Author Topic: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?  (Read 10454 times)

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Offline Hot_Dog

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Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« on: June 13, 2011, 10:52:44 am »
I'm going to start off by saying that I have not played Portal 2 yet.

However, I was reading about it, and when I heard the designers say that each of the 2 campaigns would take 6 hours each, I was hesitant, especially considering how much time the company took to make Portal 2.  Furthermore, I read that many players beat the game in far less time.

What do you think?  Was there enough gameplay in Portal 2 to make it worth $60?

Offline AGVolnutt

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2011, 11:22:56 am »
All games these days are now $60. $10 above the norm. :P

I have never played Portal 2 either, but the games and their quality and support these days do not make it work $60.Think about it. Developers are saying "release now, patch later."

(What I'm saying makes a bit more sense if you play PC.)

Offline Hayleia

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2011, 11:32:17 am »
Hehey, and you are lucky !!! In France, most of the games cost 70€, 70€ above the norm ;) .
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Offline JosJuice

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2011, 11:33:34 am »
They cost 700 SEK here, which is about $110 or 80€.

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2011, 12:01:00 pm »
They cost 700 SEK here, which is about $110 or 80€.
You may blame the game prices, but I wish I was living in sweden as you...

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2011, 12:08:01 pm »
Any game above $60-70ish is too expensive IMHO. Unless you're buying hardware that come with the game, e.g. the complete set of Guitar Hero/Rock Band instruments. Also note that stuff in Canada is usually more expensive than the same exact stuff in the USA, even if the canadian dollar is almost equal with the US dollar now (the US one used to be way stronger).
« Last Edit: June 13, 2011, 12:08:24 pm by juju2143 »

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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2011, 12:38:05 pm »
Ok, let me rephrase my question:

Is it too short for it's cost compared to other games that cost the same amount?

Offline Hayleia

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2011, 12:44:15 pm »
Well, for example, Crysis (the first one) was quite short, but as I replayed 24851 times, it was not that expensive. But I don't know about Portal 2. But, if you don't usually play more than one time to a game, then don't buy it now and wit for The Game to get less expensive.
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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2011, 02:32:47 pm »
I tend to not like when a game is too short. MANY SNES RPGs and almost all N64 adventure/RPG games suffered from that. Usually after 6-8 hours you finished them. However some are so good that it doesn't matter as much anymore. As for FPS'es I prefer if they're not too long, since I get bored eventually, but I think a game with puzzles or platforms like Portal should have a decent lenght.
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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #9 on: June 13, 2011, 03:53:52 pm »
It got cut down to 40 bucks on amazon and at other places. It's definetely worth 40.
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Offline Munchor

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #10 on: June 13, 2011, 03:57:10 pm »
Ok, let me rephrase my question:

Is it too short for it's cost compared to other games that cost the same amount?

Portal 2 is not a normal game, it's an intelligence game, level design must be very hard. The engine is also amazing, I think they're fine to charge 60$ for it, especially since a lot of people hack it because it's a single-player game.

Multiplayer games aren't hacked to much because if they're downloaded instead of bought, they can't play multiplayer.

I am in favor of high prices in quality single-player games.

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2011, 04:16:59 pm »
Also to comment on the post about "release then fix later", sometimes having to fix stuff later is inevitable.

Example: Starcraft series.

Sometimes, after the game comes out, people will start using certain strategies that the company did not expect them to use, but ends up over-using them. A big example is the 4-pool rush in the first Starcraft. Back then, the spawning pool costed 150 minerals, which left no time for people to defend against such early Zergling rush. Eventually people started abusing this strategy, causing the game to be unbalanced and boring for non-zerg players, so Blizzard had to address that issue by increasing the pool cost to 200 minerals.

The same thing happened in Starcraft 2 with marine rushes. Blizzard decided that barracks would now require a supply depot, to prevent people from going 6-rax. Also people abused reapers early in game so they forced the construction of a factory to get the speed upgrade.

Also sometimes new bugs might slip by with the time, due to them going unnoticed by beta testers.
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Offline AGVolnutt

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #12 on: June 13, 2011, 06:28:03 pm »
Also to comment on the post about "release then fix later", sometimes having to fix stuff later is inevitable.

Example: Starcraft series.

Sometimes, after the game comes out, people will start using certain strategies that the company did not expect them to use, but ends up over-using them. A big example is the 4-pool rush in the first Starcraft. Back then, the spawning pool costed 150 minerals, which left no time for people to defend against such early Zergling rush. Eventually people started abusing this strategy, causing the game to be unbalanced and boring for non-zerg players, so Blizzard had to address that issue by increasing the pool cost to 200 minerals.

The same thing happened in Starcraft 2 with marine rushes. Blizzard decided that barracks would now require a supply depot, to prevent people from going 6-rax. Also people abused reapers early in game so they forced the construction of a factory to get the speed upgrade.

Also sometimes new bugs might slip by with the time, due to them going unnoticed by beta testers.

What about games like "The Witcher"?

The first edition was so much crap, the made a "enhanced version", which IMO should've been an update for the original Witcher buyers.

Sure, bugs spring up from time to time, but I'm talking about the things that were the fault of poor development and laziness.

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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #13 on: June 13, 2011, 07:18:42 pm »
Yeah I know. I just meant you shouldn't generalize and say it should never happen, regardless of the game. In some cases, like Starcraft, it's inevitable. In some other cases, the game might end up being too hard for most people and might see an update or alternate release afterward (example: Final Fantasy II on the SNES in USA). Of course for games like the Witcher I think it's not justified.

One other example of such developer laziness is Texas Instruments OS'es and MTV Music Generator series. MTVMG was nice on the Playstation 1, but the company sure didn't do a good job at making it bug-free.
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Re: Is Portal 2 too short for its cost?
« Reply #14 on: June 13, 2011, 10:23:55 pm »
Hell, there were some old, crappy, unwanted, GBA games at my local game stop that cost about 20$. it really sucked. Luckily for me, there was another gamestop a bit farther back that had good GBA games for a more reasonable price  (5 or 6 dollars)