The Happy Medium Of Game Length

1up.com has a piece looking at the changing variable of game length, and current gamer tastes when it comes to time investment. From the article: "For better or worse, one of the main ways gamers size up a game's value is by length. After all, an RPG that promises 40 hours of gameplay must be superior to one that offers a mere 20, right? Not quite. The fallacies here are obvious enough. For example, what good is 40 hours of content if only 20 are worth paying attention to? Or what if a game takes ten hours to run through, but is eminently replayable? Despite these and other valid arguments, many gamers, especially in recent years, have subscribed to the 'longer is better' school of thought, without really considering what 'longer' actually means."

Less Is More

[blueZhift]

Quite honestly, if a game takes more than 10 hours to complete, that's really more like 4 to 6 months in real life time for me. I'd definitely prefer faster paced more densely packed chunks. Heck if a game really has to be that long, I'd rather have it in episodic chapters, reasonably priced of course. That said, I still love epic RPGs, even it it takes me years to finish them! But if the games were shorter, then maybe I could buy more games... I guess less would be more.

It depends on the gamer, or more, their age.

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

As a kid, I routinely found it annoying that a game would end after spending days and weeks play it. Nintendo games never seemed long enough, and while they were fun to play, finishing a game several times in a row seldom left you wanting to play it a gain.

I really got into RPG's in university when the genre really matured. This is when games actually offered an actual time limit, or rather, given ideal conditions, you would finish the game in x number of hours. Of course, RPG's are great if your the type that likes to hang back and battle baddies to improve your experince and skills, or get enough gold to buy premium equipment.

After leaving university (that protective cocoon where your life is planned out for you, you only think you have freedom) and got a job, I found that I wanted to spend less and less time playing games. Or rather, couldn't invest the same amount of time playing these games because of stupid things like a career and life. Bauldur's Gate came out shortly after I entered the job market, and after staying up well past 3am and having to go to work the next day, I realized I really couldn't spend that much time playing games.

Now, I find that any game that requires 40 hours to play a real turn off. For the most part, while I still pick up the odd RPG, after about 10 or so hours of game play, I find it boring and repetitive, so I stop playing. I don't think I have actually finished a game in over 5 years, like gum, I chew on it until the flavour runs out. You could keep on chewing on it, but any enjoyment you got out of it long since vanished.

As the gaming industry now entices 6 year olds to 50+ year olds , the real trick is to find a game concept that can keep you entertained for as long as you want. For young gamers that can waste the hours away, offer a game that allows for long extended gameplay, but for older players with lives and careers, allow the gameplay to be tuned for more rapid progress.

For the most part, I prefer open ended games, like racers, RTS, puzzle games, or simple-RPG's like Diablo or Dungeon Seige, where I don't feel like I have to finish the game, but can come back and enjoy the game at any time without too much worry about the story. Games like Neverwinter Nights, or other real RPG's I find I lose interest quickly, then feel like I have wasted my money

As long as the industry balances out offering games with scripted content, and open ended gameplay, I think there will be no problem, and will cater to young and not-so-young alike. But the first person that offers a variable length game concept, where you can add more or less content depending you how long you want to play the game for would be a real coup, this may re-invent the RPG industry.

Re:Less Is More

[ZephyrXero]

I enjoy longer games, like RPGs, but I usually perfer the shorter games as well. Just because some can get through a certain game in 10 hours or less doesn't mean you will. I remember when I was a kid it took me over a month to finally beat Sonic 2, but now I can do it in less than an hour...yet it's still just about my favorite game. Just like the parent said, if I want to play something like Final Fantasy it'll take me a few months due to lack of time. I think this is one reason multiplayer games are so popular these days because you can just jump in and play for half an hour and then be done with it (not counting MMOs). What we really need is variance. Having too many long games or too many short games is equally bad.

More randomness in games is needed

[Digital Vomit]

I think games with a large element of randomness lend themselves better to having a flexible playing length. Take a look at the Civilization series of games. With the latest installments, you can shorten or extend the length of a game by deciding how large the world will be and how many opponents you will have. Plus, with a randomly generated map, every game is different. However, this can backfire and lead to horrible tedium (e.g. *cough*Daggerfall*cough*).

I think the next greatest breakthrough in gaming will be the widespread creation game engines that can be tweaked for length of play and randomness. Imagine playing an FPS where the levels are always different and where you could determine how many levels need to played until you reach the end. Or an RPG where story elements and characters are randomly chosen or mixed up. Or a space exploration game where the universe is always different.

Yes, this kind of thing really increases the complexity of game design, and it can fail spectacularly if one is not careful, but I would definately like to see more games with the randomness and customizeability of Civilization III.

Re:Graphics before game

[Chosen Reject]

But sometimes being left wanting more is good. For example, TV always goes to commercial when it is exciting so that you are left wanting more, and thus you wait, but that's an obvious one. While I loved the Star Wars prequels, there was always something about Star Wars before them, when you had to say, "How did Anakin become Darth Vader?" and all you got was little snippets from the OT and some stuff in books. Wanting more is good. If you always get everything, suddenly everything becomes mundane. But if you are always stopped just short of that, and left wanting more, then you begin to crave that. That is why people make sequels, and it is also why sequels typically don't do as well. People want more, so more is made. But then when people get more, they realize it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, or that they had imagined it. Imagination is and always will be a big part of us.

Re:Short but sweet

[ZephyrXero]

Final Fantasy 6 took me 6 months to beat (around 60 hours or so), but it's still my favorite game. Different kinds of games need different lengths... RPGs are supposed to be long...think of it more like a thick novel than a little 2 hour movie. Yet, I will admit that in the later FFs there do seem to be quite a few filler moments.

Boy am I cynical on this...

[(H)elix1]

Seems to me the games are getting broken up into 'chapters' that maximize the expansion revenue. C&C:Generals, for instance, was way too bloody short. You got around seven missions with three different nationalities. Fine, except half the missions were introducing new portions of the tech tree. Add in the extra 'Zero Hour' missions and the solo play was about right. Add up the money spent and it was just wrong. Same applies to Warcraft III. Were it not for the multiplayer aspects and some of the solo skirmish stuff, I'd be pissed. What they have done is train me to wait till the game is sold together with the expansion set.

Total Annihilation was about right. Total Annihilation: Kingdoms struck me as a bit long. HL: Blue Shift left me feeling robbed by how fast it was over.

It depends on what gameplay time consists of.

[jclast]

I'll use 3 platformers as evidence here.

Sly Cooper left me wanting more. I think I finished in around 10 hours, and I had gotten all the extra moves. I tried some of the time trials and decided the commentary wasn't worth the insane difficulty. I wanted more story, and I have no problem saying the game was great, but too short.

Sly 2 felt right to me. I finished this one in about 20 hours. Got all the moves again and had a great time doing it. Varied mission ovjectives, characters, and play styles kept the platformer from getting dull, and the story was decent enough for a platformer that I didn't think it dragged.

I-Ninja felt long to me despite my finish time of around 15 hours. Why? 2/3 of my play time was replaying levels to earn extra content. Most levels had to be played 3 times to completely finish them. Why couldn't I have unlocked optional levels that were different?

So the answer is this. Leave me wanting more, and the length doesn't matter. Don't pad your game with pointless fetch quests and if I'm going to unlock bonus levels, they shouldn't be the same as the mandatory levels.