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[Humdinger]

I had heard that only about 20% of people who start a book finish it, and I wondered if the stats might be similar for videogames. Turns out, they are. Here is what a google search revealed:

Few people actually beat the video games they buy. One study published in 2019 reviewed the achievements from 725 games on the PC gaming storefront Steam and found just 14 percent of players completed the games they own.

Here is a link to that study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1875952118300181

Btw, the mean was 14%, but the median was 10%. A 10% median indicates that 50% of games had a completion rate of 10% or below.

Other reports echo these figures. For example:

"What I've been told as a blanket expectation is that 90% of players who start your game will never see the end of it unless they watch a clip on YouTube," says Keith Fuller, a longtime production contractor for Activision.

"Just 10 years ago, I recall some standard that only 20% of gamers ever finish a game," says John Lee, VP of marketing at Raptr and former executive at Capcom, THQ and Sega.

They mention that Red Dead Redemption had a 10% completion rate.

Let that sink in for a minute: Of every 10 people who started playing the consensus "Game of the Year," only one of them finished it.

Why most people don't finish video games

Once considered a cult pastime, video games have grown immensely in the last 30 years to become a mainstream fixture alongside movies and music.

www.cnn.com

So why do people not finish games? Here are some reasons:

• The proliferation of big, open-world games and the time required to complete them. Many people don't have the time for these 80 hour epics.
• People have limited time and other things claiming their attention. Especially as they get older, people have family and careers to attend to. Game completion takes a back seat to other priorities.
• Some people have tons of games they want to play - more than they can get to - so they end up dropping out of one to get to another.
• Some games can get more frustrating than fun at a certain point, and so people stop playing.
• People get bored with a game and move on.
• Some people buy a game for its multiplayer online component and barely touch the single-player. Since "finishing" here means completing the SP portion, these people would count as not having finished the game, even if they've played hundreds of hours online.

 

[nush]

One study published in 2019 reviewed the achievements

So does that just mean they didn't get all the achievements and thus didn't "Finish" the game?

 

[feynoob]

Gamers aren't kids anymore. We have life and busy with outside world.

 

[LRKD]

This never surprises me anymore, I'd use to see it on PSN trophy rates how low a lot of them were. But then I thought about how many games I've beaten and I'd be surprised if I had a 10% completion rate. There are games I've completed 20 times over. There is a huge number of games I've completed, or even 100% but there is an even larger number of games I played and didn't like, or got bored of and gave up on.

 

[Northeastmonk]

That’s crazy. I love beating a game. Finishing a game is like watching the ending to a film. I thought finishing a game was the norm.

I once thought the % was based upon your friends list. Haha

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Don't know how many instances I had where I enjoyed a game quite a lot but then completely stopped playing it after 20 or 30 hours because I just couldn't get myself to keep doing the same things over and over again for another 30 or more hours. There's just so much bloat in games because people demand this ridiculous dollar per hour of gameplay metric it's not even funny. However, I'd not be surprised if many experience a growing frustration with not finishing games to the point they no longer want to start any game to begin with if they know they need x hours minimum to get through it.

 

[Tell’em Keb]

Finish?! I can barely make myself start one anymore.

 

[unclbenn]

i play game, game doesn't play me!

 

[Daneel Elijah]

Many games are given for free/gifted to family and friends and this probably don't help the completion rate. I see this in the same regard I look at food waste: some people took games for granted, other have been raised to respect food and not to buy what they know they can't finish. Gaming is quite special in that many people don't even begin the games they buy, to the point that Steam have a category of games you have yet to try but did buy/downloaded...
I grew up finishing each game I got, because it was like 1 game a year. Now that I have disposable income, I have a few games that I did buy and have yet to play, for stupid reasons.

 

[HL3.exe]

This has been a thing for a very long time now. When I interviewed for a job at a game dev studio, these where one of the talking point. Player barely finish their SP games, and it's hard to justify to investors. That's why pivoting to a service/recurring spending model is more attractive to financers and getting your pitch greenlit.

Games used to be a niche thing, more hardcore centric, lower budgets, the medium felt new, lots of experimenting with mechanics and design, until the end of the 2000's. Catering to just the hardcore market isn't profitable like it used to, so now we get games mainly build around lots of content and a bolt premise. Not really build around expanding on game mechanics or interesting systems.

Edit: I dislike this trend and current state of game development btw, don't get me wrong.

 

[Bring Back Scalebound]

I noticed this before when I used to check the trophy list for games on PSN.

The trophy associated with beating the game, had a relatively low percentage sometimes. Even with arguably great games.

It's a bummer, but everyone has their reasons.

Considering how little money I have, dropping games I'm not enjoying, is completely out of the question, for me.

I slug through them.

I'm not saying that people that drop games have lots of money, by the way. Case by case basis, I imagine.

 

[LazyParrot]

This isn't anything new. I had dozens of games as a kid and I can probably count the ones I finished on one hand.

What's kinda new is that you can easily put hundreds or even thousands of hours into some open world games without touching the main quest at all. Skyrim is probably the poster child for that particular "problem". Whenever I start a new character I just ignore the story entirely. Not only is the main quest kinda shit, but not progressing it also prevents random dragon attacks, which improves the game by a factor of about a trillion.

 

[StereoVsn]

I drop plenty of games and talking about fairly well rated ones and ones I actually purchase, not on subs.

A lot of time game won’t click. I will give it a good 5-10 hours if it’s not terrible, but if feels more like a chore vs enjoyment, it’s done.

I have very limited time between work, kids and family, friends and other hobbies that I am not going to make myself go through a game to “beat it”.

Dropped RDR2 half way because I just couldn’t take the slowness and how ponderous gameplay was. And all the dumb rails during quests. I did complete RDR1 twice (second time in XSX BC).

 

[TintoConCasera]

Games are just entertainment after all, so nothing wrong with dropping something that doesn't entertain you anymore.

That said, I love beating games, specially arcade-like ones that take practice to get better at them. Getting one boss further into Alien Soldier or one stage further in Sin & Punishment 2 without losing a life/continue everytime you play is super fun to me.

 

[StereoVsn]

Games are just entertainment after all, so nothing wrong with dropping something that doesn't entertain you anymore.

That said, I love beating games, specially arcade-like ones that take practice to get better at them. Getting one boss further into Alien Soldier or one stage further in Sin & Punishment 2 without losing a life/continue everytime you play is super fun to me.

That’s a good point. Arcade games, good platformers and bullet hell shooters are a different animal. I may not beat them immediately, but I can play them, getting better and improving my score. Hell there are some I have been playing since 16-bit era, lol.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Oh, I thought this was exclusive to hellblade II

 

[dorkimoe]

Thats because they are too busy:

arguing on forums about console wars
counting pixels

 

[Griffon]

I want shorter games.

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Oh, I thought this was exclusive to hellblade II

Indeed. Crazy reading so many posts that suggested this...!

 

[Outlier]

Games are too long or just been there done that
Ultimately I think people truly desire something else, in life. Like human connection.

 

[jufonuk]

Don't know how many instances I had where I enjoyed a game quite a lot but then completely stopped playing it after 20 or 30 hours because I just couldn't get myself to keep doing the same things over and over again for another 30 or more hours. There's just so much bloat in games because people demand this ridiculous dollar per hour of gameplay metric it's not even funny. However, I'd not be surprised if many experience a growing frustration with not finishing games to the point they no longer want to start any game to begin with if they know they need x hours minimum to get through it.

ToTK I only need one more thing to find in the dessert but gave up. As the game was too long.

Didn’t even get too far into the depths.
I might pick it back up later but we will see. As mentioned above I’m not a kid I get responsibilities so cannot spare all my time to game. If I can get about an hour or more in a game at a time that’s good for me.

I did get to the end credits of BoTW but that took time.

Plus I try to play one game at a time otherwise I jump between them.

I prefer shorter games

Re rev2 was perfect length for me
Metroid dread seems perfect length. Too.

 

[Fbh]

The irony is that people still want long games.
90% will drop games after 10-15 hours yet they'd still rather buy a 30+ hours game instead of a 15 hours one that they might actually finish (and would probably be better paced).

That said I think the methodology on this isn't that great. Things like giveaways and bundles makes achievement data less reliable, I've downloaded plenty of games from Steam that I got for free or as a part of a bundle only to play them for 15-30 minutes and then uninstalling them. On consoles it can be just as unrealiable because of things like Gamepass and Ps+

 

[Grildon Tundy]

And I finish my favorite games (like Red Dead Redemption 2) 3+ times. Some may say I'm wasting my time, but I like to think I have more stick-to-it-iveness than these bailers.

 

[newtypepilot]

only looking at achievements is kind of misleading since there are many games where there's no story to finish, like fighting games.

If I platinum SF6, does it mean I finished it?

 

[Minsc]

That's not even the worst. When you look at the % of people who don't even play the games they buy, that's even crazier.

I remember a while ago Torchlight 1 had an achievement for clearing the first level, and a pretty crazy % of people didn't even get that far, so forget about finishing games. And games are so easy nowadays too, with their auto-pilot maps that you just move to waypoint to waypoint to waypoint and the game's over.

Imagine beating games before waypoints and navigation markers. Where you had to figure out for yourself where to go next. Those %s must have been single digit.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

If a game is compelling enough, I'll finish it.

Even if I have to take a bit of a hiatus.

I did about 70+ hours of TOTK and then BG3 came out. Powered through it in a month and some change and eventually came back to finish TOTK.

Took me 3 years to finish BOTW.

Burnout is a thing, too. And game length matters.

I want to finish Ghosts of Tsushima, as it's a masterpiece, but momentum slowed halfway through the second island.

Ran through AOTD in a week.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I barely have time to play my ever increasing backlog. I do tend to finish most games I play though, unless I didn't like it much and drop it.

 

[Isa]

If anything one would think it would give devs and publishers the reason they need to start saving money and focusing on smaller experiences, maybe start some big campaign push for talking to the consumer/audience that yes it is indeed okay to have smaller games, and maybe by extension lower prices. But no they stick to the status quo.

Game design is just bloated across several genres. I don't mind long games every now and then, but there are quite a few game mechanics that make actually going through the game(s) a slog at times which can also be off putting. I think the points listed in the OP are correct, much of the market has grown in age and have responsibilities and commitments, as well as much less free time. I know the hardcore difficulty crowd will protest but when games start to get frustrating or feel cheap most people will bounce and probably never go back. Its always going to be difficult balancing a proper challenge because satisfying the elite few with masochistic tendencies versus the less skilled or patient majority seems like a futile effort.

I get it, some people are sold on features and gimmicks. I recall for several generations now the length argument, as well as MP component. I still kind of prefer the first to sixth gens since there were still plenty of games that felt like I could try most of them all. Many are pick up and play and satisfying, and it was easier to tell if I would enjoy something or not. Many games are homogenized now with many feeling the same, but with bland overall design and style. Most rely on outdated systems and loops with absolutely none of the charm that came before.

And this is not to mention the huge effect of GAAS that fills the room, constantly eating up people's time and attention(as well as bank accounts). I know my friends are always hooked on some game, or at least were, and constantly search for the next best or big thing until they burn out on that too. When weighing the two options, its often easier to just hop into some party and having some laughs with friends over some trite Guardians "humor" and ugly characters and forced walkie-talkie segments that few care about.

I've always noticed that back in the day, I switched to Sega because I felt they appealed to me more, they "grew" with me into my teenage years, then Playstation/Xbox etc. But sadly, so few of these big companies realize that the audience that has the money and desire is not being fed the products they want, more adult orientated affairs that treat us with respect. There are many reasons for this, playing it safe, corp focus groups, western decline in general and constantly chasing the golden gaas goose. I'd say they're the architects of their own demise.

 

[drganon]

I'm part of that 10-20%, I pretty much play everything to completion. I don't always get all the trophies/ achievements, but I almost always finish the main campaign ( if its there). It does take me awhile with my work schedule to complete stuff, so it usually takes me a month or so to finish a game.

 

[ReBurn]

I'm the 90%.

Mostly I just get tired of playing because I get bored with the long-winded stories developers think they need to create. I mainly just want gameplay.

 

[Bojji]

I finish almost all games I start. Why would I waste time with something only to drop after x hours?

I'm the 90%.

Mostly I just get tired of playing because I get bored with the long-winded stories developers think they need to create. I mainly just want gameplay.

Most of games I play have strong story element so desire to know how it ends keeps me playing sometimes (if the gameplay has issues).

 

[cormack12]

Games are too long and when people take breaks coming back and not knowing the controls is a pain as well

 

[Soltype]

That's weird considering how much easier games are today, wonder what that number was in the early 90s.

 

[ReBurn]

I finish almost all games I start. Why would I waste time with something only to drop after x hours?



Most of games I play have strong story element so desire to know how it ends keeps me playing sometimes (if the gameplay has issues).

I can understand that. I mainly like arcade-style games where the story is just something they made up to give games context. I don't have to care about the backstory of a Mario platformer because the main focus is level design and gameplay.

 

[balls of snow]

Yeah. I make it a point to finish games I really like, trophies be damned. Sometimes you dont need to finish all those sidequests son.

 

[Big Baller]

Gamers aren't kids anymore. We have life and busy with outside world.

I dont

 

[TheStam]

I finish almost all games I start. Why would I waste time with something only to drop after x hours?

I feel it's more like why would I spend more time on something if I'm not having a good time?

I finish maybe 10% of the games I play. I love trying new games always wanting to find a new cool experience, but I will either refund if I don't feel it early or just give up if I stop enjoying it a long the way. Also I give a lot of games a second chance and it might be that I was temporarily not in the mood the first time.

Games are also often too bloated and long. I might enjoy 40h but not 80h.

 

[captainpat]

A lot of people are surprised by this because they conflate things like completion or retention rate with game's quality.

• Some people buy a game for its multiplayer online component and barely touch the single-player. Since "finishing" here means completing the SP portion, these people would count as not having finished the game, even if they've played hundreds of hours online.

Also this part is extremely important. I'm sure everyone knows of a guy who buys gta only to fuck around int the city or buys call of duty for the multiplayer only.

 

[squidilix]

I don't finish game bored me, and there's so many

Typical modern games with open-world and some collectible shit

And you cannot finish somes game (like sports, puzzle game or build thing)

 

[digital_ghost]

I guess I'm in the top 20%.

Aside from souls like games, I finish most of them.

 

[Humdinger]

So does that just mean they didn't get all the achievements and thus didn't "Finish" the game?

No, they were looking at the specific achievement related to finishing the campaign, not to getting of all the achievements possible.

 

[March Climber]

The irony is that people still want long games.
90% will drop games after 10-15 hours yet they'd still rather buy a 30+ hours game instead of a 15 hours one that they might actually finish (and would probably be better paced).

It’s because the fans, the media, and the gaming industry all stupidly made a ratio between price point and hour length.

And then they made it a big negative of the good shorter AAA games (for example Metal Gear Rising and Vanquish).

We’re perpetually stuck in this trap until people finally come to terms with OP’s numbers.

 

[hemo memo]

What’s the solution to this? Hmm let’s see. Got it. Make games bigger.

 

[cormack12]

It’s because the fans, the media, and the gaming industry all stupidly made a ratio between price point and hour length.

And then they made it a big negative of the good shorter AAA games (for example Metal Gear Rising and Vanquish).

We’re perpetually stuck in this trap until people finally come to terms with OP’s numbers.

I never forget that blurt boogie saying on one of his videos (when he was relevant) that when he buys a game he assesses what dollar per hour of content he gets. Very stupid take.

Developers have forgotten the main point of a game. It's a loop, it needs to be repayable. So many games now are just play once and shelf.

 

[Tomi]

I finish all of them
That is like you watch movie only for example 1h or so
That is stupid

 

[lughnasadh123]

People are going to start throwing out reasons that are actually just their own personal complaints about some games as if this hasn't already been going on for several decades.

 

[nush]

That is like you watch movie only for example 1h or so

How many 20-40 hour movies do you watch?

 

[Humdinger]

I want shorter games.

Me, too. I've been on a short-game kick lately, playing only games that run under 20 hours. It's been fun. My completion rate is only 50%, but that's okay. It was much lower when I was trying to get into big, open-world games.

 

[IDKFA]

Finish?! I can barely make myself start one anymore.

Same. If a game doesn't grab my attention in 5 minutes it's getting deleted.

This is only because I'm downloading them on Gamepass or PS Plus. If I was purchasing a game then I'd be forced to stick with it and finish it.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I've been saying it's a grift for a while now.