[Music] one of the key ways that a game success is measured today is by how much time people spend playing it modern developers have of course tried to exploit this metric to varying degrees of success mostly with blured open world games and live service models but time played alone has never been the secret to a successful game long before anyone had even conceived of blending video games with the Internet or creating games with enormous quarters of side quests developers were creating simple yet fantastic products that Gamers around the world would replay endlessly logging hundreds and
even thousands of hours on if you want a game to succeed the odds are far more in your favor if you make a product that above all else is just really good and if you want to push those odds even further then then you make a game that connects with people this is a very broad statement I know but it's true an emotional connection forged is the strongest one you can make and the hardest one to break at the risk of being overly hyperbolic obviously it doesn't always have to be this deep sometimes the success
of a game can simply be tied to fulfilling a need like being easy to fit into busy schedules but the games that stay with us go much deeper than that every game gamer has at least one game that no matter what is going on in their life or how many times they have played it before they can always come back to and their enjoyment of it will never be any less something about that game just keeps pulling them back time and time again and most if not all of us have at least one game that
we resonated with so deeply that we binged on so hard and we will heartily recommend it to anyone who will listen but we have no intention of ever playing that game again ourselves which begs the question why does this happen What are some of the reasons why some games are so endlessly replayable versus some games that are brilliant just minus the lasting appeal every Gamer's journey is unique of course but my research has led me to some common factors and this is what we're going to be talking about today I also invite you to stick
around at the end for an update on the future of this Channel and I hope to see you [Music] there they say that sometimes A change is as good as a rest and I can tell you that setting out into the lands between with a decent set of armor and a lovely big Shield is very different to doing so with strips of cloth and a stick I can tell you that running around the Spencer Mansion using only a knife is very different to speedr running it with a rocket launcher and I can also tell you
that siding with the Institute will get you a lot more funny looks than if you side with the railroad one of the biggest factors in a game's replayability is the amount of Freedom given to the player when a game features an open world full of quests decisions new places to discover and branching narratives to uncover every time you start it up the adventure has the chance to feel complete different when you throw in the option to spec your character exactly to your liking as well as pick their starting class and control how they're built as
they Advance it all comes together to let you experience the game on your own terms everyone knows that picking a mage is very different to picking a thief or a tanky Knight but have you ever just issued all form of firearm and made a teleporting on shot melee ninja build using a different class SL bu/ loadouts can result in a dramatically different experience According to some stats released for the Mass Effect legendary edition 40% of players chose to play as the soldier and that's awesome the soldier is great but only 11% chose the Adept only
11% chose the option that basically takes your gun runs away but gives you Jedi powers and only 15% chose my personal favorite the infiltrator which gives you optic camouflage and briefly dilates time when you aim your sniper rifle if you're tired of being a benevolent Soldier why not be a quick scoping Renegade it's honestly worth it for some of the dialogue options alone I've got nothing more to say to you if you shoot me my how about goodbye each new character build or path taken can transform the experience helping it to stay feeling fresh and
it is this sense of Freedom that can go a long way towards keeping players coming back on when a core game play Loop incentivizes improvements pushes the player to get better and rewards eventual Mastery it can result in an endlessly replayable experience so I know this is the bit where I'm supposed to talk about Dark Souls but I do that a lot and the souls games are honestly a lot more forgiving than most people think when I think back on times that games have really challenged me to know every scrap of every Helix of their
DNA to overcome what they had to offer the the first thing that comes to mind is around 10 years ago when the remake of the first Resident Evil finally saw the HD remaster treatment I was a hardcore achievement hunter and when I saw achievements for beating the game in under certain time limits for beating the game without saving for beating the game using only the knife for beating the game when all the enemies are invisible Yes you heard that right believe me when I say I had to know that game inside out to stand a
chance fortunately I already loved this game having owned it on the GameCube back in the day but the feeling of attaining this level of Mastery of conquering these ridiculous challenges was unparalleled I still love this game today and these challenges both extended my time with it and kept it feeling fresh they were also however optional challenges and I started this chapter referring to a core gameplay Loop promoting player Improvement so let's talk about Hades my God the first time I tried Hades I was stunned at how quickly death can come and I adored how completely
glib and dead Panzer graas was each time it happened I uh forgot something with every death I couldn't wait to try again Hades is fast it is overwhelming it is unforgiving and when you finally think you're starting to get better you meet Meg we meet need again but with every death you learn and you earn and before you know it you're going up against the big man himself it's that constant feedback of improvement that makes players return like when you manage to flawlessly string your combos together for long enough to snag that elusive srank or
like when you keep throwing yourself against the mercenaries mode because you really want that RPD outfit and for some reason this was the Resident Evil work Capcom decided not to let you just pay for the damn thing bit by bit your aim gets better you become calmer you hold combos for longer and maybe just maybe one day you can learn to not panic in the face of instakill Chainsaw enemies that may or may not have scared the [ __ ] out of you since your third year of uni the sense of accomplishment from mastering of
combat uncovering new strategies and experiencing new unexpected challenges makes replaying feel like a journey of self improvements your watch is [Music] broken let's contrast here for a moment with more linear narrative-driven experiences The Last of Us is widely regarded as a stone cold Masterpiece while whil it does offer some degree of player Freedom it runs primarily on a tightly woven narrative and once you roll credits it can be tough to come back to games like this spectacular gameplay stylings aside a narrative-driven structure is designed to be impactful but once the story is told it is
often the case that that magic just isn't there anymore or at the very least the same level of magic just isn't attainable a second time Persona 5 is a game that I absolutely adore and I have red credits on both the original and Royal even snagging the platinum on the latter but I have never managed a complete repeat playthrough of either because it's so damn long and when you already have the answers there is no longer that drive to discover them and while we're on this game Persona 5 is also a perfect example of another
issue that can happen when you already know the plot whilst it is for the most part an excellent story there are a couple of sections that can be a bit of a t with their pacing notably the bit between Futaba and haru's palaces whereas once I was captivated and eager to see what twists and turns awaited our Plucky Heroes now all I can think is oh good this is where ryuji for's unnecessary Conflict by arguing with the cat near automata is a game that hits you right in the fields so damn hard over and over
again a game that has you questioning so many things all while blessing your ears with one of the most hauntingly beautiful soundtracks I have ever heard but at the end you more than likely surrendered your save file to help another player and honestly even if you didn't the ending is so powerful that it just doesn't need anything further when you replay games like these and you know where to go and what to do and especially if you skip all of the dialogue or the big emotional scenes it can really be surprising to realize just how
much of your first playthrough was shipped by Discovery when you're hooked on the story desperate to know what happens next fighting through a group of enemies in an unfamiliar Battleground so that you can experience the next chapter everything comes together as one cohesive narrative hole strip that all away to just the battles and it doesn't quite land the same these games often have a profound narrative or thematic weight and while we might not replay them they stick with us for years and we're always happy to recommend them to any one within earshot now remember guys
as I said a little while ago every player's journey is unique whilst I have only played through the Last of Us in its entirety once I also know people who replay it multiple times a year it all depends on the type of player you are and what connects with you and what connects with you in a way that keeps you coming back which leads me into my final point and it has been the hardest one by far to write about [Music] sometimes we are just in the right place at the right time this one is
in the hands of what my mother would describe as the universe sometimes we just connect with a game I mentioned in my comfort games video how I discovered Mass Effect at a time in my life when I was unemployed and it provided a much needed sense of comfort in between interview and desperately applying for jobs more commonly referred to as trauma bonding if you form an emotional connection with something or someone during a difficult time in your life that connection will never leave you a few years back I was very sick and when I was
released from hospital after almost eight straight weeks one of the first things I did was track down a used Xbox 360 and a copy of Mass Effect a game that was just there for us I know this is something that all of us have I have connected with many people online over the years over a shared love of Mass Effect and if you search for how dark souls saved me you will find some interesting takes on what a boon this famously difficult game has had on some people's mental health now I know that you guys
all have a game in your life that fits this description and I am very excited to read in the comments what these games are and how these games came to be in your life and now for all you lovely people who are still here as promised here is my big Channel update I have been thinking long and hard about the next step in turning this delightful hobby of mine into a job especially after some of you lovely people have mentioned a desire to support me even more than you already do now I always promised myself
that I would never introduce products or Channel subscriptions of any kind purely for the sake of it I have put a lot of thought into how I can make these subscriptions is both affordable and worth your time I simply don't have it in me to charge somebody over 20 when even Netflix is still cheaper than that so without further Ado let me now give you the rundown coming in at tier one we have the tip jar for less than the price of a single canned beverage the tip jar unlocks membership badges to show your support
of the channel plus access to behind the scenes photos and status updates super simple literally the cheapest option I could set and fun fact if every one of my amazing subscribers joined this channel I would be able to go full time on YouTube in less than 6 months now on to tier 2 baly chat where you will also receive access to my premium Discord server what you will find here is a safe space where polite and intelligent conversation is encouraged where we can chat about anything and everything game related and of course the finest of
all things in life our pets but most of all this is where you will find all of my important Channel updates and announcements going forward in short I promise I will make it worth your while and Aller less than the price of a large coffee and finally on to the top tier early baly you will unlock everything we have just discussed plus 2day early access to my videos and as a bonus access to any deleted scenes created along the way it is rare that I finish a video without cutting at least something out so this
could build up into quite the collection and all for less than the price of a McDonald's I hope there is something here that speaks to you and I hope you all consider these to be fair prices for what I am offering and let me assure you these prices will never change for those of you still here let me just say thank you as always for your continued support you are helping turn my hobby into a dream job and I am eternally grateful thank you very much for watching guys I will see you on the next
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