TornadoCreator, I am so impressed by your threads. Really thoughtful and substantive

And I agree. Like soulfly, I'm concerned primarily with quality. I don't mind that Super Mario Bros. 3 can be finished in an afternoon or Ico completed over a weekend. If a game only needs 4 or 8 hours that's what it should get.

Is Secret of Mana really that short? I don't believe you.

Yes games are getting long, some (like skyrim) are too long. However if you really like the game, then you can still go crazy into it (I got 60 hours into XenoBlade, at 80 hours into Fire Emblem Awakening).

Personally I feel a game should give you options. a <40 main story for an RPG + optional sidequests is good.

----

I kinda agree with you, but I also kinda don't. All the great RPG's of the past were around 20-30 hours (Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy VI, etc). Now a typical RPG lasts 20-40 hours, with a few lasting 60+. Yea, that can be a bit long, and I agree I'd rather have a 20-30 hour RPG and finish it within 30 days, but a 3 hour game is still depressing....

For non-RPG's replayability is important. I've put in over 1,000 hours into Mario Party 2 with friends, and I love the game for that reason. FPS's like Call of Duty are a blact because of multiplayer too.

As for great short games like Portal, I think the reason people love them is because they make such a good break. I'm not complaining that Metroid: Other M is a 3 hour game, but I wouldn't pay full retail price for it either. Metroid Prime (and Portal 2) are the best of the respective series, and look how long they are.

----

My Complaints:

Some games getting short though. Mario Party 2 was a 1-2 hour session, Mario Party 9 is always 20 minutes (because there is an end to each map). I don't have ADD, I would like to play a bit longer then my coffee is warm......Same goes for FPS's, 4 hours for a $60.... :-/ Feels like a tech demo. Resident Evil was never 4 hours.

Achievements/Trophy's. I used to be able to boot up an RPG, and enjoy. Now I have to have a guide for collectables, and side quests......just annoying. Think I might give up on this.

----

Edit: Like someone said, Quality is the most important thing. I can always beat an RPG twice if it's good. Think I beat Pikmin 1 multiple times too. Same with a lot of SNES games.

I said I used the YouTube gameplay numbers didn't I... you're not uncovering a conspiracy you're just pointing out something I already flat out admitted... If I got these numbers wrong, fine, but that's not the point of this discussion. The point of the discussion is whether we should be judging games by game length. I've actually never played Secret Of Mana so it's entirely possible the video I was using as a basis for the length of the game is the one you mentioned, if so, ignore it; the point of my post is still valid.

I do however think you make a good point that difficulty and skill plays a part, after all, I can play Golden Axe and finish it in about 30 minutes, but I know some people who've never yet completed it and they've sunk hours into the game. I'm fairly sure I didn't complete it first time round either, it likely took me a few hours of practice to learn the game and get further each time; so at what point to we call game length, the length from beginning to end or the amount of time a person spends with the game... an interesting question.

Note: I'll say this once and once only because I don't want this to end in a flame war, also please note this bit is not directed at kupomogli specifically or anyone else who respectively pointed out the times where wrong... fair enough, my sources where bad, I just want to stop this now before it usurps the entire bloody thread and stops any real discussion from happening. Can anyone else wanting to jump on the game lengths I posted and correct me about them while adding nothing to the discussion kindly fuck off now and wave their ePeen somewhere else. I'm not claiming to have completed these games in these times, I'm not claiming these games are bad, good, too short, or anything else for that matter, and I'm certainly not trying to show off my speedrunning abilities... I just wanted a discussion about game length in modern gaming and how we judge games nowadays. Please focus on the actual discussion not unimportant details; no-one is impressed by you correcting someone on the internet.

Do you go watch a 3 and a half hour movie rather than a 2 hour movie at the cinema because the ticket price is the same?

I'd rather have a shorter game that I want to see to the end/play over and over again than a game I'm willing to end and that will never be touched again after that.

I agree budget is a massive problem, which is one of the reasons I tend to buy games late. I'm currently playing games from 2010 on my PS3 because I can pick them up for £10 or less, new, off Amazon. That said I'm on a fixed income and almost never buy games on release.

I actually find I get frustrated with games that take too long and frequently don't finish them because I end up building up a back catalogue. Some really quite short games I've still yet to finish just because I can't find the time. Despite being unemployed and in the house all day, I rarely get more than 3-4 hours game time per week. Right now for example, I'm on this forum typing away but my pain levels are way too high to focus on a video game, I feel dizzy, I feel nausiated. If I attempted to play now I'd get angry, likely launch the controller across the room... etc. not good. I need to be calm to play because it's so easy to take my pain out on whatever's nearby and with chronic pain that's an issue for me.

One big thing that puts me off on long games, is if I missed a side-quest, story element, or even just a rare useful item, it can make me want to quit a game completely because I feel like I'm only playing part of the game, or like I'm playing a game with missing peices.

True but the same is true of the modern games I've listed as well. I'm using "main story" completion times for them, we're talking going through from beginning to end, not exploring every inch, doing side missions, achievements etc. After all, Journey is maybe 2 hours long for a single playthrough but it'd take maybe 4-5 playthroughs to find all the secrets and that'll easily run you around the 10 hours mark, I'm actually fairly sure it's impossible to get them all on one playthrough too. Maybe I'm simply good at Zelda, or perhaps it's because I went into it knowing what to expect, (I played it on GBA and already knew the basic structure and such from word of mouth, online culture etc.).

I always enjoy reading your threads even if I dont really comment in them.

Personally, I love long games (most of the time, depending on the game though). When it comes to rpgs that is. Probably because I have the time to actually put effort into them.

There's a playthrough of Secret Of Mana on YouTube that's only 2.5 hours long, but apparently it's a speedrun. Seems the average playtime is closer to 7 hours, with it topping out at over 20 hours if you spend time exploring the game in full.

I think you make a good point about full retail price, and perhaps there should be a second pricing structure for games. Perhaps the standard $10 indie, $60 AAA simply needs a middle ground, like a $40 episodic/budget game. Some companies have tried this with Half-Life 2: Episode 1 which was purposely designed to be shorter and cheaper (and released more frequently, but Valve suck at that last part). The only problem is, RPGs are niché titles as it is. If we priced the 3-8 hour games lower, and the 30+ hour RPGs and Sandbox games at the full $60, less people are going to buy those games, and it'll only encourage the likes of Call Of Duty to make short 3-4 hour campaigns, a couple of maps for multiplayer and throw it into the shops as an episodic game, (that said they're not far from doing that already).

Achievements and trophies are something I personally ignore. They're nothing more than skinner box game lengthening techniques anyway. I did the whole "complete Final Fantasy using only Red Mages" thing before, and I didn't do it because there was an achievement, I did it because it was fun. I've played multiple Nuzlocke runs of Pokémon games, again because it's fun to add restrictions sometimes. This is how I see achievements and trophies (which are really just Sony me-too-ing the achievements idea), an artificial attempt to force player restrictions and added challenges onto games that don't deserve them.

Veknoid_Outcast said: TornadoCreator, I am so impressed by your threads. Really thoughtful and substantive And I agree. Like soulfly, I'm concerned primarily with quality. I don't mind that Super Mario Bros. 3 can be finished in an afternoon or Ico completed over a weekend. If a game only needs 4 or 8 hours that's what it should get.

Thanks guys, it's nice to know people enjoy my threads. I know I can get a little over-passionate at times... stuck alone in the house all day does that to you I guess, but I do enjoy discussing these things and I'm enjoying the forum atmosphere here.

Selling games for less won't help, but some of the smaller budget games (like the Halo remake) are sold at a discount. Still games like Portal and Journey are a huge success because even though they are short, they are cheap and good. Quality is the main factor in determining how good a game is, not length.

I view achievements/trophies in a similar, yet very different game......I get them for games I love. For instance I'll go and do the Gears of War 1-3 multiplayer achievements (not Judgement) because I love the game, so why not? I really love the PS3 system of giving you a Platinum for all the original achievements. I don't platinum every game I love because some achievements are ridiculous, but I try to do my best.

I still find them annoying because I can love a game and only be 30% complete achievement-wise. Then there could be an easy game where I get all 100%. They don't reflect me as a gamer.

Personally, I love the system on my 3DS the best, I wish others could view it instead of just yourself. 3DS doesn't have achievements, but it does track how many hours you've played a game, how many times you turned it on, and the average play time, and it also ranks them. It would be cool for my friends to see which games I played the most, but 3DS doesn't let you do that

----

Anyway back to your comment, quality is the most important factor. If an RPG is only 10 hours long, yes I'll look down on it, but if it's fun as hell then I'll still buy it, and maybe even get the Platinum (I can always play it more then once). Like I said before the main story should be beatable in <40 hours, if you want to make a game longer, make optional side quests.

I still bought Resident Evil Revelations, despite being short..... :-/

Also as a side note, I don't think the issue in gaming now is how long a game is, but how often an IP is re-used. Takes Tales of ___ as an example, I loved Symphonia, and I love Vesperia, but....do I really want to play Xillia 1 & 2, Graces f, and Zesteria? It's a bit much..... I don't know if I'll ever have time for FFXIII-3, and same goes for the annual Call of Duty games. This is a bigger issue because in the 90's every RPG was so different, it's not like it is now.

That said I've kinda migrated to handheld gaming. PS1 was an amazing console and it's mostly playable on Vita or PSP (so long as you have the original). 3DS games largely feel like SNES era games with HD graphics, which is awesome. Plus a lot of them are built so you can pick them up any time. It's not like say Fallout where I forget what I'm doing if I leave it for 2-3 months.

---

Edit: IP's being over-used isn't a new issue. One reason I never got into Sonic for the Genesis was because there were so many of them. Still now, Sonic has the same issue. I did beat Adventure 1 & 2, and those were quality games, but I can't do the Wii/Genesis sonics.