Are games too long these days?

I think many games are too long because the devs run out of ideas and then the player has to do seemingly endless variations on the "go fetch" theme. RPGs in particular often suffer from this flaw. So it isn't that games in general are too long, it's just that most games don't provide enough story/content to sustain interest for 50+ hours. How many of these epic games did you get towards the end of and were just thinking "are we there yet?" There are definitely exceptions to that, but in general I think that length is too often used as a perception of value rather than real value.

[QUOTE="aransom"]I read it, you were complaining about the story of SPM being too long, because you don't want to have to go through the whole story again. I wish the main quest of SPM was longer, I wish the main quest of Zelda TP was longer, I wish the main quest of MP3 was longer. A game that takes 20 hours to complete the main story is considered normal nowadays, ten years ago, it would be considered short. If they could make a game that took two hours to complete, but you could play it 100 times and it would be different and interesting every time, I'd be all for it, but that's not the way they make games.bob_newman

That's why I'm saying that's how they should make games. That's my whole point here. LoZ:OoT had a lot more replayability in it than TP did. One major complaint about TP was the lack of side quests and such.

I have nothing against games with a long story, as long as they have a quality in which you can just take a break from the main story and go at your own pace. That's all I'm saying.

Also I think Bob was talking about TTYD not SPM. Because TTYD was the 60 hour game. SPM was the 13 hour game.

I think many games are too long because the devs run out of ideas and then the player has to do seemingly endless variations on the "go fetch" theme. RPGs in particular often suffer from this flaw. So it isn't that games in general are too long, it's just that most games don't provide enough story/content to sustain interest for 50+ hours. How many of these epic games did you get towards the end of and were just thinking "are we there yet?" There are definitely exceptions to that, but in general I think that length is too often used as a perception of value rather than real value.

WylFret

Holy Bananas someone else gets it!

The games aren't GOOD enough to be 60 hours long. There's dull spots in the games that most FORCE you to complete that stretch the game to those lengths.

In Mario Galaxy every single stage isn't a winner and Nintendo understands that and they tell you "Just pass it once, pass ti once and we're cool, you're done" and that's it. If you like the level play it over and over and over, it's up to you.

Every single long game is a boring game, that being said every single short game is a boring game. The difference is that in a short game the boring doesn't destroy the experience. A boring stretch in a short game is 20 mins maybe a half hour, in a game sometimes 6 times that length that boring has now expanded to 3 hours.

There's one rule that applies to everything "you cannot please all the people all the time" So why do devs expect us to sit through 40, 50, 60 hours or more while they try?

It's not about having a game that totals 10 hours to finish. It's about having a game that at minimum takes 10-20 hours to finish but if you choose to play out all the side stories you can make the game stretch to 40-60 hours.

Jaysonguy

There doesn't necessarily need to be side stories/quests to stretch a game out. Don't forget about multiplayer components to games as well. Whether it be online multiplayer, co-op, or anything else, multiplayer adds a lot to a game.

Take SSB for example. This game would be over for you in about 30 minutes if you only went through the single-player portion of the game. However, invite some friends over, or go against the computer in the games multiplayer and suddenly you may find yourself playing the game for 30+ hours. That's 29 more hours for you.

More examples of games with great multiplayer are: Mario Kart, Mario Party, Star Wars Battlefront, Call of Duty 4, Rainbow Six, Halo, Kirby Superstar, Battlefield 2, and any other games that didn't come to mind...

Oh, yeah, and props to newman for making such a great topic.