What is even considered "long" anymore for a game?

[Specter Von Baren]

So I was listening to a podcast and the people were talking about Pikmin 4 and someone said "Oh yeah, it's a short game" and I'm just wondering how the heck that is, especially after they said "Yeah it took me about 20 hours to do everything but for most people it will probably just take 12" and... that sounds like a decently long game. I even think they're underselling how long the game is because I think my time with it is over 40 hours and I haven't finished the last area of the game, and I'm certainly no newbie.

I don't know. I don't understand how people decide what's "long" anymore.

 

[BrawlMan]

So I was listening to a podcast and the people were talking about Pikmin 4 and someone said "Oh yeah, it's a short game" and I'm just wondering how the heck that is, especially after they said "Yeah it took me about 20 hours to do everything but for most people it will probably just take 12" and... that sounds like a decently long game. I even think they're underselling how long the game is because I think my time with it is over 40 hours and I haven't finished the last area of the game, and I'm certainly no newbie.

I don't know. I don't understand how people decide what's "long" anymore.

Do you know what podcast you're listening to at the time?

All I can say to that person is that they're one of those people who expect 20 to 40 hours plus for their play time and everybody else to be between 15 and 30. It's funny how some things never change. I remember back in 1999 when Parasite Eve came out, Gamespot cried about the game being short for an rpg. The game is still 15 to 20 hours; plus the bonus Chrysler building that has the true ending.

The people who want long games are usually those with too much time on their hands to be the same as them (and expect nearly everyone else) or want to do "everything". I said it before, I'll take a shorter great game with high replay value and fun mechanics, then a game that's a 20, 40, or 60 hour plus log and doesn't do anything right. Pikmin 4 is a long game, it's just "not long enough" for whoever was expecting much more than that.

 

[Chimpzy]

Kind of depends on the genre of game, innit? And on the person playing.

A 4 hours first/third person shooter campaign is often considered short, but for someone who has only 1 hour a week to spare for games, those 4 hours might not be that short. Continuing on, I suppose 8-10h is the sweet spot for shooter length, whereas 15h+ is long. But for rpgs (or open world games) all those numbers would be considered short, and the average completion time is close to 40h according to howlongtobeat.com, and only something over 70-80h is thought of as 'long'. Then again, for someone short on free time, even rpgs on the shorter end might as well last forever. Meanwhile, a lot of schmups and brawlers are very short, sometimes an hour or less to beat, but they generally rely on replaying and mastering, so whether they are short or long kind of depends on how you approach them.

 

[meiam]

Depend on genre but I'd say rule of thumb:
Below 10: short
10-25: normal
25-50: long
50+: really long

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Do you know what podcast you're listening to at the time?

All I can say to that person is that they're one of those people who expect 20 to 40 hours plus for their play time and everybody else to be between 15 and 30.. it's funny how something is never change. I remember back in 1999 when parasite Eve came out, Gamespot cried about the game being short for an rpg. The game is still 15 to 20 hours plus the bonus Chrysler building that has a true ending.

The people who want long games are usually those with too much time on their hands to be the same as them (and expect nearly everyone else) or want to do "everything". I said it before, I'll take a shorter great game with high replay value and fun mechanics, then a game that's a 20, 40, or 60 hour plus log and doesn't do anything right. Pikmin 4 is a long game, it's just "not long enough" for whoever was expecting much more than that.

I do, but I don't want to bias everyone's assessment. I will say that I got the impression that maybe they were saying "It's not that long" as a way to help one particular member of the podcast have an excuse for not being into the Pikmin series without being concrete about it (Though I don't understand why that would be needed, screw potential angry comments).

I guess it's just... I consider a game that me, a seasoned Pikmin player, could spend so much time on to be short just sounds like definitions are getting weird.

 

[Summerstorm]

Condensed artful mood-piece (e.g. a small atmospheric walking sim) ~2 hours, movie-sized.
Narrative action piece (e.g. small puzzle-game, shooter) 6 hours - a full gaming day (Maybe 2-3 replays on harder difficulty or challenge-levels for a few minutes more)
Big rpg or background narrative rich world: 20-80 hours - a months evening or one home vacation
a too long game: ~40+ hours
a zen-type time-waster or simulation game or online-time vs. humans: destroying your life hours

But seriously: All depends on the intensity, art, message and engagement of the player.

Sometimes it is ok to just do the same things over and over in... i don't know: "Mount & Blade" while listening to music to relax after work and disconnect from reality for months, racking up hundreds of hours or reading a million words dialogue about liberalism vs communism in "Disco Elysium" for ten hours but at the same time getting angry at some random "hidden object" game for wasting your time with too easy "puzzles" veiling a predicively stupid story for 10 minutes longer.

 

[BrawlMan]

do, but I don't want to bias everyone's assessment. I will say that I got the impression that maybe they were saying "It's not that long" as a way to help one particular member of the podcast have an excuse for not being into the Pikmin series without being concrete about it (Though I don't understand why that would be needed, screw potential angry comments).

You don't have to say their name if you don't want to. It is still odd though or why would the podcasters worry about any angry comments. Facts are facts. Either you're going to be into the game or not. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as that person doesn't be a jerk about it, then there's nothing wrong. Pat and Woolie deal with angry commenters every now and then, but they don't seem to care about offending anybody much over minor stuff. They do take things into consideration, but stuff like this is a case of you're either going to like it or not. End of story for them.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

You don't have to say their name if you don't want to. It is still odd though or why would the podcasters worry about any angry comments. Facts are facts. Either you're going to be into the game or not. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as that person doesn't be a jerk about it, then there's nothing wrong. Pat and Woolie deal with angry commenters every now and then, but they don't seem to care about offending anybody much over minor stuff. They do take things into consideration, but stuff like this it's a case of you're either going to like it or not. End of story for them.

Well... Men do that. Women, more specifically, women journalists, don't have the same tolerance for that kind of thing. But this is all conjecture.

 

[Dreiko]

It really depends on the genre and on whether you're looking into post-game grinding playtime or first clear playtime or first completionist clear playtime.

For Jrpgs 40 hours is my minimum, below that games feel short. For action games like DMC, a first clear should be 20ish hours or so. Fighting games have literally tens of thousands of hours of potential playtime, depending on how competitive you become and whether or not you go to locals and tourneys and the like.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Skyrim's kind of short; I've only spent 1400 hours in it....

 

[BrawlMan]

Well... Men do that. Women, more specifically, women journalists, don't have the same tolerance for that kind of thing. But this is all conjecture.

Yeah, I don't know where you're coming from this, but I am not in the mood to go off topic. I don't know many women journalists either, but the ones I've seen or met are pretty cool.

 

[sXeth]

Well, more solid gamplay oriented games are the ones that tend to rack up the hundreds/thousands of hours in playtime, but the game itself ends usually in the 8-15 hour mark (back in the day, this would've been a "over the weekend rental" timeline)

More extensively "narrative" driven games probably land in the 20-30-40(ish) hour range, though by the end of that I start to really question the pacing involved, or padding, or the (as per the BG3 thread) decision to throw everything but the kitchen sink in one game rather then having any kind of focus. Like if you need 2-3 seasons of TV shows worth of time to tell your story, somethings off.

Puzzle games are kind off in their own little niche. Where it really depends on how interesting the puzzle mechanics are. Usually shorter, because generally its hard to keep iterating out on core mechanics without either just creating artificial repetition, or again, falling into just throwing random other things to fill out the time.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Skyrim's kind of short; I've only spent 1400 hours in it....

Another 100 hours and you should be ready to head over to Whiterun and warn the Jarl that there's been a dragon attack.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Another 100 hours and you should be ready to head over to Whiterun and warn the Jarl that there's been a dragon attack.

Dude! Spoilers!

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Darren Mooney, the excellent movie and TV critic on The Escapist here, has made the point that no good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short, including as a response to my own complaints during streams and comments on his articles about my own belief that movies have gotten too long.
The point being that quality, or perceived enjoyment, is what determines "too long" or "too short." That's kind of what's behind the above poster's joke about their Skyrim time..

We also have to remember that people that review games for a living have a completely different sense of time. I have enjoyed games that are generally considered "too long" but then I don't have deadlines or huge backlogs or anything, I'm just a dude playing a game, you konw?

Baldur's Gate 3 right is being praised so hard- too much, frankly, as it's the CAUSE now in games coverage- and part of its appeal is that it promises like 100 hours in one play-through and that you wanna play multiple play-throughs and... yay.. a 1000 hour game, woo-hoo! But then whatever franchise or game or dev is out of the kook kids' favors will get shit on for "dragging on" for 40 hours. So it goes.

I think Pikmin, because it's a cute cartoony game, might seem like something that should be quick to some. But there's no rule that says that, either.

I also am not fond of using hours as measurement because of how different we all play- some smash dozens at a time, some stretch it out, and that is based on our personal lives and schedules. I don't care how many hours it takes me to play a game, but I do kind of care how many weeks it takes me. And some weeks in my life are different than other weeks (like over the next week I will be able to spend 0 hours gaming, but after that I might be able to spend like 40 hours in one week). So I understand why we use hours I just personally don't find it that helpful.

I wish we could use chapters, like a book. Sometimes what I'll do is just look up a walkthrough to see how many missions or quests or whatever- how many "things" there are is more helpful than hours.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

If I like it, I probably want it to go on forever. If I don't, then I'll stop playing and won't care about how long it is.

Funny though, looking back at my steam playtimes there are a bunch of games that I didn't like and stopped playing at a point that I felt was relatively early but I have about 20ish hours in, and it seems people would consider a decent length game. I tend to play more open ended games like, RTS, 4X and open world RPGs that don't really have a specific story to finish or if they do it's not necessarily the main focus so maybe that explains it.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Depend on genre but I'd say rule of thumb:
Below 10: short
10-25: normal
25-50: long
50+: really long

This is the answer pretty much.

Darren Mooney, the excellent movie and TV critic on The Escapist here, has made the point that no good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short

I don't know. I think even if it was the best movie ever made I wouldn't want to sit in a theater for 5 hours or something.

 

[Gergar12]

All live service games.