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The Importance of Game Length

Posted by Zonk on from the waiting-for-the-1000-hour-game dept.

Gamasutra's regular 'Question of the Week' feature touches, this week, on the ideal length of games, and the importance of game length. While the overwhelming opinion was 'quality is better than quantity', there were a range of opinions along that scale. From the article: "I would say as a gamer on the more casual side (30+ years) the game length is fine around 20-25 hours. If you are having fun while playing. I never have time to finish anything longer. It makes me more satisfied to have played through the game in 20-25 game hours than never even reach half way. - Joachim Carlsson, Massive Entertainment"

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. They forgot... by GoodbyeBlueSky1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Game girth is a factor too. Really, it is.

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    why? forty-two.
    1. Re:They forgot... by wuie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As funny as the parent comment sounds, I agree with it.

      When I play through a game, I like to know that it's more than just A-B-C plot progression. I love sideplots. I love side missions. I love small quirky things that happen in the game that can either distract me from the main plot, or join up with it eventually and make it a broader gaming experience.

  2. It depends... by PFI_Optix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...on the game genre, the target demographic, the platform, and lots more stuff.

    A deep RPG could be a hundred hours long and some gamers would clamor for more. The best FPS would become tedious after 100 hours. Strategy games (especially real-time) vary wildly depending on the skill of the player; some people can sail through missions in ten minutes while others take hours.

    A few generalized "ideal" game lengths:

    FPS: 20-35 hours, with sufficient variation to avoid tedium and ways to finish faster for the dedicated gamer.
    RTS: No more than 15-20 *missions* in a campaign.
    RPG: At *least* 40 hours, but not much more than 100.
    Adventure: 20 hours of actual gameplay, tops. Some people will spend quite a bit of time on certain puzzles.

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    120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
  3. Re:Genre by Mark+Programmer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The funny thing is that this is exactly why I don't play RPGs on a regular basis.

    For me, most game mechanics get stale after twenty hours of play. RPGs in particular tend to have relatively simple game mechanics that rarely get changed-up---they pad the game out with level-grinding and plot. Once I've mastered the game mechanics, I want to move faster; I've found very few RPGs that allow me to do so, since the artificial wall of gaining levels still exists.

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    Take care,
    Mark

    There is a solution...

  4. Re:It's not the size that matters... by Bugs42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's nothing better than causing some nice explosions, steal a few cars and beating up some hookers after a frustrating day at work. And after THAT, you go home and load up GTA, right?
    --
    Programmer: an ingenious device that converts caffeine into code.