Poll: What's your ideal game length?

[Silvanus]

I voted 31-40. I think that encompasses the time I spent on Okami, FF7 + 8, a few others. Good length for an RPG.

EDIT: Well, seems I woefully underestimated the amount of time I spent on FF7 + 8, having now checked. 42 hours on 7, and 59 on 8. Disregard my vote, then.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I voted 10-20, because all my favorite story driven games of late have been in that bracket. Of course RPGs are a book of their own, since it's expected of them to have dozens of hours worth of gameplay. I'd love if a story driven game like The Last of Us (linear action game with no sidequests, party building, equipment management etc.) could sustain itself for dozens of hours, but I prefer a concise, tight package to hours of padding.

I'd say: story driven games 10-20, for gameplay driven games there's no upper limit. I've sunk hundreds of hours into the Borderlands and Dark Souls series both, and neither of them are what you'd call story driven.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

It aughta be like a skirt. Long enough to cover the important bits, but short enough to keep things interesting.

Yeah, it's vague, but all in all, it's just an opinion.

 

[CaitSeith]

It depends. My motto is: length isn't important; it's how they use it what matters. A long game filled with repetitive tasks, padding, QTEs and long cinematics; falls short in my preference rate than a game like Portal. It isn't that I don't enjoy long games. Fallout 3 gave me lots of entertainment, and completing the Mass Effect trilogy twice was totally worth it (specially as a Vangard in ME3). Personally I enjoy great short games more than good long ones.

 

[Dalisclock]

This is one of those complicated questions to answer.

The ideal game length, IMHO, is tied to content and pacing. If a game ends and I feel like half the script ended up getting lost at some point *CoughIndigoProphecyCough*, the game is too short. If a game ends about 5 hours after I stopped caring about it or after it ran out of plot, the game is too long.

However, different game types do tend to have different sustainable lengths. Sandbox games can go for a long time because the plot is usually only a small part of those and the rest is doing what you want. RPGs can go for 20-50 hours due to the amount of time it takes to build your character and explore the sidequests. Action games and shooters, however, rarely seem to sustain more then 10 hours of playtime. Adventure games also tend to be on the short side, because the speed at which you finish them depends a lot of how long it takes you to solve the puzzles.

And there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want to add 10 hours onto to Uncharted if it means 10 hours of padding(And Uncharted 3 already pulled that crap with the Pirate ship, which was bad enough). A 40 hour adventure game would probably be murder to finish. A Skyrim type RPG where you run out of things to do and reach the ending in 10 hours would also be unacceptable.

For me(and surely others out there), gameplay length matters for another reason. If you have a job, a family, other hobbies, etc, or maybe you just have a massive steam/gog backlog, then you really don't have the time for every game to be 20 hours long. Sometimes a 4 hour game is just perfect. Something you can play through and enjoy over the weekend and move onto something else. I've actually been playing a lot of shorter games lately because that's more games I can scratch off my backlog list and make it feel more manageable. Then every so often I'll play a longer one, like a final fantasy game.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Another vote for "it depends."

In Dark Souls II, I have at least 10 characters that I have played through the game as for at least 20 hours each. It would be more if I were a little more dedicated to the PvP on there. I suppose strictly speaking, replayability shouldn't be a factor.

For sandboxy games, anything 10 hours and counting would be fine. For those you can typically make the game as long as you want, really. I have yet to "finish" my 40-something hour playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas... and I'm not sure I quite want to "finish" it.

 

[Poetic Nova]

If it has a good story, I don't mind length. If the story is an afterthought or when its a sandbox then I hope to have atleast a 20 hour run, but prefer atleast 50.

 

[chadachada123]

I prefer my games being at least 20 hours for a full-priced title. Depending on the series, upwards of 50 or more is the more "perfect" range, barring exceptions.

 

[halisme]

A story should be as long as it needs to be. The world it is set in should give preferably around twenty hours.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

As long as the game play remains challenging and compelling, there is no length that is too long, If suikoden 2 lasted another 50 hours because there was conflict with harmonia, i would be ecstatic.

Can you think of a hypothetical zelda game where you would say "this is way too many dungeons"?

 

[Scarim Coral]

On average as in missing some side quest/ filler/ whatever it is to prolong the game, 24-30 hours. This is what I usually notice when playing games with a story. Other than it can be as long as it want if it continue to be fun to play.

 

[Overusedname]

It depends on the genre. Different expectations for different games. I think a big rpg should have a nice 40-50 hour story, maybe a little less. That goes for both Western and Jrpgs, anymore and it tends to drag itself thin. Most stories just don't have that much substance. Big exceptions are most of the Tales games and Xenoblade Chronicles, which are really long but stay interesting from start to finish.

Shooters and action games? I like 12-20 or so. Metroid Prime games have an ideal length and never waste time by repeating a bunch of ideas. Budget games can be short as they want. Games like FTL being like 2-3 hours each playthrough never bothered me because of the replay value.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

It varies, a narratively heavy action game to me, is good for between 10-14 hours, after which it might begin to grind.

A good rpg in terms of length usually gets compared against Mass Effect 2 in my case. That lasts about 24 or so hours, and I think that's a good length without getting repetitive.

Then again, Persona 4 lasted upwards of 80 hours and the story, characters and gameplay remained fresh enough so that I was never bored.

But that's about as specific as I'll get before tossing in the usual, "it doesn't matter, pacing is more important".

 

[Tilly]

Depends on the genre and quality of the game.

The core gameplay mechanics usually have a kind of inherent shelf life for optimum use. Zelda games, which I completely love, are usually about 1 dungeon too long for me. Whereas a good JRPG can pretty much go as long as the story can maintain itself. When Xenoblade Chronicles was coming to a close, at 150 hours of gametime, I didn't really want it to end.

 

[Danny Dowling]

Went for 21-30, but I think the ideal is 28-32 ish.

Enough to know there's content and things to really explore, not too long to get mundane and boring.

This at least works well for sandbox games.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

For big AAA games I say the story, cut scenes and dialogue and plot-critical levels and bosses, should be between 10 and 20 hours. After that, pile on as many hours of optional cutscenes, sidequests, sandboxes, Easter Eggs, bonus levels and secret zones as you want as long as they're good. Mass Effect 2 got this done really well. The main plot took about 13 hours just rushing through, but there was another 13 hours of optional content and DLC that I wanted to do because it was fun and had an effect on the main game. Games developed by smaller or indie studios don't count, as they're much smaller.

 

[SmugFrog]

Depends. A good story-driven game can be anywhere between 5 and 25 hours long. But I like my sandboxes to be worth hundreds.

This, a hundred times over. I was torn between selecting about 20-30 hours for a story type game, but really; some games just become a slog at some point where I'm just not even paying attention to the story anymore and I'm just trying to finish the damn thing (Ninja Gaiden 2 was the last game that pissed me off with this). Dragon Age 2 did this a bit with the slog through reused caves/areas.

I mean honestly how many times have you been playing a story-linear game and something happens or some inane story twist and you're all "OH GOD DAMMIT! How many more levels are there!" (Ninja Gaiden 2... remember this boss? Fight him again!)

Sandbox experiences or games that offer a story combined with the sandbox should have tons of replay value to them, IMO. I look for a game that, for the money, will provide a long entertainment experience.

 

[Fijiman]

If I can finish it and do just about everything without getting extremely bored/sick of it then it's good enough for me. The only exception to that is Bethesda games due to how much there is to do.