I guess the hours of cursing, crying and breaking controllers until finally completing Revenge of Shinobi (it has two endings) aren't included

There is a big IF in all of this.

IF the game is fun to play. And by this i mean it has to be a fast paced, action packed game.

A game like MGS having 2 hours of gameplay is BAD for example. A stealth game is very slow paced. That measns those 2 hours are actually little more than a couple of areas and cut-scenes.

Now a game for example like DmC. Insanely fun to play. If you skip the cutscenes im sure the game doesnt last much more than 4 hours. Short but sweet. You will keep replaying it for fun alone or for just unlocking all those skills and make your character a badass.

So, short duration definitly doesnt have to be a problem. But, it has to be an extremely fun and well made game.
This was easy to achieve in the days of 2D responsive gameplay, but nowadays its more complicated with the widespread of 3D.

With that said, i wouldnt be able to live without RPG's. They are the bread of gaming. These short insanely fun and repetitive experiences can be considered the butter.

DmC is actually close to 9 hours long, but admittedly it doesn't feel like it because it's pumped up action.

I can see what you mean about the genre, it being a stealth game, and particularly it being Metal Gear Solid, renown for it's cutscenes, (one in MGS4, I believe is actually an hour long... I hope you can pause them). The thing is, 2 hours for straight story, 4-5 hours if you explore and do everything in the game... that sounds pretty good length wise for me. It's something I could get and finish in a weekend and it won't grow stale.

So far I've started and failed to finish; Darksiders, InFamous, Alice: Madness Returns, Spec Ops: The Line, Demon's Souls, Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow, Rayman Origin, Dante's Inferno, Brütal Legend, and Vanquish... all within the last 12 months. Some of these games are less than 10 hours long and yet I've still not finished them. I don't know why but I get easily distracted especially with my health issues, once I stop playing all it takes is for a couple of days pass and when I finally get a chance to go back to the games I don't want to carry on. I lose my investment in the story, my skill in gameplay seems to drop off, and as a result I lose interest and instead end up playing something else. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is a game I may actually finish.

Actually you can, speedruns...

On topic, I don't share your vision about the length. I actually enjoy more the long games. Especially when you involve with the atmosphere and characters. Is most an experience than a game! Although that doesn't mean I don't like short games, I actually love them (games like Sonic or DKC are one of my favorites)... I guess I'm still too young and I have enough time to get everything!

True, with speedruns that time is possible but a normal playthrough could go upwards to 30 hours!

I enjoy long games too but I found that they become really hard to beat once you have a job (and it's even worse if you study too). That doesn't mean you can't play them but you have to organize your time and spend less money on games. Nowdays I only buy the games I know I will be playing, I can't afford to buy a game that I won't be playing in the end .

Awesomeness from start to finish even if it was short.

Times change. Now consumers want more for less. This includes games like Vanquish and alike. A game with a single player campaign only which only lasts 5 hours is seen as poor no matter how good the game is. Yet the PS1 era if that happened, people wouldn't think much of it.

Devil Dice would not get a full £40 disc release now. Omega Boost would have a save feature or retry, not just lives.

Yet fighting games haven't changed...

That's a good point, but the contrary can also be said. If every movie were 3.5 hours long and fun, why would you want to see a movie that's only 2 hours long? And that's what happens with games, if the competition makes the same games but longer, the other publishers counterattack doing the same thing.

Now, if the games have the same quality, then this is perfect for us as we get more game, experiences, etc for the same money. The problem is when that extra time is because of boring side-quests that do more harm than good, or even worse, when they add side-quests that make the main game look boring and unappealing.

Personally, I don't want +100 hours games as I get bored long before that, but I don't want 4h games either as I feel ripped off.

Rage has been one of the latest games to make me feel that way, it ends way too soon and too abruptly leaving (at least me) with a bad taste in your mouth. And yet, a game like Renegade Ops has given me many more hours of pure fun thanks to its replayability and different characters/vehicles. But of course, each genres deals with replayability and duration on its own way.

I played perhaps 1000 hours on starcraft 1 or 100 hours on a GTA a long time ago. That's the kind of player I used to be.

I'm now 34 years old, and I'm good with around 15 hours of playtime (including a few retries on fails) for a good game.

4 hours is still really too short for me at this point, both in term of value (short games are not so much inexpensive) and pleasure. 4 hours dont give me any sense of progression in term of gameplay, story, art, I feel that's a waste of time. For most games 30 hours is way too long, I would got bored or leave in the middle because I don't have time. IMO only a very few games could be soooo good I could play them for such a long time.

For megadrive game length I think it was a totally different concept without save and as a not so skilled kid for whom everything was just fresh and good. I was not even aware games were so short. I was just thinking about how much I played, and enjoyed the game for 30 to 50 hours, sometimes for months. Back to the day, I didn't care trying again and again doing the exact same level with an extremely limited set of actions (sonic 1 use mostly left-right-jump buttons). Now even with 100 times more play value I could not stand playing so much.

Your times are off for many of those older games, such as FF, which could take 20-60 hours to complete. I liked picking up Xenoblade for a few hours each day for a couple months, and then moving on to something new. I also like titles with multiplayer like COD that I can get a lot of value out of. I'll mix in an indie title or two here and there.

But on topic, as an adult with less time I actually prefer a few longer in-depth experiences to many different ones.