Should Steam require a "Game Over" achievement that gets posted on sales pages along with "Time to Beat"?

[ZedClampet]

It seems to me that comparing the percentage of people who finish games (per how long the games are) would be a valuable tool for customers trying to decide whether to buy a game.

Of course, they'd have to come up with something for games that don't end, but that's a minor problem.

Thoughts?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

More information usually good, but it would depend on the type of game like you say, some games dont have a completion state as such. Maybe % of achievements average would be a better metric to track?

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm not really sure what the point would be. If a game isn't good enough to play to the end it will get negative reviews. If the game is worth playing even if you don't reach the end it will have positive reviews.

 

[Brian Boru]

Hmm, not sure. I suppose useful for people who like to finish games, but it would be vital to know first what percentage of Steamers are in that category.

Say that's 30%—then an individual game completion of 25% would be a great score on the metric.

 

[mjs warlord]

I dont think steam would be interested in making any sort of table to prove how many completed a game and how long it took them but their is a way to do it.

On the discussion page of the game you could start a thread called say ..... completion list and then to prove you have done it you would need 2 screen shots , 1 showing something like the credits scrolling at the end and 1 screenshot showing the part of your steam interface where the time played info is visible.

You would also need to get somebody to pin the thread so it stayed at the top of thread list or it would eventually get pushed down with all the old threads.

 

[ZedClampet]

I'm not really sure what the point would be. If a game isn't good enough to play to the end it will get negative reviews.

That's definitely not my experience. But that's, in itself, an argument against my idea. Lots of people don't finish good games, so my metric would be worthless.

 

[Rolfil]

But how many games have a proper finish point or ending these days?

With ARPGS, Live Service, Simulation and Survival games I would say that we might be at the point that there are as many games that don't have endings as games that do.

 

[ZedClampet]

But how many games have a proper finish point or ending these days?

With ARPGS, Live Service, Simulation and Survival games I would say that we might be at the point that there are as many games that don't have endings as games that do.

That's not really a problem, though. You just have to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and when they cross it, they get the achievement even if they keep playing for years.

But I've abandoned this idea, anyway, because hardly anyone finishes games whether they are good or not.

 

[Zloth]

But I've abandoned this idea, anyway, because hardly anyone finishes games whether they are good or not.

I've been looking at that metric (such as it is) for years. It's tricky sometimes because the 'you win' achievement either isn't obvious or they divide it up, depending on which ending you get. (You can't just add the latter together because often times people will re-load a late game save to see a different ending.)

20-25% is pretty normal for a typical 60 hour game, at least by the time I'm looking at buying it. BG3's "All's well that ends well" achievement is for finishing that game and it has just over a 20% completion rate. That's a little lower than I would expect, even for the longer game, given how much people seem to like it - but there it is.