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1	Content in video games, whether it's new gameplay or plot, can be presented to the player in various ways.
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3	Sometimes, the developers keep a taut pace with the content, keeping large areas, optional items and sidequests to a minimum to maintain that pace; these games are content intensive and have "Denser" content. Other times, developers space out the content so that the main portion of the game is experienced much slower and amidst a myriad of extra options; these games are content extensive and have "Wider" content.
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5	Each approach has potential boons and drawbacks. Games with Density can easily maintain the player's attention and provide a meaty experience within a relatively short playtime, but the types of experiences can be fairly limited and not very cerebral. Games with Width offer a broad palette of experiences over a frequently long playtime and a potential for greater WorldBuilding (in games that actually have plot), but can also leave players bored by the pacing (and FakeLongevity in some cases) or [[QuicksandBox overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content]].
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7	Genres that tend to be Denser include {{Action\|Game}}, {{racing game}}s, {{Casual Video Game}}s, {{Platform Game}}s, and {{Rail Shooter}}s. Genres that tend to be Wider include [[AdventureGame Adventure]], ActionAdventure, {{Role Playing Game}}s (especially most {{Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game}}s), {{Strategy Game}}s, and {{Wide Open Sandbox}}es. Gaming in general saw a shift to Width with the VideoGame3DLeap during the 5th console generation.
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9	Tangentially related to the SlidingScaleOfLinearityVsOpenness, as Linearity typically correlates with Density, while Openness typically correlates with Width. FakeLongevity is sometimes present in games on the Width end of the scale. The SuperTrope of SlidingScaleOfVideoGameWorldSizeAndScale.
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11	!!Instances where the Scale was consciously considered when producing a game:
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13	* Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto and Creator/EijiAonuma felt that ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' got a bit too Wide with ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess''. This is why they made sure that ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' was Denser. Fan reaction to this led to ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' being a WideOpenSandbox in the vein of [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI the NES original]].
14	* Shigeru Miyamoto had largely sat back and let the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' staff do its own thing, but for ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'', Miyamoto became heavily involved. The result was a much, much denser game than any previous ''Paper Mario'' title.
15	* Rocksteady has stated they were focused on making Gotham Dense rather than Wide in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'', as they feel that Detail is more important than Scale. Interestingly, they still have to give the world some width as Batman can now drive in his Batmobile and the streets were too narrow for that in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''.
16	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series started out on the far, ''far'' "Width" end of the scale. ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' have absolutely massive game worlds, on the scale of real life countries. However, to fill out these worlds, any areas not related to the main quests (or a few prominent side quests, in the case of ''Daggerfall'') are [[RandomlyGeneratedLevels Randomly Generated]], with ProceduralGeneration used for dungeons. This allows for huge game worlds with nigh-infinite content...but at the cost of that content getting very repetitive, very quickly. Come the third game in the series, ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', Creator/{{Bethesda}} took a drastically different philosophical approach, swinging to the "Density" side of the scale. The game world was significantly scaled down (to a "mere" nine square miles compared to thousands) but was entirely hand-built. It helps that, through the use of SpaceCompression, it is nowhere near the size of it's predecessors, but is still far larger than most game worlds. Another reason for this philosophical change was ''Morrowind''[='s=] MultiPlatform availability on console (specifically, {{Platform/Xbox}}) as well as PC, a first for the series (and first for a prominent WesternRPG in many, many years at the time). This changed helped ''Morrowind'' to get into the hands of a wider audience, being the BreakthroughHit for both the series and the development company. Follow-up games (''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'') swung the series back toward the middle of the scale. Both increased the size of the game world compared to ''Morrowind'', but also brought back elements of random and procedural generation to fill out those larger game worlds. Coupled with [[LevelScaling enemy and loot]] spawns being spread sheet generated, much of the "density" uniqueness seen in ''Morrowind'' was lost.

Context Main / SlidingScaleOfContentDensityVsWidth