How soon is too soon to give up on a game?

[Stewie Plisken]

Depends. You're justified to quit after five minutes, if you feel the mechanics don't work for you. Overall, 2 hours is more than plenty to get a handle on a game. If a developer hasn't managed to grab your attention by then, it's not your fault.

Which is interesting, because there are exceptions; Final Fantasy XIII being a very good one, which doesn't even get to the meat of the gameplay and has half the mechanics locked away for the first couple of hours of gameplay. But that's still their fault.

 

[CritialGaming]

Last night I gave up and refund Stardew Valley after 35 minutes. I got lost in town on the first day and fell over from exhaustion. Woke up the next day and still had 9 days for my first crop to actually mean anything and I was just like, "FUCK IT! Not for me thank you."

Which was sad because I was really hoping that I would like the game, as I do like mundane games as a casual time sink, but I just couldn't deal with it.

Turned around and bought Salt and Sanctuary instead.