20-hour games are "short"?

[Dethenger]

Speedruns are not really what you want to base gamelength on, as you already know how to do everything perfectly in a speed run typically.

You should calculate average time to beat on first play-through, since that in the end will be the experience of the game that mattered the most.

Wholeheartedly agree. I mean, there are people who can beat Dark Souls in thirty minutes because they know every shortcut, every enemy, every parry opportunity, etc., by heart. That doesn't by any stretch of the imagination make it a "short" game.

I think the only time a game's length should be a target of criticism is if that game is somehow unsatisfactory for how long it is. There are games that, while short, provide a satisfactory experience for the little time you sunk into it. On the other hand, there are games that simply can't carry themselves for how long they are to beat. Try and imagine if Call of Duty did have a 20-25 hour campaign: Would you want to spend 25 hours on a campaign that consists largely of moving from point A to point B while people shout context at you via radio? I would think not; for me, a short campaign has never been an issue with Call of Duty, because, sure, I'll eat potato chips, but eventually they'll start to make me feel sick.

 

[crazy_coug99]

I think it is a relative nature of how linear the game play is. If you take a good portion of FPS games where the story can be completed in a day, that would be considered short. But since these games are (now) marketed for the multiplayer it can be considered long depending on how long one plays. Now if you look at games like the Elder Scrolls or (in my case Assassins Creed Revelations) a player can spend a week on it and consider it to be a long game because of how much content is put into the game. Also needed to be noted is the replay value. If the story is short (or boring) the replay value would be low. Where as larger games like Borderlands those have high replay values because of the the multiple options in the game.

So in my opinion, the reviewers look at the single player campaign with a couple of hours in multiplayer (when given). so in total, a gamer has to look at the size of the game, how much the developer puts into those aspects (single and multiplayer), and the variety of that content there is.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

maybe i'm just biased, since i love 100+ hour rpgs but yeah a game i can beat in a day is kinda disappointing

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I don't think it really is a matter of games getting shorter. It's just that when we talk about 'games being longer' we're generally talking about the games we played as kids. And when we were kids, we were shit at games. I have yet to see a kid who isn't shit at games.
Me and a friend got through the first Halo game when I was 8 and it took us the course of several weeks, playing for an hour so every couple of days. Fast forward to now, and I could run the whole game in perhaps and hour and a bit, on normal difficulty?

Just a case in point.

Plus, older games tended to be much harder. So it wasn't so much that the game was long, it was that you were redoing chunks of the game over and over again and that made it seem long. Like the first prince of persia. It was, in itself, a pretty good length game, but only when you add on the fact that you were repeating everything a few times then it suddenly seems a whole lot longer.

 

[GAunderrated]

Game length doesn't matter to me at all. I can enjoy a 2-3 hour game as long as its an amazing experience such as Portal. Some of my favorite games I can beat in a matter of a few hours but they are so good I want to play them over and over again. I find it rare for people to say that they replay a 50 hour game over and over again.

 

[lacktheknack]

My personal dislike of "short" games is the price.

If I get Game A that has a 40+ hour campaign for £30/$60 that is fine with me, but if I then pay the exact same price for Game B that is only 8/10/12/15/20 hours worth of campaign, that is a bad thing.

Now if they could set what constitutes long and short as an industry standard, and then charge money accordingly, perfect.

However, I've put 47 hours into Mirror's Edge (two or three hour campaign), compared to the 33 hours I've pumped into Batman: Arkham Asylum (ten plus hour campaign), according to Steam. And that doesn't include the time I spent in Mirror's Edge from before "The Great Wipe" (at least twenty more hours).

Which one is worth more now?

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

20 hour games are not short. 20 hour games with no replay value gameplay wise, or a very good story are.

There's a distinction

 

[Sonic Doctor]

My personal dislike of "short" games is the price.

If I get Game A that has a 40+ hour campaign for £30/$60 that is fine with me, but if I then pay the exact same price for Game B that is only 8/10/12/15/20 hours worth of campaign, that is a bad thing.

Okay, but consider this:
Game A has a 40+ hour campaign, but you have absolutely no fun while playing through it.

Game B has a 10-20 hour campaign, but it's some of the most fun you've ever had playing a video game.

Which one is worth more, then?

So much this.

Seriously people, if you find game that is only a few hours long to be amazing, the definition of length changes.

The same goes for games that you think are terrible.

Example: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. My first play-through took me around six hours(two hours was spent horsing around and looking for collectables). For the price, especially for me since I got the collector's edition, that was a damn short game. It was my first disappointing game purchase in almost a decade. Even though the game was short, it was so bad that it felt too long to me. The fight with Vader at the end was one of the most aggravating, stupid, and long boss fights I've experienced.

I will give my solid game length chart.

5 hours and under: Unacceptably short.
6-9 h: Short
10-15 h: Medium range:
16-25: Long
26-40: Very long
41-60: Ultra long
61-90: Ultra Mega long
91-???: It is a long ass game and I'm probably not going to get done with everything I want to do in it.

Edit: But as I said, how much I like the game can change that chart.

 

[shrekfan246]

I will give my solid game length chart.

5 hours and under: Unacceptably short.
6-9 h: Short
10-15 h: Medium range:
16-25: Long
26-40: Very long
41-60: Ultra long
61-90: Ultra Mega long
91-???: It is a long ass game and I'm probably not going to get done with everything I want to do in it.

Edit: But as I said, how much I like the game can change that chart.

Even if I didn't like your chart already (which I do), Janitor stealing Ted out of Kelso's office makes it so that I automatically must agree with the contents of your post.

But yeah, the point I'm trying to make is that the length of a game doesn't automatically make it better or worse. Short games can be excellent, long games can be terrible, and ignoring a game that might be really good because "it's short" just strikes me as a really juvenile thing to do. Refusing to buy any game that's shorter than [Insert Preferred Number Here] just because it's not that long is even worse, in my opinion.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

My personal dislike of "short" games is the price.

If I get Game A that has a 40+ hour campaign for £30/$60 that is fine with me, but if I then pay the exact same price for Game B that is only 8/10/12/15/20 hours worth of campaign, that is a bad thing.

Okay, but consider this:
Game A has a 40+ hour campaign, but you have absolutely no fun while playing through it.

Game B has a 10-20 hour campaign, but it's some of the most fun you've ever had playing a video game.

Which one is worth more, then?

So much this.

Seriously people, if you find game that is only a few hours long to be amazing, the definition of length changes.

The same goes for games that you think are terrible.

Example: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. My first play-through took me around six hours(two hours was spent horsing around and looking for collectables). For the price, especially for me since I got the collector's edition, that was a damn short game. It was my first disappointing game purchase in almost a decade. Even though the game was short, it was so bad that it felt too long to me. The fight with Vader at the end was one of the most aggravating, stupid, and long boss fights I've experienced.

I will give my solid game length chart.

5 hours and under: Unacceptably short.
6-9 h: Short
10-15 h: Medium range:
16-25: Long
26-40: Very long
41-60: Ultra long
61-90: Ultra Mega long
91-???: It is a long ass game and I'm probably not going to get done with everything I want to do in it.

Edit: But as I said, how much I like the game can change that chart.

I agree with most of this, and the only game that I can argue with that kinda breaks it is saying that Journey is probably the best short game I've ever played.

I'm more of a 'Am I having fun?' and does it justify the game's length, but I'm totally fine with a game being 10 hours if I think it's great because I've played some really long games that bored me to tears.

 

[CityofTreez]

So either way you slice it, today is a very sad time for single player content in the Triple-A market. If you want a good single player game, stick to the indie market, or play yesterday's Triple-A games.

Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored, Borderlands 2, Hitman, Far-Cry 3, The Walking Dead, Mass Effect 3...

What more do you want?

 

[The Abhorrent]

I don't think that people are directly lamenting that games are getting shorter in general these days, but rather that the amount of quality 40+ hour long games (referring to the time needed to complete the well-paced central narrative on a typical or first time playthrough; it's self-contained and isn't split over multiple games either) has declined to almost nil since the HD generation. "Endless" games, such as MMOs and sandbox RPGs (not to mention any form of multiplayer), aren't really counted due to their lacking narratives; those seem to have risen, but it might be due to online gaming becoming much more prominent.

---

But yes, where have all the "grand adventures" gone?

Well, there's still a few examples from the modern era:
- Xenoblade Chronicles
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Final Fantasy XIII (there aren't a lot of candidates)
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Skyward Sword may also qualify, but I haven't really looked too much into it)

... yeah, already running out of ideas. While the Mass Effect trilogy qualifies as a whole, the fact it's split up into several games doesn't quite help things. Anyhow, the key point is that the story must feel long... but at the same time, not arduous and repetitive. These types of games seemed to be much more common before the last console generation, and looking at the above examples, only one (FFXIII) is known for its graphical prowess (though DA:O doesn't look overly dated).

40 hours is, for the most part, just a benchmark. Games which break that limit without becoming redundant and stale before their conclusion tend to be revered, and their general absence within the last generation has left something of an empty void which simply cannot be satiated.

 

[Cavan]

I personally feel it's entirely genre dependant and promise dependant. If the game promises me an 'epic' campaign, it better be epic or it better feel long and enjoyable enough to compensate. Price factors in, a cheap game can have less expected of it than an expensive one.

For a single player FPS 10 hours is fine, 20 hours would be great. Both the crysis games took me about 10 hours to finish and their length felt good. Both the first two Max Payne games took me about 4-5 hours to complete, they're a little on the short side considering and sometimes a bit padded even then, Max Payne 3 took me 12 hours to complete including restarting bashing my head at the highest difficulty because it was set higher than i'm used to.

For an indie game 2-10 hours is more than acceptable depending on price. Shank is a 3 hour game and I felt happy with it, Limbo is a 2 hour game and I was also happy with that.

For an open world game 30 hours would be better, without reaching a point where all the side missions become samey and the gameplay stagnant.

Occasionally something like the binding of isaac or FTL will blow that out the water and give me a great run for my money.

I put about 80 hours into Skyrim before losing interest, haven't touched any DLCs, that actually felt a bit long to me.

 

[Vault101]

snip.

really? combine all 3 mass effect games thats almost 100 hours give or take..I don;t know of many games that have that amount of time as standard (standrd meaning NOTHING aside from purley the main missions/tasks)

plus I'm not sure you could make a game like mass effect on that kind of scale 0_0 as one...thats insane

 

[Vault101]

Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored, Borderlands 2, Hitman, Far-Cry 3, The Walking Dead, Mass Effect 3...

What more do you want?

he wants the late 90's/early 2000's back...

seriously I wish people wouldn't make shit up...its fucking annoying

 

[Joccaren]

My friend and I follow the $1 per hour of a game rule.

We're not going to replay the story unless it has multiple endings, or has multiple ways to get through most of the missions [And doesn't fail in the execution by giving you every way in the end like DX:HR], so the time of a single runthrough is a good measure of this.
Multiplayer I'm not interested in unless its only with friends, and that rules out 90% of online games as its hard enough to get a group of 3 friends who have the same game we want to play, let alone 10-20 to populate a small server on competitive multiplayer games, so that's ruled out too, but +5 hours of trial run to see if the people who play the game are idiots or not.

Hence, with the price of games generally being between $60 and $100 over here, that game better be 60-100 hours long, or only cost $20-$40, dependent on length. If neither condition is true, I'm not going to buy it as its not worth the money.

 

[Strazdas]

for people who remember games that took 40 hours to complete and kept you going for more til lyou found yourself playing 300 hours easily.... yes
sadly, after tasting good i no longer want to eat at mcdonalds.

 

[wulfy42]

I've seen plenty free flash games that have lasted me over 20 hours (and they are free!!).

The price of the game is also a factor here. If I buy a game that lasts only 10 hours and has little to no replay value....I consider that very short and not worth the money unless I was freaking blown away by it (and that would probably lead to replay value all by itself).

It should be noted that part of the reason length of games seem so short, is the large number of games that have now come out over the years that you can play more then 100 hours..and still be having a blast.

Whenever you play a game, you do compare it to other similar games you have played in the past. If you have played well over 20 RPGs that were a total blast, and all lasted you at least 100 hours (I may be over 50...don't feel like counting), and some of those have lasted thousands of hours....getting an RPG that lasts 20 hours seems like a let down. It might be a great game, but you have spent just as much for other games that were also great....but kept being great for 10-20x as long!!

Also, we are all getting a bit jaded. It takes more to make us really love a game....and keep playing it. That is mainly due to having already played so many similar games (often to death) in the past. Where you might have replayed a game many times in the past because many aspects of it were new....a game that just changes a few things and has a new story but is otherwise similar to another game in it's genre....isn't going to capture your attention for long...and will seem like a let down in many ways.

I look at games in a pretty simple way though....as far as being worth the money you pay for it. As long as you get at least 2 hours of entertainment for every $5 you have spent....I consider the game worth it. This is derived from a rounded down/up price to see a movie when it is released ($10 about for 2 hours aprox entertainement). I halved the money per hour for video games because in most cases the game is not as intense an experience as a movie.

That is time you are actually ENJOYING the game though. Not endlessly grinding for something or wasting time running from one end of a game universe to another etc.

So...by that formula, if you get a full 20 hours of FUN out of a game for $60....it's worth it. If you get 30 hours your way ahead of the game.

There are many games that have given me at least 10 hours of enjoyment for every dollar I have spent.

There are other games that I have only played 2-3 hours before giving up on them (and I didn't really enjoy those 2-3 hours obviously).

It's hit or miss, and just saying a game is short because it lasts less then 20 hours....is too simplistic.

 

[jklinders]

Some old school games from the old NES or whatnot can be speedrun pretty darn quick. Others like Dragon Warrior or other RPGs are filled with a lot of needless filler and grinding that made them take longer to play but grinding and gameplay are not one and the same. Most folks consider grinding a negative rather than a positive when it's required to proceed.

The action games were pretty short back in the day due to a lack of save features and could be busted through in an hour or two.

When you go to the so called first gen consoles, Saturn, PS and whatnot you still had quick to play action games and longer play RPGs. But the any great RPG that was not filled with grinding to pad it out was completable in about 10 hours. FF VII was a great game but the grinding...long, filled with content and a grind fest.

Then there was Sega's Panzer Dragoon Saga. To this day one of my all time favorite games. There were random encounters but it was not a grind at all to play and the game scaled nicely to match the lack of grinding. A completionist run could be completed in about 10 hours. It took 4 disks to play it and it was loaded with content. It was "short" but an awesome end to an awesome series.

I think the only grind free games that were truly long back in the day were some of the old late 90s RPGs like Baldur's Gate and NWN. Icewind Dale, Fallout and whatnot. Those games were made with love care and crafted to be masterworks. Oh and the only company that made them that did not go belly up during the tech bubble breaking was Bioware. They ceased being that company afterwards.

SO yeah, there is a real sense of Nostalgia glasses happening here. The oldest games seemed long because they were hard as fuck to learn to play but once you go tit you could blitz them in a few minutes. That's hardly real world terms long. Others were padded out to seem long but content wise they really weren't. SO I'd say it's all perception except in very rare few cases.

 

[Kroxile]

I base game length on the amount of money I paid for it.

If I drop $60 on a game it'd better take up at least 60 hours of my time or I'll either buy it used or borrow it from a friend or if anything else wait for a price drop. Online modes do not count because I'm not about to deal with random asshats on the internet.

There are some exceptions, of course, but those are too far and between.