We've all been there: if games aren't fun after a certain amount of time, we put them down and go away. That's how it works. For some of us, it's a very short amount of time - a matter of minutes, or even seconds. For others, like some RPG fans, we're willing to give over a dozen hours.

So how much time are you willing to give before declaring a game not worth playing through?

For me, it varies by genre:

Most Nintendo games: About ten minutes

Mario RPGs: About thirty minutes

Most other games: About thirty minutes to an hour

JRPGs: Two hours, tops

Those are the effective time limits I will give to different games most of the time. There are very few cases where I allow more time than that - I gave Persona 4 a staggering six hours before I put it down.

So, that's the question. How long do you give games a chance to hook you before they've failed in their intent?

if I bought it - doesn't really matter, I'm not wasting my money

if I rented it or borrowed it - 10 minutes, 30 tops or I'll probably say it sucks and stop playing.

I'm bored easily and I have a huge pile of games I want to play so I'd say I give a game about 30-60 minutes before giving up.

All right I guess that's pretty fair - it comes up rarely for me since I like most games, but I see where your'e coming from.

Isn't it kind of a waste of your money - and time - if you don't enjoy yourself, though? I mean, you could be replaying a Zelda or something in the interim.

Exactly

Depends on genre...

JRPG's - 2 hours, 3 if its a well known franchise, i even tried FFXII and DQVIII for awhile before i finally said enough.

Action (with rpg elements) - depends, chaos legion is a good example of you have to play it til chapter 4 or 5 before you get good at the game and power get better. but for this gen about 30 mins.

FPS - 1 min...

TPS - 30 mins.

MMO's - 1 hour.

Puzzle - a few mins.

WRPG's - 30 mins.

Everything else - 10 mins tops.

First off, I tend not to buy bad games. I played through the original FF and boy was that painful, so if I can do that, I can handle most other games Finally, I did buy Okami, thought it was ok, and had I rented/borrowed it I would probably have put it down. since I bought it I beat everything but the final boss (cause I moved and then never got back to it)

I've put hours into Chrono Trigger simply because people keep telling me it gets better and I'll enjoy it later.

Normally a game only has to get me with it's premise. I'm fairly patient and will work through the beginning if it happens to be boring as long as I like the premise of the game, though games shouldn't expect that from the player, it's poor design. Once I've experienced enough to know the game is just boring, I put it down.

If I don't like the premise I won't bother start the game.

Whoever told you that is a liar. I love Chrono Trigger, but if you don't like it in the first couple of hours then you're never going to like it at all.

It varies a lot on a game to game basis. If the controls are bad, the game needs other redeeming features, and lots of them! Some times I'm just having trouble getting into a game, but I'll give more chances to grip me if it's gotten critical acclaim or forum hype.

I've played three session of Metroid Prime now, each for about an hour I think, and the game just isn't catching on. I know it's not a bad game, but it just fails to get me hooked. I guess I'll be giving it a few more chances down the line.