Game length

[frogbeastegg]

[Insert your preferred variant of the obligatory suggestive joke here]

When the arena was new, back in the dawn of time when men were men and all that, I had a topic about game length. Fascinating topic it was too. The time seems ideal to repeat it now, this time with a fancy poll and everything. The org's demographic feels like it has changed a bit. Those of us who were present last time have gotten older, and there's enough new blood here to keep the dungeon's vampire happy for years to come.

Game length. It's a controversial subject. Nintendo had a nerd in Super Paper Mario state that "Roleplaying games should be no less than 180 hours long, not counting side quests!" Elsewhere you see Bioshock being hammered for being a 10 hour game, or people grumbling that X game only lasted 30 hours. The fact Dragon Quest VIII takes over 70 hours to complete if you ignore the big side quests is often used as a selling point. Occasionally a brave soul will suggest that, possibly, 10 hours might well be enough, thank you.

Quality. Quantity. Value for money. Those are the three linchpins the arguments swing around every time.



The poll is for your preferred total playtime for your first run-through of an average game of some average genre. It doesn't include multiplayer. It assumes that you will not do absolutely everything, and it assumes you don't use a guide.

[Caius]

I prefer a strong history, short cinematics, and lots of hours to play.

[Ramses II CP]

I have a child which means that I spend relatively little money and time on games. My preference is to buy just a few games a year, most of them SP games, and have them last and be replayable. With that in mind I voted 40+, but I have to emphasize that I understand and respect the short game too. Some gimmicks are only suitable for a short game (See Portal, which I thought was perfect) and would be of very limited appeal if stretched out.

So I voted 40+, but I think the real answer is that there's no one answer. A game should be as long as it needs to be to entertain, and not so long that it becomes a grind.

[Gregoshi]

A game should be as long as it needs to be to entertain, and not so long that it becomes a grind.

Regarding short games, I think I'd be annoyed if I finished a game in 10 hours - unless it had good replay value. If I can play it multiple times and still get a challenge and enjoyment out of it, short can be good too. I also agree with the comments about long games being okay along as they don't become a grind. Final Fantasy XII on the PS2 was a lot of fun but after about 150+ hours it has become a grind. I haven't touched it in a few months now. Of course, with RPGs I have a nasty tendency to let no stone unturned and this works against me. Every door must be opened and every creature killed (experience points!!).

For the TW games, STW was perfect. I have finished at least five campaigns. With MTW/VI and RTW I hadn't finished one.

I think another factor that has an impact on me is one Ramses touched on - time. If I can devote a few evenings a week to a game, longer is good. If I'm in a less than once a week mode, shorter is better.

For the poll, in general I guess I'd have to go with 40+ (but not much beyond 80).

[Kekvit Irae]

Play time is nothing if it's not fun. Case in point: FFVIII. I'm not going to touch any game again if the main focus is on a whiny emo kid and a storyline that makes me fall asleep.
On the other hand, short playtime is also an enjoyment killer. Again, case in point: Crysis.

It all comes down to an analogy I have: To get to your destination, would you rather take the public bus and sit next to some old lady who smells like moldy socks (but it takes forever to get anywhere), or would you rather get to your destination in a Porsche (but the excitement will be over, leaving you unfulfilled).

[caravel]

I'm more into replayability than playing time. A 40+ hour game isn't much good if I never play it again after completing it once.

[frogbeastegg]

I'm in the bizarre position of voting for 10-15 and for 30-40.

I've been playing a lot of shorter games recently. Bioshock, Ratchet and Clank: tools of Destruction, Portal, Overlord to name but three. Not a one took more than 15 hours. It's been great! I've had four very different gaming experiences in the time it will take me to finish my current game in progress (Final Fantasy X) without doing most of the optional content. It's nice to reach the end of something after a couple of week's play. Having a completed experience aside, there's a sad little feeling of achievement in it.

Shorter games most often finish just as they are running out of steam. Those longer than this tend to have saggy patches of some variety. Bad levels, difficulty spikes inserted with the sole purpose of slowing the player down, fetch quests ...

When it comes to RPGs it's a different matter. 30-40 is a length I've arrived at thanks to the realisation that most of the RPGs which are longer than that would be a heck of a lot shorter if you didn't spend half your time repeating the same handful of battles over and over. Random battles need to die out, yesterday. Far better to have fewer, more significant battles which give the same rewards. That's why many western style RPGs are around 30-40 hours. 30-40 hours gives plenty of time to build and develop the plot in a meaningful way, and keeps it from becoming overstretched.

Strategy games? I often prefer those like Civ4, GalCiv2 and TW which you can play over and over. There’s no length to speak of.

There’s a lot of console games mentioned here. That’s because most of the PC games on my HD at the moment are strategy games of the above ilk. There’s very little else about which appeals to me. The non-strategy games are either waiting for patches, or waiting for me to feel like sitting here in front of a PC to play. In my pond consoles have a definite lead when it comes to user comfort.

I have more time to play games now than I did 5 months ago. It's somewhat enforced gaming time, stretches of time where I can do something but don't have enough time to do anything other than play a bit of a game or read a book. There's a limit to how much time even a frog can spend reading (141 books read last year!) and so gaming it is. Surprisingly this isn't making me any more amiable to the longer games. It used to be I preferred shorter games because then it only took me a month to complete one, rather than half a year. I wonder why? At a guess it is because most of the games I have wanted to play since my working hours changed have coincidentally been short ones. It's only now that something lengthier has caught my eye.

A game should be as long as it needs to be to entertain, and not so long that it becomes a grind.

Perfectly stated

[Geoffrey S]

For cinematic games I prefer short and sweet. But in general that's my preference anyway: a game with a short story/campaign and a gameplay that is flexible and fun enough to make replaying missions or messing around (particularly in sandbox games) fun. Except for games heavy on the input of players for plot, such as large RPGs, which provide variety and choices in that sense I don't see any need for a large amount of missions or a long campaign milking gameplay to the maximum. If done well there's no objection from me (like Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance) but I the Doom 3's of the world annoy me.

A good game presents its cards upfront, doesn't stretch to unnecessary lengths, and gains its longevity from being fun. Thus, for me Portal is the perfect game. I'm not going to finish a game with a long main campaign if the way it plays is dull, and a short game (such as Goldeneye) is going to be replayed a lot if its entertaining.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
The longer means the more sustainable, hence the better I guess. So 40+ inches hours.
.

[drone]

I'm not a big fan of scripted campaigns. My game time is too disjointed anyway and I'd lose the plot when I can't play for a couple of weeks. I prefer either open ended and replayable campaigns like TW or GalCiv, or quick games where I don't need to get invested like FPS or RTS skirmishes. So either 1-5 hours (but replayable), or 40+ (and replayable).

[econ21]

I voted 30-40 for the same reason as given by Frogbeastegg - I like long RPGs, but capping it at 40 imposes some self-discipline on the game designers. About a decade ago, I would virtually never finish a game - Fallout 2 was about the only one I saw the final credits to. Nowadays, the tendency to shorter games means I at least have a fighting chance of seeing the end. Capping the length reduces the risk of player burn out and tends to mean dialogues and plots are higher quality. Kotor I and II are close to ideal length for a CRPG, IMO.

I suspect CivIV single player falls in the 30-40 range, even on epic and with huge maps (at least with the pacific play style I adopt).

M2TW must be longer, if you fight all the battles manually. (And consequently, I have never finished it.)

[FactionHeir]

40+ is a definite.
Many games that were released prior to 2001 had gameplay lengths of 60+ and were actually not tiring to play at all. Nowadays, I still strive to finish a game I start, but they usually tend to be shorter or overly repetitive.

[frogbeastegg]

Surprising. Last time around AFAIK (can't find the topic, d'oh!) many people went with 30 hours. I was expecting to see the average nudge down to the currently fashionable 25 hours, not rocket up to 40.

No one has done the old cliche about games costing less per hour than cinema tickets and/or DVD prices yet. Well done, everyone

I wonder how the other topics would do if I ran them again. I had one about difficulty, and another about game bosses yay/nay. Might have had one about preferred save gamestructure, or I might have imagined that. Hmm.

[doc_bean]

10-20 hours here.

Although i do attempt the occasional RPG, I'm about 10 hours in DQ8 after about a year I believe

And that's while putting all my other ps2 games on hold until I finish it...

[Gregoshi]

I wonder how the other topics would do if I ran them again. I had one about difficulty, and another about game bosses yay/nay. Might have had one about preferred save gamestructure, or I might have imagined that. Hmm.

I say resurrect them Dr. froggenstein!

It's alive!! It's alive!

[Xiahou]

No one has done the old cliche about games costing less per hour than cinema tickets and/or DVD prices yet. Well done, everyone

That's usually a justification for increasingly shorter games, isn't it? "Well, it's still cheaper that movies!"

Generally, I tend to think of longer games as having more value than shorter games- but it always comes down to quality. Particularly with short games, I think the keyword is "replayability". Chances are I won't want to pay full price for a 10hr game with a linear story-line even if it is a good one. OTOH, if a game only takes a few hours to complete but offers varied content for replaying, it seems like a good deal.

I'm not sure where that puts me in the poll.