It Doesn't Matter How Long Games Are

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Meet a game dev that says the length of a game doesn't matter. Umm, what? What do you think should be the bare minimum it should take to play through a game these days.

The thing is, like I said before, length of game is totally not interesting to me. At all, I don’t care about it at all. A great game could be ten hours, but it rarely is. Most of the time, I feel like they could have cut away at three or four. But they kind of fit it in because reviewers kind of have the idea that it has to be a certain length – I don’t even know where that came from, I don’t care! It’s like if you go see a movie or hear a song – you don’t care. You care about the experience – that’s the important thing. And I think it’s become like a bad habit. The reviewers and creators say it’s supposed to be long, so they push it in. and they take these game mechanics and they reuse them all the time, and people get tired of it. So for me a ten hour game, if it’s great then it’s great, if a one hour game is great, it is great. I don’t care about the length.
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games need to be 20 hours long at a minimum (including side quests etc)...
 
I do believe that they should be able to make them as long as they want. But should price accordingly. Maybe $5-10 at launch for their 1 hour game.

I'm sure if they couldn't charge $60 they would be singing a different tune
 
the only games I've ever beat in 1 hour is the original Prince of Persia (5.25" floppy) and Portal... Both fantastic games even for only taking an hour but they leave a lot to be desired because 1 hour is just enough time to get you intrigued, but not become immersed..

1 hour game is the equivalent of saying the trailer is good enough, skip the movie..
 
To a certain degree, sure. If a game is under 10 hours I'll probably be a bit pissed even if it was a really fun game. That said, if a 5 hour game is $10, fine. You can bet your fuzzy ass I will not be shelling out $60 for a one hour game unless it expanded my reality and made me a better person IRL.
 
The length matters...
A movie costs $10.00, lasts two hours in the theatre. A CD costs $15.00 can be played over and over.
A game that costs $50.00 and lasts two or four hours? Um... no f'in way. Drop the price, and make it so it's replayability, then we'll talk how long it should be and the cost.
 
Thirty Flights of Loving

very short game

Better than a lot of games with 8+ hr sp campaign
 
A game should be as long as it takes to tell the story the creator intended. Frankly when a game gets too long and too padded, I lose interest. I would rather plow through a game that keeps the story moving in 6 or 7 hours than spend 30+ slogging through something that could have been less than 10. Hell, Gravity Bone isn't but a couple minutes long and still tells a great story.

Of course you have to adjust expectations for sandbox style games, but I think it still holds true for the story portions.
 
The sooner you get done with your $60 game the sooner you can spend $60 on another one.
 
i got upset when i got COD-UO and i finished it in like 7 hour or so. after that things started getting worst as all the new COD games are lot shorter than other games since majority of is online. remember the newer prince of Persia games, specially warrior withing and the two thrones, they lasted good week or so, not to mention the extended life which i didn't get to do first time i played so i did it over and still i like to play them again. newer games just don't have those effects. even playing first time i've quit many of them after hour or so and never played them again.
 
If I went to a show (movie) and it finished in 30 minutes I would demand a refund.
 
BETA. said:
Thirty Flights of Loving

very short game

Better than a lot of games with 8+ hr sp campaign
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i bought that a few months ago, been meaning to get to it. i could add dear esther, portal, and many others. i agree i have played 10 hr games that i wished had only been 2 or 3, and ive played 2 hr games that i felt were just right. it all depends on how much of a story there is, and of course how much it costs.

Alpert said:
If I went to a show (movie) and it finished in 30 minutes I would demand a refund.
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what if that movie was $2 instead of $10?
 
WorldExclusive said:
Elder Scrolls games must fill your game library. Expectations too high?
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I like some of what Bethesda has done with the TES series but most of their games feel too small and too limited in scope for my tastes. I like the idea of an open world, but worlds that are open should be huge and I should be able to do more than kill things, buy houses, and craft junk (mostly to make me better at killing things). There are too few ways to play Bethesda CRPGs and they're far too combat heavy.
 
I pretty much agree with the dev. I care more about the experience than I do about the game length. If it was one hour of extreme gaming bliss, it was worth the price to me.

I view a good game as a game I can beat. I'm not talking difficulty here. I'm talking about wanting to play it the whole way through. And quite honestly, I can't think of many games that qualify for that. I don't care if the game offers 10000 hours of gaming. If I get bored in the first hour, I paid $60 for a one hour game.

I've also noticed that as I have gotten older, my attention span for playing games has dropped significantly. I'd say that I fall into a 5-10 hour game range right now. Anything longer than that is typically too long.

(And yes, many games I absolutely love can be beaten within one hour. Even without rushing the game, they're about a 3-4 hour experience at most).
 
I prefer .25c/hour for multiplayer games, and $1-$3/hour for single player games.

If I'm paying more hourly to play a game, I feel like I am over paying.
 
Any game I've played under 4 or 5 hours I hated and felt ripped off. 8 hours should be the bare minimum. But I will take 10 hours of great player over 20 hours of bullshit.
 
If this is an issue, take up sim racing, flying, or some other open-ended game. I'm afraid to guess how many 168 hour weeks of my life I've spent playing rFactor.
 
I just want to tell this guy "Yeah, I feel the same way about money. The number of pennies in a dollar doesn't really matter. You can just give my that $100 bill and I'll give you this $.11 in my pocket. The quality of this $.11 is outstanding, so really they're the same."
 
Or Dwarf Fortress. You can "accidentally" spend 200 hours on it and not realize.
 
Steve said:
Trust me, I think most of us would be pissed if we bought a game that was 1 hour long. :mad:
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it depends on the price and genre. i don't need quintuple A titles that offer 200 hours of open world gameplay. shoot'em ups, for example, are around the one hour mark and many offer gameplay that lasts half a lifetime since it's all about perfecting your gameplay and find that super combo chain to raise your high-score another notch.

are they worth the price of a full game? 50-60 bucks? yes, if you're a fan of the genre. heck, a lot of shoot'em ups, to stick with this example, are only released in japan and people import them (maybe even a limited edition) or go through the trouble of getting a japanese console, account and japanese MS/psn points.
 
I want a long game.


BUT
It needs to be interesting. If the campaign takes only 10 hours, fine. I don't want them dragging it out. However, I don't want another Prey. I take my sweet-ass time in a game, and I was finished with the game in about 4 hours. If the additional parts like multiplayer get me involved that's a bonus.

One thing that I really liked was how 343 Studios did the Spartan Ops portion of Halo 4 and gave out additional content for free. Yes, some stuff is still extra $$, but they actually made an attempt to give you additional playability without an extra cost. I got a 10 hour single player campaign with your standard multiplayer component and then you add in additional single/multi-player campaign on a franchise that could have gone the other way. Hint, hint EA.

I have no trouble paying for additional content. I do have a major issue with paying extra for content that was taken out just for the sake of more money. Zero-day DLC for an additional fee is not cool.

If you bought a new car and had to pay extra for a fender, when you were sold a new car, you'd be pissed. Yet, these game companies are doing the same thing.
 
A good game has a constant re-playability. For example take something like Halo, it might take nn hours to do the campaign part, but then you can play online for as much as you want.

But a completely single player game that is story based better last more than a few hours if I went out and paid money for it!
 
It matters depending on the price. Is your game free? Make it as short as you want. Really have at it.
 
Frraksurred said:
I just want to tell this guy "Yeah, I feel the same way about money. The number of pennies in a dollar doesn't really matter. You can just give my that $100 bill and I'll give you this $.11 in my pocket. The quality of this $.11 is outstanding, so really they're the same."
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Since when can we equate the subjective value of art and entertainment with that of currency representing the objective wealth and power of those who issue it? Or would you have us believe 10 hours of Farm Simulator is greater than 1 hour of BF3?
 
Taking price out of the equation, I would require 5-6 hr minimum. I prefer them to be 5 -6 hrs actually. I am a busy guy and there is always new pussy to get and other real life adventures that really limit my video gaming time.

But back to price, being a [H]'er and gaming enthusiast, I never paid full price for any pc game, ever. The most I paid was $41 for BF3. Consoles, yea I paid full price for some games but... it's console. I didn't want to wait to play those games. But on PC, there is always a deal. Between slickdeals, [H]'s and Anandtech's hot deals forums, I can't imagine people paying full price unless they wanted to have it NOW. Then that's on you. You pay full price is YOUR choice, no one else's.

And shame to those people who try to equate gaming to movies. That is erroneous at best.
 
WorldExclusive said:
Elder Scrolls games must fill your game library. Expectations too high?
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No, he like I simply don't have ADHD. I expect to get a minimum of 40 hours out of any game I purchase. If I am not guaranteed at least 40 hours, I am not paying $60 for it. There are plenty of games that I can get hundreds of hours out of that aren't elder scrolls.
 
WorldExclusive said:
Elder Scrolls games must fill your game library. Expectations too high?
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according to the in-game stats it took me 15 hours to complete Crysis 3 and around the same to complete Tomb Raider...so for a guy like me who likes to take his time and explore in any game I play asking for 15-20 hours is not a lot...too many people are speed-gamers nowadays where they only care about finishing as fast as possible

forget about Elder Scrolls!...I'm currently at 250+ hours with Skyrim
 
I agree in the sense that it's hard to say "if the game isn't X hours long then it sucks", but there's definitely a happy medium. If the game is too short, you feel like you got ripped off or the story is incomplete, whereas if the game is too long it can feel like they added a bunch of fluff to pad the time, and it gets repetitive and boring.
 
Sure, if the 5 hour yet excellent game only costs me $5...

But I don't think that's what is being implied here.

I buy far less games these days because the AAA titles have been making a habit of the single player or story portions of the games being only 5ish hours.

Honestly, even though I was happy to see the story progressing in Assassins Creed 3, I was disappointed at how short the primary arc was. The game was only long because I actually did most of the hunter-gather side quests. I won't be as anxious to spend that many hours doing the same thing in the next one.

Then again, I don't buy the AC games on launch. I wait a year until they are $20-25.
 
40 hours minimum i say 40 since final fantasy 7 is a gold standard to me by witch games should be measured... less than 40 hours not worth my money maybe worth to pirate
 
XamediX said:
And shame to those people who try to equate gaming to movies. That is erroneous at best.
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The dev that's quoted is the one that first made that comparison so complain about it to him.

There are many factors I look at when I'm determining if a game is worth what they're asking but the length of the game is one of the most important ones. It often takes me a few hours to really get into a game and if it's already winding down at this point I don't find it fun, I don't read short stories or novellas for the same reason.
 
Lots of talk about gameplay length. Little to no talk about game price.

If there's any kind of fundamental value equation here, it's (loosely): value = content / cost. An equation without cost as a factor is an incomplete and useless equation.
 
I'm ok with a game being 6-8 hours to complete if its a fun game. Now as I've gotten older I don't play a game to the max I just wanna play it have fun and move on to the next title.

Bottom line is the game has to be fun. I don't mind short campaigns if I feel entertained in the end. For me the longer game drags the more bored I get and the less I like it.

But I'm probably the minority on that one.
 
Steve said:
Meet a game dev that says the length of a game doesn't matter. Umm, what? What do you think should be the bare minimum it should take to play through a game these days.
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I wouldn't pay $60 for a 3 hour game. Even 10 hours is really too short for that price. For a $60 game I want at least 20 solid hours out of it.

If devs want to start releasing movie length games, then they will have to be willing to charge movie prices.
 
If I'm paying $60, the game have better last at least a week of continuous play. For most people that's a month of play time, or maybe even a few months. A game shouldn't be a weekend game. Not for $60.
 
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