Are games getting shorter?

[Vault101]

ok first off

I KNOW ABOUT SKYRIM

yes I ackowledge skyrim as a game is as long as the cutscenes in MSG (or as long as you want it to be) but for what Im trying to say here is that its one game...[/B]

because I know some smartass is just going to go "well I dont know about other games but I'VE been playing skyrim for 100 hours so far and I expect 900 more!! hurr hurr"

anyway theres also FPS which generally are much shorter, weather thats multiplayer or otherwise....

but aside from skyrim and FPS.....do you think theres a general trend. across alot of genres of games being shorter? [/B]

like for example aparently the recent SR3 its a little short..I dont know yet.and personally I cant tell as much as I take a long time to play games (or to put it another way play them in short bursts so it pads out longer)

I guess in the case of SR3 its a sandbox..so theres time there, however persoanlly I find driving around doing random things gets old, especially If I have no story or direction to box me in..if that makes sense

but back on topic...what do you think is a decent length?..do many games actually live up to that length? and what length do you find absolutly pathetic and will completley put you off?

if games are shorter do you think we are getting value for money? do we need to re-define how long we should expect games to be?

 

[endtherapture]

There is a trend of games getting shorter but there are exceptions to the rules.

I liked the length of Half Life 2 as a game - it's perfect, about 20 hours - it felt like a substantial game but it didn't drag on for too long or have repeated bits.

However Mass Effect 2 just felt short for me - as did Mass Effect, I'd come to expect about 55 hours for a Bioware RPG but getting about 10-15 hours out of it was not good enough.

Even the Witcher 2 seems really short - although I realise that there are multiple playthoughs and decisions to make, it still felt like a short game.

I think for FPS game we should have at least 20 hours for the single player, like Half Life 2, with 20 hours being very minimum for an RPG.

 

[theseworlds]

I think games generally are getting shorter. From what I understand, console hardware is pretty outdated now, but people still want better graphics in each game. So more effort is put into making the game look pretty,and thus there is less space for everything else.

I grew up on Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9, and each of those games took me about 80 hours on each play through. That's what I want from a game. I know they were pretty dodgy graphics, and you had to change disks to continue playing, but I didn't mind. The games kept me thoroughly entertained for a bloody long time. The last game to do that for me was Fallout 3. Everything else I generally finish in about 20 hours of less (or lose interest and don't bother finishing).

 

[Tazzy da Devil]

Games are definitely shorter. The most recent games I've played, Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Sonic Generations, have both taken me less than a day to beat.

 

[Smertnik]

I finished the main story in SR3 in about 30h and will most probably play for about 5-10h more until I finish all the activities and such. ~30-40h is a very good number for a SP game, in my opinion.

And no, I don't see games in general getting shorter. Storydriven games have always been in the 10-20h range, RPGs and sandboxes in 30-40h range. At least the stuff I've been playing over the years.

I liked the length of Half Life 2 as a game - it's perfect, about 20 hours - it felt like a substantial game but it didn't drag on for too long or have repeated bits.

However Mass Effect 2 just felt short for me - as did Mass Effect, I'd come to expect about 55 hours for a Bioware RPG but getting about 10-15 hours out of it was not good enough.

I find this quite interesting. Really shows how differently people play games. I, for one, finished HL2 in about 10h, if I remember correctly, while it took me about 25h to complete ME2 (without DLCs).
I don't think I've ever gotten more than 40h on a single playthrough from a BioWare game. And I always complete every side quest.

 

[Durgiun]

A decent length is somewhere between 15 and 20 hours.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Games are getting shorter because people always demand the flashiest graphics, resulting in more time being put into those than in story and gameplay development.

that and the newer gamers are all "wut fuck 10 hour game too long gonna play pong."

 

[Zeema]

yeah i never under stood how a game like FF9 on 4 disks can last me about a month. but a game like assassins creed Brohood i can beat in a week

btw i love FF9

in a way if you play a game like GTA or SR or even DR. the game can go for as long as you want. but most liner games like Singularity and arguably Rage

 

[Xanadu84]

I know that if I say games are getting better, people are going to freak out, so Ill go with this: Games are getting shorter because production values are getting greater. Games cost more to make, its harder to make longer games. Also, its worth noting that Shooters are becoming predominate, and its a lot harder to make a shooter long then, say, an open world game like Skyrim.

 

[krazykidd]

Lol i like how you made skyrim into a genre.

Rpgs are not getting shorter . Darksouls , lost odessey , FF13 , dragon age origins, two worlds 2
3rd person shooters are not getting shorter . Gears of war 2/3 , lost planet 1/2 , mass effect 2 , alan wake (?)
SJRPGs are not getting shorter. Disgaea 3/4 , agrest war/zero
Hack and slash are not getting shorter. castlevania Lord of shadows , god of war 3 , dante inferno , bayonetta
Horror is not getting shorter. Resident evil 4 , resident evil 5( this one is shorter than 4 but they are both significantly longer than the first 3), dead space 1/2 , silent hill homecoming . ( these are to be compared to silent hill 1-4 , resident evil 1-3 , clock tower and games of the like in past gens )

The only games that are getting shorter are the FPS games . And those are the games that sell the most , go figure.

 

[Smertnik]

The only games that are getting shorter are the FPS games .

Even that is questionable. FPS have never been famous for their length.

 

[wooty]

Older rpgs used to last weeks/months which were great, even games like FF7, 8, pokemon still hold attention years after they appeared, so you can feel the value for money.

This is why I also like sports games and multiplayer only games too, always fresh and always something new happening.

 

[llew]

Lol i like how you made skyrim into a genre.

Rpgs are not getting shorter . Darksouls , lost odessey , FF13 , dragon age origins, two worlds 2
3rd person shooters are not getting shorter . Gears of war 2/3 , lost planet 1/2 , mass effect 2 , alan wake (?)
SJRPGs are not getting shorter. Disgaea 3/4 , agrest war/zero
Hack and slash are not getting shorter. castlevania Lord of shadows , god of war 3 , dante inferno , bayonetta
Horror is not getting shorter. Resident evil 4 , resident evil 5( this one is shorter than 4 but they are both significantly longer than the first 3), dead space 1/2 , silent hill homecoming . ( these are to be compared to silent hill 1-4 , resident evil 1-3 , clock tower and games of the like in past gens )

The only games that are getting shorter are the FPS games . And those are the games that sell the most , go figure.

i like this man... he makes a very good point... the only games getting shorter are FPSes and thats because all the time gets spent on the multiplayer instead of the campaign

 

[Vault101]

Lol i like how you made skyrim into a genre.

.

I just wanted to avoid everyone pointing out skryim because Im friggen sick of hearing about it, plus one game alone does not prove/disprove a trend

I finished the main story in SR3 in about 30h and will most probably play for about 5-10h more until I finish all the activities and such. ~30-40h is a very good number for a SP game, in my opinion.

And no, I don't see games in general getting shorter. Storydriven games have always been in the 10-20h range, RPGs and sandboxes in 30-40h range. At least the stuff I've been playing over the years.

I liked the length of Half Life 2 as a game - it's perfect, about 20 hours - it felt like a substantial game but it didn't drag on for too long or have repeated bits.

However Mass Effect 2 just felt short for me - as did Mass Effect, I'd come to expect about 55 hours for a Bioware RPG but getting about 10-15 hours out of it was not good enough.

I find this quite interesting. Really shows how differently people play games. I, for one, finished HL2 in about 10h, if I remember correctly, while it took me about 25h to complete ME2 (without DLCs).
I don't think I've ever gotten more than 40h on a single playthrough from a BioWare game. And I always complete every side quest.

interesting...I mean ive heard of some people completing games that are suposed to be like 20+ hours within a few days (or just one) so this is kind of a hard thing to measure...I really wish PS3 actually kept track of how many hours so I could measure this personally

I know steam does..but its a bit inacurite I think

 

[Strain42]

Your average JRPG can still last anywhere between 50-80 hours, but let's be honest, a majority of that is spent grinding. If you took the actual just story of an RPG it'd be over much faster.

So...are games getting shorter? I don't know if I'd say yes, because it's such a varied market with different genres lasting different lengths.

But I totally see where the thought process is coming from.

For some reason I'm reminded of a quote from the Bleep Bloop: Game of the Year episode they did for Angry Birds

"My favorite console game of the year was probably Red Dead Redemption. Which I spent $60 on. I love the game. Spent probably about 20 hours playing it. Angry Birds I spent one dollar one. I probably logged somewhere...I wouldn't even know how to estimate it...probably 75-80 hours on it. So just purely on a value level, Angry Birds was 2000 times better than Red Dead Redemption."

 

[MetalDooley]

Nope.There has always been short games.I started gaming back in the NES era and loads of games back then were no more than a few hours long at most but they were often absurdly hard to compensate for the lack of length

Perhaps it's that,for various reasons,games are getting easier(which I honestly have no problem with)so the lack of length is more noticable

 

[darth.pixie]

I think longer games are more expensive to make. Developers want their content to be seen and will not invest money in VO, models and textures that only 10/15% of players will see. Making a game is more expensive now than it was when there was only text and pixels thus no one is willing to invest in too much optional/flavour content. Main plots are affected because what would have been a slow introduction over two or three areas is reduced to one.

Imagine BG2 if you will, as you would a modern game. It would be huge.