What do you think is the ideal length for a video game?
| What is your ideal length for a video game? For me it's about 60 hours, 60 hours is enough to tell a great story while having enough gameplay whither it be through meaningful extra quests (not pointless fetch quests), just the main story or preferably both, however I frown on artificial longevity like what The Legend of Legacy had with it being way too grind heavy due to it's unforgiving difficulty. I also like a New Game+ for more replay value in games especially RPGs. |
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| Action-based games 6-15 hours. There are some exceptions though but that's an ideal length. I do expect at least 25+ hours worth of gameplay for a 100% playthrough. Visual Novels, 20-30 hours. MMOs 500+ hours worth of gameplay at the least. RPGs in general 40-80 hours worth of gameplay with story mode/dialogue/cutscenes proportional to game length. Fighting Games, at least 30 minutes to one hour in saaaaay a campaign mode, with at least 25+ hours of replay value. |
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| 40+ |
| Overall I'd probably say 30 hours with effective lure of replayability to up to 100+ Either way this ideal length has to be able to be enjoyable throughout without making you lose interest, the moment it becomes a chore to slog through, it's either too long or just took a very wrong turn somewhere (looking at you Bravely Default). Genre specifics, I guess at the very least 100 for proper grand strategy and some 20-30 to experience what the game has to offer in a small scale tactic RTS like C&C, Warcraft etc. The latter does of course necessitate a compelling multiplayer. 60-100 for RPGs, or more assuming it's not shitty padding with grinding or dumb fetch-quests. 15-20 for a FPS assuming there is a decent multiplayer, 30-50 if not. For VNs I'd want to squeeze out about 10 hours at the very least, but depending on price and quality of writing and/or "other" features, I could be satisfied with lower. Basically, I can finish a 400 pages book in about 6-10 hours of non stop reading, and that usually cost me about 100-200, so I'm going to expect a VN to deliver about the same ratio of money to time in comparison. With action games like platformers or hack n slash, I usually assume 10 hours as a basic requirement. Obviously I'm not always placated there, but naturally, the more fun and replayable it is, the more forgiving I'll be for brevity. For all kinds of cheap indie shit like Tower Defense, Rouge-lites and other games that aren't really supposed to be "finished", I'll just be glad for some 5 hours at least. But I find when you have over 1000 games on your backlog you can't be that picky. |
| Horror games and any games relying on some major 'twist' should generally have a playtime of a few hours at most. You can only keep tension up for so long and generally horror games are scarier the less control you have over the situation. Generally the runtime should depend on the complexity of the gameplay and the plot should account for that. If the gameplay has a lot of depth, you can afford to have a much longer game, and vice versa. |
| Now you're wondering if there's white text in any of my other posts. Over there, I'm everywhere. I know that. |
| The longer the better. Well when it comes to RPGs at least. |
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| Depends on the genre. I mostly play RPG so above 40 hours of gameplay is ideal. For fps/tps, about 8-10 hours is good. I can't imagine playing CoD/Battlefield campaign for 40 hours lol. |
| JRPGs - About 30-40 hours should be enough for the main story, completion should take about 60-100 hrs. This does not mean every JRPG, tho (Lol Disgaea) Most western games - About 20-30 hours of main story, with 50-60 hours of actual completion. MMORPGs - Any time, anytime. I would prefer longer tho, like maybe 100+ hours would be enough. Fighting games - See MMORPG. Overall, I would prefer 40+ hours of gameplay for the main story, for completion about 80-100 hours. |
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| Linear games: 10-13 hours, God of War 2 is the most perfectly paced for me. Sandbox games: Never-ending, or still never ages for a while. Didn't like Skyrim at first, surprisingly grew on me and now still playing it occasionally (still never married, became Werewolf, finished pro-Imperial, finished Companion's quest, etc) FF12 too. GTA5 was horrible for that. |
| End Zionazism |
| Depends entirely on the genre. If it's an MMO then you're really going to be expecting 100+ hours by default. If it's an FPS then more like 10-20 if it's single player, perhaps double that if it's multiplayer. If it's a visual novel then.. well just about all the best ones are like 50-80 hours so something like that. Not that you can really generalize even within a genre but yeah. Long enough to be able to tell its story and show off all of its elements, but without getting dragged out or repetitive. |
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| 3 - +500h~ |
| Follow sui-u on tumblr~ best tumblr all time!~ <3 http://sui-u.tumblr.com/ |
| It depends on the type of game, though I'd say Skyrim really did a great job when it came to length. If you wanted to, you could conceivably finish the main storyline in 10 hours or so, but outside of that you had 100s of hours of gameplay left that was completely optional. |
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| rpg/story games should be 50+ hours with different routes/possible outcomes/scenarios/whatever well mosts users have it figured out here |
lots of music -  |
| 50 hours standard story with alternate endings, sidequests, secret bosses rounding it up to an even 60. |
| Depends. Sports and the like (fighting, etc.) don't necessarily have a time limit, but if I end up quitting after a couple of games, then it's a failure. Should at least be able to entertain me for around 20 hrs or so. For RPG, just for the story playthrough (no grinding, side quests, etc) 60+ hours minimum. For sandbox/open-world games like GTA, at least 30+ hours on the story portion alone. For games like Dishonored, which aren't as open-world, I expect at least a good 20-25+ hours. For visual novels, not that I've got much experience with them, but a good 20+ hours on each route would be good enough, I guess? |
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| No preference. Some games are better told in two hours while others are better told in fifty. I do wish games would stop artificially increasing their length with tedious crap, though; that's why I dropped Dragon Age Inquisition. |
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| Naturally, it depends on the type of game and can vary widely, and unless it's a completely non-linear experience (e.g., strategy a la Civ or sandbox a la Minecraft) with a focus on replay value (and even those must rely on strong gameplay mechanics to keep one playing for so long), there are so many other factors that contribute more to one's enjoyment -- length really doesn't matter all that much. I will admit however to being hesitant to pay more for a linear adventure than for a non-linear rpg, so this post is a wee bit contradictory, heh. |
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