You'd be surprised how few people actually roll credits when playing a game, but just look at the achievements, and you'll see for yourself. 28.9 percent of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 players carved their way through Bohemia; just 23 put the Dreamscourge to rest in Avowed; and only 50 percent of Baldur's Gate 3 players untangled the druid and goblin conflict in the very first act.
Developers are keenly aware of this discrepancy, as former Capcom, THQ, and Sega executive John Lee noted all the way back in 2011 that "only 20 percent of players ever finish a game." At the time, he was referring to the state of things "ten years ago," but another decade has passed, and little has changed.
Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser, who also helped pen the script for every Grand Theft Auto game until he resigned in 2020, spoke at a panel at the Tribeca Festival in New York City this weekend about this exact problem. He revealed that one of the key goals for the studio was to get more people to reach the end of its games after the success of GTA 3, and surprisingly, they succeeded.
"The whole point of an...
