Poll: How Long Should Games Be?

About 6 ft 3".
Dunno what that is in metric.

As long as the quality is there, i’m invested, and it respects my time then I honestly don’t care about game length.

10 to 20 hours is enough for me (for a story driven game)

Depends on the game. For indie games, I'd say about 10 hours. For something like Uncharted, around 15-20, and for a big open world RPG 40 or more is fine if it's interesting.

@pushL7 This!

Really depends on genre. If it’s a linear story-driven game I’d say 10-20. If it’s open world or more open ended I’d say 20-30 or longer for main quest + major side quests.

I don't have a good answer to this.

Depends on the game.

Games like Uncharted? 15-20 hours is good for the single player. It's more liner and has the scope of a couple locations to explore. Add a good co-op multiplayer mode like the 2nd and 3rd had... that adds hundreds of hours of play time.

Games like Mass Effect? Probably the 20-30 hour range would be more fitting. This is due to the scope and universe created. It's huge. There's lots to go over. Add in a fun co-op multiplayer like the 3rd had... and it adds hundreds of hours.

Games like Assasisn's Creed... 15 hours is plenty. Ubisoft... stop bloating the hell out of your games.

Depends upon the game. 20-30 hrs is an ideal point, with maybe sidequests doubling that.

Having said that, there is nothing wrong with having a 4-8 hour game, if the experience is good enough. A few indy games fit that bill perfectly.

Also, AC Valhalla never felt like a slog, even though it took me 120hrs, same with the Witcher 3.

It depends what kind of experience the developer is going for. Sometimes stories really do justify taking near odd 100 hours to complete (Red Dead 2, for example), taking time to establish character growth that just cannot be accomplished in the time it takes to complete an Uncharted game, for instance.

Just long enough to not get tedious and overstay it’s welcome.

I would say 20 hours is the sweet spot. Don't mind 20-30. More than that and it becomes repetitive most of the time!
Don't mind at all 10-20 hours if the game is good! In fact almost all the games with a better story have a shorter playtime

I reckon splitting by genre or something could give high quality insights. Also maybe splitting by main story, side content/platinum trophy as I wasn't quite sure what game length is referring to here.

10-20 or less, depending on the game. Anything more than that and there's a big chance that I won't finish it.

There are exceptions, of course, but in general that's how I feel nowadays. Can't put too many hours into gaming anymore (and long games become boring eventually).

Also, I agree with @Uncharted2007 - Assassin's Creed doesn't need hundreds of hours of side content and traversing the map, keep it focused Ubisoft!

20-30hrs minimum for me. I'd be even happier if I love the game and it's 40hrs+ also.

So long that it doesn't get boring. If there is enough to do the game can be 100h long and I wouldn't mind but I don't like if it is 100h long but after the first 10h u just keep repeating the same stuff over and over again (aka almost every Ubisoft game)

Its a difficult one to answer in all honesty and depends totally on the game.

Some 40 hour + games that have an engrossing story are great and you almost wish they don't end.

Some run out of interesting things to say and outstay their welcome after 10-20 hours and try to keep things going with needless padding.

It really depends on the game as some linear games really do feel like they start to drag after a while. When it's open world and there's a load of side quests then I'm good if it takes a bit longer to do all those things, but then I do like side quests whereas I know some don't. Generally though I don't want a game to last too long as there's just so many games to play and not enough time.

@Jacko11 So much YES.

Depends on the genre and the quality of the game but I’d say now that I’m older, I prefer my games to be between 10-25 hours. A little over is fine, but when games require like 50+ hours just to beat the main story I get pretty turned off and shift it further down my backlog lol.

The better the game is the longer it should be…played multiple JRPGs for close to 300hrs. Length doesn’t assist or hinder quality in and of itself.

Personally I think 20 - 30 is about right (you wouldn't be paying £70 for an indie), as others have said as long as I am having fun the game can be as long as it needs to be.
For example I recently platinumed GotG and could not tell you how long it took, maybe 25 - 30 hours but could be more I don't know and don't care as I enjoyed every minute.

Am I the only one who pays absolutely no attention to the amount of hours it takes me to complete a game?

I like the chapter about $60 for 60 hour RPGs, that's my family, but then that survey? 🤷

So much talk about the length of games and so much talk about whether games should be $70 or $60 but not so much discussion combining the two. The nice thing about the $60 for a 60 hour JRPG thought process is the $1/hr average. Now while I don't think a shortish game like Uncharted Lost Legacy should only be $8 there are some games that release for $60 that really don't seem like they should be $60. Pokemon Snap! and Monster Hunter Rise released about the same time on Switch for $60 each. Snap is a 10 hour on rails photo mode, MHR has basically a 30 hour tutorial before to get to the meat of the game. If Snap doesn't have Pokemon in it it's a $20 download.🤑

Moral of the story, games should have varying lengths and varying prices. Prices should not be based on hours played but it's kind of disingenuous to think there isn't at least a passing correlation in a lot of peoples minds. The $1/hr ratio may have died to inflation but my wallet still tops about about $3/hr. And yes, I'm aware of the obvious "but 2 hour movies cost $12" argument, but I never pay more than $6 for a 2 hour movie either.

What a stupid question

Although it's somewhat telling that PushSquare's poll gives out at the 40 hour mark and labels everything more than that simply "more than 40 hours". I'd say 40 hours is probably a good maximum length for a game's story content, but even then there are exceptions

I can really enjoy a 5 hour game
I can really enjoy a 10 hour game
I can even really enjoy a 40 hour game
I can even enjoy games that go on longer than this

What really makes some games more enjoyable than others isn't that they've hit some magic sweet spot for game length, it's that they actually do a good job of being interesting for the whole length of the game (although they don't necessarily have to get this perfect)

What I absolutely hate is games that are artifically long, sending you mindlessly scrambling around an icon riddled map looking for levelled loot. I mean collectables are tedious enough but they're just about bearable because you know you're collecting all of them. Many games now have you scrambling around simply finding things that you're only going to sell. Which wouldn't be so bad except you can sink tens of hours finding this rubbish, it's just lazy on the dev's part.

It really depends on the type of game. But I'll go with 40+ hours since games are crazy expensive here.

It can be 6 hours, it can be 100s of hours. As long as I'm enjoying myself playing it I couldn't care less how short or long it is generally.

Depends on the game but if we're talking AAA games than 30-40 hours but can be shorter or longer depending on how many side quests you do or collectibles you look for, or how many times you die!

Playing TLoU 2 at present, God of War recently. I'd hate for either game to be done within 20 hours. Would feel like such a waste of effort on the part of the developers.

Open world games have to be at least 60 hours long to be worthwhile with the very best (RDR2 and The Witcher 3) being closer to 100 hours at least.

Some want to play as many games as possible within as short a timeframe as possible. Can't be missing out on what's Hot and In!

I'm not one of those, happy to take my time with a game especially one that I really enjoy.

Indie games don't need to be that long, ideal length 10-15 hours.

We live in the FOMO Age though, some just gotta keep up with what's trending even if what is turns out to be rubbish.

😛

I'm the 1%. 5 hours tops is perfect. Rather have a great gameplay experience than padding, fetch quests, long winded storylines.

@lolwhatno yeah i'll go with this..i'll also add it depends on the individual.. some people just dont have the time to be able to play a lot so a 10-15 hour game might take somebody a weekend to get through whereas somebody else might take a month because of work,familys etc...

@PSXDave 5 hours for a big AAA game?

Sorry man, but what's the frigging point in that?!

20-30 seems like a sweetspot for most games. Around 50-60 for RPGS

@PSXDave if i'd just shelled out £70 for a AAA game that lasts 5 hours i'd be mighty unhappy...5 hours? Wtf?

As long as the game needs to be.

In my eyes there's a ton of different factors that go into what makes a game "the perfect length" hours wise.

I think 15-30 is a really good sweet spot for most genres, with something like 40-50 for RPGs and JRPGs.

I stuck 160 hours into Witcher 3 and it's expansions and loved every hour of it. 120 into Persona 5 and I loved every hour of it.
Kena took me around 12 hours to beat and while I really liked the game, the gameplay loop was beginning to get stale in the last hour or so.
I'm currently playing Death Stranding Director's Cut, I'm 20 hours in, still on Chapter 3 and I'm having a ton of fun.

7-10 hours with no replay value so you don't miss any of our releases at £70 a pop, Lol. Obviously this comes from a place of entitlement as there are thousands of games on the market all ranging from different times it to complete. The idea games have to have a certain time frame to suit you ridiculous, just don't buy it & buy a game with X amount of hours. If the next Spiderman is over 45 mins long, well it's just not respecting MY time.

Not sure what the question means. For what sort of game?

Should FFXIV be 10 hours? Should R&C Rift be 74 hours? It's a question that's impossible to quantify.

I’d argue as long as they need to be , I’ve played games that you can finish in an hour that were pants and overstayed their welcome and vice Versa - this measurement shouldnt be applied to 100% max completion rather but rather main quest

Its not just how much you spend, but also what kind of game is it? Open world games should be 40+ but story focus doesn't necessarily have to be very long.

I generally don't often find myself complaining about a game's length, most that I play seem not to outstay their welcome.

I get that some people don't have as much time as others but rather than expect the developers to compromise their vision, maybe they should do their own homework and be more selective in what they choose to play. There's enough variety out there to suit all tastes.

Linear games I’m fine with 20-40 hours GotG for example. Big open world rpg I’m happy with 100’s as long as it warrants it such as Witcher 3 RDR2 as examples.

A lot of games that can take 100’s of hours to complete are only that way because it gives people who love the game more activities to fill their time, but are in no way Mandatory to complete the story ie last 3 AC games for example. Those stories can be completed well within 60 hours, but those who enjoy them can sink 100’s of hours into them seeing and collecting everything.

Linear single player games up to 30 hours ideal for me.

TLoU 2 with 24 hours was perfect. FF7R with 34 hours was too long and I just didnt care for the ending, just wanted to finish it asap after 30hrs in.

Open world games probably more.

Online games that's another story. I try not to play them as it is a waste of time when you can spend days and nights playing. I really enjoyed and was getting into Knockout City but decided to delete it as it was taking too much of my time. That's why I prefer games with an end.

If a game is good and you're enjoying it then the length of it shouldn't matter.

As long as the main story lasts over 736.5 hours, I’m fine with buying it.

Does replayability factor in for you folks? I just played RE3 remake for the… sixth time? That clocked around 20 hours and was satisfying to me. RE2 Remake even more so, given the Game B options for Leon and Claire, I easily have 40 hours in that one. I can’t get enough.

As for games in general, the sweet spot is 15-20 hours if you exclude open world titles. So if you asked me about Rift Apart or Metroid Dread from last year, I’d tell you too short. Even factoring replayability - they both me took me 20 hours to 100% on the hardest difficulty and I don’t see the need for return.

I suppose I can’t shake the notion of not going through a game again. I don’t play a game, get my “10 - 20 hours” and move onto something else forgetting the game. I want to connect with the experience, and that often means replaying and better understanding the story. Bloodborne comes to mind.

I could ramble endlessly about it, but being able to enjoy a game with variation through multiple plays is crucial to me.

Impossible to answer definitively. It's all relative.

I play Pro Evo, usually put around 700 hours into each one (though it looks like 2021 will have to be the one I play forever now). How can you put a number-of-hours on a sports sim?

Since I started playing No Mans Sky at launch I have put in 1,000 hours plus. It's a exception I feel 30 hours is about right.

For me it's 10-20 hours for linear games (like uncharted 4), 30-60 hours for jrpg (tales of arise), and 50-100 hours game for open world games if you want to collect everything (ghost of tsushima).

My sweet spot is 20 hours. I start to feel cheated when I pay $60 or $70 for a game and it’s less than 10 hrs.
Also 20 quality hours is much preferable to a massive quantity of redundant filler gameplay

Depends on the game.

Some of my best gaming experience have taken me hundreds of hours (BOTW, Red Dead Redemption 2) some of them were a lot shorter (Journey, A Short Hike) and a lot of them between these two extremes.
I just want a game to be good, I'm not expecting X amount of playtime for X amount of money given (as long as it is still fair). The worst thing a good game can do is overstay its welcome.

I can't say, it heavily depends on the game. There's lots of long games that I love, but there's also plenty of short and sweet games. Trying to blindly say that X hours is the optimum length doesn't make much sense.

hope Ubisoft read this poll and realise bigger isnt better

I've not voted as to me, length doesn't matter, quality of gameplay, story etc matter more.

I checked my stats the other day, 418 hours into the Witcher 3 for example.

But I'm equally as happy stick 15 hours in Ratchet and Clank, or 30 hours into Spiderman (can't remember the exact numbers there).

Suppose it all depends on what's important to you. I've thrown thousands of hours each into Cities Skylines, CK3 and Football Manager on the PC for example, because the gameplay loops keep me coming back.

To me, game time is low down on my list of what is an important factor in making a purchase.

for me god of war was the perfect length didnt drag and didnt overstay its welcome

Am I the only person who doesn't give a damn about a game's length, I play games for the experience factor and the enjoyment factor. A lot of games back in the day could be completed in a day, but I replayed them over and over again, and to this day I STILL replay most of my games, to me at least; it's not how long a game is, but how much time you're willing to invest in a game because you enjoyed your experience with a game, and if I have the urge to go back and replay games even if I've replayed a game more than 10 times, then does the length of a game really and truly matter? For me; it does not.

The only time length becomes an issue for me is if it's too long to the point it's starting to overstay it's welcome; Persona 5 Royal is a great example, the length for the base version of Persona 5 was just right, because it ended at just the right time as when I was starting to get ready to move onto another game, but Persona 5 Royal just felt like a drag and stretched the length of the game unnecessarily. Dragon Quest XI S Definitive Edition did something similar to Persona 5 Royal, only at the midway point, but I think it was executed better here because it gives some much needed clarity to what happened to the other characters we've grown fond of through the journey after Mordegon seemingly won and the Protagonist is seemingly dead.

It's not how long it is, but whether it hits the sweet spot and your having fun with it...

It depends entirely on the game, genre, and story being constructed. Xenoblade's 60+ hour story was a great length with great build up. However, older Pokemon games, like Emerald and Platinum, had a 30+ hour story and that was the perfect length to me. Meanwhile, Bravely Default was entirely too long. That game could've been 30 hours long and the story would've been better for it. And that's just JRPGs.

40 to 80 is perfect.
Of course some RPGs go beyond and still good
20 to 30 depends of the quality.
Below 20 isn't worth the full price, no matter how good it is.

it truly does depend on the type of game because if it can keep my attention it can be as long as it needs to be like naughty dog games seem to keep my attention the most, furthermore if it has extra content im more likely to stay invested. like the last of us 2 needed more story dlc like i wanna know what abby is doing after ellie let her go and i think that would be great to have if there is a "directors cut"

The games that have endless play time, like Monster Hunter, can have a 30+ story but it's not really needed. The gameplay loop is why people are there for a long time. Pokemon is similar, but the older games had much better endgame activities. All that said, a Mario game with a 60+ hour story would be so weird. You can push 60+ hours out of a Mario game easily without even needing a story, just content alone.

Anything under 15 hours is not worth £60-£70.

Gonna cop out and say it depends, as long as the price reflects the length some what.
A great JRPG can be 70 hours, however I don't want my Resident Evil games to go past the 7 hour mark for the first play through.

tl;dr it depends, so unless that's an option, no vote.

Depends on how much it costs, but the quality has to be there either way. Happy to pay £15-20 for something a la Astro's Playroom, £40-£50 for a 20 hour story with some replayability, £60-70 for a 30+ hour epic.

If I'm not going to be absorbed in the game throughout then I'll want it cheaper, but it's always hard to judge, and this is where I find it disappointing.

I don't want a game to take more than 100 hours to complete the main storyline, because it's almost impossible to keep up your quality over that sort of runtime, and in games which give you choices it feels somewhat daunting to start over or do a new game+ rather than starting on a different game.

Great using the Nathan Drake game as a cover photo! People loves these games because they were non stop action, hilarious, and polished.

I’d rather have a 12-16 hour experience blow my mind than another time suck of a fetch game like AC Valhalla (which was a great game, but took me almost a year to complete it, I don’t get as much time to game as I’d like).

Depends on the game really. The metal gear solid games can be finished in a few hours each and they are amazing but games like Skyrim and Fallout should be a lot longer than 20 or 30 hours.

I won’t even answer this question because its relative to the kind of games you’re playing.
I love open world games like AC, Fallout, Skyrim etc because of the exploration of the map and I don’t want a map that takes only 30 hours to explore but if I’m playing a game like Control I don’t want a 40+ hours game. The new DL2 game is a game where you choices change the world around you (at least this is what they say) so if a full playthrough is around 80 hours like the first one and you have 3 or 4 bigs choices that force you to have multiple playthroughs then yes I can see something close to 500 hours.

@rjejr I guess games up here in NoNA should be longer since they cost more.

it depends on the game, I regularly play games that range from literally an hour long to 40+, If I enjoy the game, the length becomes not a real big factor.

15-20 for a linear game, for open-world 30-50 is ideal

Since I've reached my 30's I've been prefering shorter games. 15 hours for most story driven games, 20-30 for RPGs and visual novels but 5-10 hours for platformers/metroidvania/etc.
These days it's really hard for a game to keep my attention for the full playthrough.

Using the PS5 feature that tells you how long you have spent on games it turned out I had played Warframe for around 150 days. That is probably too long!

@lolwhatno
Well I clearly found something in it that hooked me in. Haven't played in years and it was constantly evolving and changing back then so I really can't say what it's like now.
I would say, if you have addictive tendencies and like a grind then you should avoid it at all costs - it may take over!

I said 10-20. But if a game interests me I will happily indulge in a 200 hour playthrough (MGS V) or a good rpg (Digimon CS/HM at a combined 230, Ni No Kuni at 120). But 10-20 to get everything done is probably optimal for me.

@lolwhatno
Well I didn't spend anything on it, everything was available for nothing - if you were willing to put the hours in as the rate drop rates were ridiculously low.

How is the time being spent?

Most of the time I'd rather spend a short time on an intense experience, a great story, an interesting mechanic, and/or a fun combat setup than spend a long time hunting an enormous map for some widget I missed. What you're doing with those hours matters.

While I like posts like the fourth one, from @pushL7, that break it into different categories, I'd suggest that's misleading as well. An open world game doesn't automatically need more time just because it's open world, and an Indie game can be compelling for a lot more than a few hours if the mechanics are right and it's re-playable. I'm old enough to remember a time when Minecraft was an indie.

Quality matters over quantity. A long, bad, painful experience is actually worse than a short, bad, painful experience. But there have been games I didn't want to put down, where I ran around the map trying to find that last widget because it was so dang fun to run around the map (INfamous, I'm looking at you).

Play style matters, too - what you call a 10 hour game I might call a 40 hour game, because I may play differently and spend more time at each stage. It's a weird metric.

22 hours and 45 minutes exactly. No more. No less.

If a game takes longer than that I immediately stop playing and go to make a lasagne to try to calm down.

I think it's hard to tell. It really depends on the type of game you're playing. It would be very frustrating to play a Final Fantasy numbered game that ended after only 10/15 hours. At the same time, I don't expect to spend 40 hours playing a game like It Takes Two.
And sports probably should have a completely different measure as well.

I voted for "20/30 hours" because I believe it's kind of acceptable for most games.

@lolwhatno It's a coconut there's nothing messed up about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLrnkK2YEcE&ab_channel=TheAvalanchesVEVO

appears at 1:02

Yours is a voodoo gimp with a stake through it. Think yours is worse 😂

@lolwhatno It's just a music video for a song nothing major.

I'd be sad if I had a stake driven through me.

There's no real answer to this. It depends entirely on the genre of game and type of story it's telling.

Depends on the title. For rpg I want 30 hours for main story. For an Uncharted or Plague Tale type experience I think 10-15 hours is the sweet spot.

These days I’m actually put off by “long” games even though that was once a selling point to me…

For Action-Adventure and Souls-Borne games 30-40 hours is quite enough for the main path.
For example, I liked God Of War 2018's length
Or Bloodborne's and it's DLC's length, is was exactly right.
Of course that length is extended by quite a bit if you are a completionist (like myself)... you can easily find yourself still playing 600h hours later, because you just had to make that 300 char lvl Arcane/Strength/Skill quality build, and get the Platinum trophy in the process. And discover every nook, cranny and secret in the game. If the game is very entertaining, you won't even know you've reached the "hundreds of hours" category... until you buy a PS5, you read the statistics, and your face looks like this O_O
At the other end of the spectrum sit games like AC Valhalla. Having to play over 100 hours just to finish the game and it's DLC's is WAY over the top. Ubisoft really needs to change the direction of those games. Odyssey was entertaining, so playing it 4 times top to bottom was fun and engaging. But Valhalla... got boring after a while, and didn't recover from it 'til the end. It certainly outstayed it's welcome.

too many long games wear me out. assassins creed is a good example. i tend to spend way too much time doing ALL side quests first, finding all collectibles.. THEN i go main missions. which wears me out, i need to switch it up lol.

if its an open world game? 30-40 hours. if its a building game like minecraft or ark or the like? i like unlimited replay or at least a game worth goin for all the trophies even after i beat it.

racing games with career modes i like 15 hours and then i'd like to try other modes it may have.

rpg i like to get a max of 50 hours unless its, for example, huge open world like Fallout 76, then i like to see at least 200 hours.

platformers like ratchet & clank or mario games on my switch.. i like to see 20 hours.

horror games feel right at around 15 hours but i'll take a long 25 hour game if it has good replay value for trophies. or if its a replayable/dynamic game like Dead by Daylight, i'll sink 100 hours over several months slowly and be done.

FPS action games, with no extra modes like horde or co op? 20 hours.

indie games like Deep Rock Galactic, i wanna see, depending on if it has building elements or infinite leveling or 'seasons' - i like to see 100 or so hours.

casual games like Two Point Hospital, though it gets hard pretty quick, i like 20 hours.

i think 20-30 hours is my sweet spot.

I voted 20-30, but it varies too much. I could be playing some games for over 100 hours without getting tired; others overstay their welcome after 5.

@hobbes242 If you measure your constant darkness or constant daylight in metric time I think the money ratio works itself out. 😁

10-20 for the most part. ES and RDR2 and Persona 5 need longer, but most games need to see what they can take away not, not add. The amount of pointless (even though it’s skipable) fluff in the Witcher 3 with ? On the map is insane. GoW didn’t need all the mandatory “side” chests or RPG elements. Horizon didn’t need to be a level based RPG, just have an upgrade tree. And the loot boxes are horrible grindy stuff. Point is most games see how much they can add, and need to do the opposite unless it’s RDR2 or another 10/10 or it’s Yakuza.
I just played through both Dead Spaces and it was so concentrated it was amazing. That’s a $60 experience we need again. Tell me a game short and I’m more interested now.
Some games work well with making side quests ignorable, but that takes a correct balancing that can be messed up.

Depends of course. If you mean a single player campaign that's almost designed to be once and done, e.g. Control, a Tomb Raider, a COD etc, then 20ish. Less than that I'd feel short changed.

More thoughtful 'life' games, like Souls games, then 50+ at least.

Sims (driving, flying) 100s if not 1000s

And if you have a little fashionable beard then "I'm happy with 2 hours, its the experience that matters, not the length".

Ever felt ripped off by duration? Yep - the first Gears of War; couldn't believe a £40 game could be less than 10 hours.

40 hours is good. I assume 35 of that is in loading screens.

Brevity is the soul of wit!
Far too many games try to pad their run time. Shorter experiences are for definite my preference, with 30 hours being my max for pretty much any game. Anything beyond that becomes a slog even if I have been enjoying it

Come on, this is a dumb poll it depends on the game. Skyrim is a game I've sunk over a hundred hours multiple times. But then there's smaller shorter games (Cat Quest, Journey). There are games that go on too long (Ghost of Tsushima and many open world games). There is no ideal size for a game.

If stuff like Destiny 2 or Monster Hunter only had 6-8 hours of content, people would be understandably pissed. Likewise, if stuff like Metroid Dread or Hollow Knight took 100+ hours to complete, people would be equally pissed.

That's the beauty of video games, devs can make their games take as little or as much time needed to do what they want their game to do. There is no one specific length that works for every single kind of game/genre.

Depends how fun the games are. Personally i play as much as i have fun, they can make them 500+ hours, i will not mind cause i never cared for platinum in games. When the games stoped to be fun, i just go to the next one.

@Muttt i agree, ghost of tsushima was really repetitive, beautiful world, but almost nothing interesting to do.

All of the above. It really depends on the game, so long as it's engaging and I'm invested I'll keep playing!

Totally depends on the game, but I lean shorter now as a parent.

Really depends on the game in question, but I’ve noticed that many games above an average of 30 hours I drop off of unless I’m really hooked on the gameplay loop and story.

I also have a habit of dropping games for several months and then coming back to them. Did that with Dragon Quest 11 S on Switch. Got forty hours in. Dropped it for other games for months. Came back and put another 20 hours in. Dropped it again to play Shin Megami Tensei V and Ghost of Tsushima.

I’ve got a good balance with the three games I’m playing right now. I come home from work and after my self appointed daily chores, I do three missions in Ghost (two character tales and one major story tale). Then I play Fortnite with my friends unless they aren’t on. If they aren’t online I’ll do one or two more missions on Ghost. After I shower and get in bed, I play Shin Megami Tensei in handheld mode for about an hour. Then I crash.

My off weekends are where I really sink hours in. Saturday is pretty much devoted to Ghost. Sunday is big chore day. Then I play Shin Megami Tensei V on the tv docked.

I prefer shorter time to finish, around 5 - 10 hours gameplay.
But i don't mind with only take 30 - 40 minutes to finish the game.
I have that very short game.
(Jake Power Handyman NDS)

I think a game should be as long as it needs to be. Imagine a game like No Man's Sky or World of Warcraft having a 40 hour limit?

To put a blanket time limit on all games seems to detract from the immense variety in the medium.

Depends on the game really. A game like Uncharted i'm happy with 10 hours and some extras to unlock what add a few more hours. An open world like Ghost or Horizon? Anything from 30 to 60 hours is fine. A full on RPG or JRPG i'm happy from 50 hours to 100+. A game like No Man's Sky though i've sunk a 1000 hours into and i'm no where near ready to quit. As i said it depends on the game and how well its paced.

R&C Rift apart was a total ripoff, a 6h game for $70 while you can get long masterpieces for half that price, some are even free and long. any game that is $60 or $70 and below 10h is a ripoff

For me i rather pay €60 for a game i love even if its 6 hours then a 60 hour game where i wish it was done 56 hours ago.

Obviously it depends on what the game is and how engaging it is. I could spend triple the time playing Horizon Zero Dawn or Returnal because the core gameplay is so good. I thought Red Dead Redemption 2 was way too long because I found the gameplay rather dull and automatic.

I would say there's a 0% chance that 500 hours of Dying Light will be engaging gameplay. At least 450 of those hours will be pointless hunting for items and other chore activities.

If it’s a Ubisoft game, then 60 hours less than whatever boring ***** they’ve padded it out with & a smaller, denser, well designed map than what they’re bragging about in their next game.

For other companies & game types 10-30 hours if it’s a quality experience.

@Dodoo Same here i just dont have the time anymore. Plus im terrified to start long games now somehow because i always play one game from start to finish.

@Northern_munkey Heavenly Sword one of my all time favorite games 6 hours and i payed €60 for it. Do i feel ripped off not even a little bit great story and gameplay. AC played it for 30/40 plus hours in the end i hoped to see the credits because it was a chore and bore at the same time.

25 hours base game and 40 hours for 100% is a good estimate for me.

It should be about the same length as a piece of string.

It really depends, but I'd say for a single player campaign, 10-20 hours is ideal. Double that for all the bonus stuff like collectibles, side quests, challenges, puzzles, etc.

Anything over 40 hours is really pushing it.

The only games I spend over 100 hours on are open world games like Assassin's Creed, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc. To be honest, a lot of that time is wasted on useless tasks.

I'd much prefer a smaller length game with replayability over a game that requires over 100 hours to complete. It's very seldom I complete games of that length anymore.

A good example of a nice balance between linear games and open world games, my two most played genres, are games like the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy and the latest God of War. They really hit that sweet spot for me.

I typically take longer to play games than most other people. While I don't consider myself a completionist, I like to get everything out of a game that I can, and generally end up putting about 10-20% more time than what's often listed as a completionist playthrough.

That being said, if a standard full playthrough is listed as anything less than 30 hours, I'm probably not even bothering. That's just not enough time to really enjoy a game. Ideally, I play ones where a typical playthrough is 60+, which generally means 80-100 for me.

See, it's a funny one. Because I like a game to end when I want it to end...

So for example if I'm enjoying it immensely, then I can explore, do the side quests, roam around, find collectables etc etc before finishing the story.

But at the same time, if I'm doing all that and I then get bored, or it gets repetitive, then I can just drop all of the side stuff and just fly through the main story.

It all depends on the genre and how much control you have over the game. A massive open world, 100 hours? Sure. A linear, leveled platform game, 100 hours? Hell no.

I think what I'm trying to say is it's not something you can really answer, because it's all dependant on what it is your playing on. What I can say is my preferred games are RPGs, so I guess I like games that take 40+ hours, I guess 🤷🏻

Depends on what I’m playing. An really ‘gamey’ title like arcade racers, loot shooters, rhythm games etc - I’ll happily play them for 1000s of hours if the gameplay or gameplay loops are solid.

As for narrative based games I think they should shouldn’t exceed 80 hours or so and certainly shouldn’t be padded with exposition, obnoxious cut scenes or busy work.

Another point on narrative based games - I wish games would stop trying to emulate film and be all ‘cinematic’. It doesn’t work. It’s like mixing two disparate disciplines. Especially when the games are long. Constant exposition becomes a chore - I get burned out. The writing becomes a matter of progressing the story rather than having any legit purpose.
An example: the dialogue scenes in any of the latest Assassins Creed games. Good grief…. Awful.

@Gloamin Days Gone was EXTREMELY samey though. Like it got ridiculous after a while. 🤣

More than 40 hours plus for every game is cool with me.i do like long games.you definitely gets your money worth.word up son

30-40 is the sweet spot . if someone doesnt have time to play that long , then make time 🤷‍♂️

20-30 for narrative stuff
40+ for true open world/universe (AC: Odyssey, BotW, NMS, Elite etc)

Length is not a good metric, xenoblade 2 took me 113 hours to beat and was a good time. Watchdogs 3 took me like 22 hours and was a real slog.

@Flaming_Kaiser i like you i honestly do but after reading how you told naruball in another post that she always takes the opposites in any discussions (and it was pretty snarky) to see you doing the exact thing here..in fact every comment i make you always have to choose the exact opposite..now i'm not saying thats bad as i welcome a healthy debate but if you are going to call somebody out for their indiscretions then at least try to recognise you do exactly the same thing that irritates you about another person..glass houses..massive rock my friend..

As long as they need to be.
It’s a false issue. The issue would be to arbitrarily set a length. I like Cory perspective with GOW he was building a meaty game because there were things worthy of doing. Even so he had to downscale a bit.
I didn’t like Shawn Layden approach who was advocating shorter and shorter games for budget concern.

This really depends on the genre, for me:
JRPG 40-50 hours
Open World 25-35 Hours
Linear story Games 15-20 Hours
Yakuza Games 80 Hours for 100% Completion Minimum
FPS (like Bioshock) 10-15 Hours
Roguelites need at least 60 hours worth of replayability
Western RPGs that are story driven 25-30 hours
Western Open World RPGs 60 Hours minimum
Indie "Experiences" 3-8 Hours

It totally depends on the game, I wouldnt want Elden Ring to only last 20hrs as an example, that would be a dissappointment to me. Wheras an Uncharted game would be fine 20 - 30hrs...the Poll is slightly silly tbh.

weird question, that depends entirely on the game.

Some games are completely fine being just a few hours long while others can be almost never ending. MMORpgs are usually very long, but that works for these games because they are social and you interact with other people. Also there is so much to do in these types of games.

Then you have games like 1st person singel player games that usually are possible to complete in one long session (If you are good and have the patience). these games usually are built to be replayed on multiple difficulties as well as finding secrets.

It all comes down to the type of game.

But then comes the question on pricing, do I think a game that you can finish in 1-2 hours and has little to no replay value should ever be sold for the same price as games that give you +30 hours of gameplay and has replay value? No not really.
Unless it's doing something very special that makes it worth it.

Pricing needs to be set based on the amount of enjoyment you are getting out of the game.

I don't think it's that simple as it depends a lot on the genre. For action game or any basic story-driven game, 10-20 hours is enough.

For RPGs 30+ hrs - up to 50-60 hrs.

Depends on the genre and how good the game is.

I think 30 hours is the absolute maximum for any kind of story based game, but shorter is okay if it's fun. Although VR should be 10-20hrs I reckon.
Sports games (especially motorsport) are different, a full F1 weekend can take a few hours each (practice>quali>race) so 50-100 hrs for a season wouldn't be unreasonable. However, I've just checked my playtime on GT Sport and it's over 616 hours and I'm miles away from the platinum. Driver level 50 seems unobtainium and I really can't be arsed with it anymore. Pretty sure I've not played it since 2020...

Well my most played games of all time are World of Warcraft, the Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild, and Fallout: New Vegas so I guess I’d say hundreds of hours lol.

This is really a “depends” kind of question.

Yeah id say 20 to 30 max really. The ammount of big games ive got that ive never got through due to interests waning or the next big game coming out is crazy. Very rarely do i actually even complete a game unless it really grips me and unfortunately, not many do.

Totally depends on the genre, a good (j)rpg i'd say at least 50-60 hours, closer to 100+ hours for 100% completion at the minimum but if it's a shooter i'm fine with 20 hours.

Regardless of genre though, games can be too short. For example R&C, as good as the game can be, i'm never buying a game that short at full price.

It all depends on the type of game. I've said 40hrs+ but like I said it depends on the type of game I'm playing.

It all depends on the game for me. Journey was an enjoyable experience at only a few hours long but I also enjoyed sinking 180 hours into Returnal. So I don't think there is an ideal game length for me. I have a bigger issue when a game starts to feel repetitive and I become bored with the game, but that could be after 5 hours or fifty.

Depends on the game, if it is an open world or a linear game. I think for linear games between 10-20 hours and maybe up to 30 hours. Open world 50+ but only if the open world is filled with engaging content/side quests. Exploring open worlds should be fun and interesting and not boring. It should aid the overall story of the game and not be filled with useless items or quests. And the areas need to be unique. Also the price tag is important. If it is a cheaper game I don’t expect it to be long, but if I have to spend €80+ I want to be entertained for a while.

10-20 hrs is the sweet spot I think. Anything longer better be an RPG

Wow, First time I have appreciated being a rubbish player because if someone good plays, takes 60hrs, but it takes me 70hrs, so pound for pound, I have got more value from the game as it lasted me 10hrs longer - win for me

I didn't vote. I miss the option 'I don't care'. Sometimes I like long games sometimes I like short games.
As long as it grabs me. Ass. Creed Valhalla was waaaay to long for example. Took me 120 hours to Plat. And the end was a draaaag.
Judgment on the other hand took 100 hours to Plat and I didn't mind that at all.
And artifex mundi games are my guilty pleasure and they take 5 hours or so.

Exactly as long as it needs to be!

The 'length' of the game has to be right for the game, price etc. Whether that's 10hrs or 100+hrs. I don't care if a game has 500hrs worth of 'content' IF you want to do 'everything' you possibly can as long as its all worth doing if you want to. Packing a game with say 20 fetch quests that are all very similar just to add 'content' isn't great, but 20 side missions that have their own great story for example is.

I also don't want to pay £70 for a game and a few hours later feel like I have finished everything the game offers and playing through the 'same' story just for missed collectables/trophies and/or newly unlocked 'higher' difficulty doesn't exactly make up for feeling like I could of spent my money 'better' on a game that would at least last me a 'month' or two.

Point is, there are too many variables at play for me to consider the 'perfect' game length. I spent hundreds of hours in the Witcher 3 for example but a LOT less in God of War/Horizon:ZD (both of which I got the platinum) but enjoyed all 3.

With the price of A+ games going high 70+ they should be massive. But indy games should be how long the devs make them.

Thinks this is more personal preference and also depends on if you like the game or not. If I'm really hooked and enjoying it then time to complete is not really a factor for me.

Depends on the game. Would you buy an rpg where the story ends after 20 hours? No.

@theMEGAniggle saying that Child of Light was under 20hrs and it was a phenomenal (j)RPG!

As long as it needs to be... it vastly changes by genre and even then there is no fixed length in my mind.

It is nice to have a brisk 6-8hr story driven action romp, but in the same type of game I might find myself enjoying something 40+ hours long.

It's probably one of the dumbest questions that we all get caught up in sometimes.

Depends on the game. But for a rough time I'd say

Story driven games - 20-40 hours
RPG/JRPG - 40 - 120 hours with open world
Indie games - 10-20 hours

I don't mind games having a long length. Just don't want them to sacrifice the quality for the sake of making them longer. Also don't want them to force us to chase the filler to make progress in the story so it's important the story can be played without having to chase any filler.

I don't like the thought of games being charged £70 now if all it has is a 10-30 hour story as this ends up leaving me feel robbed and it's a game I'd need to wait for a sale. So it would have to be a really good quality game that has a reason to be replayed. Multiple endings can help with that including a really good fun co-op like Uncharted 2. But if it's a story only, then it should be cheaper depending on it's length.

500 hours though, that is way too much. Better suited for a multiplayer game. For a game to be that long, I'd need it to have a lot of standalone mini missions that should feel like stories of their own. It feels like a waste of time and effort that could have been used towards making the game even better

Purely depends on the game. What I do want to see less of is blatant go to B, do this then back to A, now do this, now back to B. Feels like padding out a story for the sake of it rather than a good use of storytelling narrative.

I guess another perspective is that a season of binge worthy TV is around 6-7 hours, so for a big game that may, in TV terms take 3 seasons to tell a decent story so 18-21 hours feels right to me.

The answer varies, depends on the genre, but 30-40 hours is good. Lots of gameplay, not sooo long. But I'm fine either way.

Nobody clicked 0-5 hours like me?

I think the more interesting question is, are you willing to pay more money for a game that takes longer to "finish" (whether that's main story, platinum, whatever)? What kind of price-to-time ratio is right?

Even then, I think "time" for a game is a weird metric, since we play differently, but if we're going to talk about length, I guess it's the best metric we've got.

@Mintie to be fair, that one is a very very very rare exception. Not too many good modern rpgs that are that length these days

@Northern_munkey Youre right i do disagree with her a lot and sometimes not. And i have a strong opinion never gonna change that though but you have a point.

As long as it needs to be.

As a lover of story-based video games, I also firmly don't believe that games are conducive to being reviewed as art. Art needs to be small enough that it can be consumed multiple times.

Disco Elysium and The Last of Us Part II both demand multiple playthroughs and are both 30 hours-ish long. People try to evaluate their artistic merit on a single playthrough, which is silly.

@patronmacabre
That's a very limited outlook on art. Art to me can be however small or large as the creator chooses. Some games make sense being sprawling 100 hour long epics and some games say everything they need to in 2 hours. There is no ideal game length, it's just whatever makes sense for the story or theme you are presenting just like how movie runtimes vary. If you can tell the plot in 86 minutes then do it, if it takes 1,186 minutes then do that too.

Games need to be more than 2 hours.

Otherwise you can finish them and get a full refund on Steam, while the devs will starve to death on the cold pavement.

That's what my grandma told me.

8-10 hours like the first 3 Uncharted games is my preference.

I'd say 15-25, but that's not an option, so I picked 20-30. Some games definitely overstay their welcome past 12-15 hours though. That said, a fair number of games I've put in 60+ hours — especially FromSoftware games.

Depends on the game. Ghost of Tsushima, RDR2, I.e., are too long games, I.m.o.