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General discussionSeriously, 4 hours to complete a full length game.(42 posts)(42 posts)
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Posted September 20, 2016
I prefer games that take 99hours to beat like FFVII, sure you can beat it sooner, but not if you want to get everything. Or Morrowind, I probably had 200hrs on that, and I think I barely scratched the surface of that game.
Post edited September 20, 2016 by eksasol
Posted September 20, 2016
As pointed out, it's not a full length game, it's a standalone expansion. I've beaten it twice and Steam says I have 12 hours in it, so yeah, 6 hours sounds like the average. Love it though, and The New Order, I agree that I wish it was longer. Hopefully we hear about The New Colossus soon.
Posted September 21, 2016
I wonder if the perception of length is lost.

Consider, a lot of NES and SNES games are actually pretty short. Some of my favorite games are Megaman 2, and Megaman X. Both can be beat in about 2 hours.

HOWEVER, my skill in both games is really high, whereas with a new player who has to learn everything and the levels and the abilities may take weeks and never beat it.

Then there's Toren. 2 hours... And it was too long. It felt like weeks, and was too long.

Then there's Chrono Trigger, a 12 hour game or so, but if you replay with NG+ it's closer to 2 hours without the grinding.



In short good mechanics and pure fun are going to be far more long living than games with heavily scripted AI and a story that isn't worth a replay.
Posted September 21, 2016
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rtcvb32: Consider, a lot of NES and SNES games are actually pretty short. Some of my favorite games are Megaman 2, and Megaman X. Both can be beat in about 2 hours.
And then you look at games that are inspired by the retro on work on their own ground asociating themselves with old genres, like Charlie Murder, Rogue Legacy, VVVVVV, Paraunormal Activity, or Duke Nukem Forever take about 6 hours or 8 to be done or a gimmicky one like Asura's Wrath doing the same.

Then again I may be complaining about current games when I played most of the GBA library in which there was Golden Sun, Metroid: Zero Mission or the other series' titles, Wario Land, Medabots Kabuto Ver, Astro Boy Omega Factor, games which all of them took just one day sit in to finish but if you wanted to roam around the game would take you a week to finish.....also having to mention Castlevania Circle of the Moon for a frenzy of rage for me choosing to do the latter.....I was yound and thought I needed the money.

Wait, even Deus Ex can be played in like 8 hours or so, well of course, it's a pain in the ass, considering how difficult it is to beat a damn drone, let alone a upgraded agent, but it's possible, just need to rush down when failing a mission on the places there are the upgrade cannisters but maybe now I am just going off the side of speedruns.
Post edited September 21, 2016 by GioVio123
Posted September 21, 2016
Recommended for discussion.
Posted September 21, 2016
Well, since the topic has already been necroed and it's a topic worthy of discussion why not.

I've got no opinions on whether a game should last 4 or 40 hours. I played Batman: The Movie on a C64 this morning and it took 15 minutes to play from start to end (in all fairness, I've been playing that game since 1990, and it did take a few tries to actually finish the game). I blasted through the first four Blackwell games in 10 hours (haven't got around to playing the fifth yet because, as much as I love the writing in the Blackwell games, the AGS engine's bugs are such a ballache...)

The only issue I have is if a game is artifically padded out to 40+ hours with glorified treasure hunts and braindeadening repetition. Most JRPGs are actually quite good at filling out a 40 hour play time with plenty of story and well-written side-quest content (the Tales and Final Fantasy series in particular), but Ubisoft's model in particular (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry from 3 onwards, Watch_Dogs) epitomises how not to do it, although I still had a blast with them, and Watch_Dogs is one of the few games on PS4 that I've platinumed. A lot of racing games are also notorious for recycling content.

I think a lot of the issues with short play time on downloadable indies in particular stems from the fulfilment of expectations regarding pricing. When the industry was marketing digital distribution as "teh future", one of the promises was of lower prices. Sadly, AAA prices didn't drop, so indie developers came in to fill that gap, but budgets and timeframes meant that the amount of content in these games was going to be accordingly lower, in many cases on par with the 16-bit era of games. And yes, there are also these cut-price "standalone expansions" like Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon that have corresponding short play-times.
Posted September 21, 2016
Well most modern FPS games today are 10-15 hours it seems (in my impression, I don't play that many).

€20 for a 4-5 hour game ~ Wolfenstein - Old Blood vs.
€50 for 11-12 hour game ~Wolfenstein - The New Order

The price-to-hour ratio is quite similar. It depends on how well you play and/or the chosen difficulty level.
It also depends on when you buy the games, on launch or later during a sale.

The FPS games that offer the most game-time per session are the open world games, Far Cry 4, Dying Light etc.
Simply because they can cram a large number of repetitive events into them. Yet even here, if you don't enjoy the repetitive side-missions, the game will still end up being quite short. Far Cry 2 was a good example for me; I did the first few side-missions but got bored of them quickly and ended up just doing the main missions.

For me the game-length is less important when it comes to FPS games, to be honest I prefer when a fast-paced action game is around 10 hours long, not more. With tactical shooters I prefer them closer to the 20 hour mark.

My favourite shooters are are all quite short, and I love replaying them: like Kane & Lynch 2 and Colonial Marines.
So 'game length' doesn't necessarily mean a good or fun game, as far as personal enjoyment goes.
Posted September 21, 2016
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jamyskis: Well, since the topic has already been necroed and it's a topic worthy of discussion why not.

I've got no opinions on whether a game should last 4 or 40 hours. I played Batman: The Movie on a C64 this morning and it took 15 minutes to play from start to end (in all fairness, I've been playing that game since 1990, and it did take a few tries to actually finish the game). I blasted through the first four Blackwell games in 10 hours (haven't got around to playing the fifth yet because, as much as I love the writing in the Blackwell games, the AGS engine's bugs are such a ballache...)

The only issue I have is if a game is artifically padded out to 40+ hours with glorified treasure hunts and braindeadening repetition. Most JRPGs are actually quite good at filling out a 40 hour play time with plenty of story and well-written side-quest content (the Tales and Final Fantasy series in particular), but Ubisoft's model in particular (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry from 3 onwards, Watch_Dogs) epitomises how not to do it, although I still had a blast with them, and Watch_Dogs is one of the few games on PS4 that I've platinumed. A lot of racing games are also notorious for recycling content.

I think a lot of the issues with short play time on downloadable indies in particular stems from the fulfilment of expectations regarding pricing. When the industry was marketing digital distribution as "teh future", one of the promises was of lower prices. Sadly, AAA prices didn't drop, so indie developers came in to fill that gap, but budgets and timeframes meant that the amount of content in these games was going to be accordingly lower, in many cases on par with the 16-bit era of games. And yes, there are also these cut-price "standalone expansions" like Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon that have corresponding short play-times.
I try my best:)
Posted September 21, 2016
Space Quest trilogy can be finished in less then an hour, so what? Its fun!
Posted September 21, 2016
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rtcvb32: I wonder if the perception of length is lost.

Consider, a lot of NES and SNES games are actually pretty short. Some of my favorite games are Megaman 2, and Megaman X. Both can be beat in about 2 hours. ...
It's not really lost. Megaman 2 and Megaman X are from the 80s when teams, budgets and framworks were much less capable than now. Since then there happened a dozen or so revolution in technology. Modern computers are almost infinitely more powerful. People actually expect a bit more and usually they get more.

I may be mistaken, but the typical games nowadays are a bit more time consuming.



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darthspudius: Space Quest trilogy can be finished in less then an hour, so what? Its fun!
That's the point. It's fun. If it was totally bad, nobody would complain that it's only one hour. People would say, thank God, only one hour! But since it's fun people think, if only it were longer, there would be even more fun - I guess.

I mostly see it in conjunction with two other issues: price (is the price in a healthy relation with length/fun) and advertisment (is the typical play time known in advance so people can decide if they still want to buy it).
Post edited September 21, 2016 by Trilarion
Posted September 21, 2016
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rtcvb32: I wonder if the perception of length is lost.

Consider, a lot of NES and SNES games are actually pretty short. Some of my favorite games are Megaman 2, and Megaman X. Both can be beat in about 2 hours. ...
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Trilarion: It's not really lost. Megaman 2 and Megaman X are from the 80s when teams, budgets and framworks were much less capable than now. Since then there happened a dozen or so revolution in technology. Modern computers are almost infinitely more powerful. People actually expect a bit more and usually they get more.

I may be mistaken, but the typical games nowadays are a bit more time consuming.
the growth is in fidelity, mostly - i.e. better graphics, better physics, better simulations etc. It's a bit like saying books and films now should be longer with digital technology.... Content wise, the only major change is the possibility of more sandbox nature games, which again tends to not have predefined stories to the same degree.
Posted September 21, 2016
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amok: ... the growth is in fidelity, mostly - i.e. better graphics, better physics, better simulations etc. It's a bit like saying books and films now should be longer with digital technology.... Content wise, the only major change is the possibility of more sandbox nature games, which again tends to not have predefined stories to the same degree.
I agree with the fidelity. But otherwise we should just find out. Maybe books or films or video games on average are longer nowadays than in the 80s.
Post edited September 21, 2016 by Trilarion
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General discussionSeriously, 4 hours to complete a full length game.(42 posts)(42 posts)
(42 posts)