Spider-Man 2 developer weighs in on game length vs price debate

[Gamernyc78]

Spider-Man 2 developer weighs in on game length vs price debate

Spider-Man 2 released today, with a storyline that developer Insomniac has said will take, on average, about 15 hours t…

www.eurogamer.net

Intihar told BBC Newsbeat that Insomniac was aware of this debate about price and game length, but for the Spider-Man 2 team it was all about the quality of the final product.

"For us, it really comes down to the experience we want to deliver with the quality we want to hit," he said. "Obviously, there's a certain level of, 'hey, someone's going to spend this much money on a game', so we want to give them the experience that's worth it."

Intihar closed by saying that "no matter how long" Insomniac's game is, it is the developer's job to make sure that "it's worth that money, it's worth that investment."

As a general point of interest, Marie from our guides team is currently on the last story mission, and she has recorded about 17 hours so far. She has not been searching for the collectibles or doing any side missions. She is also, properly in love with the game.

 

[MiyazakiLovesKojima]

PlayStation is the Dad we all deserve

 

[anonpuffs]

Funny enough this was Jaffe's argument in favor of gamepass. What he shortsightedly didn't consider is that in gamepass quality literally doesn't matter so even if you greenlit that 2-3 hour passion project as content for gamepass, the eventual economic incentive is to deliver minimum viable product because the game has already been paid for off the backs of subscriptions. There is no option for the customer to withhold money in return for a poor product.

 

[BroodCorp]

I don’t get why a statement by the person who worked on the game needs to be an article. Obviously an employee is going to deepthroat the product and say it’s worth the price regardless of what’s on disc.

 

[Arc]

At $70 and in the middle of negative financial times for most of the world, I get the feeling this is going to be very big subject for now.

For me, I just need something that’s $70 worth of awesome, if that makes sense? It can be like Tears of the Kingdom, where that vast amount of content at that quality is an easy sale, or it can be something like Spider-Man 2, with a nice meaty experience that also blows you away.

I’m not so hung up on any hours=dollars metric. I think it’s antithetical to everything in gaming to think that way, and that’s how big, overstuffed, boring open world games get made.

That said, I don’t think a five hour experience at $70 is acceptable either. Like it’s better be some amazing, replayable thing, or scaled down in price.

 

[Bryank75]

At $70 and in the middle of negative financial times for most of the world, I get the feeling this is going to be very big subject for now.

For me, I just need something that’s $70 worth of awesome, if that makes sense? It can be like Tears of the Kingdom, where that vast amount of content at that quality is an easy sale, or it can be something like Spider-Man 2, with a nice meaty experience that also blows you away.

I’m not so hung up on any hours=dollars metric. I think it’s antithetical to everything in gaming to think that way, and that’s how big, overstuffed, boring open world games get made.

That said, I don’t think a five hour experience at $70 is acceptable either. Like it’s better be some amazing, replayable thing, or scaled down in price.

Quite on point.

I put a great value on how memorable something is... it's hard to judge on many games but I usually know a Nintendo or PS exclusive will give me that. Being there day 1 is part of that too though and sharing the experience with others, the excitement.

So I think pricing people out of that experience, kinda damages it in some ways.

I don't play games to just waste time or run around in endless circles, like many seem to do these days and I did for many years too...but grew out of for the most part.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Quite on point.

I put a great value on how memorable something is... it's hard to judge on many games but I usually know a Nintendo or PS exclusive will give me that. Being there day 1 is part of that too though and sharing the experience with others, the excitement.

So I think pricing people out of that experience, kinda damages it in some ways.

I don't play games to just waste time or run around in endless circles, like many seem to do these days and I did for many years too...but grew out of for the most part.

Yoooo thts my experience with Lords of Fallen! So many entrances and pathways Ughhh it's annoying level design imo lol

I know I'm being more literal and you more figurative but damn I had to chime in lol.

 

[Bryank75]

Yoooo thts jy experience with Lords of Fallen! So many entrances and pathways Ughhh it's annoying level design imo lol

I know I'm being more literal and you more figurative but damn I had to chime in lol.

Well I said in a very general sense and what I was thinking of was COD and some other games where I was basically running around doing the same stuff.

But now even single player games use design to have you running around and wasting time, padding out the game. It's why I love the design of many PS exclusives, cause they have minimal backtracking usually... even if you do have one or two times you do that, it has strong story reasons for doing so and feels significant... like in GOW, going back to get the blades.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Funny enough this was Jaffe's argument in favor of gamepass. What he shortsightedly didn't consider is that in gamepass quality literally doesn't matter so even if you greenlit that 2-3 hour passion project as content for gamepass, the eventual economic incentive is to deliver minimum viable product because the game has already been paid for off the backs of subscriptions. There is no option for the customer to withhold money in return for a poor product.

I don't believe this, yes there is an incentive to give as little as possible when you do the production. On the other hand if your service is filled with garbage level games nobody will keep paying, they'll move away.

That could be said of paid games, studios that see the money made by Roblox or some basic indie titles that required much less budget over the giant AAA efforts that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make.

This is Roblox:

Third Quarter 2023 Financial, Operational and Liquidity Highlights

• Revenue was $713.2 million, up 38% year-over-year.

This may be why they thought that they could get away with pushing low effort games on gamepass.