So how long do you play a game , before you decide you don't like it?

[Gwynnbleidd]

When it is controls: immediately. If something plays like it has a 500ms delay, I quit it (of if it has controls like the old Dragonball games. Blergh!)
If it is something about the setting, I won't bother buying it, no matter if the game ist good or not. I am not into Battlefield or Call of Duty. They might be good games (I don't know at all), but I am not much invested into playing things that a too close to reality, because reality is incredibly boring.

The games I quit were:

- Prototype, after the super soldiers with their stupid grab attacks showed up. I played it on PC, so the QTE's became a real pain.
- Everquest II, after SOE screwed me over by deleting my characters because I paid 3 days too late
- Risen because of the extremely punishing fights to become a mage
- Stalker after 6 cases of save file corruption

 

[Tactical Pause]

Usually until I can no longer bring myself to play it. I'll be staring at my steam library and think to myself, 'dammit, I should probably keep playing [such and such]'. Every time this happens, it gets a little harder to actually boot up the game, until I finally just stop playing it altogether. The amount of time this takes varies wildly, but I try to give things as much time as I can stomach before giving up.

EDIT: As for the bonus question, I think the last game I completely gave up on was Legendary. It was $2 on steam, so I figured, to hell with all the bad reviews, I'll shoot some griffons for two bucks. That was a mistake, but at least it was a cheap one.

 

[redmoretrout]

If it is a story focused game, like Heavy Rain I'll probably stick it out to the end. About half way through that game I knew the story was crap and the mysteries would not make sense when re-examined after having seen the whole story, but I stuck it out just to be sure.

If (like 99% of games) its draw is supposed to be fun gameplay, then it gets under an hour.

 

[JayRPG]

Usually I will decide about 2 hours in unless the games got really good reviews/were hyped/were universally loved, in which case I will give them longer to see what the fuss is about.

Cases in point:

It took me 2 hours to figure out I didn't like 'The secret world' but;

I trudged through 5 hours of skyrim because everyone was raving about it... I fucking hate skyrim because it stole 5 hours of my life... To this day I can't figure out why people like to run around in empty fields, attempting to kill things with one of the worst combat systems I've seen in a game ever, trying to complete a story with 0 character progression.

I went off on a tangent there but the gist is there.

About 2 hours for most games, 4+ for games that are supposed to be good.

 

[Headsprouter]

Well, today I borrowed Super Mario 3D land today from my little brother. I played a few levels, maybe 5 or 6, and found I had little desire to stick with it any further.

But that was a platformer, a genre I've played all through my childhood. Also the visuals were uninteresting to a lover of grit such as myself. Not a bad game, just not what I wanted to use my 3DS for. Maybe I'll try it again, later. I revisit games, I rarely find them enjoyable right off the bat. Yeah, but it'll depend on genre, mood and my desire to know more. Mario is fairly unsurprising from game to game.

 

[Cruickshank]

bit of a flaky answer, but it depends on the game i happen to be playing.
usually the only thing that will kill a game for me is if its frustrating to play or just starting to grind. i play games to have fun, not to work.
the last game i remember quitting was dead island; i bloody hated that game, and i really wanted to enjoy it. Also to make matters worse, i payed full price and a week later it was on sale 75% off on steam.

 

[doomed89]

There are plenty of ways to make even a long, complicated tutorial interesting, an easy one being if the story itself is interesting. If it's boring it doesn't bode well for the rest of the game.

Of course you should read reviews before sticking it out or possessing the game (unless it's at a friends game or something that just happens to be with you when you are bored or whatever)

I never read reviews, because I don't like having my views of something tinted by other people's opinions before I even try it. And in many cases, it turned out that I did enjoy a game that many other people disliked (FFXIII being one of them). Never judge anything unless you've tried it yourself.

I disagree, the tutorial phase of games are not an accurate representation of the entire game not even close. As for the review thing if you can't filter opinion from objective points about the game that's your problem.

 

[cikame]

My senses have been honed to a point where i can tell if i'm not going to like something before i play it, even if it's a well reviewed game.
Latest example Bioshock Infinite, i just know i'm not going to like it, kind of like how i knew The Last of Us wouldn't be as fantastic as reviews made it out to be but i played it anyway, fortunately the characters made me feel like the time spent wasn't a total waste.

 

[Legion]

Games I have quit playing in the last year:

Okami - Probably around 2-3 hours. I played it and when I stopped I just had no desire to go back and carry on as it did nothing for me. I did give it one chance just to see but barely lasted five minutes.

Beyond Good and Evil - Around 4 hours. I stopped and started it at several points but barely played it for half an hour in each sitting, it just didn't keep me hooked.

Dark Souls - Around 3 hours. I played for about an hour and a half, said "fuck this". Went back a couple of hours later to try again and decided "fuck this" and meant it.

Final Fantasy 13 - Around 3-4 hours. Beautiful to look at, but so incredibly boring to play. The combat was just dull, and there wasn't any real exploration so it'd just be grinding through boring game-play to unlock story segments. While the cut-scenes weren't bad they were nowhere near good enough to sit through the game-play segments.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It really depends on the genre. I'll give strategy and RPG games more of a chance, considering it's more likely to take more time to get into the experience and get all the mechanics down enough to judge the game. I'm less prone to do that for more action-based games, platformers, adventure games, etc., since they are normally simple enough to never take more than an hour to get down. However, I rarely ever leave a game before getting its mechanics down, unless I think it will take too long for the amount of time I have to invest in learning them all. Otherwise, I think it's ridiculous to judge a game if you didn't bother to fully experience at least the basics of it, as the judgment may be premature. That doesn't mean playing through the whole thing, just playing through enough to get a taste of what the developers wanted the game to be. In other words, stopping a playthrough of BioShock after "Welcome to Rapture" would be premature. Doing so after "Medical Pavilion" or "Neptune's Bounty" would be more acceptable, as all they really do from there is build on what you've already seen. Oh yeah, and missing features introduced in the end game is perfectly acceptable.

Anyways, the last game I did that with was The Witcher. I don't remember how much time I invested, but the combat was too repetitive (and easy), the characters too bland, the general tone too excessively depressing, and the attempts at being "adult oriented" too childishly pathetic to really hold my interest.

To a lesser extent, the first Mass Effect could also go here. I always stop playing the game in the middle of it to take a break because of how horrible the gameplay is. The story and characters generally draw me back in, though, so I've never fully walked away from that game due to declaring it's gameplay some of the worst I've played in any game that's been rated as highly as it was.

 

[Alssadar]

I usually give a game my first session. That means I usually just sit down and play it for a couple hours, whether it is absentmindedly or serious playing.
Like King of Dragon Pass, which I bought on GoG during a sale. I played it for about an hour and a half, thought it was decent, and I stopped playing. I'm going to eventually play it again, but I've got better games to play.

 

[babinro]

This varies based on a lot of factors.

I devoted 80 hours into Skyrim despite realizing it was a game I didn't like after about 10hr. What motivated me to keep with it was all the praise online. Tons of GotY awards and even the escapist forumers declared it the definitive best game ever made after a series of votes.

I felt I wasn't going to give such an acclaimed title any justice if I quit so early and I stuck with it through the story mode and through the assassin's guild as well as some of the mage, fighter and thief guilds. None of that experience changed my mind.

Another, polar opposite example, is when a family member bought me Classic British Moter Racing for the Wii because they knew I loved video games in general. While the gesture was nice I had no interest in this 'bargain bin game' and wound up putting it down forever with less than 30 minutes of playtime.

I suppose you could say that hype is a driving force but it would be unfair to call it the only one.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

I don't really have a set time but I definitely have a personal record with either Diablo 3 or El Shaddai. I think it was about an hour with both.

 

[Black Heron Ink]

Every game gets 5 minutes from me. Unless its a Metal Gear Solid game, then I have to give it at least 45 minutes by default, but by then I've more than likely already lost interest...

It's not a very efficient method, but its MY method.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

There are plenty of ways to make even a long, complicated tutorial interesting, an easy one being if the story itself is interesting. If it's boring it doesn't bode well for the rest of the game.

Of course you should read reviews before sticking it out or possessing the game (unless it's at a friends game or something that just happens to be with you when you are bored or whatever)

I never read reviews, because I don't like having my views of something tinted by other people's opinions before I even try it. And in many cases, it turned out that I did enjoy a game that many other people disliked (FFXIII being one of them). Never judge anything unless you've tried it yourself.

I disagree, the tutorial phase of games are not an accurate representation of the entire game not even close. As for the review thing if you can't filter opinion from objective points about the game that's your problem.

Show me one review with real objective points.

And of course the tutorial isn't always indicative of the rest of the game. Doesn't change the fact that if it's boring it means I won't even play past it. First impressions count.

 

[indrak]

It depends a lot on game play and story ,If the controls are bad enough it can completely ruin a game for me. Story is the same way if i don't find the story engaging it doesn't matter how good the game play mechanics are i wont enjoy it. So as a general rule i give most games about 3 hours to draw me in before i set them aside.