I very much agree with this, since some of my favourite games are not 300k+ ones. I’d rather see a good paced 150k game, than one that’s been padded out because it has to get to 300k for sales, particularly since we’re probably mainly looking at length rather than breadth here to get rid of too short complaints. On the other hand, if it needs 300k+ to tell that particular story, that’s fine too 
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Personally I’ve found the word count number so uninformative I have stopped bothering to read it. It doesn’t have a consistent relationship to how long any given playthrough will be or how many times I’ll play.
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This is explicitly not something that we do, in any way, shape, or form, from an editorial work standpoint.
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Not necessarily ‘a lot more’. But truth be told, I’ve seen some games this year that got negative reviews for ‘lacking’ things I mused about in testing if it wouldn’t be possible to write a bit more there. (RaV or Dino, e.g. They are neat games, but can get disorienting as they start feeling like the knighting ceremony in The Court Jester. YMMV)
But as you said (if I understood it correctly) some 150k games can benefit from a handful of words more, while it might do nothing for a 300k game.
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For me personally 5 playthroughs is more than enough. When thinking word count, I’m more interested in knowing an average playthrough length to know what I’m getting into.
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It has to be the right 50,000 words. DinoKnights was fine for me, I think it did as well as it did because the author added a needed 30,000+ words during beta.
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I saw :3 And the addition was good (as said, ymmv and to me the part after the abduction felt a little hasty, but otherwise fine). I’m not going to name any negative example, but I believe w both could…
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I am not a typical player so I am not representative. I normally know if game is less 100,000 I will have basically no content as i buy for role play and replay value mostly evil selfish routes i search for something most games fill like mere third level content so if has less than 100 k i will haven’t content at all or very minor
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It is tricky, because as much as I can talk the talk about shorter games and being keen to make one, Crème de la Crème is definitely going to be longer than Blood Money. I don’t want to end up doing a @Gower and making the giantest games ever to giant (though if they’re anywhere near as well written and put together, I’ll be happy!)
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I don’t judge a game based on its play length but rather on it’s story. 150k or 300k, don’t matter. However I do have a soft spot for longer reads.Always prayed on those books with 700+ pages at a library. But I’ll read a 150k any day. For me this subject of play length is not day and night. No one can say one or the other is objectively right. Things like reading focus can determine if a player buys a 150k or 300k game. How much story investment the player has should also be accounted for. I’ve read som 150k stories that in my opinion should have been longer. And some longer once that should have been shorter. to give better pace.
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No offense was intended, that may have come out wrong and padding probably isn’t the right word. I guess I’m trying to say i think stories should be as long as they need to be to wrap it up nicely and stay ticking along tightly rather than a set length, and that might make them longer or shorter than the original planned length (which is my personal preference which I don’t think is shared by everyone since I very rarely get recommend to edit scenes back for not being essential enough to the storyline in games or make the writing tighter by readers, but I have gotten this feedback in other forms of writing I’ve done. I don’t know much about the cog editing process though so you guys may well be doing this where needed with your games.)
I do think we’ll see more unnecessary scenes and slower scripts in HGs if this happens though. More unfinished games too. I know it’s a completely different topic, but word counts for HG will probably mirror COGs without the benefit of an editor to take a red pen to cut scenes as required. I didnt do it, but know recently I was tempted to try and go back and slot in another scene that wouldn’t have impacted the storyline since it was already done, but mostly to make the game I was writing longer because it feels like they’re better recieved overall.
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I’ll chime in and add that, like many here, I think that whatever wordcount is right for the story is what’s right for the story. For example, one of my WIPS, Winter of the Bovine, will likely be 100k words max. If I added another 100k words to it just to meet that “long game milestone” it would likely just be filler because the plot is meant to be tight and compact.
On the other hand, if I tried to fit Mass Mother Murderer into anything less than 250k words, it would suffer terribly. The plot is meant to be epic, with dozens of different elements and contrasting atmospheres touched upon. Not to mention the fact that it’s clearly leading up to something explosive that needs to be handled in a way that doesn’t leave the readers feeling that the climax is rushed or too weak.
So, although as both an author and reader who typically enjoys games that are 200k + words the most, I also understand that each game has to be looked at individually.
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Yeah for general audience I think most consumers would go for “the longer one” aka the one with the most words, but then get mad when it’s a long story but with an awkward plot, like it’s basically just beating around the bush. Some stories are short because that’s what they are- short stories. Long stories are long because the large amount of content is supposed to be there, it’s originally part of the plot. Personally, I would go for the 300k because I just like long IFs that I can be tied down to even if for only a couple days, whereas with 2 150k interactive novels, I would finish one and be on to the next like that.
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When it comes to the majority of casual readers (the types giving the 1 star reviews saying a game is too short) the total wordcount number isn’t all that useful. Single-playthrough length is far more relevant. Many casual readers will determine the value of a story after just one playthrough. It’s just a reality.
I think the casual audience drives the evolution of a medium more than the hardcore does. The casual audience has long since left parser-based IF (exits are NORTH, WEST and SOUTH), for example, but there of course remains a solid fanbase around it. I think the stats-heavy, lots of branches, high replayability, “game”-y choicegames will go the same way. There will always be a fanbase for them, but casuals will move elsewhere (they always do).
My guess is that the casual audience sees pages full of text and expects a story experience first and foremost, one with as much narrative depth as you’ll find in any ebook. Something that takes more than one sitting to go through. This will lead to a rise of “interactive novels” as opposed to “interactive games”. Stats-lite, with branches geared towards customizing a set story instead of branching out into multiple ones.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what the numbers and reviews seem to indicate to me. Making any reads into the ‘casual audience’ is always very hard to do, because they by definition aren’t here posting on the forums. Regardless of how the future goes, if you write it–they will come!
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150,000 games are dinky, tiny, pathetic. Not worth anyone’s time.
Now 160,000 word games? If you see one of those I suggest snapping it up. That’s a meaty chunk of story right there.
(Please buy Nuclear Powered Toaster next Thursday).
All seriousness, I think price matters a lot. If the 300k is twice as much as the 150 ones, I’d rather double up and do the smaller titles. If only a buck more gets me a much larger experience though, then as a reader that’s an easy call.
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Even though i prefer longer games that’s up to 300k words … but i don’t think < 150k games are tiny , pathetic and not worth anyone’s time :-)
Doomsday on Demand 2 is 135k words but it felt like a long story with an epic sense , and Vampire House is even shorter , but it is one of my all-time favourite 
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@hustlertwo was giving us a nice, healthy dose of his signature sarcasm. 
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I don’t actually think that either. My next title will likely be just a smidge over 100k, because that is what feels right for it. And I hope to make up for it seeming ‘small’ by keeping the price low enough to get people interested and, you know, hopefully not sucking. Fingers crossed.
Point is, word count matters, but it probably shouldn’t as much as it does. Even if saying that won’t do anything to change it.
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The games I’ve really enjoyed, like, made me feel things emotionally, all have around 300,000+ word counts
I don’t know if that’s because those games are actually better in terms of emotional engagement, or if I just seek out longer works and therefore am effected by them more often.
I think though, if I had to make a guess, the shorter a game is, the less time there is between game start and game end, which means there’s less time to get immersed.
That being said, there is significant value to shorter games. I think HMS Foraker benefits from a shorter length, as does Marine Raider (which I still remember and have enjoyed many times), the reason being they’re focused on much shorter challenges, with a variety of ways to deal with each part of the story. Since the author doesn’t have to account for what a character did in Act I while writing Act 3 and can rather focus on what happened in Scene 1 during Scene 2, there tends to be more of an interconnectedness between each beat in the story, and how you solved it.
Also, in terms of value for money- longer games last, well, longer. I’ve owned Choice of Rebels for almost a year now and I think I’ve yet to find even 60% of all the possible endings. Choice of Robots I’ve owned for more than twice as long and I’m still not sure how to get certain achievements. There are still scenes I haven’t seen and I’ve… I’ve played that game… many, many, many times. I might have a problem, honestly.
Hollywood Visionary on the other hand, I’ve owned for about one and a half years, and while I love the game, I’ve done multiple replays and though there are definitely bits of it I haven’t seen (I haven’t played it nearly as much as CoX or CoR, but that’s part of my point) most of it is rather repitious, simply because there’s not as much of it to alter in each play through. If that makes any sense, I guess. I’m having trouble finding my words.
So, uh, to make a long story short (wordplay intended, and I’m a little too proud of myself) I prefer long stories on this platform, but I want authors to write what they want to write. I’ll play them either way if they’re good, just maybe not as many dozens and dozens… and dozens… of times.
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Word count is an important factor for me, not going to lie. I’m a very fast reader and like to really be able to hunker down and spend a couple of good, long hours on any given game I purchase. Of course, a 300k game doesn’t necessarily have a longer average playthrough than a 150k game, but it is what it is - 300k amounts to more words to read. (Assuming code isn’t counted. Is it counted? Because that would seem strange to me.)
I don’t think 150k is short per se, and I have and will buy games around that length if the synopsis interests me and/or the demo hooks me, but - a word count like that definitely doesn’t get me as excited as 300k+.
I also don’t mind a bit of railroading as much as some others might, especially if it means a longer playthrough. I don’t play a game to death and I don’t explore every option - I just play and restart until I found my ‘perfect’ ending, then replay for the ROs, so in that sense longer games with a long average playthrough time, even if it involves railroading, would probably be what gets my money.
It depends on the game, of course. I pass on some long games if the synopsis is not to my liking, or if it’s a very broad, open-world type of game, but in general? High word counts instinctively get me excited for a long, fleshed-out game - regardless of whether it’s an accurate expectation or not.