On Videogame Length - Less Is More?

Thanks to Eurogamer for their opinion piece criticizing the excessive length of videogames. The author initially states: "It's the woe of every committed gamer: piles of uncompleted games. We all swear we'll go back and complete [games] but the sad reality is most of us will - most likely - never get around to resuming our valiant quest to conquer these epics." He points out the relative lack of time most players have: "For the majority of gamers, squeezing in the time to play games means - pretty much - not spending much time doing anything else in our leisure time", and goes on to advocate episodic content, arguing "I long for a future when games are delivered in short sharp chunks like all the best visual entertainment is."

Comments

cost

[ziggles]

When games cost 20 dollars new, I won't mind if they're only 5 or 6 hours long. At 50 bucks, it's just not worth it. Max Payne 2 is a really great game, but it is not worth 50 dollars because of it's length. Bring it down to 25 or less and short, quality-packed games are A-OK with me.

I couldn't disagree more

[zenobr]

I much prefer the epic games that I pay 50 bucks for and then play for a solid 3-6 months (30+ hours actual play time). I hate nothing more than buying a game and beating it within the first week, or less than 10 hours of play time. My main complaint with most games recently have been their lack of story/game length (Halo for instance). Just my 2 cents I guess.

You don't have to finish a game.

[Mike Hawk]

You don't have to finish a game. There I said it. Don't advocate getting less, they might just give you what you want. I wager that if games actually got demostratively shorter, more people would complain games are too short.

What games sell well? Madden, GTA, THPS. Giant games that can be played in small bites. The public has voted with their dollar that this is what they want. This is what we will get.

Yet another rant from a know-nothing bitter fanboy. This one is extra-special because it actually asks value to be removed from games. What kind of person asks for value to be removed from a product? This guy gets 30 games a month to review then actually has the balls to throw it in the public's face and complain. Out of touch much? He called big games bloated simply for the fact that they are big. Thats not bloated, thats big. You know what, forget it, I give up.

Its about 1-2 weeks before all the big holiday games are on shelfs, most rae hitting now, and this is the best news anyone is submitting?

Dear Sirs..

[swdunlop]

I am writing to inform you that I am returning all but one of the discs from your latest epic, Baldur's Gate III: The Quest For More Levels. I find it simply unacceptable that, after I have paid you $50, you insist that I sit through over seventy hours with your game to derive full enjoyment of your product.

In the future, I would appreciate it if you only sent me the first 10% of the game, for the same cost, at the same quality.

Respectfully,
A Blithering Idiot