Does Not Finishing A Game Invalidate Your Opinion On A Game?

It's an incomplete opinion, not an invalid one.

No of course not. As long as you only speak about the part that you have played that's perfectly fine. When you have to be really careful though is when you extrapolate from what you have played and apply it to parts of the game you haven't .

"The first 15 hours of the game were terrible, so I stopped playing" is fine if you can back it up with an argument on what about it has been terrible.
"The game is complete garbage and not worth playing" is not fine if you only played the first 15 hours. You literally don't know if that's true since you didn't play past that point. For all you know the rest of the game could be the best gaming time of your life.

Why is your opinion supposed to matter to anyone but yourself?

Nope. No one should have to suffer through the boring parts for a game to get good. You can play a forty hour game for five hours and decide that it's trash. Like GTA V, new things are added later in the game, but it's basically the same loop for the entire adventure. Same with Mario Odyssey. You can beat a few worlds and drop it because that's basically the game. Collect moons, fight boss, power up ship, rinse and repeat.

I think I was justified in knowing I was not going to enjoy any more of Persona 5 after 8 hours. However, if that same amount of time was spent in Dota, I feel that's not at all applicable to have an opinion on whether you enjoy the game or not.

Of course, other factors come into play. In my Persona example, I had 3, 4 and both Arena games as prior series experience. I knew what I wanted, and it wasn't there. A person coming from Smite or LoL to Dota may know a bit quicker if the game is not for them by utilising comparisons than someone who has never played a MOBA before in their life.

All in all, I think previous experience with the series /genre as well as a substantial play time relative to the general completion time are enough (perhaps 10-15% of the game). By no means is a full playthrough required to have an opinion, but that opinion will only be skin deep, and limited in comparison to someone completing a full playthrough of the game.

It helps to beat it but no your view is valid because what if, to you, it was bad enough you couldn't finish...which is proof on your views.

For me, I think watch dogs and la noire are pretty dogshit games. But I not only beat them but I also got all trophies. I endured it because a perfectionist completionist streak...now I really try to figure if I would like a game so I don't face the urge to persist if it happens to not be to my liking.

It's also true to have high opinion of something without having beaten it. For me that would be BOTW.

Of course not that is a ridiculous concept.

Barely getting passed the tutorial/ prologue/ opening stages - Chances are, your opinion isn't valid

Playing at least 50% of the game or generally an extended period of time - Opinion is possibly valid, but depends on the how long the game is.

For example, if you played Destiny for 10 hours, yeah, sorry, you have no clue. You can't look at me, someone with 2000+ hours of actual play time in that game, and think we're equal. Not even close.

One doesn't have to "prove" oneself by finishing a game. Having more experience and knowledge makes an opinion more worthy of consideration, not valid or invalid.

On a related note, if you have hundreds (thousands) of hours in a game and thinks it sucks, you should've considered stopping hundreds (thousands) of hours earlier...

There are two things in the OP, one being finishing (and therefore playing the game to begin with), and the other is basing one's opinion on another. For the first, I adhere to Wolpaw's Law. Regardless of how good a game may get later on, if everything preceding it is something you have to trudge through and eventually quit out, then it's not something you need to have finished to have a valid opinion on, as it's not suddenly going to make that not a slog. Having been something of a masochist, I always finished a game before formulating an opinion on it, I had a hard time from outright quitting games. These days, I just don't have the time for it, if I'm not getting anything out of a game I drop it.

But when it comes to secondhand opinion formulation, and then propagating it, that is something that I imagine is pretty common on the internet. People like being in on a conversation, or feeling in the know. Personally I don't feel okay offering an opinion without some first hand experience to back it.

Your opinion would be that you did not like the game, the problem is when people say certain games are bad when they just didn't like it, I don't like sports games (or sports in general) but it's not like I'm gonna be telling people that sports games are bad.

If you're saying the story sucks without finishing the game then that might be problematic.

Why do people always present stuff like this as binary?

Whether or not it invalidates your opinion is completely dependent on what your opinion is.

It really depends on the game. For example, I never finished nuts & bolts because for me it was boring, but really boring, simply not fun to play, so if you ask me "how's nuts & bolts?" I'm gonna answer "meh, boring game". On the other hand I never went past 15 hours of tales of symphonia, it's not that I didn't like the gameplay, the battle system and such, but the grinding was... Just... Not for me... I rapidly get to the point where I was "nope, I really can't". But I won't tell you the game is bad or boring, because aside the random encounters and the mob grinding I was having fun.

I wouldn't say invalidate it just means your opinion is only valid up to the point where you stopped playing it. you probably aren't the best authority of the game on the parts you didn't play or things you didn't delve deep into.

Gundam said:

So your opinion is more valid than those with less time spent in-game? Would it be fair to assume you enjoy Destiny a fair amount? Obviously if you like a game, you'll play it a lot, but do you think there is a Stockholm-syndrome esque effect that by sheer dedication and hours spent, your opinion might be considered invalid by less "influenced" players? Not that its a sin to enjoy Destiny, but it seems like there could be some sort of loop there, if that makes sense?

As a side note, the last paragraph comes off as very condescending and dismissive.

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I thought my point was obvious, but I'll explain.

I'm assuming you're familiar with Destiny's general premise so I don't have to explain it. Anyway, who do think has extensive, deeper understanding of the game's mechanics and themes? The guy who hardly gave the game a chance, or the guy who's played literally every piece of content the game has to offer? I'm not saying, in this case, that one must do absolutely everything to have a valid opinion on Destiny. But to think that person can fairly and objectively assess what's good and bad about the game, with relatively little experience, is highly unlikely.

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about Overwatch after only playing it for an hour, versus the guy who plays it every day. That person clearly has a basis in which they can praise and criticize the game. I don't. I'll gladly defer to them since my lack of experience pales in comparison.

Just because I've played Destiny a helluva lot doesn't mean I automatically forgive all of its shortcomings. In fact, being such a dedicated player, I'm far more vocal and aware of what is wrong and what can improve because I understand the nitty gritty minutae and nuances of the game. Hell, Angry Joe tried criticizing the Leviathan raid in Destiny 2, despite not even playing it himself.

Depends on the game and what your opinion is.

Gundam said:

Call me old fashioned, but I'd say 10 hours is a pretty good amount of time to discern if a game is right for you or not, and for what reasons.

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Not all games are created equal. 10 hours (that was just a random number) is quite a lot of time for most games. But for a game like Destiny (or any shared online/ MMO-lite/ full blown MMO), those 10 hours a drop in the bucket. That's why I originally said, it depends on the game.

It depends, if you played a pair of hours then you are legitimate, if you played 10 minutes then not.

I honestly hate when people say something like: "you should play it more to understand/appreciate/whatever", it's not my duty to appreciate/understand/whatever a game, if a game isn't engaging then i leave it, a good game is good from the beginning to the end, a game that only becomes good after many hours is a mediocre game.

No unless you are a critic doing a review on a game, that to me makes the review completely useless and puts other reviews by the person into question.

I don't even finish the games I like... xD

Imp the Dimp said:

Depends. I had someone agreeing with the EDGE score on Xenoblade 2 one day after the game was out. Turns they had played for 8h. Yes, that invalidates their opinion whether the EDGE score is something I end up agreeing with or not down the line. Ultimately, it depends on genre and the specific game. I believe you can draw a lot of conclusions from a FIFA demo but generally, I think you need to see a substantial amount of the game to confidently state an opinion about it. Nothing wrong with quitting a game 5h in you didn't enjoy but be transparent about it.

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All I was saying is that thus far the score was lining up with my opinion - I don't see what the problem with that is. To clarify, I was in no way trying to say Xenoblade 2 is a 7 definitively. I entirely agree with you that I can't make that claim yet having only played that much.

Overall I would say no. And I'd like to think that people who do give their opinions on a game they haven't finished do recognize that they don't neccessarily have the full picture. And ofcourse it's also on case by case basis, there are games that don't bring much new to the table after the first 5 hours or so. And "you haven't seen the ending" is not a very good argument to discredit someone's opinion. Because ending is usually just story related and even then it's just a small part of the story. Having a clever twist probably won't save a game. Think Nier Automata and Undertale for example. And I'm not calling either of these games bad myself, before anyone jumps on me =P But I often see people say "you haven't had the real ending, so your opinion won't count!" "You need to play through the game you didn't like again!".

An example, I didn't like Vanquish. Even if it's a short game I don't think my 2 hours with it is enough to give a full evaluation. But I think it's enough for me to say that I don't like it. I'm not gonna start arguments that the game is bad, but I can still explain what I didn't like in it from what I played.

And with a game like Pillars of Eternity, I definitely feel that I should give it more time before brushing it aside. It takes a while to meet and get to know the characters, the locations and the story opens up slowly. And for game like that these things are really important. The combat though, I feel it won't get any better for me because I don't even like the basics. My opinion after the 5.5 hours would be that it's a good game though, even if I'm not playing it anymore. It takes a lot of flaws for me to call game bad (from what I have played) and even more calling something trash. My outlook on games is way more often positive than negative. And I try to recognize my own biases. With movies I don't hesitate so much, of course those are quite a lot easier to finish.

It really depends on what your opinion is. If you've played 10 minutes of a game, your opinion of major mechanics of the game would be very limited and likely incorrect in many places.

On the other hand something like not liking an aesthetic over the same period would be much more an opinion I could understand.

I would say no.

My opinion on GTA5 is that the world was fantastically designed and had the most organically made city in a video game. I didn't finish it because I found the story and missions lacklustre and it put me off wanting to progress. Overall I thought the core gameplay was good. A poor story and the usual A>B> do some killing or chasing >C mission structure stopped me from completing it.

I dont think not finishing the game changes the value of what I personally felt while playing the game. I put more than enough time into the story and spent a large amount of time exploring the world and different vehicles.

Only if you are a reviewer.

An opinion doesn't need to be approved by the opinion validation buro. Everyone can have an onpinion.

Talking critically about a work is usually more interesting when you actually have seen all of it and i'm more likely to read the thoughts of someone who has than someone who hasn't.

It can potentially invalidate your opinion if there's someone who had finished the game, especially if the opinion is factually wrong or misinformation happened due to not finishing the game.

I don't think you need to complete a game to have an opinion on it, no. Define completing a game. Do I need to slog through a potentially tiresome story to win?

Super Mario Odyssey has various different things you could argue are completion states, which one matters? Or something like FIFA, how do you finish it? Is it over after the first match? What about PUBG?

Your opinion is valid when your opinion is formed, it's yours. Now, trying to convince others your opinion is the right one may need some further weight to your argument though.

I don't really think that not finishing a game because you aren't enjoying it should be a reason to invalidate your opinion of the game if you can express why you didn't enjoy it.

No, but it does mean your opinion is decidedly less informed and that can be taken into account during discussions.

We can have nuance here. Why the need for black and white questions?

No.

It does mean you can't speak about the ending or any parts you didn't get to with any authority though.

games dont go from 4 to 8 or something in the second half. if its bad, its bad throughout, and vice versa.

You have to play at least to a point where the game really gets going, and has given you an opportunity to try out all the gameplay and combat mechanics, different kinds of weapons included. Far too many criticize games after playing an hour or two, when they've merely gone past the introductory portion. At that point your opinion is not valid.

Personally, I would acknowledge that my opinion of the whole game would be highly imprecise if I didn't play the whole game. That is because I often find my opinion change quite a bit during the playthrough, and sometimes that occurs late in the game. Sustaining my interest throughout the game is certainly a positive aspect on its own, and games that don't do that would be excluded from the highest marks. But it could still be rated as "uneven, but worth playing overall" or some such. Final Fantasy XIII is an example of a game that grew on me very slowly, and where my opinion of the game at the end is much higher than it would be half-way through.

No of course not, but I do think you need a certain amount of time before you can have a fair judgement of a product. How much that is depends on a game by game basis of course. Each product is different, so there's an argument to be made there for how long of course.

Of course not.

yaffi said:

That's all fine and good. That's how you yourself think about the game. That's an opinion all right. But it's not something you could say/write/use in a review/recommendation for others.

You can form an opinion about a game within minutes usually, but you shouldn't use this kind of opinion to convince other people to/or deter them from playing a game. At least that's what I think. Also I can't seem to properly convey my thoughts into words on this topic. So, sorry if it's hard to understand what I'm trying to say.

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I honestly think, given my example, I could write a fairly detailed review/recommendation on Final Fantasy XIII despite not finishing it.

I don't think someone should play 20 minutes of a game and decide it's crap and tell people not to buy it or that someone should assume that their opinion holds more weight because they finished a game and they enjoyed it/didn't enjoy it.

I do however think that if you've played a reasonable amount of the game it's fair to assume that the entire gameplay structure isn't going to change and that, unless there's a radical shift, it's not going to change the core game that much - that's when I feel it's completely fair to form an opinion and decide to recommend or review.

Not really. I don't even need to play, for example, a shooter with controller and 30fps+vsync to know that the gameplay is mediocre, boring, etc.

I think it depends on when you stopped playing it.
If you stopped an hour in, your opinion is still valid but also can't be very nuanced and is probably not that helpful.
If you played 45 hours and stopped because the game doesn't seem to get better your opinion is as good as any for me.

Depends. If I'm reviewing a game, I'm going to finish it. Maybe I won't 100% it, but I'll definitely do the critical path and a few side quests. I recently reviewed a game so bad I almost asked if I could review it without finishing it, but I decided that'd be pretty shitty of me and made it all the way to the end.

If I don't like a game enough to finish it, like a lot of bundle games, I put it in a pile and occasionally write paragraph long summaries of why I didn't personally enjoy it, but I don't ever turn that into a review or talk about the game again, generally.

if your opinion is about story, probably.
Otherwise nope

so many games that i leave half finish but when i go back and actually finish, y opinion changes a lot, for better and for worse

dead space, final fantasy 4, pid...

I think that the real problem is people talking a gaming as whole having know only what they played.

Its a big issue for me because i'm biased towards the end of a game. final fantasy 4 was better in my mind before i played again and met the last caracheter to join my party

But for me, when i ask someone opinion on a game, i will alway have more consideration for the ones that invested more time on it than other, its that simple.

I played hundreds of hours of oblivion before finishing the game.

rodrigolfp said:

Not really. I don't even need to play, for example, a shooter with controller and 30fps+vsync to know that the gameplay is mediocre, boring, etc.

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So, all console shooters are mediocre and boring to you without trying, no exceptions about it?

You have people who don't even familiarize themselves with a series or franchise before they shit all over a game. So screw it, speak on games you haven't finished too. That's the climate the gaming community has been in: fraudulent opinions.

No, unless putting together a Top10 list.

zoukka said:

Of course not. You need to play enough to get familiar with all the major game play systems and I'd say your opinion is valid by then.

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Basically this.