On the Pointlessness of "Hours of Gameplay"

KaiEl writes "An article on TotalVideoGames is quoting Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser as saying Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will have 150 hours of gameplay. That's all well and good, but what does it really mean? The way I see it, a game that I enjoy for 20 hours is much better than a game that I hate for 150. So why the obsession in video game media with quantifying gameplay time?"

Comments

Just like everything else...

[ConceptJunkie]

Marketing is easier if you can reduce your product to a number. Bigger numbers win.

AOL 9 is better than Netscape 7, which is better than MSIE 6.

Firefox 0.9? Forget it.

An Athlon XP 2000+ is better than a P4 1800MHz.

V-8 is better than 7-up.

etc.

Diablo 2 = 84 hours of game play per character

[SteroidG]

Normal level: 12 hours = meh... better than Diablo I guess.

Nightmare level: 24 hours = oh fuck it's boring!

Hell level: 48 hours = I really, REALLY should get a life!

After Hell level: create another character and start from Normal again...

you are so silly !!

[BortQ]

Anyone that plays a game they hate for 100+ hours is a moron, plain and simple. Here are the mathematical equations of interest:

bad game with 20 hours of gameplay = bad game with 150 hours of gameplay

good game with 20 hours of gameplay < good game with 150 hours of gameplay

Thus we can deduce that length of gameplay does not matter for bad games. However, for good games long gameplay makes the game better. That is why it matters.