Game Duration: Is bigger, Better

[QuidProQuo]

It really depends on many, many things. Surely you can sit through the most lengthy piece of work ever created and have an aneurysm while doing so if the substance isn't up to par. And yes, a very short piece like Portal can keep you referencing the witty dialogue, plain fun mechanics, and so on... for years.

However, keep both length and life in a game, you've truly got something special. On a sadder note, it's my depressing opinion that the game industry is somewhat leaning towards music, releasing piece after piece and leak out as much material as possible, however bland and unsatisfying, just to bring in as much loot that they can get out of the poor-tasting masses.

In short, quality is quite better than quantity, in my opinion.

 

[yami0333]

Now that games are around 60(American) I think I should at least get 8 hours out of it (Star Wars, TFU: 2 I'm looking at your 4 hours of "gameplay").

 

[GeorgW]

No. There's a reason I spend a hell of a lot more time at flash games than console games.

 

[Vault101]

simple for me 6 hours is simply not worth $80

 

[dWintermut3]

to me more CONTENT is always better.

Note that the same level run twice is not more content, that's gameplay-padding puffery. Same for a dozen more copy-pasted rooms.

Same thing with tinting an enemy blue instead of red and making me fight him again, more gameplay, not more content.

Games can have epic play-times if they make you do tedious BS over and over again (I'm looking at you JRPGs with your random encounter system and huge overworlds). But fighting triffid #18,902 because you need to gain 2 levels to be able to use the spell you need to kill the next boss... not more content.

So yes and no, gameplay is not the end arbiter, but having large amounts of CONTENT often leads to large amounts of gameplay. A game like Oblivion or Fallout 3 has massive play-time potential *because* the world is so huge and so full of stuff.

 

[repeating integers]

Short good game > long bad game.
Long good game > Short good game.

Can't put it any simpler then that.

This, basically.

On the other hand, making a brilliant long game (that isn't an RPG) without padding it out to hell and back with filler is hard.

So you get two contrasting kinds of campaign in shooters (for example): the Halo/CoD kind, which are very focused and very fun (assuming you like the gameplay/story), but also very short. Then you get the Half-Life kind, which is long and mostly enjoyable, but where some of the levels feel unnecessary.

So basically: If a game is long, "naturally" so, then it probably is better for it. But if it feels like it should be short and was just padded out to make it last longer, then I'd probably prefer it if it was 6-10 hours.

 

[Imbechile]

No, no, no and no!
My example would be Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind was big, but it all was handcrafted and had variety. Oblivion's world was bigger, mostly handcrafted, but everything looked the same.
Or an more drastic example Daggerfall. It's HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE, but it's completely random generated.
In short Quality >>>>>>>>> Quantity always!