Once you weed out the general ‘this is not a game’ or ‘SJW’ sort of posts, they do tend to trend a little higher. However, I will say most text games (CoG or HG) on Steam certainly don’t get as many reviews as other storefronts do.
Some of this also boils down to customers on said storefront. I mean, a lot of people on Steam are the “PC master race” and “I won’t play a casual game”
For consumers who tend to be Steam only, I would say the answer is no. Of course, I don’t have a large sample size to compare to, but among the circle of people I know on Steam, unless they frequent the forums here, they tend to equate Hosted Games with Choice Games (and I would hazard a lot of other people do as well)
Once again, I don’t have a large enough sample size to prove this, but among the people I know the answer here would be yes.
Of course, the other big factor here is price. I know a lot of people may balk at the higher price tag for what they consider ‘only a text game’ even if it is only a few dollars difference.
Certainly other factors also play into it such as subject matter, etc. I mean, I know more people would be more apt to play a superhero over a cat.
Maybe people don’t pay attention to the tiny text and just equate those text based game under the umbrella. Do you think it’s vice versa too? People who frequently buy CoGs believe that HGs fall into that umbrella?
Fair points.
I’d argue that the mindset that casual consumers shouldn’t pay X amount for a text based game is coming from a place of ignorance: they don’t know that many authors are self-taught in the software and how much effort it actually takes to write a novel, let alone an interactive one.
grins You have it exactly. Yes, the publishers are clearly labeled differently, but many people I know do equate it to being under the same umbrella.
I can say from personal experience, when I first encountered CoG/HG, I tended to lump them under the same category mentally until I was around the forums longer.
I agree; I don’t feel that way myself, but potential customers don’t necessarily think this way; once again I’ve seen people who say “I can buy Game X for $10…why would I buy this CoG that is $7?”
However, that is also why I am quick to say that “this is just my personal experience not necessarily big enough to prove.”
That is why I do appreciate when there are general stats available; such as how google play can show how many people downloaded a game or if CoG mentions the top 10 selling Hosted Games. From that data, you can certainly make better conclusions.
It certainly is interesting to think about the pricing of Choice of Games; I sometimes boggle at the fact that Choice of Magics is $7 when I’ve picked up classic games like the Grim Fandango remaster for $2.50. But one economic principle is supply and demand, and there just aren’t that many suppliers of choice-based IF. I don’t think it’s for lack of available talent, but because having text-based games go toe-to-toe with major studios sounds insane on the face of it, so most people who could produce them, don’t try to produce them. That produces a shortage of supply for games with the unique advantages of CoG - very customizable characters, blind accessible, pleasures of prose, etc etc - and so they get to charge a premium. Should there suddenly be an IF craze, it might ironically devastate the companies involved. I think this more or less happened to Atari, where overproduction and lack of quality control brought the good game producers down with the bad.
I have a few gripes with Love at Elevation, but word count wise, there was plenty of meat. It took me a solid few hours to play through my first run. Though to me the pacing felt a little… off, like the game skipped some scenes somewhere in the middle. So I guess it could come off as a little rushed at times.
Or the replay thing, but I can’t speak to that myself.
For the longest time I lumped the two together. The content is different yes, but it’s hard to notice when you’ve got a handful of CoGs and a handful of HGs spanning the entire range of CoG’s lifetime. The “house style” and little publisher indicators aren’t as readily apparent as the identical font, style, animation, and opening screens.
Yes of course … there could be weaknesses there, but length of game certainly wasn’t one of them
Hence referring back to the Title, Length of games “may not” influence buying at all … because it had to be dependent on other circumstances as well
As my example earlier , most important is how the author utilise his/her word counts to produce a story that lead readers into a " lengthy " and "fruitful " journey … Broadway 1849 had certainly manage to do that ,( for my opinion ) within its 150k of word counts
I see Interactive Fiction like Choice of Games as a niche genre. This means it doesn’t necessarily appeal to a large crowd (the kind that would look at a $7 text game and go ‘that’s not worth it’). However, there are enough people who do appreciate the writing, the interaction, etc. I mean, if there wasn’t a market for it, then CoG wouldn’t have made it beyond the first year.
I agree, there is quite a lot of talent available, but the means of producing it is also a limiting factor. I mean, just writing and coding at the same time takes time and effort that many people might decide to focus elsewhere. Obviously, the same applies here for visual novels which is where I see it.
Quality control is definitely another factor. In a way, you can see this in the visual novel community. So many people are now involved, that except for the occasional major success, or companies with an established fanbase, other mechanics are now being explored. Winter Wolves Games makes rpg-like mechanics; other novels have been going the…er…tantalizing route with adult-rated pictures (though this also has a diminishing point of return).
Jacic is correct; Steam doesn’t have any requirement on length.
At one time there was a restriction; Steam used to have a limit on the number of text games they allowed CoG/HG to publish on their platform. I can remember a time when even official CoG games might not be on Steam because of this.
However, I do think the restriction is gone since CoG now has all of their official games on Steam. This would correspond to roughly the time when Valve basically opened all the floodgates (which brought a lot of other issues like exposure to the front)
I’m biased as the lead editor of Broadway, but that feels like the little game that could have. I wish more people had tried it. It’s fun, the prose is sprightly, you can do very different things in it, its historical, there’s violence, a little romance…sigh. It’s a solid little game for 150k. I think people will really enjoy the author’s next game, Chronicon Apocalyptica.
Yeah i agree… i especially love the way the author wrote about the characters in Broadway 1849, the lead RO Louisa is really charming and charismatic , the romantic interaction with Louisa from the moment I met her in the rival’s theater to how i bail her out from there and the ending of persuading her to stay with my theater instead of pursuing more glory oversea really was a heart warming journey… and of course the option of declaring our relationship openly is such a grand exit…
In addition , i am also intrigue with the Carly sisters and the lesson of why successful women back then were refusing to marriage because it would meant relinquishing all their family wealth to their husband …
I beta test Chronicon Apocalyptica, and it is really Epic !! :-)
It os certainly a game of a solid quality good flow variety of choices and replay value. My only criticism are romances. In my opinion are little few interactions and just assume my character personality during all romances. So i pass from a ruthless character to look like a kitty in romance scenes.
Still It is a good game with good replay value. And I don’t found it Short.
.
I think many casuals perceive Rushed or games that increase the pace towards the end As short.
I will give you an example The dino knight game is far longer than Broadway. However the way that the end is like faster than the normal pace of the book makes feel like It was rushed and It needed more content.
Word length matters if I buy it or not definitely. I basically don’t even bother trying anything less than a 100k (except aether the life of god , grim and me).
This is due to some genuine reasons and concerns.
If I am gonna pay about 6-7$ for a word based game i would naturally want there to be some real paths and choices ahead which most of the shorter games don’t have and they are linear in nature.
2.I have usually found story to be more engrossing in games with more word count.
Money’s worth , naturally I want a lengthy gameplay for my money.
4.more word count , more endings , the more choices we actually have.
Most short length games have “illusion” of choices where you are quite literally reading a story without any divergence at all and choices don’t matter (might as well say it’s an ebook
Ahem that’s all.
The problem with that assumption is that word length doesn’t automatically mean more branching paths, sadly. Or that the branching paths are relatively equal in quality and/or quantity.
Exactly I am at chapter 3 and have near 68,000 words I expect about 200,000 in 12 or 13 probably more with 6 different endings planned and like 12 variables based romances money and other stuff.
That’s with a code that uses gosub scenes and labels constantly etc…
If I want I could easily turn that 200,000 in 600,000. WITHOUT CHANGING A WORD AND WITHOUT ANY MORE CONTENT.
Just copy paste instead gosub scenes. I am not doing that because i have integrity. But seriously i could understand if an author says F#ck it you say is short and complain have 600,000 words of absolutely copy paste
Edit World account means nothing. i have same tendency of thing games less than 100,000 are not for me but that’strivializing Due many are really branching more than big ones. World account is just and indicator nothing more
That sort of copy/paste would never be allowed in an edited Choice of Game. The editors insist on tight code and appropriate use of gosub and so forth. As you say, it’s an indicator. It’s not everything, but it’s something.
Thanks i was aiming for a smaller game lol like 100,000. Then noticed before chapter 2 was already 35,000 and say no… that will not happen lol. Bouble the estimate account lol
I know it. I could be critical with some points of cog but their integrity and equality is easy to see. It was just an example to people that is not into coding how words can’t mean as it seems.
And Hosted can copy paste the account but all I know are integrity people that would never do that
Or that the branching paths are relatively equal in quality and/or quantity. 
