Quantity Vs Quality

Most people, when asked, will say that quality trumps quantity – be that music or art or games. But if quality is so great why are there so many games coming out that boast 100 hours of gameplay while trying to hide the fact that all of that so called gameplay is worth a llamas ass.

The truth is, there is something unquantifiable about quantity, something special about this lonely cousin of quality that questions our estimation of the equation that we hold so close to us, that when it comes to equating your game, err on the side of small and aim for experience.

So what is it?

Well, before we get to into too deeply it I should tell you how I am defining these terms. I am treating quality as the overall experience of the game, things like how well it holds in your memory and how interesting it was, while quantity is simply how long it takes you to finish it.

Well, quality is great and all, but quantity is easy.

“Sure my idea isn’t that good…” I hear you say “But I can just add another level!” and that is true, quality is hard to stumble by while quantity is easy to add. But that shines this factor in a bad light, the quality of a game stems a lot from it’s original idea, and forming ideas is a fast process, usually starting from a single spark, in that sense, quantity is actually where most of your time will go when making a game.

I can divide out the games effort have gone into and the games people don’t care about by how much quantity they have, because quality ideas are stumbled into rather then worked on, while level making can take a while. However, this is not always true, some of the quality of the game comes from making sure each level is original and interesting.

So, we can conclude that quality and quantity are very thoroughly mixed. But which is more important?

Well, games are fantastic time wasters, while other forms of media come to give you an experience games can get away with only being a pastime, in fact, some games are DESIGNED to only be a pastime, take iPod games like Angry Birds. Angry Birds has a heck of a lot of levels, and although it does have a high quality in comparison the quantity that quality is tiny. Angry birds was designed that way, sure, it can get pretty uninteresting sometimes, but iPod games are things you play on the train or in the car, in places where you can’t do anything else, and Angry Birds is most certainly more fun than sitting around doing nothing. In whole, Angry Birds has a pretty good gameplay mechanic (though unoriginal), but the focus is on making sure that as much of that boring time is absorbed by killing pigs, rather than making the killing of those pigs is as fun as possible.

So when it comes to making your game, perhaps you could give quantity a go, although, to be perfectly honest, I am more of a fan of high quality games myself. The last few games I have made have all been very short and interesting, so this whole article is slightly hypocritical. I am not saying that quantity is always great, just that you shouldn’t throw it away. Lets face it, Angry Birds is far too popular, I wonder why that is?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph, or Lawsome, as the internet folk call him – Spends a lot of time making games, most of which fall apart or don’t work and are never published, but the few that survive can be found on his account at Yoyogames http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/users/Lawsome1997. He mainly enjoys writing about game theory but you’ll see him do a few reviews. He avoids games that look generic and would rather play something original than something fun. He has strong opinions on games and can hold his own in an argument, if you tell him that COD MW3 is the best game ever he may bite your head off.