Game Length isn't really a worthwhile singular goal a game should have.
There are plenty enough games that are short but good because they're replayable.
How long does it take to beat Super Mario Kart? Like, 15 minutes per circuit. How much time do you spend playing it? Years.
For some games, if single play through is the main goal of the game, length to keep the game interesting may come into play. Skyrim for example isn't particularly interesting in terms of combat. A lot of quests are fetch, kill one thing, find one thing, talk to one person, ect. but there's like 1000 of them. I put in only 300 hours and if the game ended in just 10 hours of playing, I'd have only played like two times.
I don't personally complain about the length of games. I would argue that's merely something people complain about because they don't really understand what they want or how to ask for it. Games can lack sufficient content. Day 1 DLC is not the answer there. It feels a lot like clipping existing content.
If developers are designing the games around "Let's make the game X amount of hours long." they're doing it wrong.
The business model of making customers pay $80 with another $40 in DLC exists because people are paying it. If you have the time, energy and money to buy a new game every week with a full time job you may only want a 6~8 hour experience so you can do the next thing.
I personally prefer games like Diablo where I can play it for months and years.
There are plenty enough games that are short but good because they're replayable.
How long does it take to beat Super Mario Kart? Like, 15 minutes per circuit. How much time do you spend playing it? Years.
For some games, if single play through is the main goal of the game, length to keep the game interesting may come into play. Skyrim for example isn't particularly interesting in terms of combat. A lot of quests are fetch, kill one thing, find one thing, talk to one person, ect. but there's like 1000 of them. I put in only 300 hours and if the game ended in just 10 hours of playing, I'd have only played like two times.
I don't personally complain about the length of games. I would argue that's merely something people complain about because they don't really understand what they want or how to ask for it. Games can lack sufficient content. Day 1 DLC is not the answer there. It feels a lot like clipping existing content.
If developers are designing the games around "Let's make the game X amount of hours long." they're doing it wrong.
The business model of making customers pay $80 with another $40 in DLC exists because people are paying it. If you have the time, energy and money to buy a new game every week with a full time job you may only want a 6~8 hour experience so you can do the next thing.
I personally prefer games like Diablo where I can play it for months and years.
