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Forums - Gaming - How Long Before A Game "Overstays Its Welcome"?

My limit isn't necessarily in the number of hours I invest into a game; rather, how many weeks it takes for me to fully beat it. For instance, if I purchased a game in mid-July and I'm still playing it in mid-September, unless we're talking about Zelda, Pikmin, Mario, or some other major Nintendo release, I'm moving on to something new.

What about you?



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It depends entirely on the game. I like Raiden V but for a Shmup it's long. Over 2 hours sometimes. That really drags after a while. Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth story was awful and the world was too large so the pacing was slow as hell. I got half way through the game. Took a break. I finished 3 other whole RPG games then finished the second half of Infinite Wealth and even then had to push myself, I just had to see what happened to Kyru. So it can be length or just pacing.

Gears 5 is another where it's not a long game but the open world segments are so bad and drag the pacing way down. The game could be done in 1/3rd less of the time if it was like the other games.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Depends on the type of game. I have a hard time with fire emblems length. Engage was the last one I played and by 25 hours in I didn't want to continue.

There's no limit for me in terms of hours or weeks, if the game stays fun and doesn't get tired from repetition I'll keep going.



Depends on the type of game and its genre.

I've put thousands of hours into games like World of Warcraft, Destiny, and StarCraft over the years. But I don't typically spend more than 10-15 hours on a platformer. Unless it's one that I really love and want to replay it.



You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind

I get so distracted by other games, film, and other activities that a game hasn't necessarily outworn it's welcome if I am 3 months or longer into a playthrough and haven't beaten the main quest. Normally, an easy game regardless of length I tend to finish in 3 months tops. Often quicker than that. Tougher games can take me 6 months or a year or more to get through.
There aren't really any indicators in hours played or time passed when a game overstays its welcome to me.



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"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

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Depends on the game, but I don't remember playing any game where I wouldn't have felt like I was ready to move on after 80 hours. Usually I feel that way much sooner, so that's really more like an upper limit than anything any game should expect to be able to target. As for calendar time, it's probably "some months", depending on the game. For many games, it could probably be much less, maybe less than a month or maybe even less than two weeks.

Sadly it's become very common for games to overstay their welcome. I feel that way quite often, and it's much more rare for me to wish a game was longer.



Its depends 100% on the game. Theres no fixed criteria for this, at least not to me.

Ive sunk over 1k hours into MHW/Iceborne without playing anything else in the meantime, and i never got tired. I basically had to force myself to play something else.

I played 80hrs of Crimson Desert and i am so done like i dont wanna ever go back to it in my life.

Ive played around 15~17 hours of Super Mario RPG and i feel thats enough to fully enjoy the game, do most of the content and then move on.

Ive played around 10 hours of GTAV and i just wanted to die.

Depends on the game.



If I'm still playing the same game for like 2+ weeks then even if it's good I start to get antsy and need a break. For instance I just got done with Onimusha Way of the Sword, and while it's a very good game, after playing it for about an hour a day for three weeks I started to get burned out on it.

For me, it's hard to stick with the same game for too long as my brain craves newness and novelty and there's so many games competing for my time and attention. I have had Tales of Arise sitting in my backlog for ages, but feel reluctant to start it cos apparently it's like 30 hours plus and it's hard to commit to that kind of length cos I know I'll get sick of it halfway through and need to play something else.

This is why I kinda prefer games to be around 8 hours or so long rather than like 20 or more.