Gaming [PPOTW #30] Is Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes worth the asking price?

[T-hug]

This week has seen a lot of controversy surrounding Hideo Kojima's and Konami's latest release due next month, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.
The game is supposedly a prologue to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which currently has no set release date.

Game Informer got their hands on a near-to-final build of the game and revealed to the world that the game's main campaign could be finished in under 2hrs. One of the writers said he finished it at around 1:30 'and was taking his time'.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes releases March 18th on PS3 (£/$29.99), PS4 (£/$39.99), Xbox 360 (£/$29.99) & Xbox One (£/$39.99). Digital versions are around 25% cheaper on every platform.

So this week poll asks; Is Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes worth the asking price?
Obviously without playing it it is hard to make the call, but on a content vs price level, can we ever justify £/$40 for a couple of hours?

Supporters of the model have cited Gone Home and The Walking Dead as examples of similar practices, but Gone Home was £/$15 at launch and The Walking Dead is about £/$5 an episode, with the full season being £/$40 for 12+ hours of content.

Will you be buying the latest Metal Gear on release day or wait for a price drop? Do you think it is worth the asking price?
Is it our own fault as gamers for paying for on-disc DLC and in-app-purchases that has ultimately lead to this?

Let us know in the comments!

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes wiki

Spoiler: Previous Polls

Previous Week - Which February video game release are you most looking forward to?
Week 28 - Which console generation was the best?
Week 27 - Are you buying Destiny?
Week 26 - Which nextgen system will have the best year in 2014?
Week 25 - Do you like micro transactions?
Week 24 - What did you think of this years VGX Awards?
Week 23 - Which of the nextgen consoles do you own?
Week 22 - Do you think the Xbox One launch was good?
Week 21 - Do you think the PS4 launch was good?
Week 20 - Is Microsoft right to ban early Xbone players?
Week 19 - What is the best video game genre?
Week 18 - Is Vita TV a good idea?
Week 17 - Have you got Pokemon X or Y?
Week 16 - Do you keep trade or sell your games?
Week 15 - Are you interested in Valve's new Vision for Steam
Week 14 - Do you think GTAV is the game of the generation?
Week 13 - Have you ever backed a Kickstarter project?
Week 12 - Will you be buying a 2DS?
Week 11 - After last weeks Gamescom are you more or less interested in the PS Vita?
Week 10 - Are you looking forward to Gamescom this week?
Week 9 - Which company has the best online infrastructure?
Week 8 - Which is better android or ios?
Week 7 - Which August game release are you most looking forward to?
Week 6 - Will you be buying GTA V?
Week 5 - Will you buy a Gateway 3DS Flashcard?
Week 4 - Which system has the best controller?
Week 3 - Have you preordered a nextgen console yet?
Week 2 - Now MS has backtracked, will you?
Week 1 - Who will sell the most hardware next gen?

If you have an idea for a poll you would like to see on the portal just send me a PM with PPOTW in the title and your questions and answers for the poll.

 

[Duo8]

No. This is ridiculous.

 

[Arizato]

Buying to 100% the game, so I will probably get my money's worth. Those who are solely buying for the story are probably going to be disappointed at the length though.

 

[Clydefrosch]

how much stuff do you think they could hide in a 1 hour 30 minute campaign though?

to send a message, people should stomp their foot down and not buy this. this should be free/unlockable on the actual phantom pain game

 

[Fluto]

No .... i'm still going to buy it though >.>
Well, I am a achievement hunter of sorts so it'll be sort of worth the price, if it has a good replayability.

 

[Terenigma]

Ask yourself this: Do you remember MGS2? Remember how the first part you played as snake and it was a short intro of sorts before the main game got going? You do? Would you buy JUST that part of the game for the price of a full retail game?

 

[Densetsu]

Hell no, it's not worth it. And that's coming from someone who usually throws his money at MGS titles on their respective launch dates.

I'm sure this will eventually be packaged with some later iteration of The Phantom Pain, in an "ultimate" or "complete" edition, which will probably be released long before I can even put a dent in my PS3 backlog. I can wait.

*EDIT*

Ask yourself this: Do you remember MGS2? Remember how the first part you played as snake and it was a short intro of sorts before the main game got going? You do? Would you buy JUST that part of the game for the price of a full retail game?

I liken Ground Zeroes to the Virtuous Mission in MGS3 where you rescue Sokolov in the beginning.

 

[Taleweaver]

Isn't it a bit early to draw conclusions? The game isn't completed yet! As I read it, there are some console-exclusive missions and extra missions. And for all we know, that "near-finished" game had all the tutorials skipped so testers don't have to bother with things they already know. Add in a couple unskippable dialogs and the result can clock in at some extra hours. (honestly: I've played games where I would swear the only reason the game seemed so long was that every character couldn't SHUT UP about things).

Of course the result will still be short, but...I would at least give the game the chance to be FINISHED before judging it. If all reviewers agree on it being too short, well, THEN that's a problem. Now it's on that icky spot between "they can't increase the length without changing the release date" and "they can't pretend not to know it". It could lead to some last-minute fixes as well (adding some enemies just to increase the difficulty, lowering the player's speed a little, a few backtrack/fetch quests, optional missions becoming regular, and so on...).

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Yeah, I'm a big MGS fan but no, not this time. I'll wait until The Phantom Pain comes out then I'll buy this cheaper or maybe it'll get bundled.

Hell I remember buying Anarchy Reigns for the same price and while that was definitely buyer's regret, at least it had more content than this. As a $15 digital download I could see it being reasonable, as a $30-$40 retail game, absolutely not.

Sorry Hideo "The Ruse Cruise" Kojima, but this is too far.

 

[zeello]

$40 for a couple hours might be worth it if there is side stuff and replayability.

But if all the same content will be in the full game, then it's almost like you're getting 0 hours.

I can see people getting a downloadable PS360 version just to shave 20 dollars on the price.
Whereas I can see other people getting physical just for collector's purposes.
I wonder if this was done simply to capitalize on the launch of the PS4/One when there are many people hyped about their new PS4/Ones but not many games out.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Europe 30 Pounds
USA 30 Dollars

Yeah that's really fair.

30 Dollars=22.5 Euro
30 Pounds=36 Euro

 

[Generation 16]

edit: I just went full retard
anyway no, 2 hours is /not/ worth 30 dollars.

 

[calmwaters]

I was going to say that games are expensive enough already and this one would be no different. But $40 for 2 hours of play? This is obviously an exaggeration, but the point is that it won't take a lot of time to finish, even in the final version. I'm hoping for a game that will take at least 10 hours, at the worst.

 

[emigre]

Nope. It's a rip off.

This is obviously an exaggeration

It is. It's really about 90 minutes. You can speed run it within five minutes.

 

[calmwaters]

It is. It's really about 90 minutes. You can speed run it within five minutes.

The animated Disney films are all 90 minutes. And they cost anywhere from $3 to $10. Is it fair to say they are greedy if they release this instead of adding it to the next MGS game?

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

If there were some new version of Metal Gear Online included? Maybe. But I was hesitant on buying it at $30 even when I figured it'd be at least a 6 hour campaign. For 2-3 hours tops, it goes into the Gamefly queue.

 

[Gahars]

At these prices, Kojima must really want to put the "short" in shortchanged.

 

[Social_Outlaw]

It's not worth it, but if the replay value is high, I guess I'll go for it, but the replay value HAS to be high, like ultimate spiderman, if not Hell NO.

 

[TripleSMoon]

No this is certainly not worth it. Heck, Portal was only $15 digital and lasted me about four hours for just the main playthrough. And they're asking twice as much (digitally) for a game whose main campaign is apparently half the length?

Don't get me wrong, I don't fault hardcore MGS fans for buying this. I know if this were Zelda, I'd probably do the same thing. But it's not an okay business practice, and it's pretty freaking obvious Konami is only doing this because they they can get away with it (since it's Metal Gear).

 

[Apex]

Something to keep in mind here, is that all of the MGS games are very short depending on your game play style.

If you cut out all the cut scenes and rushed through the game, you can beat most of them in a few hours. I wont be buying the game for that price, because I don't have any of the systems it's on. (Besides, it might come out on PC eventually, seeing that MGS Raising did.)

Who knows how long it truly is until it's released. I'd wait to criticize something until there's a general consensus as opposed to a few opinions.