One thing that I thought was always funny about games.

[mizeri]

I don't know how long it took them to make Mario bros or Zelda or chrono trigger but I am sure I have put years into those games lol

[May90]

It takes developers years to make a game. Yet, the content within the game only lasts about 20 hours. Unless it's an MMO.. Or Skyrim.. I think reason why people still play Skyrim is because the mod support.

Or Dragon Age. Or Mass Effect. Or Kingdoms of Amalur. Or Deus Ex: HR. There are plenty of long games. But there are also many short ones.

Basically, it always takes much longer to create something than to experience it. Books are written sometimes in many years, and yet an experienced reader can easily read 1000 pages in a week or so. Movies are shot for months and are finished in 1.5 hrs. Restaurant food sometimes takes 40 minutes to prepare and yet can be finished in a couple of minutes. Einstein had worked on General Relativity theory for many years, and yet you can learn all the essential concepts in one term of graduate school. Takes many months to assemble an airbus and yet only 1.5 hours to fly on it from New York to Chicago.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Takes years to write a book (cough G.R.R.M.) and you can finish that in 3 hours. Doesn't matter how long it takes to finish something, all that matters is if it left something for you to remember, something you won't forget. Or in this modern age, something to compare other shit to. Everyone's trying to make the next best so instead of saying "man this is like halo" or "just like WoW" they'll say "man this is just like (name here)". Keyword is try.

[unholytestament]

Well with how much money has been being shot into the gaming industry, new and improved applications specifically designed for building games, by now this gap between content production and actual playtime should be getting slightly reduced.
But it dosent seem to be, weirdly.

I think skyrim was the perfect example of how much content modern game designers can push out, while other developers are purposely pushing out little content for a premium price, because they can, and people will still buy it.

Id honestly say skyrim is on my list of best videogames ever created.

This sounds like a whole lot of "I don't understand how games are made".

[Pull My Finger]

Well with how much money has been being shot into the gaming industry, new and improved applications specifically designed for building games, by now this gap between content production and actual playtime should be getting slightly reduced.
But it dosent seem to be, weirdly.

I think skyrim was the perfect example of how much content modern game designers can push out, while other developers are purposely pushing out little content for a premium price, because they can, and people will still buy it.

Technology makes travel and assembly lines faster. Technology doesn't make creative work faster, it makes it slower. That's because it greatly enhances possibilites and control, and thus adds new layers to the complexity of the work.

[Arkuri]

The actual filming is usually not that long, its the digital bit afterwards that extends it into years.

Think the Iron Man movies where averaging around 6~ months from start to finish. 2 months of filming / locations?

- - - Updated - - -

Technology makes travel and assembly lines faster. Technology doesn't make creative work faster, it makes it slower. That's because it greatly enhances possibilites and control, and thus adds new layers to the complexity of the work.

That, and Technology advances every other month.

Artists can't adapt to that much frequent change. Artists take years to hone in on their skills strengths, left alone perfect them.

[Rukh]

I doubt Binding of Isaac took as long to make as some people have been playing it.