own.

And in a very real way, I am giving support, to both GOG and game providers, developers and so forth.
Then it often comes a time when you unlock some plot, find out how to get fun out of something, unearth some old book or record, find dusty files in an HD, manage to run some old copy of a game, etc. and spend hours enjoying what has always been there!
Post edited August 08, 2024 by marcob
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CarChris: Apart from the other reasons, others have stated, I would add today’s time's trend that many people have: They’re trying to see/taste/get involved in many things simultaneously, without delving deeply in any of them. Trying to learn 2-3 languages, 2-3 musical instruments, and doing 1-2 sports, all these at the same time! Trying to become mediocre at many things and as soon as possible, dumping it afterwards, when they deem themselves adequate enough.

Something similar can happen when buying games. When so many of them get so cheap, one can buy 10 games at the same transaction, and before even gets to try all of them, other games go on sale! I try to be as focused as I can (not always possible though).
Quantity over quality, wide and casual surface connections over tight structure and depth; back in the day, Baricco (not much of a philosopher, LOL) and many others before predicted it but thought it could be an interesting development (just as Postmodernism, that is related to that as another kind of relative disengagement). I think they were quite wrong. It's not just the sign of the times, it's the typical fault of these times..
Post edited August 08, 2024 by marcob
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Tokyo_Bunny_8990: I agree the emphasis on everything being open world and 100 hours long needs to stop
I don't, in fact I think games are getting shorter and more linear, size and breadth seeming to increase sharply during the 90s but probably peaking around 2000. The fall since then is nowhere near as sharp and notable exceptions remain, but that drive for ever longer and bigger and more open and varied games was then, not now, and I sure miss it.
And that's on the one hand because I play for escapism and a power trip and the bigger, longer and more detailed the game is, the better it can fulfill that, and when a game that I did get immersed in and which created that power fantasy ends, breaking away from it can be something of a downer and starting a new one and learning the ropes and going through early stages again not the most comfortable prospect. But there's also the plain fact that I play few games to begin with, so if I finish a truly massive game it's at least a feeling of accomplishment in itself, and I can feel that just doing that meant something, close the book on it and see what to move on to, also feeling that if I managed to finish that, I can tackle most other similar games as well. But when I'll just finish a few games a year, if that, and they're shorter or less complex as well, it feels disappointing, and deciding what to play next after finishing such a game seems more of a chore, because on the one hand I won't want another game that would feel the same if finished, but on the other having just most likely taken way too long on a shorter game makes me wary of starting a bigger one, so I end up rather stuck.
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Breja: Because... well, why wouldn't they? If you're enjoying a game, you want to play it all, right? So do most people don't enjoy most games they play? That's kind of a weird picture of the hobby, isn't it?
Assuming someone starts a game they own (which again, the vast majority of people don't), it is not necessarily true that they'd finish it, even if they start.

Here is an incomplete list of games I enjoyed as much as I played of them, and 'finished' but didn't finish:

Hades
Sunless Seas
Sunless Skies
Hollow Knight
Don't Starve
Stardew Valley
Skyrim
Terraria
FTL
Borderlands 2
Rogue Legacy
Hexcells
Hand of Fate
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Darksiders
CrossCode
Civ V
Slay the Spire
Dead Cells
Red Faction Guerrilla
XCOM 2
Victor Vran
HITMAN 2
Batman: Arkham City
Costume Quest
Spiritfarer
MAFIA III
Katana Zero
Shovel Knight
Carmageddon
Carmageddon 2
Darkest Dungeon
Torchlight
Trine
SUPERHOT
Crimsonland
Papers Please
Obra Dinn

Here is an incomplete list of games I played, appreciated, but for whatever reason (sometimes it wasn't fun anymore) I stopped playing:

Shadow of War
Jedi Fallen Order
Doom Eternal
Alan Wake
Ion Fury
Dark Souls
All the STALKER games
Hellblade
Deus Ex
Fallout 4
Blade Runner
Torchlight 2
Witcher 2
Fallout 2

Sorry for the long post, I saw your reply, and just opened my library and started going through one by one. I'm stopping now!
If i buy it i'm definitely gonna play it, if i got the game for free then it may just sit there in the library forever.
Not as much as I should, I buy games on sale that I think I may play in the future but haven't or I buy games that I think are at risk or getting delisted just be sure I have them.
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Cavalary: I don't, in fact I think games are getting shorter and more linear, size and breadth seeming to increase sharply during the 90s but probably peaking around 2000. The fall since then is nowhere near as sharp and notable exceptions remain, but that drive for ever longer and bigger and more open and varied games was then, not now, and I sure miss it.
Are you sure that games were longer back in the 90s or did they just feel longer?

I think it also depends on the kinds of games you play and if you a completionist vs just beating a game but I definately feel modern games have become longer:

- Final Fantasy VII: 36, 80.5 hours
- Half Life: 12, 15.2 hours
- Pokemon: 26.5, 101 hours
- Donkey Kong Country: 4, 6 hours
- Fallout 2: 30.5, 83.5 hours

Modern games
- Spiderman 2: 17, 28 hours
- Final Fantasy VII remake: 32.5, 86 hours
- The Last of Us 2: 24, 42.5 hours
- Fallout 4: 27.5, 159 hours

https://howlongtobeat.com/

Edit: forgot to clarify that the first number is hours to beat main story, number after comma is time to "complete" according to How Long to Beat. Im also honestly surprised how "short" earlier Final Fantasies were because they definately felt longer.

Open World adds alot of stuff and games have added alot of extra stuff like side quests and mini games to pad out time. Maybe Im missing some key 90s games but I think that while 90s games were shorter, they had more replayability.
Post edited August 08, 2024 by Tokyo_Bunny_8990
I just realized I'm totally one of those guys who'd buy a sequel without having finished the first game. At least if it gets a high discount and I haven't completely given up on the thought of completing the first game one day. Heck, I've bought whole series, one by one, without ever finishing a single game in it (e.g. The Witcher, Fallout, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Assassin's Creed, Yakuza, Hard West ...). I don't know, must be a collector's thing. Or a deluded idea about my actual lifespan. And the worst part is, I'm always reluctant to play a sequel before having played/finished the previous titles in the series, even if there's a chance I might like the more recent ones better.
Post edited August 08, 2024 by Leroux
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Tokyo_Bunny_8990: Are you sure that games were longer back in the 90s or did they just feel longer?
Well, true, don't have hard data, and I'm just referring to how they were for me. And I play really slowly, if I have the time for a game and check I tend to find that it's past the longest on HLTB and maybe triple the average for example. So I guess that, yes, it felt like RPGs and strategy games around 2000 were really pushing for duration, aiming for 80-100 hours as an "official" value or as listed by professional reviewers (which were more notable back then) while now it seems like 30 is presented like a good duration and 50 may even be considered too much.