Time it takes to beat or at least be done with a game is personal to each gamer. I think time is indicative of how much use you are getting out of something.With that consumers expect certain pricing.

Angry Birds is fun.....but would it be worth 20 dollars? Hell no, the amount a person is willing to spend on a game is almost entirely based on how much they can get out of it(how much enjoyment, for how long?).Consumers are content with lower quality for a drastically lower price(McDonalds).

Heavenly Sword, one of the most captivating  8hrs of my life.....but in hindsight I would have never paid $60 on it if I had known. 

This is an example of why length doesn't matter. I loved Heavenly Sword and it was a very exciting, entertaining, and enjoyable game. After 5 and a half hours, I was treated a complete and enthralling game that was well worth the price of admission. I think that how much enjoy it is far more important than a $/hour ratio.

@Outlaw
I only like spending money on things that I know I will get more out of than I am putting in (Rules of Progress). I guess that is where we differ. My money is extremely finite, only can spend it on a handful of experiences a year, I want them to LAST! A short game means nothing if it has massive replay value....which unfortunately HS doesn't (Beat it on Hard mode as well, maxed at like 15hrs) so my money would have been better spent on another game, maybe Oblivion which was yrs of fun, just until HS dropped in price. I don't regret playing HS(still one of my favs of this gen), just how much I spent on such a fleeting experience.

But that doesn't make HS a worse game, it just means it doesn't fit your finite situation where the length is the game is nearly more important the content.

I don't necessarily believe Time has an effect on quality as it does on a game's "worth".There are plenty of video games that are of exceptional quality....but you probably wouldn't buy them if they cost....say $2000 a pop? That is an exaggerated price but that is the gist of what I mean. Regardless of quality, how much a person can get out of it is a factor of how much they are willing to spend. PS3, totally worth the 600 bucks it cost at the begining, imagine if Wii was 600 for shits and giggles........just no, would never work. But are they both quality products? Yes, just one formulates in a consumer's mind as worth more because of what you get out of it.

Prices above 60$ weren't that odd in that generation. Most were 30-40 indeed but were also finished in a few hours but you possible did not care because you would replay that game over and over again like many youngsters are doing now with their console/handheld/PC games and getting extra motivated to do it thx to the achievements/trophies..

If the price of video games went up like movie tickets did we would be paying now 80-90$ for a game...Well I do because I live in europe..

Lets talk about that replay value for a moment. Yes, games were played over and over in previous gens. But Why? Because they were packed with UNLOCKABLE content , COLLECTABLES, SPEED RUNS, etc. These days you can see and do everything a game has to offer the first go. Even when it comes to just understanding a story; Played FFXIII...understood it the first play through....was stupid, Played FFVII 10 times to finally discover all the crannies of story......superb!

Achievements/Trophies are nice for prolonging Replay Value which is probably why I like them.....yet they still have nothing on last gen and those before it. I miss the days where challenges,suprises, and easter eggs were coming out of every orifice of a game. MGS4 and Batman:Arkham Asylum/City are the only ones this gen I saw that still hold that merit.

I agree with most of your points. Top one for me is DLC.

I disagree. I don't think games are any shorter than they were years ago. Maybe tired old fashioned JRPGs have gotten shorter, but the only thing that made them so long in back in the day was tedious random battles.

All 3rd party games should be multiplatform. The only reason to pick one console over another should be for it's 1st party games. I will never understand a 3rd party PS3 game that doesn't at least get a US 360 port. If you want your game to make real money you should put it on as many systems as it will run on. The PC, 360, and PS3 can all run the same games.

DLC is great. If you don't like it you don't have to download it.

I want more sequels. If you love a game why would you not want another? I wish MS would pump out full Halo games twice a year. It's like a good book or a great TV series. You don't really want it to ever end.

FPS is easily my favorite genre. I love all kinds of games, but FPS games like Halo are my bread and butter.

Patches aren't the problem. It used to be that games would get shipped with bugs and there was no way to fix it. Skyrim should never have even been released on PS3. It's so broken that even the patches can't fix it. If a patch fixed it than nobody would remember that it was broken when it released.

I'm not a fan of online multiplayer. But it being added to a game doesn't matter to me. I didn't play the multiplayer in Bioshock 2 and I still enjoyed the game. So long as the single player is still good I don't care if they tack on a multiplayer mode.

Studios dieing off is nothing new. It has happened every year since the beginning of gaming. There is really nothing new about it. Yeah it sucks, but that's life.

I would ask that you read my OP again. I know there are plus sides to each of those that I listed, I simply stated some of the downside aspects of them.

DLC: u missed my point. I want to want DLC, but I don't want developers stealing from me and selling it back to me like i'm an idiot. Capcom games and FFXIII-2 much?

MultiPlatform is a double edged sword of sorts. It was meant to ensure companies could make a full return on the game....but what it actually does is just incurr more cost on a game's development with very little gain for it. Games DO NOT sell more because they are on multiple consoles, they sell just what is appropriate for the marketing/price/fanbase that exists for it. Pretty much every game that was exclusive last gen, but went multiplat this gen did not sell more copies and actually most sold less. Games that have remained exclusive sold the same on smaller install bases than last gen. Look at Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Virtually the same...and we can geuss Demon's made them more money in the long run because no paid advertising, concentrated on one console, and remained at a higher value for longer.

Sequel-Itis: how appropriate you compare it to a good TV show you never want to end because that is exactly how they end up. You know most US TV shows don't ever get an official ending, rather just get ripped off the Air for poor viewership towards the end? Sequels are a good thing...if done right. But turning a franchise into a "machine" just to capitalize almost always end up in burnt out fans who stop caring entirely after a while. A sequel should be built in the vain of progressing the story,concept of the original (in my opinion) and not just to make another quick buck. Look at Dynasty Warriors, probably the worst offender for a while....people almost stopped buying them entirely till they started to fix that problem.

FPS: Personal taste difference hence the reason you wouldn't be able to see where I am coming from.

Patches: are suppose to be for those little bugs that somehow slipped through but it has become apparent that Developers are literally leaving their games a buggy mess in order to meet deadlines. Dragon Age,Fall Out,Call of Duty MW2 and Skyrim comes to mind. Very few games of last gen released with a gamebreaking bug because the company's potential to sell was soley rested in getting it right the FIRST time. they don't even try it seems now.

Studios have not been dropping off like flies like this sense the original fall of the Atari and the "Great Gaming Collapse". Also the companies are bigger than just 2 ppl in a basement these days, that means millions of ppl were starting to lose their jobs.