How long should a video game be?

[Artman2004]

I often watch game reviews, and they sometimes bring up the criticism of a game being too short, usually saying it only lasts a few hours. I wonder if there's any set standard for video game length.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

It's hard to define a set length for a game since each genre has their own reasons for being long/short.

Open worlds, RPG's and Sandboxes contain very long (or infinite in the case of Sandbox) playtimes since they're usually filled with a ton of side quests and optional endings/ways to play. Despite this, you can easily bomb through The Outer World's 8-10 hour long story or New Vegas' 3-4 hour story in one sitting. (probably 2-3 for OW though).

 

FPS games are more focused on killing enemies as you blast through level to level so play time will vary wildly depending on skill and speed. DooM's 4 episodes takes me around 4-5 hours since I usually try to find the secret exits (and cause of the likes of E3M7...) yet Half Life, another FPS, can easily take me 10-15 hours due to the dialogues and the exploration of Black Mesa.

 

Platformers can either go the Sonic route of high speed jumping, Mario's multiple exits + tricky puzzles and/or A Hat In Time's collect-a-thon in a big world.

In one sitting AHIT will take like 20 or so hours since I'm usually trying to get all 6 hats yet I can burn through Sonic 3 in like 4-5 hours.

 

Overall it's kinda tricky to define a solid length of time for a game.

 

 

[Biz!]

Longer than 7-12 hours of gameplay, for the average person that is.

[HavoX]

Pretty much what @DynamiteKaitorn said. If it's WAY too long, and it's not an RPG, it doesn't work. YMMV though.

 

Games such as Cookie Clicker are exempt from this, because its gameplay is unlimited. (And very addictive. Don't say I didn't warn you...)

[MFG38]

As long as it can be without overstaying its welcome.

[FireballCaco]

Yeah, depends on the type of game. For example, Serious Sam 2 is approximately 35 hours long, the same amount as Final Fantasy VI. Doesn’t really make sense for an FPS, but it does for an RPG game.

[DannyMan]

It really depends on the pacing of the game.

[Murdoch]

This is another question i really find myself struggling to understand. 

 

There's no formula or set rules. The answer is what suits the game type, it's narrative, and target market. 

[Rudolph]

If anything, games tend to be too long. Even an old one like Doom II, despite being much shorter than the titles we get these days, can feel like it is taking forever to beat due to a number of factors.

 

 

[HLRaven]

I accept 4 hours as the lowest, the average in my opinion should be about 7-12 hours. If a game has about 50 hours to complete or 30 then it must be really special for that.

However what really matters in the end is the pacing and how it can keep you interested the entire time.

[BaileyTW]

I say the longer the better if the game can stay good all the way through. I'm poor and I want the most of what little games I got. This is why I like very replayable games where exact length doesn't matter as much (in fact longer rogue run into the "this game is fucking agonizing to lose a run an hour in" sort of problem if they are too long).

 

Minimum I guess would depend on the price but really I don't want to pay for a game and then be done with it on the first day and then have no replayability.

[hybridial]

7 hours ago, Rudolph said:

If anything, games tend to be too long. Even an old one like Doom II, despite being much shorter than the titles we get these days, can feel like it is taking forever to beat due to a number of factors.

 

I think a lot of games are padded. If a game is padded, it's certainly too long. I think my main brush with this is quitting Hollow Knight after four and a half hours, after not enjoying my time with it and feeling like I'd done nothing in the same time period I'd comfortably finish Super Metroid. When I hear people say it's like up to 40 hours doing all the content, I fucking cringe. I have no idea what people see in that game to be frank. The pacing was abysmal. 

[Azuris]

It really depends on the Genre and the Game World itself.

Also the Pacing, Combat et cetera define if it feels as you're wasting hours or if the fly away because you're having Fun.

 

Also, it depends on your Mood.

 

I managed it like this for me:

When i have a really big Game, as a Final Fantasy, i try to have other smaller Games aside.

A Beat em up as Streets of Rage IV, a Shooter as Gradius, something you can play through in a couple of Hours and you can even replay often.

This helps to not get exhausted by one Game.

 

Sometimes there are Games i do not get exhausted as fast, be it Morrowin, Skyrim or Fallout 1-Vegas (can't stand the fourth).

There i spend houndred Hours, make a large Pause and again...

 

A Game that also hit me in the right Spot was Dragon Quest XI.

Doom Eternal was also a Game i replayed a dozend Times (here the DLCs killed the Love for the Game)

 

Octopath Traveler for Example has to much sensless Grinding for my Taste.

 

[Rudolph]

3 hours ago, hybridial said:

I think a lot of games are padded. If a game is padded, it's certainly too long. I think my main brush with this is quitting Hollow Knight after four and a half hours, after not enjoying my time with it and feeling like I'd done nothing in the same time period I'd comfortably finish Super Metroid. When I hear people say it's like up to 40 hours doing all the content, I fucking cringe. I have no idea what people see in that game to be frank. The pacing was abysmal. 

Incidentally, I also think Super Metroid is too long; I really do not care for Maridia.

[hybridial]

1 minute ago, Rudolph said:

Incidentally, I also think Super Metroid is too long; I really do not care for Maridia.

 

At least that's what, 30 minutes of content at most?

 

I'd cut the whole inverted castle from Symphony of the Night. Not gonna sugarcoat my thoughts on that, it fucking sucked and turns it from the game everyone claims it is (fair based on the first castle) to the unfortunately falls short game that I see it as. I'd call both Bloodstained and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth better just because neither of them made this terrible decision to bloat themselves. 

[Rudolph]

38 minutes ago, hybridial said:

At least that's what, 30 minutes of content at most?

That is, if you know where to go and do not get constantly lost as a result of falling through sand pits or falling a jump.

 

The only satisfying part about Maridia (apart from it being over) is the climactic way you can kill the boss using the Grapple Beam.

[KainXavier]

I agree with @Rudolph and @hybridial that most games could stand to be shorter.

 

Since Half-Life has been brought up, I’ll use it as an example:

 

Half-Life has an interesting premise that goes nowhere for hours.  It’s not until you hit Xen that things get really interesting and that’s like 10 - 15 hours in.

 

Opposing Force is interesting in that you assume the role of an antagonistic force to the hero of the main game.  However, it also sits on its thumbs for like seven hours.

 

Blue Shift stars an otherwise supporting actor, and it manages to hit all of the best plot beats that the other two do, and it does so in only 3.5 hours!

 

Blue Shift is clearly the perfect length.

[Rudolph]

@KainXavier I both agree and disagree with you there.

 

I hate HL1's Xen and I usually stop playing the game by the time I get there. Blue Shift is nice, but it is a purely vanilla experience that does not bring anything new to the table and I actually wish it had been at least one chapter longer. If anything, Opposing Force is the entry in the HL1 trilogy that I enjoy replaying the most: I like to see what becomes of Black Mesa after Gordon Freeman makes it to Xen, as there was simply no way for you to cross paths with him without seriously retconning the events of the original game.

[continuum.mid]

Length is a small factor which affects the more important factor of enjoyment. If a game has a set beginning and end, and its mechanics get boring well before the end, then the game has either failed to keep things interesting or is too long. On the other hand, if the game ends before the player has any investment in it, it has either failed to hook the player well or is too short.

 

But setting a strict cutoff for "too long" or "too short" would feel wrong to me. Even games that only last a few minutes can be valuable experiences if they manage to grab the player's interest and get some sort of idea across in that short time; a lot of itch.io games I quite enjoyed are this way. RPGs with hundreds of hours of content have also managed to grab my interest enough to seek near-100% completion.

[Yandere_Doomer]

As long as one wants to make it, video games are an art form and shall not be restricted to lengths that the majority of people would expect. You should make it as long or as short as you want.

[Nevander]

It should definitely be at least 30 hours long with at least 5 hours of it being unskippable cutscenes that play after checkpoints, so if you die you get to watch them again.

[Edward850]

What is length supposed to mean, exactly? Like, how long is Minecraft? Is Minecraft's length infinite, and is that too long or too short? How long is Doom? You can "complete" Doom in a couple of hours but I've probably got a year or so of playtime on it.

This strikes me as an arbitrary metric.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Edward850

[Chezza]

Everyone has made good points so I won't bother just repeating them in my own words.

 

But I will add - depends who you're asking. Ask a publisher who releases games with micro transactions or MMO subscriptions and it will be forever haha.

 

Assuming you're talking to the consumer crowd, that's also subjective. In general I find people tend to measure amount of fun vs money spent multiplied by pre-conceived expectations. With that formula I just pulled out my arse, you can judge games on appropriate length.

[Tetzlaff]

Never played a game thinking it was too long, but many times played games that felt too short.

 

Recently replayed Heavy Metal FAKK2 - great art style and atmosphere, unique enemies and locations. But it's too short.

[Mr. Freeze]

As long as it needs to be. 

[whybmonotacrab]

What MR Freeze said above me. I'd be much more satisfied with a perfect 4 hour game that blew my mind than some bloated open world game that left me wishing it was over 10 hours ago.

[Swordofdanu]

On 9/19/2021 at 2:57 PM, hybridial said:

I'd cut the whole inverted castle from Symphony of the Night. Not gonna sugarcoat my thoughts on that, it fucking sucked and turns it from the game everyone claims it is (fair based on the first castle) to the unfortunately falls short game that I see it as. I'd call both Bloodstained and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth better just because neither of them made this terrible decision to bloat themselves. 

Ouch, I totally get the hate, but for me personally I love it, I only unlocked it after a third playthrough so it was more bonus content in a game I already loved. 

[JustCallMeKaito]

Depends entirely on the genre and how well the idea is executed.

Games like the Resident Evil series work best at around 6 hours due to how often you revisit old areas, fast paced retro / arcade style games are best at 2 1/2 - 3 hours, and story driven games are better with 16 - 24 hours.

[snapshot]

A bit longer than 2 hours so you won't be able to refund them lol