“Hours to dollars” is not the end all be all of a good game. I have like 25 hours on the Outer Wilds and is one of my favorite games of all time. I also have hundreds of hours in Skyrim, and it’s also one of my favorite games of all time
Yeah and I have thousands of hours in League of Legends, but have probably enjoyed only about 10 minutes
I find hours to dollars to be more useful for cheaper indie games or games on sale, where I feel more comfortable taking a chance on the $5 game knowing I’ll only “need” to spend 5 hours playing to justify the purchase to myself. I also don’t really feel bad about not finishing games once I hit the golden ratio of hours to dollars.
40 hours for a 60€ game is pretty good if you enjoyed those hours.
AAA is $70 now…
Lmao 70 is the framework for the 20 paid DLCs.
For the same rehashed experiences 9ver and over again (mostly). There some good exceptions to that though, like Death Stranding and TotK
Tears is good, but feels pretty iterative with the same sorts of champions, start, general story arc, and map. It’s a decent game, but I wouldn’t really call it groundbreaking compared to some of Zelda’s historic releases. I’ve played a ton of it and like it, though I do wish that the archipelagos and underground didn’t feel so…empty…
No big cities in the sky or underground, where it was a slam dunk to add the avians or shark race to sprawling overwold or underworld metropolises, perhaps long lost. The assassin’s guild still plays a bit role when they could have laid the foundation for gannon’s army, having repurposed some of the robots from the last game.
Even though Zant is dead, I would have liked to see a return to twighlight in the underground. :3
At this point, I maybe only buy and play 1 or 2 AAA games a year, this year being Tears of the Kingdom. Otherwise I pretty much only play Indies. They’ve reignited my love of gaming. In so many of them, you can feel the love and care put into them. Whereas so many AAA games have started to feel like something pumped out of an assembly line with little to no thought or care put into them.
Add the “I spent 3 hours following a modding guide for stop to play after 1hour”
There are a few exceptions like Elden Ring, and Witcher 3, but my library playtime is dominated by games I paid very little for. Factorio, Stardew, KSP1, etc. Currently playing Hollow Knight and having a blast (when I’m not being demolished by a boss).
I’ve spent more time in indie games like Terraria, 20XX, 30XX, Deep Rock Galactic, and NecroDancer than I ever have with most AAA titles. (Animal Crossing Wild World is probably the exception, but I played that a LOT as a kid)
Though that’s not too say I don’t enjoy AAA titles. I’m having a blast with Tears of the Kingdom, I’ve been revisiting an old Phantasy Star Online game, and my entire friend group has recently gotten into Dragon Marked for Death (though that last one might be just AA)
There’s definitely exceptions. I paid $70 for the new Zelda tears of the kingdom. Just beat it at 175 hours and it was easily my goty.
Same, 100% the game and got 330+ hours out of it. Just absolutely love this game, can’t wait for some dlc stuff
Battlebit vs Battlefield
Factorio…
3k+ hours on record…
Cracktorio
The factory must grow.
At this point, I maybe only buy and play 1 or 2 AAA games a year, this year being Tears of the Kingdom. Otherwise I pretty much only play Indies. They’ve reignited my love of gaming. In so many of them, you can feel the love and care put into them. Whereas so many AAA games have started to feel like something pumped out of an assembly line with little to no thought or care put into them.
It’s sad because most AAA game studios are just focused on making an on-rails story game or a competitive realistic shooter. Nowadays they’ve added “open-world” to the archetype.
Just imagine the fun games we could have if they devoted time to just creating a fun game like Indie Developers seem to focus on.
I beat CyberPunk 2077 in under 40 hours even doing many open world events and doing ~5 side-quests for every main story quest. I remember getting to the last quest and being like… “That’s it? It’s already over? That was ridiculously short!” and I’ve never touched the game since…
Meanwhile, with 800hours in Terraria and probably 8k+ in Path of Exile over the years.
Enter the gungeon. Got it on multiple platforms and got some 1000+ hours out of it. Still fun to play after all that.
Same here, and it’s wild how Steam can’t seem to recommend shit that fits the narrative my library tells. :/
Maybe I’m just jaded after playing games for 45 years, but the indie scene just doesn’t interest me.
Vampire Survivors? Yeah, I played it when it was called “Robotron” in 1982.
So many people went nuts for Castle Crashers and it’s just the same as any other side scrolling beat 'em up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Side-scrolling_beat_'em_ups