The Importance of Game Length

Gamasutra's regular 'Question of the Week' feature touches, this week, on the ideal length of games, and the importance of game length. While the overwhelming opinion was 'quality is better than quantity', there were a range of opinions along that scale. From the article: "I would say as a gamer on the more casual side (30+ years) the game length is fine around 20-25 hours. If you are having fun while playing. I never have time to finish anything longer. It makes me more satisfied to have played through the game in 20-25 game hours than never even reach half way. - Joachim Carlsson, Massive Entertainment"

Genre

[GenKreton]

It really depends on the genre. If I sit down to play an RPG it better be a lot longer than 25 hours... With that said, 25 hours out of an FPS is acceptable. The 12 hours it took to beat half-life 2 the first time was lacking though.

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

What was really disappointing about HL2 was the amount of time spent going somewhere. I think I spent 14 hours on it...I know I finished it in a weekend. I think I spent three of those hours driving those stupid vehicles from point A to point B. Far Cry made much better implementation of vehicles.

Re:

[harlows_monkeys]

I can do 36 hours a day in WoW !

That's wimpy, when you could do 96 hours [timecube.com] in a day.

Re:Genre

[Mark Programmer]

The funny thing is that this is exactly why I don't play RPGs on a regular basis.

For me, most game mechanics get stale after twenty hours of play. RPGs in particular tend to have relatively simple game mechanics that rarely get changed-up---they pad the game out with level-grinding and plot. Once I've mastered the game mechanics, I want to move faster; I've found very few RPGs that allow me to do so, since the artificial wall of gaining levels still exists.

Re:

[Lostconfused]

Well, a good rpg then should probably try to change up the leveling system since its one of the most important parts of the game. And the length for an rpg would also be dependent on the storyline. A nicely written story with detailed plot and developed characters might make for a game much longer then 25+ hours. RPGs are not only about grinding levels.

Re:

[Irish_Samurai]

This is the reason I do play RPG's.

There is something extremely relaxing about grinding levels. Its almost like meditating for me.

I understand what you're saying though - sometimes the mechanic isn't enough to keep me interested. Okami was way too long for me. Awesome game, but I put it down about 2/3rds of the way through. It became tedious to play.

Re:

[Phisbut]

RPGs in particular tend to have relatively simple game mechanics that rarely get changed-up---they pad the game out with level-grinding and plot.

Good RPG's require no grinding at all. If you follow the plot, and go to places the plot requires you to go, and do quests the plot requires you to do, you should have just enough random encounters to level up enough so that when you encounter a boss, you may have a challenging-but-not-impossible battle.

Boring grinding serve only 2 purposes: 1) Doing that optio

Re:

[danpsmith]

Once I've mastered the game mechanics, I want to move faster; I've found very few RPGs that allow me to do so, since the artificial wall of gaining levels still exists.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Honestly, does anyone enjoy having to kill the same type of creature 100x to gain a level? It would be nice if they had things like QFG used to have, where there are different ways to beat certain battles depending upon character type, etc. That was one game that didn't require too much grinding on a r

Re:

[Lane.exe]

Check ouf FFXII. All of the enemies appear on the world map, eliminating the random encounter. When you attack, your character keeps attacking until you've issued a new command (or you can preprogram commands with a fairly intuitive logic system). Some enemies won't even target and attack you, so it's possible to run through a level without drawing any encounters.

Re:

[brkello]

I'm sorry...but plot in an rpg isn't padding. The story is a major element of RPGs. And just like a good book, you want to keep on reading.

Re:

[Mark Programmer]

You are absolutely right; I was not sufficiently clear. I was referring to 'padding' from the game mechanics standpoint---in my explanation, I was taking the interactions (i.e. the things I do with mouse, keyboard, or joystick) to be the crux of the game itself---the "game" in game. From that point of view, everything else---including plot---is filler material, in the sense that you could swap the plot around entirely with essentially no changes to the game mechanics.

The Final Fantasy series is probably the

Re:

[thatguywhoiam]

I totally agree.

God of War took me something like 13-14 hours. And that was good.

Final Fantasy XII, I'm somewhere around 100 hours, and the game is clearly far too short. :)

Re:

[Rycross]

I actually prefer RPGs around the 30 or so hour range. Most players seem to clamor for 50+ hours, but I find that a game that long tends to start dragging and losing my interest.

Used to be that 50+ hours is what I'd expect out of an RPG, but after going through college and graduating, I think my patience when it comes to games is getting shorter. I drop games a lot easier nowadays.

Re:

[arth1]

There's several ways to measure play time, and at least three of those are quite different but all significant:

• The time it takes to play it from start to finish.
• The time it takes to play it from start to finish while exploring.
• The time it takes to play it from start to finish trying for perfection.

Yes, you can run through Half-Life 2 in 12 hours. Others might spend more time at each section because they walk everywhere they can, exploring. Some might play a section multiple times because they missed a

Re:

[Phisbut]

It really depends on the genre

It's not as much about the genre as it is about the replay-value, which is somewhat affected by the genre. A game might have only 10 minutes of gameplay, but if it manages to make me love those 10 minutes of gameplay again and again and again, then it's a good game (Tetris). If a game has no replay value (most RPGs), then it damn better have over 50 hours of gameplay to justify the $60 I spent on it.

So it's not only about genres. Most RPGs are only fun the first time you pl

Re:

[Ucklak]

I can't remember if Unreal was 25 hours or more for me. Far better than any other FPS at the time and much better than Quake2.
That said, I still like Unreal better than Half Life.
Quake 2 for me was about 10 hours or less. I remember being pissed off with "that's all there is?" at the end.

Ultima 3 and 4, Bards Tale were well over 25 hours for me.

They forgot...

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Game girth is a factor too. Really, it is.

Re:They forgot...

[wuie]

As funny as the parent comment sounds, I agree with it.

When I play through a game, I like to know that it's more than just A-B-C plot progression. I love sideplots. I love side missions. I love small quirky things that happen in the game that can either distract me from the main plot, or join up with it eventually and make it a broader gaming experience.

Re:

[Arivia]

KOTOR won't. BGII will, which contains everything good about KOTOR, except longer and even better. KOTOR was only "new" and "revolutionary" by virtue of being a Star Wars game. There's nothing there Bioware hasn't done before.

Seeing as how this is very variable

[rolfwind]

It may be more of a question of game depth rather than pure length.

MOD PARENT UP

[DreadPiratePizz]

What was said is absolutely true: game depth is really the driving question. Much of the length of games today is derrived through repitition. Levels are drawn out longer than they need to be, in order to afford the player extra play time. However the extra time isn't really that valuable, since it consists of the player either doing repetitive or boring tasks, or places the player in the same situation repeatedly. A game with 10 hours play time, where every encounter and situation is utterly unique, seems much more fun than a 20 hour game with areas and levels mostly the same.

Games like Stubbs the Zombie I think fit this mold as well. The game itself is quite short, yet every minute is utterly enjoyable. It's not perfect, but the experience is far from repetitive.

Look at puzzle games. Mean Bean Machine, which is based on Puyo Puyo, takes all of about 30 minutes to 'beat'. Yet the game itself is so good, and adicting, and especially with the two player mode, just plain fun to play. Wario Ware can similarly be beaten quickly, however it's still fun to play the minigames just for minigame's sake.

RPGs are definately the biggest offenders in my opinion. A Link to the Past or Alundra is an example of what to do right. Final Fantasy is not. Much of the 'gameplay' in final fantasy involves looking at cutscenes, wandering around, or battling random monsters over and over. This is not to say that the game isn't fun, it's simply that it could easily have been half the length and not suffered at all.

I'm more concerned with playtime beyond the first playthrough. A game could have 20 hours of playtime, but be totally and utterly unreplayable. Yet that 10 hour game is so compelling, I go back for a second, third or even fourth try. If people come back to play it again, THAT's when you know you have a winner. Ideally, the game would be short and very replayable.

Re:

[Mprx]

FF9 has far more grinding than the other PSX FF games. The true low grinding FF is FF8, where grinding is actually counterproductive (as the enemies level up with you). It's very easy to complete FF8 without leveling up at all and avoiding all random encounters for most of the game.

This will be repeated ad infinitum...

[lpangelrob]

...but I'll put it another way. I don't think I'll be complaining about the length of my game during hour 65 of Twilight Princess.

It depends...

[PFI_Optix]

...on the game genre, the target demographic, the platform, and lots more stuff.

A deep RPG could be a hundred hours long and some gamers would clamor for more. The best FPS would become tedious after 100 hours. Strategy games (especially real-time) vary wildly depending on the skill of the player; some people can sail through missions in ten minutes while others take hours.

A few generalized "ideal" game lengths:

FPS: 20-35 hours, with sufficient variation to avoid tedium and ways to finish faster for the dedicated gamer.
RTS: No more than 15-20 *missions* in a campaign.
RPG: At *least* 40 hours, but not much more than 100.
Adventure: 20 hours of actual gameplay, tops. Some people will spend quite a bit of time on certain puzzles.

Re:

[WinterSolstice]

My personal fav - Ultima 7. Over 100 hours of gameplay, with the possibility to spend a LOT more.
Second to that - Fable. Much shorter, but REALLY fun. Well, until the end, which completely sucks.

On the other hand, Doom 3 bored me after about 3 hours.

-WS

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

Doom 3 bored me after about 3 hours.

They lost me with the cutscenes. Hey! There's a new and scary-looking monster! I'll stand still and watch it get within striking distance before I even think about using my weapon!

I actually hit a cutscene that killed me every time. When it released the monster immediately hit me, not matter what I tried. My health was low, and I was forced to go back and replay about twenty minutes of game to get past it. HORRIBLE game design.

That, and their version of scary is forcing y

Re:

[WinterSolstice]

Yeah - I'm with you there. We can send people to mars, but we don't have a stupid gunlight... or the ability to hold a flashlight in our off-hands? There's only so much fun to the whole 'oh no, a scary monster jumping at me from the dark'. As has been said before, it felt like a tech demo or something. Not a real game.

-WS

Re:

[Fallingcow]

That, and their version of scary is forcing you to fight in the dark since the space marines apparently don't train people to use a pistol and flashlight at the same time and having concealed doors open after walk past them every hundred yards or so.

It's worth noting that some games can get away with this--the older Dooms, Serious Sam-type games, Painkiller, things like that. Doom 3's problem was that they mixed too many elements from the "survival horror w/ story" genre with the "frantic shooter that igno

Re:

[steveo777]

A deep RPG could be a hundred hours long and some gamers would clamor for more.

Agreed. I have had experiences like that with Wild Arms, FFVI, Xenogears, Tales of Symphonia, and a few others. Finished the game and thought there needed to be more!

Strangely, I've played through a few games (FFX, Xenosage Ep 1) thinking the whole time, "When is this game going to get good? Where is the good plot?! All the other games were great."

Now, as far as FPS's going 20-25 hours? I'm really not sure if I've ever been that hooked into an FPS before. Maybe Turok 1 and 2, but other than that, the

Re:

[ucblockhead]

You forgot one:

MMORPG: Until the divorce.

Re:

[PFI_Optix]

I thought that was assumed. You can't even begin to define the length of a competitive multiplayer game.

It's not the size that matters...

[PsyQo]

It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it!

Seriously, let me use GTA: San Andreas as an example. I finished that game months ago, but I still play it occasionally. There's nothing better than causing some nice explosions, steal a few cars and beating up some hookers after a frustrating day at work.
I love the freedom GTA: SA gives me and I'd probably buy more games that offer me that.

Re:

[Steppman2]

I do the same thing...replay value adds a whole lot of hours on top of the generic playtime on the first time through it. I've also been playing through blood money, chaos theory (double agent kind of sucked), and oblivion for probably the 10th time. I've logged what seems like 1000 gameplay hours in blood money and there's no end in site, there's nothing like making a whole level full of innocents assume room temperature. Give me a game with replay value and 10 hours to beat it the first time and I'll be h

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing better than causing some nice explosions, steal a few cars and beating up some hookers after a frustrating day at work.

It's even better when you go home and play GTA afterwards.

Re:It's not the size that matters...

[Bugs42]

There's nothing better than causing some nice explosions, steal a few cars and beating up some hookers after a frustrating day at work.

And after THAT, you go home and load up GTA, right?

Re:

[Mr. Underbridge]

Seriously, let me use GTA: San Andreas as an example. I finished that game months ago, but I still play it occasionally. There's nothing better than causing some nice explosions, steal a few cars and beating up some hookers after a frustrating day at work. I love the freedom GTA: SA gives me and I'd probably buy more games that offer me that.

That's why I love GTA too. With kids in diapers, I don't generally have time to play a long involved game. I usually don't even have time for GTA missions. But I u

Call me a Geek but...

[east coast]

For me the thrill in GTA is riding the bicycle around... that's all I did for the first few hours I played the game. I didn't follow story line, i didn't go around checking other stuff out... The bike rocks.

Ideas

[BenjyD]

I agree with the second answer - within reason, cost is not an issue. I'd rather pay $40 for 10 really good hours of gaming than 40 quite good hours, I can always buy another game. Very few single player games have enough variation and interesting content to justify more than about 15 hours of gameplay.

Re:

[Banzai042]

The problem with this is that not everybody can just go out and buy a new game if the ones they have get boring. I think that in the last 6 months I've only purchased two new games (and I don't pirate games), because I don't have enough money to just buy a new game (college student). For a game to be worth it to me it has to have good replay value and/or a reasonable amount of gameplay that is actually interesting. Sure, it's easy to make a 30 hour game, but it's worthless unless the gameplay is actually

Length doesn't matter. . .

[Slicebo]

. . . my wife tells me this all the time.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

funny, you're wife tells me size does matter

Re:

[Slicebo]

DOH!

growing older

[gEvil (beta)]

As a gamer who's growing older (heading into my mid-thirties), I realize my response will likely anger many younger gamers who have 10 hours a day to play games. The maximum length I want a game to be these days is 25-30 hours. If it's a mindless platformer, I only want 10-15 hours out of it before I get bored. I have played some RPGs that go longer than 30 hours, but by that point I just want it to wrap itself up. For me, it's hard to make the time to play anything longer.

Re:

[blahplusplus]

"The maximum length I want a game to be these days is 25-30 hours"

If you don't like the length of the game, thats what cheats and gamesharks are for.

Re:

[chrismcdirty]

I agree with his point. I don't want a game to be too long, even if it is fun to play. Cheats and gamesharks just make a game boring, at which point, I might as well stop playing the game.

Re:

[Jarlsberg]

It's still a cheat, though. You know you can win money on horse racing? Just bet on the horse with the highest oddds, and pretty soon you are rolling in dough.

Re:

[amuro98]

Seriously, if you're just going to cheat your way through the game, you might as well just watch a movie because that's essentially what you've turned the "game" into at that point...

And as a gamer in his mid-30s as well, who struggles to find the time to play, I have to agree with the parent post. There's just too much to play, and not enough time. I'll play the game until either it ends, or I'm finished with it and it's often the latter.

Re:

[The Great Pretender]

You, like me, are a bad demographic for the gaming industry. For the same reasons you have stated (kids in diapers) I will buy a single game play it until bored and then get the next one. At the moment I have been only playing Guild Wars for the last ~1 year. I get together with a group of friends, some play it every night, some play it on the weekend, I play Wednesday nights.

Re:

[Firehed]

While I can almost see where you're coming from (in a not at all sense... 19 and I just got a Wii; screw finals), I think it really depends on the type of game it is. Can you play it for ten minutes at a time, or are you forced to play for hour-long blocks or more (likely due to saving mechanics)? In my latest addiction of Twilight Princess, I can "sit down" for ten minutes and get a quick task done (it's really a standing up game) since I'm not forced to follow a pattern of save points. Other games, suc

Re:

[Fallingcow]

I've had FFXII since it came out and won't start it until atleast winter break which is almost here.

A suggestion: if you play RPGs primarily for the story, just play the first 10-15 hours of it, then look up the rest on YouTube.

50% of the meaningful cutscene time is in the first 10 hours or so. The rest of it is spread out over another 50-60 hours of gameplay (at least), with most of it clustered at the VERY end.

Me? I got to within just a couple of "areas" from the end, having been completely bored out of

to repeat...

[Pojut]

what many others have said, it depends on the genre...

For me, if it is not designed specifically to take forever to do everything (i.e. Oblivion) and is not an MMO (i.e. WoW), gameplay should not take longer than 50 hours for ANY game, tops. I find myself enjoying rpg's that have around the 40 hour mark, fps's that have around the 15 hour mark...I dunno, like I said it depends. If I had to choose a single time that I would want all games to take to play through, I would say 20 hours. 20 hours to me is en

Re:

[kalirion]

It's also all right for a game to be relatively short, if there's enough replay value. A great example is Master of Magic [mobygames.com]. A single game, even with the maximum of 4 opponents and a large world, would usually only take a few hours or less. And yet I must have spent at least 150 hours on that game.

Re:

[Pojut]

Another example of a game such as this would be Warlords III (which, in my opinion, is the absolute pinnacle of turn-based strategy games...MANY people will dissagree with me, but screw them:-))

If I had the points, I would mod you up...that was a long lost FANTASTIC game, Master of Magic.

Re:

[kalirion]

Why won't they remake it for a modern system?

So far, the closest "recent" game that I've found to MoM is Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic [mobygames.com]. AoW games always had some similarity to MoM, and this latest incarnation includes a random scenario generator which brings it that much closer. Too bad the AI isn't all that great (why does it refuse to use unit enchantments?), but online multiplayer capability covers that!

More choices, less length.

[phoenix.bam!]

Beyond Good an Evil is a great game. Amazing story, and it's short. 10 hours to beat. I enjoyed every minute of it. Problem is, no replay value. (You can go around and take pictures, sort of, but that really isn't a game)

Tales of Symphonia, Amazing story... and then you're 30 hours in. You're tired of the same fights over and over again. The combat system has lots of variation, but once you find something that works well enough, why bother futzing around? And by this time, i forgot why the story even started. I'm going to rescue someone? No that was every zelda ever made.. trying to save the world? Yeah, I assume so. Save it from who? I can't even remember.

My point is, if I can beat a game in 10 hours, that's a week of after work play and I can still remember the plot elements from the first hour. But for me to buy another game it's going to need a 10 hour time frame from start to finish, but also have multiple paths and choices I can make so it'll be a different game the next time I decide to play it. Oh, can cut out the item fetching quests, they suck. Mind puzzles, that's where it's at.

Re:

[BenjyD]

Yeah, what the hell was going on at the end of Tales of Symphonia? The story just went completely crazy. That said, I normally hate overly long games but I really enjoyed Tales.

Re:

[Maul]

The plots of most Console RPGs get a bit convoluted towards the end. I still think that Tales of Symphonia was pretty strong at the end, however, compared to most of the FF games since 7.

Re:

[Shippy]

I actually really enjoyed the twists and turns in the Tales of Symphonia storyline and the concept that you could almost sympathize with the final bad guy, but you still gotta kick his ass. I agree that the battles were too repetitive. Lots of choices, but once you pick a good combination, you never have to tweak it. You just do it over and over again. I beat the last guy on the first try. I don't like that. I want to at least die a few times in a game to challenge me and force me to change my techniques as

All depends on the game

[ObiWanStevobi]

I can pump endless hours into an RPG like Final Fantasy, KOTOR, or Elder Scrolls, even after gameplay becomes a bit (or even highly) repetetive. I think that has to do with the game being based around XP. As long as your character is building or you are gaining items to make cool weapons, you keep interest.

For shooters, the time I want to play one (campaign mode) is much less. I thought Gears of War, which most people complain about as being too short, was about perfect. It was exciting all the way th

Length or time played?

[kinglink]

If you had a great game that last 10 hours but had 10 completely different ways to play it, would that be worse than a 30 hour game you'd never play again?

Should Gears of war be downplayed even though it has 3 difficulties and the ability for co-op play?

How can we rate Multiplayer? Exactly how do you define game length? Do you need all achievements?

Overall the "length" of a game differs to much to be considered.

In addition this discusses quality versus quanity? Guess what, that only is good if there is quanity. A 5 minute game can be the best game ever but it's not going to get 50 bucks, however a rpg that is good that last 50 hours will easily get 50 dollars.

You have people on that site saying length isn't important and would rather buy a 50 dollar game that takes 10 hours than a 50 dollar game that takes 50? All I can ask is, is he stupid? I have felt that games are too long also for a time, Tales of the Abyss took me entirely too much time, but I spend almost the same amount of time on the new zelda already and I want another exactly like that. It was a fantastic game.

The bottom line is it's always better for a game to be too long but enjoyable, than too short and be the same thing over and over. But even more so, they are asking people in the industry, as one of those people I can tell you, we don't have the time that the people outside of the industry have to play games. You can invest the hours into games but you also spend your entire day doing the same thing.

Re:

[NMerriam]

For instance, a RPG may take you 50 hours to complete, but there's really not much replay value usually. It'll be the same experience all over again.

A well-designed RPG has huge replay value. I've played Fallout 2 probably a dozen times through and still haven't seen every combination of cool stuff a character can do. The problem is that we think of RPGs now as being like Neverwinter Nights 2, which was immensely disappointing since it was about as free form as a rail shooter. It made no difference what c

Re:

[default luser]

Most definately... for me that has been Fire Emblem (both of 'em, but especially the second). The graphics surely don't make this a hit; for me it is the grind gameplay. There is enough choice IMHO to justify replaying this game many times. To each his/her own.

Absolutely - to each their own. I found Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance rather boring because its nothing but tactics. There's really no roleplay - you decide what units are on the field, and then you battle. I ended up quitting after Chapter 15 or s

Genre Matters, But I Need a Challenge Regardless

[MuChild]

I agree that length is more important in a role-playing or strategy game than in a First Person Shooter. However, as a married thirty one year old, I still want at least 40 bleepin' hours from a bleepin' USD $60 game! If they can't even come up with enough plot or developements to fill out 40 hours of play, then they need to redo the game. For me, the best games never feel like a waste of time or money, no matter how long they take to beat. Nothing is worse, however, than to get into a game only to find y

Doesnt it depend on content?

[rickmccl]

How long is Nethack? I've been playing almost 20 years and I've never ascended. It's never the same game twice. When your game is the same twice, then you have to worry about how long to make the content, just like some lame-ass movie executive. Make your game more real and it will be as long as the gamer's interest.

Re:

[MuChild]

That's right! When they worry more about marketing than content, the game ends up like the first Punisher movie or Elektra: too long after the first five minutes.

cost

[kisrael]

The thing is, for some people the cost is mostly the money, for others the cost is the amount of time it takes... for most it's probably some combination of the two...

Re:

[alexhard]

DEALING WITH MORTALITY [kisrael.com]: A Skeptic's Guide

Dude why go through the trouble of writing all that stuff? There's one simple thing that is scarier than mortality, and that is immortality..it's pretty easy to make someone realise that, and after they do, they will be frickin' happy they are mortal for the rest of their lives.

Re:

[kisrael]

The problem isn't mortality vs immortality,
it's more about not having much of a choice about our lifespans.
Sure, I might not want to live forever, but I'd probably want to live for at least centuries longer than I'm likely to.

"A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapter" has a great chapter on what most people's vision of immortality would actually be like, and makes your point that most people wouldn't want to live forever in the common Western portrayal of Heaven.

Re:

[kisrael]

See, for you the
value = hours / dollars ... the more hours, the more value.

For me it's more like...
value = hours / (hours + dollars)
or actually it's a harder to calculate thing, like
"# of interesting things I'm doing in the game" / (hours + dollars)

the "# of interesting things" has a correlation to hours, but they ain't one and the same.

Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction had a pretty good ratio, keeping me entertained through most of it.

progress and variation

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Total game length is less important than progress and variation. If a game become repetative it's too long or there wasn't enough variation. Also game length shouldn't be enforced by lack of progress. If you can produce enough progress and variation the actual length should matter much.

I would say that any game should aim for 40 hours of gameplay (in total) for the first time you play it on normal difficulty.

Re:

[El_Muerte_TDS]

(completely forget about this)
Games should be compatible with short play sessions. People should be able to play for 30 minutes and then quit without losing their progress. Long play sessions are nice if you have the time, but not everybody has time.

Re:

[BenjyD]

The problem is that the developers have a limited budget for development and testing, and the designers have a limited number of good ideas. If they aim for a 40 hour game, those are spread out more thinly.

2 types of gamers, 2 different lengths

[Ksempac]

I think the main problem in this question is that there is not one but TWO answers depending on who you re speaking to.

- On one hand there is the teenager. He has a lot of spare time but not much money. When he buys a game he wont buy another one for months because he just doesn t have the money for that. So he wants a game which will still be interesting in 2 months. A game like "Beyond Good and Evil" is not good for him...With his spare time, he will finish it in 2 days. And then, the game has no mechan

Re:

[Irish_Samurai]

I have the exact same issue.

When I was in school I worked all the time, had no money, and could never play games. My fiance basically works the opposite schedule I do, so I have all the time in the world to play games. I have a well used gamefly account to play all the games I 'm not sure I'd want to buy. Its a pretty good way of not blowing too much money on a lousy game.

Then I have all the games I buy without question. Usually MGS, FF, SOCOM, Zelda, GTA, Soul Caliber, and GT titles.

I have found that I don

no time

[alexhard]

If you have no time to finish a game that's over 25 hours long, maybe you should play less games? Spend more time on a single game? You don't HAVE to play 4 games every month..

And anyway, you're missing out on the most amazing games ever made..Baldur's gate series, Morrowind, Final Fantasies, blah blah blah blah..

It's not game length that's the issue

[jimstapleton]

it's session length.

Some comparisons:
I played Asheron's Call and Final Fantasy XI, both are "infinetly long" as they are MMOs, but I found I like AC better overall. Why? I, a semi casual gamer, could pop in and play AC for 15 mins, log out again, and actually do stuff for that duration. For FFXII, I had to make sure I had a block of at least two hours before considering it.

At another angle, the earlier Final Fantasy games vs. the current games - I could save a lot more frequently in them than the current games (I'll add Xenosaga in here too), because I didn't need to use special save points all the time - so I again could pop in for a much shorter time.

There are many more cases of this with me - "what is the minimum time investment per session while still being fun", and not "what is the overall time of the game".

Anyone else agree to this?

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[emilyridesabmx]

Yeah, I'm with you on this. For example, I still enjoy playing the original NES Contra, and Castlevania, even though I can more or less play through either game in in 90 minutes or so, depending on how coordinated I am today. I think you feel a (somewhat shallow albeit) sense of accomplishment from shorter games. At least it FEELS like something has been accomplished in video game terms. Game length is the reason I got bored with WOW after a few weeks. The firs two weeks that I played WOW, I loved it. I cou

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[jimstapleton]

That kinda encapsulated my reason for liking Metroid Fusion.

I wished the game were longer, but I liked that I could play for a short while and not have an issue with shutting it down and loosnig a lot.

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[demonlapin]

Yeah, the 15 min - 1 hr time frame is what it's about. If it takes more than an hour... well, I'm just not going to be playing it much. I have a wife and a house, and video games are a fun (but necessarily brief) distraction.

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[grumbel]

Absolutely agree, session length is very important. Another thing that I have found extremely important is the amount of in-game knowledge a game requires. With Resident Evil 4 for example you have a game that can be played for very short sessions and also one that has a map which shows you always where to go, that way you have a hard time to ever get lost. So its very casual gamer friendly, you can play it whenever you find time and you have a very good chance to make it through the whole game sooner or la

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[vanyel]

I'll spend some karma with a "me too!" reply. I don't live in games, so I need something that makes you feel like you've accomplished something in a short session, and doesn't require you to coordinate with a group, or put together a bunch of unknowns into a group, to make progress. The more there is in the game (i.e. the "longer" it is), the better, as long as I can accomplish something interesting during a short session.

Variety is more important than gameplay length.

[mollace]

I remember one of the Final Fantasy games where your little guy meets a bunch of kids playing jumprope. You can join in and mash buttons to jump. If you jump successfully 10 times, you get a reward. 20 times, a bigger award. And so on. I read a FAQ about the game which said that you could get the ultimate prize if you hit the jump button successfully 1,000 times in a row!!! Who aside from a caffeine-addicted 12-year-old has the time or patience for that?!? I don't mind longer games if the gameplay doesn't become "Fight bigger monsters". The classic Ultima games were a great example of long games that kept my interest from start to finish.

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[Trillan]

I wonder if there really is a reward at 1,000? They should have said 100,000 just to make some idiot try it.

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[Turn-X Alphonse]

People who want to do it have the patience. Who levels up to the max level just to beat a side boss and get a super sword when you could already kill every monster in the game at your level any way?

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[guardiangod]

You laugh, but I know two people who played the dreaded "dodge the lighting bolt" minigame in FF10 and succeeded in dodging the fucing thing for 1000 times.

There are many other kinds of games, you know

[cellocgw]

For example: if I just want a quick "coffee break" at home or at work, I enjoy stuff like MineSweeper. It's quick to play and requires just the right number of brain cells to be active :-) . I can think of many other situations for which a short (under 5 minutes, or under 30 minutes) game is just right.
BTW, my favorite games are pinball sims -- plug here for VPinMAME --, which depending on your skill level can last 30 seconds or half an hour.

huh?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I never have time to finish anything longer

What the fuck does that mean? If you have the TIME to FINISH a 25 hour game, you certainly have the time to finish something longer if you would just go and start ANOTHER 25 hour game... Did you mean to say "I get bored after 25 hours"? If I had the time to play a fun game for 25 hours I wouldn't be like, "HOLY SHIT I'VE SPENT 25 HOURS PLAYING THIS GAME! I've got tons of other 25-hour not-fun-games to fucken play... GAWD!!!!" If it's fun, play it. Or is he tryin

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[wuie]

If you have the TIME to FINISH a 25 hour game, you certainly have the time to finish something longer if you would just go and start ANOTHER 25 hour game

Perhaps what he's looking for is 25 hours of a completely different game. You know, with different worlds, characters, and plots that he can enjoy.

As an analogy, let's say that we all went out and watched The Matrix. "Wow, this is a really awesome movie," I say, but then decide that I want to watch a different movie afterwards. It doesn't matter if

Keeping Interest

[lymond01]

I played the first scenario of a turn-based strategy game called Age of Wonders II: Shadow Magic. Great game, reminiscent of the Master of Magic series from the 90s. There were, I guess, 16 scenarios, but the first one was so involved, long, showed off all the powers and creatures you could encounter, felt so epic...that when I finally finished it after a few days (a total of 5 hours maybe), I was done with the game, feeling very satisfied but knowing it was just more of the same after that.

MMORPGs people

Corresponding price?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I can take games of varying length, but the amount of game you get should be reflected in the price. A good example is Beyond Good & Evil. Great, but short game. About 10 hours. I forget exactly how much it cost when it first came out, but it was less than the standard $50. Maybe $35 or something like that.

Vary it

[Metasquares]

Why not vary the time, depending on what sort of side-quest sorts of things the player wants to do? Those that don't have a whole lot of time can play through the story, while those that do can explore the world a bit more.

Scripted Length vs. Play Time.

[popo]

I think some of the posts here are confusing Scripted Length and Play Time. There's a difference between Scripted Length and the amount of time one can replay a game.

I've spent 100's of hours (1000's?) spent playing GuildWars and StarCraft. These games are more like Chess. The playability comes from the player-to-player competition and infinite strategic options, and team/opponent permutations. It has nothing to do with a scripted 'length'.

3rd dimension

[MrCopilot]

All of this talk of length and depth even girth. Bah,I think developers should spend a little more time on the sorely overlooked height of today's next generation games.

That's right I said it.

number of hours?

[fontkick]

10-30 hours for a game? Huh? Who plays single player, anyway? I've probably logged over 500 hours in CS and at least 1000 hours in UT99.

There are still a few obsessive people out there who want to find "the" game that they are going to be playing for the next year. I couldn't imagine only playing one game for only 20 hours and then stopping. There's a lot of satisfaction of getting good at a game and being one of the top players on a server filled with incredibly good players.

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[payndz]

Who plays single player, anyway?

Well, me, for one. I have no interest whatsoever in playing online against a bunch of people I don't know or whiny 14-year-olds calling me a faggot over Xbox Live, and none of my friends are into gaming, so that just leaves single player. Fortunately there are still one-player games with a decent amount of replayability (MGS3, Resident Evil 4, GTA, KOTOR... hell, even the original Tomb Raider) - what worries me about the next-gen consoles is the increasing emphasis on onl

Unlimited hours == best

[Peter Cooper]

Other than the occasional mindblowing FPS (and even multiplayer ones are 'unlimited' in the time you can play them), I only play 'unlimited hours' games. Simulations, sports games, god games.. they're all limitless. You can play NHL hockey as many times as you want, you can keep building cities in Simcity 4 for as long as you want, you can play Battlefield 2 for as long as you want.. that's real value for money. MMORPGs, same deal.

I only play MMORPGs - so "length" is irrelevant

[Phrogman]

What matters with an MMORPG is how long the minimum session is effectively. In City of Heroes/City of Villains, I can pop on and play 1 mission on a character in about 20 mins or so. I can pick up the character and be in a mission in less than ~1 min I would bet, a bit longer if I need/want to find a group first of course. The action is quick, varied enough, challenging (and you can set the challenge rating to harder levels if its too easy), and most of all fun. Its particularly fun when you get a good work

I don't actually mind short games...

[antdude]

... since I am older now and have less free time to game (computer games). I don't actually mind the shorter games. I do mind the prices. Games shouldn't be 50-60 bucks. I usually buy games on their first release week when they are cheaper.

I like both quality and quantity.

[JustNiz]

The trend seems to be that most quality games are getting a LOT shorter. Doom 3 and Half-life 2 were way shorter than they should have been.

The most recent tomb-raider was ridiculously short and took about a weekend to go from start to finish. I remember the original tomb-raider as taking me weeks of play.

Thankfully oblivion is excellent and has lasted a good long time so far !

How long should a game last?

[ucblockhead]

Easy: until it gets boring. A 100 hours of gameplay is not too long if the game is still fun, but 4 hours is too long if the game is dull after an hour of gameplay.