Most Players Don’t Finish Games

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How many of you guys have this problem? What is the main reason you don't finish games?

The speech, called “Death to the Three-Act Structure,” elaborated on game completion with some interesting statistics from Valve, based wholly on Steam Achievements.

  • The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 1 - 66%
  • Mass Effect 2 - 56%
  • BioShock Infinite - 53%
  • Batman: Arkham City - 47%
  • Portal - 47%
  • Mass Effect 3 - 42%
  • The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 5 - 39%
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 32%
  • Borderlands 2 - 30%
 
There's a difference between finishing games and 100% completion. I'll play through story mode and side missions, but finding 1,000 hidden doodads just for an achievement doesn't interest me.
 
Lack of free time is my excuse.

Full time job (some part time work on the side), wife, 2 kids, etc... i'm sure many of you know the drill, lol.
 
Truly depends on the game. There are some that I'm so into, I hate to see them end. GTA5 was one where I had to finish the story line in it's entirety. But agreed with kansas there in that I'm not running around hours on end to find little bits of treasure or whatever to get to 100% completion.

Being honest, I'd say I don't make it through the majority of the games I play. I got a character up to the highest level at the time in SWTOR, and then realized I was basically starting over if I wanted to participate in PVP. Meh, no thanks.
 
I've completed the main story line on many games. Side quests are a completely different story.

Skyrim - completed main story 4 times; haven't completed Steam achievements.
Fallout 3 - completed main story line more times than I can remember, maybe 20 or so?
Fallout: New Vegas - same as Fallout 3
Bioshock Infinite - three times.
Borderlands 2 - completed twice - haven't complete Steam achievements.
 
If I see any achievements that involve multiplayer, I immediately stop giving a fuck.
 
And "linear" games are sure to lose my interest in short order. "You MUST jump from this rock to this rock to this rock, and then you MUST buy this one item from this one vendor. And then you MUST......." rinse and repeat.
 
i didn't complete bioshock infinite because it was utter garbage. same with skyrim.
 
I don't complete games I lose interest in. I mainly lose interest because the game is starting to get either too complicated or feeling like a job.
 
i didn't complete bioshock infinite because it was utter garbage. same with skyrim.

Were you playing Skyrim when it first came out before they actually fixed it?

Skyrim is actually a pretty good game. I've played through it a couple times at least.

Of course I always do a bit of modding with the editor to make the Elder Scrolls games not so grindy and a lot more fun.
 
I barely even played my free version of Arkham. I think I made it halfway through the original Mario Brothers. Many games, I'll play until it gets too hard to go on easily, and then quit, just because it's too much trouble.

Games are supposed to be fun, not work. When they get too hard, or have too many chores, I don't want to deal with them. I deal with enough of that at work or having to do my chores at home. I want a game to be a way to get my mind off the real world, not dig my head further into it.

Perfect example: World of Warcraft. Back in the original version, I played casually, but when it came to raiding, I didn't want to deal with it so much, and certainly not 12 hours on weekends. I did anyway because my guild needed my priest for main healer. It wasn't too bad, because I didn't have to have twitch-quick reaction times. I'd start a greater heal at a given time, and it could finish within half a second of the right time and we'd be fine. BC made tanking easier, especially for a pally, so I started tanking. Wrath was the greatest for both healing and tanking. It was fun to run through these things, even repeatedly, and get new stuff. Cataclysm made it a little harder, but it was still fine, and I was able to still raid. MoP made both healing and tanking much harder. They need twitch-quick reaction times and perfect timing for getting off the next ability. If you're .2 seconds slow, you lose and have to start over. You have to interrupt every cast of certain things or the whole thing goes sideways and we have to start over. On top of that, these stupid, impatient kids are pushing for faster and faster runs, so that there isn't even a chance to stop and recover a little after a boss fight before moving on to the next part of the run. There's not enough time to even look over the stats of the loot to see if it might be useful, let alone equip, gem, and enchant a new piece to use on the next fight. It sucks. I haven't bothered to play WoW is months.

I get enough work from work. I want to play and relax a little. I'm too old to have twitch-quick reaction times. I pre-plan things and patiently waiting for the right timing for pulling things. After a boos fight, I like to actually look at the loot to decide if I want to roll on it, and take some time to gather my head together to prepare for the next part of the run.

I like casual gaming, not being forced to stress out over getting things perfectly right. Gaming is not supposed to be more stressful than real life. I know I'm not alone on that.
 
Time is certainly a factor. I used to play for several hours a day during the week and 10 - 20 hours on the weekends but I just can't do that anymore. I have 215 games in my steam account and I've played maybe 20% of them. Honestly I would prefer games to be great and short than mediocre and 20-40 hours long.
 
based wholly on Steam Achievements

What is the metric for "completion"? Does every game have an achievement that directly corresponds to "finished the game's main story-line?". Counting 100% achievement completion as "game completion" is bullshit.

Also, if their sample pool is only the nine listed games, I call bullshit times infinity :p
 
I'm definitely one of those people that are draging these numbers down. I doubt I finish even 1/4 of the games I buy.

I mostly enjoy online gaming, so there is no finish, just the sport of of it, and that eats up most of my gaming time. I do buy a handful of single player games each year, and finish some, but I mostly play them just to check out when my buddies aren't playing online. Usually another interesting game will come along before I finish whatever I'm currently playing.
 
I'm about to finish my 15 year old FFVII game. Started when I was 15, will finish it at 30 (currently at the end of disc 3).

Nowadays I try to finish everything at 100% and at maximum difficulty. Unless the game isn't worth my time.
 
IIRC (I've seen those numbers before, don't recall where) those statistics aren't based on 100% achievements, they're based on how many Steam players got the final end-of-story achievements in those games after getting at least one other achievement (in other words, they're known to have started). I'll note that one problem with that, if my memory is correct, is that all the listed games have been deeply discounted at one time or another on Steam. So, it's that much easier for someone to impulse buy even if they're not truly interested in the game.

To answer the thread-starting question, I frequently don't finish games, for multiple reasons - here are a few:
1. The game's not fun. I've bought many games, ended up not enjoying them much, and quit.
1a. As above, sometimes a well-regarded game is so cheap I simply have to buy it even if I'm skeptical about it.
2. Too many games. I occasionally go through periods where I'll buy 3-4 games, start all of them, then focus in on one and neglect the others.
3. Took a break that was too long. While in the middle of one game I'll go back to another. If too much time passes before getting back to the game, I'm sometimes reluctant to do so. This is usually because either the story or the gameplay cause me to think I should start again from scratch and maybe I decide it's not worth it. It's usually unnecessary but I can be as mentally ill as anyone.
 
+1 on gaming shouldn't be a job, the last game I completed was starcraft 2. All the new games look good but feels like a job, achieve this for a new gun or armor, forget this I have better things to do than work for crap that doesn't help much. personally I would rather just do co-op in a lan area but you can't do that anymore, or play a game without having to have internet connection. i think those days are gone.
 
Bethesda's games usually have a beginning and an end to the storyline, but at the same time, they have an "open world" experience where you don't have to play the storyline at all to enjoy the game.

As for achievements, I couldn't care less about that crap. I always thought the Achievement systems were bullshit.
 
Yea bit of a difference between finishing a game and getting all achievements. Honestly I don't give a fuck about achievements.
 
I was about to come in here all up in arms about wimps not beating games. Then I read "based on achievements" ... well, nevermind. Achievements usually suck, but sometimes I'll try for them if they are interesting enough.
 
I finish all the games I like. Some of the ones that are "meh" I also finish.
If I don't like a game I don't finish it and usually uninstall.

Achievements are a joke to me. I don't need an award for shooting in a shooter, jumping in a platformer, or amassing resources in an RTS.
 
I have several games on steam that I bought when they were dirt cheap, just so I could get rid of the hard media. Sometimes I go back and play them, sometimes not, but I like to have the options, and steam is so much easier than digging through 200 games boxes to find something.

Prime example is ME 1 and 2, I owned both of them in hard copy, and also bought them on steam when they were $4 each. But I have not played them on Steam.
 
I finish majority of the games I play. Sometimes many more replays for games I really enjoy. The ones I don't finish are either because the levels becomes too difficult (platform games for ex) or horrid controls (Return to Castle Wolfenstein from ID).

I love the journey. Games like Ultima (especially VII!), Bards Tales, and Wizardrys series are great personal experiences when I was a kid.
 
Only game I never finished was Borderlands 1 (and never bought 2) by lack of interest. After playing for a few hours I never loaded it up again.
What about "most replayed games?" I'd say I've re-installed Deus Ex 1 more than any game I own. However, I have played through Phantasmagoria 1 and 2, and Gabriel Knight - The Beast Within about a million times too. I'm still mad they don't make games like those anymore.
 
I found bioshock infinate boring. I never finished skyrim though because i didnt want it to end, but i played it for prettiesness and fun. I never finished mass effect 2, i hated the control scheme. I finished crysis 1 and 2 and supreme commander 2, and anno 1404, and far cry 1 and 3, portal 1 and 2. Most c&c, half life 2,

Stories dont keep me playing, gameplay does.
 
I really hope this doesn't start a trend in game development to give them an excuse to shovel us games with significantly less content at the same price because "it's what the market wants!" :rolleyes:
 
I'm guilty, I just lose interest because something new and shiny comes out and I move onto that. So many games so little time. Sometimes I get back to them, sometimes I don't. I'm also a bit of a workaholic so I always feel like I should be fixing the house, working on the car etc rather than playing games. Actually this is probably right I shouldn't be playing games ever, and that's why they do not get finished.
 
I'm guilty, I just lose interest because something new and shiny comes out and I move onto that.

+1 My main issue. I'll start playing a game, with limited time, then BAM, Steam sale or maybe an Origin sale. Welp, got to go checks out the new warez! Recently, I also did a platform change so re-install everything, etc.

But, overall, many, many, many times it's just getting bored with the game. I finished Skyrim, BL1, BL2, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Grid. I'm sure I finished some others that I cannot even remember. Best one of all time, for me, though, was getting all objectives completed in Tie Fighter.
 
I didn't finish Bioshock: Infinite because of the stupid auto-save system. I was sick of trying to get from check point to check point and losing progress if I didn't.
 
Finish all Achievements = hell no!

I never found much point to fully complete a game. Only games I think that would have all achievements would of been Hotline Miami (unless you have beta installed they won't update achievements which happened to me). Then maybe did full complete on Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

Hard to find games to even beat the game. Sometimes I'll play on easy or even put a cheat code in to keep me playing a game but usually start off playing on Normal setting. Most of the time you run into that Gem of a game that other games pale in comparison to and it kinda ruins it.

Also doesn't help I have enough games to play that would take 2 lifetimes to finish them all, I just keep telling myself that a rainy day will come and I'll beat them.
 
Some games I finish, others I don't. I don't feel obligated to complete a game I am just not in to. I suspect this metric is getting tossed around to make it seem like shorter games are better, or to excuse how short some games are becoming. Or, it's an excuse like: "We didn't give a shit about the ending, and gave you a crappy one, because most of you will never see it."

Complete, fully fleshed out games beginning to end are fun. A game can be short and great, or short and leave you wanting, or it can be long and leave you wanting, or long and great.
 
If I see any achievements that involve multiplayer, I immediately stop giving a fuck.

This. I've had more "achievements" in multiplayer back during the Quake 2 days than they could invent achievements for, and not BS ones like "Win 5 matches". Our achievements in my clan at the time consisted of having a good time playing with friends and pulling off some wicked sick kills on each other. You can't quantify that sort of thing.

Now as for single player... finishing the game is not the same as getting all achievements, as others have said. I've done that with a few games - Portal was a real bitch with the footsteps. If it's reasonable I'll probably go after a few achievements, but I'd rather just find all the secrets and kill all the monsters on the hardest non-insane difficulty level and complete the game. I'm old-school that way.
 
I finished all of the games listed except for walking dead. I didn't finish walking dead because it wont run for some reason and none of the forum work a rounds helped.
 
>Mass effect 3 completion average 42%
>On steam based on steam achievements

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.........what?
 
Also, god dammit did I ever grit my teeth and buckle down to finish Arkham City, the last 3-4 hours of that was so god damn boring
 
I'm about to finish my 15 year old FFVII game. Started when I was 15, will finish it at 30 (currently at the end of disc 3).

Nowadays I try to finish everything at 100% and at maximum difficulty. Unless the game isn't worth my time.

Thats dedication. One of these days I'll level up my Runescape character.
 
FYI for anyone not getting this, finishing the game = finishing the game, not getting all achievements. They just used achievements to figure out how many people finished the game. Eg in Boarderlands 2 it says 30% of people finished the game. They know this because 30% of people got the "Cool Story, Bro" achievement, which you get when you beat Jack / finish the game. Doesn't mean 30% of people got every achievement in the game or something. Way under 1% of people get all achievements in any games.
 
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