Length of game influences buying?

Totally agree with you, Is the mechanisms what makes Cog a hybrid between literature and an interactive media. Without them stories would be static and hardly customizable.
In Spanish tradition there is a said “Caballo grande ande o no ande” That means I want a Big horse I don’t care if it walks or not.
It is a powerful psychological thing desire something big for the sake of it. Even if you won’t be enjoying the full of that big thing. .

I really want customization and choices that matters and feel different let me role-playing different characters. But sadly I have no way to know beforehand in a Cog. At least if I don’t test it. So after see the demo. Many times, I am on a fence about buy it or not. So length is a factor I tend to think well is big so probably will have the branches and choices that would allow me role-playing. But there are cases is not , and I end with a long game with barely choices and no replay value. And is a great literature game , but not exactly the reason why I enjoy the media.

The public is really really diverse and competition is harsh. So it is a very complex data and very difficult to handle.

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A lot of people seem to think otherwise, which is a bit disappointing to me. I figured that being available for free would make people appreciate that it’s only maybe a 30-45 minute game at most, but apparently not.

With that in mind, maybe a “estimated length of playthrough” bullet point might be a useful one, or at least some indicator of whether a game is supposed to take up a bus ride (like Foraker) or an afternoon (like everything else I’ve written).

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My favorite are the complaints are that the meal was terrible…and the portions were so small!

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You know game is short in word account but for me like has lot of customization and role-playing options and replay value for me is a longer game that others than duplicate word account. I suppose is the difference between see this as a one time only read or see as a game with a replay value

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In a lot of cases, the negative reviews seem to mention the length alone, or even praise the actual writing. I’d understand more if this was some sort of cost/content issue, but this isn’t nouvelle cuisine, the damn thing is literally free.

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There’s some overlap here with “the short and rushed.” (Rent-a-Vice — What doesn’t kill you…kills someone else) And also, and I hate to harp, I really, really like some of the “short” i.e., 150k word games we’ve put out. They’re good. And they’re priced accordingly. And long games are priced for that too. So … throws up hands, walks away.

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Coding efficiency is one of the reasons I love Fallen Hero for giving and average wordcount you’ll read per playthrough, and am curious what these averages are for other games.
I know it from my own thing’s wip:

The main game atm has 125k words with code, averaging at 30k per playthrough. so about a fourth. Half of these 125k are optional scenes.
The bonus, however stands at 30k with code right now, but due to what happens, even with effective coding the average read is only 3000. This is due to the massive amount of details that can change and are accounted for.

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That is the problem with branches and depth choices aren’t perfectly reflect in words account. Oh is only X per play through that’s not enough some people say. But they forget how many different plays they could make. Nobody says Tetris is short due one play through is short

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I remember before i start purchasing paid titles at the end of last year, i actually enjoy all the free titles like vampire house , great tournament, swarm castle, choice of romance , choice of broadsides etc … and i never think of them as short… most readers will appreciate these titles…

But now apparently some readers are more strong will about what they intend to get , and for free… it was like when they are getting free meal, they going to complain the food is not michelin star quality… :slight_smile:

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I think this is an excellent suggestion, especially in light of my pending game which is mostly actual gameplay. :grin:

Most free-to-play CoG titles I’ll go into expecting them to be satisfyingly average, Vampire House however was one I found to be quite enjoyable though, I’d be more than happy to pay for it out the gate

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Yes i agree… most readers volunteerly donate the money after end game ( that’s what i read from comment) just to encourage the author to write the sequel of Vampire House

Another good game is Great Tournament, not only it is good… it is considerably long as well :slight_smile:

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A game being mostly gameplay might NOT be a good thing:
Think about it:

If you have let’s say 150k words of code and around 130k of those are gameplay… there’s not really much branching, is there?

But still, having a total wordcount + average playthrough listed is something we might need in the future.

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Personally, it depends whether or not the potential consumer’s preference. Each game needs target demographic, so you need to fit your games with the targets.

On personal side though, most of the time I didn’t really care about the word count that much. The theme and the story matters more to me. But to be honest, sometimes I do passed on some games because it feels too short for me.

On the phone, but I think sometimes the complains about length are more about the lack of a satisfying conclusion. I’ve played games where it really feels like the author just wanted to end it because they ran out of steam. That also gets worse if you like the game, you want it to continue. I know I am guilty of that as well, since the end of FH was not the originally envisioned one, but it was the lesser of evils.

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@malinryden I will ditto what you just said.

People don’t always know why they like or dislike something. Figuring that out can take mental work and reflection that people don’t always have the time, energy or inclination for. If you put them on the spot they may reach for an easy answer.

Personally I think cover art is probably much more important than word count in the initial buying decision. People don’t even see the word count figure until after they’ve decided to examine the game more closely.

I think the high word count titles will change expectations. Some people want to be immersed in games for a long time and will feel disappointed if that immersion is cut “short”.

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Cover art doesn’t really grab me. It’s a combination of the Demo + COG reviews. I’m pretty new to this reading medium so generally rely on feedback, recommendations and my impression of the Demo before deciding to purchase.

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While it’s a nice extra if the cover art looks good I don’t think that’s the most important. If I’d judge the games based on that I’d definitely had missed out on many good games (Evertree Inn for example).

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I haven’t look at all a cover before buy a game and Many of my favorites have not the most beautiful cover ever. But I agree mainstream audience buy based partly in The cover and the use of several key words reason there are in app stores so many games with similar names.

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Cover Art is nice, I must admit, I first looked into Wayhaven because of the Symbol. It caught my attention, can’t even say why. But thats not what made me buy the Game. It might therefore help

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