I think this is less an issue of “replayability” and maybe more a matter of “time vs. money”. Alot of times I think people mean the ability to go through a game again and do something different (I guess a multi-path game is an example of this).
Whether a game is replayable or not is not the main issue I think, but how much time someone will spend with a game. People have mentioned that if a game looks interesting, they’ll buy it no matter what. And that’s how it should be, but most people probably won’t think like that when first getting into Bishoujo games. Since they’re not used to the type of game, it’s short length may make them wary of the game (since from what I’ve gathered people tend to view bishoujo games as short and easy, even if they have no direct experience with them). If they play it and enjoy it, I’m sure they won’t mind about length or replayability anymore. Since, sadly, bishoujo games are not easily available, most people don’t have much experience with them and judge them on standards of existing games (Like “The Longest Journey” example… unless you know exactly what you’re doing, that game does take a pretty long time to play through… but most adventure games don’t, and that’s one of the reasons the whole genre disappeared awhile ago, “The Longest Journey” was some kind of accident or something).
Judging cost per hour of a movie vs. game is difficult. Movie is a set amount of time. Game depends on how fast you read, click, etc. I think that most people will judge a bishoujo game based on other game standards, and many are worried that there isn’t enough gameplay to justify the cost. And I guess they shouldn’t, becuase most are completely different from games that they’re used to playing. But like I said, the unknown makes people wary (I’m guilty of this too).
Wow, this post is pretty incoherent… maybe I’ll be back later and try to fix it up a bit.
[This message has been edited by Faust (edited 11-21-2002).]