Is 20 hours too short for a game?? I think so.

I mean, if games were a bit longer, it would be better. A lot of good games have about 20 hours or less.

Discuss if you think games should span 30 hours. Or if not, why not.

20 hours is fine for a story orientated game. Though, personally, I rarely buy games over 30 bucks.

@outworld222:

20 hours is more than enough for a single game, stop being cheap go out and buy other games.

20 hours is a lot of time for a game. I personally don't care about game length as long as I enjoyed the experience overall. I always say a sign of satisfaction is wanting more when you're being entertained.

@yukushi:

Shush. Be more nice next time.

I disagree. SOME games benefit from being super long, but I'm a busy man and it's hard for me to finish the real epics. Also, sometimes a story just needs to end... I don't mean it as in "I'm sick of the story", I mean that really good stories need to wrap up in a timely manner to keep the pacing too. TLOU is fantastic, about 20 hours long, and if it dragged for 40 it wouldn't be as strong a game.

As mastermetal said, I just want good pacing and experience. If that happens to work in an 80-hour epic, great. If it's a tight fun experience at 5 hours, that's fine too (although not at $60, but that's a separate debate. Point is indies rock too)

I'm more about the experience of the game instead of some arbitrary time requirement. It depends on the game though. If you're trying for an epic kind of game like Dragon Age: Inquisition then yeah 20 hours might be too short. However if you're going for a fast-paced shooter like Call of Duty then a 20 hour campaign would probably over stay it's welcome.

A game can be as long as it wants, as long as there's gameplay to feed it...

I'm pretty sure I wrote something like that not two weeks ago... I'm fine with 20 hours. I'm fine with 10 or even, yes, 5 hours, so long as the price is relative to the amount of time I'll be sinking into it. Journey, to this day, is one of my favourite games, because I can play it in some 2 hours, and its price was pretty spot-on for what it is. Assassin's Creed II was about 20 hours long, and I don't think it needed to be longer. I spent 86 hours in Skyrim before finally starting to tire of it, and some 55 hours on Final Fantasy VII (My sister spent 120 hours on XII). I finished both Transistor and Bastion in about 6 hours each, and enjoyed them thoroughly.

I seriously could not care less how long a game is so long as it's complete and satisfying. If a game is 4 hours long and I finish it, then I'll just go play another game. If it's 40 hours long and I'm enjoying it, then I'll keep playing. I just want the right asking price. Of all the things to be critical about with recent games, I don't think game length should be so high up on the list.

@outworld222: you can't demand that for every game... Demand quality, not length...

Heck no

If a game pads itself out for 20 hours, then you end up with shit like Alien: Isolation. A 5 hour game extended to be 20 hours for no good reason.

Or The Order 1886.

20 hours is good for length. I wish CoD campaigns were that long. It would justify the $60 price tag a little more.

@The_Last_Ride: Why choose?

For some genres it would just be ridiculous to have 20 hours in the main game.

Who would want a 20 hour shmup?

Besides that, having all games be 20-30 hours or more would undoubtedly compromise quality. Or maybe the hook of a game would get old and tiresome before the end of the game.

There are many reasons for games not to all be that long.

Every hour of gameplay means producing assets that are expensive to make, and studios work on a budget. Which translates to: 8 hours of unique content or 30 of recycled content. Take your pick.

too many games are huge and make you travel for super long so you have the feeling the game is long and all but in reality it is empty.

if you like long game, play rpg otherwise a 10 to 20h is enough. God Of War for 20 or more hour would be bad ...

20 hours too short? Unless you're talking about RPGs I think too many games today are very short such as fps. Back then a fps could last about 10-20 hours but so many today last about 5 hours.

@gamerguru100:

I didn't know people buy cod for the singleplayer. I haven't touched a cod campaign since cod2.

Though, the most I'll pay for cod is $40

It totally depends on the type of game. For games that put a lot of focus on the story, it can be too short--especially if it's an RPG.

For action games, HELL NO.

I disagree. 20 hours is pushing the limit for a game being too long for me.

I'm a busy man and I don't have time to play a bunch of 20 plus hour games. Whenever I hear that a game is really long like 40 hours or so, it makes me lose interest in the game because I don't have the time to invest in a game that long and would rather play multiple shorter games instead.

Plus, I find most games that go past the 20 hour mark have a lot of boring padding added to the game that should have been cut out to improve the pacing.

Hell no, that's a great length for any game that isn't an RPG.

I disagee, it really depends on the game, some games would be horrible if you made them over 20 hours long.

You haven't played CoD 4 or MW2's campaign? You're missing out. CoD isn't all multiplayer, man.

I want a game to be good I don't care how long it is. Most games start wearing out their welcome past the20 hour mark

@gamerguru100:

Oh, now that i think of it, I've played some of cod4 singleplayer, and some of black ops, and 3

But still, i would never dish out the money for a cod game because i want a good singeplayer experience from it. When I'm contemplating my purchase, i only take the multiplayer into consideration, and the singleplayer is a nice add on.

though, the singeplayer is a necessity. Adds nice lore and story and makes multiplayer even more fun because you know what you're doing and why you're doing it. Games with only mutiplayer (titanfall) suck. Lost my interest in that game very quickly because i simply did not care. Whenever i get a kill in aw, i hear kevin spacey telling me what a good job I've done and patting me on the back lol, and overall i feel a lot more immersed.

I wish this topic would stop coming up. It depends on the game. If you have a fantastic open world game like GTA, then sure, 20 hours isn't enough, but take The Order 1886 for example. Some people got so bored by it, they felt six hours was too long.

20 hours is more then enough if it is a good game

20 hours is long enough for a linear game.

It definitely depends on the game but in general 20 hours is a decent length. It's more than enough for a well-paced game to display its virtues and get you hooked without in the end burning you out.

Exactly, well said

It depends on the game.

I'd rather have short and good than long and boring.

Alien Isolation is a good example of a game made worse by being too long. It gets a bit repetitive and some parts feel like they're only there to artificially extend the length of the game. Gone Home is a brilliant game despite only being around 2 hours long, making it longer would ruin the pacing which they managed to get so right.

It all just depends on the game. some games work at ten hours (although bonus modes don't hurt) and others work at seventy hours. I don't think there's a "right" length for a game, but if I'm paying full price, I expect a complete package. As in it's very replayable, has some bonus modes or something to keep me coming back. Yes, I'm referring to The Order here.

Content is more important. Games like Far Cry 4 tend to go for more than 30 hours because of climb that tower, collect this mask and remove this poster. Campaign wise its smaller and could do with some interesting side missions maybe. Over 20 hours in shooter games would be overkill.

More than game hours its about the quality of game. Splinter Cell Blacklist is probably 12 hour long but the game kicks ass. Its bloody brilliant. So i disagree with your point.

Depends on the genre and the pacing of the game. I would't be ok for an rpg game that lasted for only 10 hours for instance and i personally am not ok with action adventure games that lasts for more than 20 hours, most action adventure games are best when they last between 10-20 hours, rpg's should last between 50 - 100 hours. Just my opinion.

Twenty hours is way way too long..... RPGs included...... the sweet is ten hours.

I would like longer games but until developers can do that without padding it then games should not be longer than they need to be.....

I'd choose Heavenly Sword (6 hours) over Resistance: Fall of Man (12 hours). It's about the quality of the time spent in the game. But games that have hours upon hours of great gameplay like MGS4? I think that's better.

There is no way I'm spending 60 bucks for a 12 hour game. Don't care how good it is. I much rather wait for it to run it's course and get a 70% deduction. So, those short games do have a single advantage, as far as I'm concerned,. They tend to go down in price, faster.

Think I spent 12 bucks for MGS4.... Didn't own a PS3 until roughly 4 years ago and the thing broke 14 months after I bought it, too. Ended up fixing it myself for 30 bucks. Bad laser.

The way PS4 is looking.... might hold off a few more years on that one, too. Unless Bloodborne has extremely raving reviews, which I have a feeling that it might. Might end up spending 470 bucks just to play it. But I tend to put 1000's of hours in Soul games.

on my personal experience 10-20 h seem to be the "sweet spot" for games, anything more and it's just full of repetitive tedious tasks, anything less and feels too short.

Not if the game costs $30 or less.

7 hours does it for me quite nicely. Only games I'll clock more than 20 hours on are RPG's or games that have altnerative quests and ways to play, things like RuneScape, Fable. Then again CSS I've got about 52 days on that.

The general consensus, as far as most editorial game sites go, is that it's all about perceived quality rather than sheer duration. It's like modern ethics that valuing quality of life over the preservation of life. 6 great hours are better than 20, 30, or even 100 mediocre and repetitive hours in most cases.

Some games, like Monster Hunter, are designed to be intentionally time consuming. If that's what you want--time consumption--then there is a large availability of similarly grindy stuff. Most of these games happen to be imported which probably says something about the American demographic. I personally can't play grind-based games anymore. I feel the strain of pending real world tasks and cannot enjoy myself.

Depends. When I play games at hardest, most games go past 20 hours. I also don't like leaving survivors. I'll take the time to root out all the bad guys.

20 hours should be the minimum for a game IMO. I think $60 dollars or more for games that or 10 or less hours is crazy. A game that has a lot of unneeded fluff it is the devs fault and not the game length. Many games and developers have shown great games even with shooters that are 20 hours or more. So it is not a game length problem it is some developers are unable to create a game that goes more then a few hours. The funny part is most of the games that are very short are the extremely linear ones, so it is not even like the devs spent all their time making a massive world. The worst are these short games that do not even have any online or just something very small tacked on.

When fps games had a longer campaign they where often not MP oriented like most are today, the reason SP campaigns are short lately is because most people skip it outright and enter MP as soon as they unbox it. BF, COD etc.