Is the game that really short ( 6 hour ) ?

Doom was about 5 hours though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not saying that Tacoma is as good (as I don't have it, so I can't tell), just that a game has never needed to be long to be worth its price.

The approach to criticism or disdain by fans of newer game genres and more casual gamers in general is saddening.

Maybe not, but at what point does things just become ridiculous? And I want to make it clear I'm not referring to games like We Happy Few here that you can "finish" in a minute since you haven't actually gone through the game then, but if you can go through a game's main content in an hour then something is clearly wrong. It might take years to design something but that just provides more motivation to get the most out of it and fill it with enough content.

What I see is a trend of low standards where if a reviewer can get more than 10 hours of gameplay out of a game they consider that long. That is bad for gaming. I mean what ever happened to the Deux Ex days where you could play for 100+ hours and that's not even counting reloading and playing it in different styles.

I feel the only way to fix the downhill trend we are seeing is to punish publishers accordingly. I understand more time is now spent on graphics than on game design but at some point you have to start striking a balance as well. I would rather have 10 great engaging games a year like we used to have than 100 1-dayers.

thanks, i had both games wishlisted as the genre is my cuppa, was waiting for a sale but getting them both for 20 bucks is fine by me, cheers

Good thing you mentioned that because on the Tacoma game page it says "Fullbright" and on the Gone Home game page it says "The Fullbright Company". So, by clicking on the developer on the Tacoma page the search results show only Tacoma and no other games.

A regular search brings up both games. It's the links (on the game pages) to the developer search that brings up only one game each. Perhaps the official name changed and that's why it's different?

Doom also has a whole lot more replay value ( since it's gameplay rather than story driven ), plus various multiplayer modes. Oh yeah, and a level editor. And overall higher production values. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just saying that these comparisons of completely different games don't really make much sense. Apples, oranges, and all that.

In the end everyone has their own criteria and priorities to determine the value of a game. But I think it's fair that the total play time is a factor for many people.

Then you're in agreement with me, as that is precisely why I used Doom as an example; the time it takes to finish a game doesn't tell you whether a game is worth playing and has never been the be-all end-all criteria by which to judge them. It is a criteria, but not the defining one that determines a game's quality. However, because it is an easily determined number that can be compared and contrasted, it gets brought up a lot and treated as more important than other factors. This underlying tendency is what I'm objecting to.

I assumed they did since it seems like the obvious thing to me because otherwise there's no barrier of entry for stupid spam reviews. /shrug

Ill be buying this simply to counter the hate that Gone Home had. Ill also be buying this for most of my family. Brothers, Sisters, Mother, Father, Uncle, Aunt, Half cousins, Half other siblings. Fuck the haters with my money :)

Some walking simulators offer more freedom of movement and exploration than modern corridor shooters with one path to follow. Narrative exploration describes them better than walking simulators.

I'd say the importance of the total play time varies. In example, in a heavily story based game ( such as Heavy Rain ), I'd primarily expect a good story and interesting characters. Doesn't matter if it's relatively short, as long as it's well written and memorable ( but also priced accordingly ). In a sandbox open-world RPG I would expect a lot of content to discover, and thus a greater total play time.

It also depends on the situation -- Someone who's knocked out for a few weeks, due to an accident or illness, would probably prefer a long ( possibly mediocre ) game, over a short one, just to keep them busy for a while.

Overall, I wish GOG and the game devs would supply an official estimated amount of play time more frequently. ( But in Tacoma's defense, I think they actually do list a play time of about 3 to 5 hours. For many other games you have to visit external sites for that kind of information, though. )
Maybe that would be taking it too far, since people may own an identical copy of the game elsewhere. Also, people may have legitimately useful information for potential customers ( such as warnings about technical issues ). Still, it would help if there was at least a way to distinguish between GOG owners of the game and those who own it elsewhere ( or not at all ). Like the "verified purchase" tag, or whatever it's called, on Amazon.
That seems like an odd motivation for a purchase. I take it you enjoyed their previous game, so simply see it as supporting a dev team you like.

( Also, fucking people with money sounds kinky. Maybe they even have a fetish for that sort of thing. )

Bought both Friday... I'm a slow gamer, love taking my time. here are my stats:

event[0]: 2h 10m
TACOMA: 3h 25m

Short as can be... that said event[0] has randomized elements for each play-though and TACOMA has fun extras you can do if you like and only a few minor optional puzzles to solve.

Worth $20 for 5h and 35m of entertainment? well sure! a new BluRay movie is 2 hours long at that price... usually with less that amount of bonus content. Its how you look at it... Get pizza for the family... have a single diner out with drinks or appitisers are you are at $20... watch a movie and buy pop/popcorn and your at $20.

I completely enjoyed it, not on the level of SOMA but this was great... event[0] was not impressive, to short with not much to do... TACOMA is the shining jewel in this package. I was teared up and nearly crying by the end, it has a solid ending and if you get all the extras and have read all the data-files and done all the hidden stuff will truly make you feel good.

its been a long time since i've been satisfied with the ending of a game... speaking of event[0] has like 5 endings so have fun!

Giving an official estimation puts it at the forefront again, though, which is what I'd like to avoid. Using a metric in this manner gives a false sense of objectivity because determining the playtime is not an objective process, but highly relative to how the game is being played. They're a holdover from movies that should not be applied to games in this manner, which is why I'd like to see reviews instead focus more on contextualising the time spent on a game beyond the vague explanations we get now. Am I being pressured to progress? Is the general size appropriate to the kind of game that's being played? Was the time spent on it too short, too long, or just right? Does it hold the player's attention or lose the thread? Is there downtime and does it function as a set up? Does the set up lead to a pay off? And so on.

More isn't necessarily better, nor is it necessarily worse. It all depends on how it is used and for what purpose. Different types of games carry different expectations in this manner, but no game type is inherently more valuable than others. For example: a sandbox game requires a design that involves a degree of expansiveness, but isn't inherently, objectively better and more valuable than an adventure game, a racing game or a platformer.

Game reviews in general could do with taking cues from older styles of criticism and treating the different aspects of games a lot more seriously, though. Something like art-style plays a tremendous part in the various ways in which the game affects the player, but gets simplified down to 'it's real nice' or 'it's not so nice' .

A verified GOG-owner tag is what I'd like to see, at the very least. Also search options for the reviews (oldest to newst, newest to oldest, most helpful, least helpful, language, etc) instead of only 'most helpful'. It's currently a hassle to, for example, go through the reviews of an older game with tech issues to see if those have been fixed over time, plus nothing but the top reviews really gets noticed unless people want to go digging, which encourages unhelpful voting behavior.

Not sure what you mean by forefront -- It's not like they have to put it at the top of the game description, in bold glowing letters or whatever. I think of it as merely another bit of information about a game, and it's nice to have it all in one place, right on the game's store page, to help make a well informed buying decision.

And I know it can be tricky to give accurate estimates, but even a very rough average value would be better than nothing at all, so people don't have to guess whether the game they're about to buy will keep them busy for one afternoon, of for the rest of the month. If they want to be thorough, they could provide two or three values, for "minimum play time" and "completionists" or something along those lines.


True, the review section could use some serious work, in addition to those aforementioned "buyer tags". It's especially irritating when good reviews are being downvoted, simply because they're not in English. That one is on GOG really, since they decided to cater to various non-English speaking audiences, but didn't update the website's features accordingly.