About length in games

[Janos Biro]

As Vito Gesualdi said in a 2013 Destructoid article titled "In defense of shorter games”, the common statement that a game would be better “if it wasn't so short” is rarely a valid criticism. This is especially true for games that are focused in telling a story. If the story is complete, it makes no sense saying it is too short. The Lord of the Rings book, for example, has 480 pages. If you take 2 minutes to read each page, you can read it in 16 hours. Is it too short for an epic story? Well, most people think it's not short enough. They say Spritz is genial because it makes you read faster. But when they release play a full, beautiful game that takes 5 hours to complete, everyone will say it's too short for the average price of a commercial game. Why?

I've played free indie games with 5 minutes length that were worth more in game experience than 100 hours of mindless repetition in blockbuster games. Why do we care so much about spending more time in games, and less time reading? To Gesualdi, the problem is this stupid idea that games should occupy a large amount of your time in order to be worth the price. The implicit idea is that games are the kind of entertainment that serves to keep you occupied for a long time, instead of giving you something to think about for a long time, like a book, a movie or even a TV series. Games are pleasant time-wasters created to fill your time with mindless activities, keeping you from thinking about reality. That's why you need fast-action gameplay and realistic graphics. Is that it?

People pay $50 for a full season box set of a TV series with 20 episodes of about 30 minutes each. That's 10 hours of entertainment, and they never complain that it is “too short”. Besides, games are much more expensive to make than TV series. What makes them expensive is not the duration of the game, but mostly the graphics. And yet you will see reviewers saying that a game it's too short for its price. That simply makes no sense.

Because of such idea, game designers now have to inject pseudo-content in their games to make them commercially acceptable. What “pseudo-content” means? It's content that doesn't add to the game experience, it just adds to the game length. Game designers learnt how to employ Pavlovian conditioning methods to keep the players repeating routines that would be otherwise considered boring and pointless. It's about building long corridors connecting the rooms, where the real content is, so you don't get there too soon, and then filling these corridors with lots of random variations of things that barely relate to the game plot.

Most so-called “full-length” games are not really large, they are inflated with pseudo-content, and you know it. But still we keep telling ourselves that “this game is great, but it's too short”. Let's think about it: there is no such thing as “too short”. Games are either complete or incomplete; they can never be too short. If the purpose of a game is to provide a game experience, and not to keep you occupied so you forget how miserable your life is, than you can't be serious about it being “to short for its price”, unless you are really talking about a drug. You should even pay more for a game that cut's the crap, delivers just what you paid for, and lets you free to do more interesting things than killing a thousand enemies, solving annoying puzzles or collecting a thousand things, even if that means having some time to discuss the topics raised in the game with your friends. You don't have to stay hooked in fantasy worlds all the time, you know? That's not even healthy.

The game industry will not die if you choose to have a life. If you think games are only worth when they make you stay long hours looking fixedly to a screen, not caring about anything but what is happening there, then let me tell you something: Games are great additions to life, but not very good substitutes. Games shouldn't be treated as a drug to keep you away from the burden of being alive. Real life still has more important experiences, and it's not so expensive. You should try it more often.

The point is very simple: Quantity is not quality, so length should not be so important when judging a game. If we keep saying that games like Portal are “too short”, we will keep receiving games full of pseudo-content, and we will be wasting time that could be better used, with better games for example. State-of-the-art graphics are very expensive. If you want to spend less money in games, just ask for simpler graphics. But if you prefer to use your graphics card instead of your imagination, then pay for the quality, not for the quantity.

[Andail]

That was long!

I agree with the general sentiment, but I think the same kind of defense can be used against any criticism that focuses on just one area - too bad graphics (but the story weighs up for it! Would you rather have lots of eye candy and no real substance??) no voice overs (why focus on voices, the music is brilliant so just use your inner voices for the dialogues!) too basic and unchallenging puzzles (we have a real story to tell so we don't want to interrupt the flow and the narrative etc etc), so every time a critic brings up one single area that is lacking, it's easy to find good counter arguments.

Time length obviously isn't everything, but then again quality is hard to measure, whereas quantity is more objective, so it's an easy thing to complain about. Surely a good story can be short, but a good story that is longer will give you more pleasure, so by all standards that must mean more bang for your buck, right? Your main argument seems to be that playing something boring for a hundred hours sucks, whereas playing a brilliant 10 minutes game can be a wonderful experience, but that argument isn't valid for obvious reasons.

Thirdly, comparing media and their relative costs isn't always applicable. Going to the movies costs (at least where I live) more than a standard budget game, but it gives me down to 1 hour 40 minutes of entertainment. A couple of beers result in less than an hour of joy, for the prize of Civilization III at a used games outlet, and the latter has potentially thousands of hours play time (and no subsequent hangover).

Lastly, adventure games differ from most other genres in that they're rarely re-playable, which makes the play length more definitive. You don't hear that Icy Tower is "too short" even though it might contain much less material than an average AGS game, but that's the price we have to pay - one play-through of our game must match a hundred rounds of Candy Crush, or the buyer won't think it's worth it.

[dactylopus]

I feel that the "too short" argument is often made when the game was both very enjoyable and short.

I tend to be picky about the games I like to play.  I am only concerned with one or two of the major franchises of big budget games, and typically play indie games or older games.  If I am having fun with my gaming experience, I want that fun to last, since I don't know when the next fun game will be available.  I sometimes artificially inflate the duration of the game myself through a variety of methods (taking time off between play sessions, aimless play, extra leveling...).

As Andail pointed out, there's also the argument about genre.  Casual games like Candy Crush, Bejeweled, and such can have many more hours of gameplay, but are not as thoroughly engaging as Adventure games or Role Playing games.  It's always a give and take between elements.

Complaints about games being "too short" may result in pseudo-content, but that's a shortcut.  Complaints should also be made about that pseudo-content.  Maybe the trend of inflating game duration through these means will end, and we can get games that give high quality and quantity experiences.

[Janos Biro]

I agree with Andail and dactylopus. I had a very silly idea: Games should have a length option. That's because people like me, and I hope I'm not alone in this, really don't have much time to play games, and would enjoy a shorter version of most games. Because to me the real fun begins after I finished the game, not while playing.

[Grim]

Some good points raised there. I agree fully that people's expectations are a bit over the top, since these days you pay more for a burger than an indie game, and nobody complains about the burger (which by the way it takes a few minutes to eat).

But most importantly, the best thing you said there janosbiro is that games are not drugs and living one fantasy for too long can actually be unhealthy. As someone who's recently played through all Dark Souls games I totally agree. When  you play one game for a REALLY long time, you do begin to wonder whether it's okay to actually have dreams about it. I mean, I've been killing dragons in my sleep, lately... and I'm starting to think it's time for a break;)

[Ghost]

Length makes a nice selling argument. I can remember when Baldur's Gate 2 made a point of mentioning its way-above-average "full playing time" in every second ad. A lengthy game gives you "more value for your money" and people like that. And when the content is good and little filler is used, it's a valid point, too.

I like games that I can play for a long time because of their mechanics- I am a stickler for procedurally generated content, sandbox games and roguelikes. A single session doesn't take long but you can just keep playing the game again and again.
Blowing up a game with grinding and/or artificial limits is often a cheap tactic. But not always. Again, if a core mechanic is fun and spending some time on it is required to boost your chances to beat the game, why not?

About the "no time/short game option" thing, here I disagree. A game needs to appeal to a lot of different people and it's not the game designer's fault that some of us have jobs and real lives when there is a sizeable number of teens/pupils/filthy beatnik students who can and WILL sink several hours per day into GameX.
A game is made to raise money, yes, but it's also a creative effort. Especially indie games are, for me, games made by people who have an idealistic vision of their product and I want them to put everything into the game they feel is needed. A "short option" makes no sense there. That's like buying a book and then reading only the last few pages. You know, why read Lord of the Rings? Just read this: "World is saved by guy clutching a ring falling into a volcano."

Because to me the real fun begins after I finished the game, not while playing.

This I don't get but I sense an interesting discussion there. I am absolutely sure you're not saying you dislike playing a game and are happy when it's over. Once you have finished a game, what makes the real fun for you? Discussing it, analysing it?

[Gribbler]

I don't like long games. For me 5-8 hours is just about right. Even a superb story driven game like The Last of Us felt a little bit too long for me.

[Janos Biro]

Hey Grim, nice to see you here. I played Dungeons of Dredmor for so long I could see colored numbers coming out of things, like damage markers. My "mental world" was dominated by it, all I could think of was about corridors and rooms and items. I was making songs about it in my mind. It became a metaphor for my own life. I lost my job because I forgot what day was it and just kept playing. That's one of the reasons my wife left me, so my case is very serious. My opinion is surely affected by my experience. I dream a lot, so dreaming about games, movies, books and songs is very common for me. I recently played Max Payne 1 and 2, and my dreams are now a little bit more noir than usual. I think that somewhere along the way our technological culture lost track of reality. Everything is just a dream inside a dream inside a dream... Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Ghost, thanks for your answer. When I thought about the "short" option in games, what I had in mind is not something very different from the "easy" option. It's not applicable for any kind of game, and it is not about shorten the story. When a game mixes action (or puzzle solving, or any other element) with story, the player who just wants the action (or the puzzle solving, and so on) can often skip the narrative. But when you don't want to shoot or solve things, or at least not so many things, you rarely have the option to skip that parts. The idea is to allow a more fluid narrative for those that are not in the mood to kill a thousand ninjas/zombies/aliens/thugs/etc. or solving a series of logical problems before getting to a boss or to the next plot node, and not to butcher the story. Sure, I love to play puzzle games, break codes and discover secret passages, but sometimes I would prefer to see a cinematic of how the protagonist found the antagonist, and go on from there. This is not the same as skipping to the ending. It is skipping to the next important part. Unless the game doesn't really have any. I'm surely NOT saying that I dislike playing and I'm happy when it's over, not at all. That sounds like a compulsion. Maybe some games can create this felling sometimes, but that's not what I meant. I meant that only when I finish the game I feel free to think more critically about it, and that's what I like the most.

For example, I would love to play a modified version of Left 4 Dead where you have less zombies to kill, and slower zombies too, or more options to pass through without a massacre, because I really like the dialogues between the characters and the apocalyptic scenarios. I liked the idea of having to fill the car gas tank in Left 4 Dead 2, but hated the idea of having to collect so many gasoline gallons, over and over again, and having to kill hundreds of zombies every time. When I saw the trailers for those games, I thought they were more about narrative, because of the cinematographic language being used. Them I saw it was like an arcade shooting gallery. Nothing against that, but I think that since the game has so many different modes, it wouldn't be so hard to make one more mode that fits this description. But maybe never occurred to them that someone would like to play this way... So the short version would not be such a burden to the game designer. In fact, I think most games are firstly designed this way, and then inflated by "level" designers. So I don't see why including such option would harm the game or the players. The long version could still be the standard, with nice special achievements for those who like it. Isn't that how it works?

Gribbler, I play short games because I feel very rewarded by playing them. Long games sometimes are like long-term relationships, they ask for compromise, and sometimes I really can't give it to them. No problem with long games, though. A game could be infinite, if it has a good story. Just divide it in episodes, like a series. Thinking about the problem of selling short games, I came up with this idea of the short version. It was the best I could think to satisfy both kind of players. You don't need to choose if the game will be long or short, you can make it both ways. That, considering that the game is not purely story-driven. The parts to skip are those that challenge the skills of the player, not the ones that tell the story.

[Grim]

I don't see long games being a problem (the only problem as I mentioned before is people's expectations for all games to be very long; clearly not you, though, janosbiro;)).

I guess you just have to do some research before you buy. I always do. Read a couple of reviews, see what folks say about it on the forums.

It's interesting you bring up Left 4 Dead- a game that at its basic level offers a 4-6 hour campaign, but when played as online multiplayer it extends pretty much into infinity. I've often met players who would make fun of me because my playtime was only at about 200 hours, while they played for more than 2000 hours... Which seems kinda insane that anyone would spend so much time playing a game about shooting zombies in the face. But they weren't bored of it, they wanted more and more and more, and in a way I understood, because that game when played right creates a new story every time you play and becomes incredibly addictive (I had to actually uninstall it twice, so I could get some work done on The Cat Lady and recently my new game in production;) ).

But the main thing is this- most play sessions would end after about an hour or so, when you finish a co-op campaign or a versus game. Perfect time to turn the PC off and go to bed or spend some time with a wife, right?

Unless you start a new lobby.

Again and again and again.

[MillsJROSS]

I do think a games length is a valid criticism. Like it or not, if I pay for something I expect a certain level of enjoyment from it, and some of it is based on the length of time it keeps me engaged. It's the same with other purchases I would make, so it's not like adventure games are singled out. If I paid full price at a movie theater for an hour long movie, for a song that was one minute long, for a book that was fifty pages, for meal that was two bites, etc...I would make a criticism that I did not feel I got the value out of those purchases. This may be true even if the content is wonderful.

Filler is not in of itself a bad thing. It's only bad if it's obvious and uninteresting. If the filler is engaging, then it's serving a good purpose. If you're going to charge me full price for something, I expect to feel sated at the end of it. If I'm not, I will vote with my dollars elsewhere. If you're a commercial game company this is what you pay your game designers to create.

Independent games may have a different market who don't mind paying a little more for something artistic or different, even if it is shorter, but at some point even they're required to make sure the game is enjoyable for the right length of time for the right price.

[Ghost]

But when you don't want to shoot or solve things, or at least not so many things, you rarely have the option to skip that parts. The idea is to allow a more fluid narrative for those that are not in the mood to kill a thousand ninjas/zombies/aliens/thugs/etc. or solving a series of logical problems before getting to a boss or to the next plot node, and not to butcher the story.

Ah, got you now. And I have to agree, though this is clearly dependend on the genre. Strip away all the puzzles from an adventure game, and you are left with one big "movie cutscene". Other genres may benefit from a skip option.
I remember the first System Shock, which did a very good job of allowing you to adjust the experience- you were free to set an emphasis on four segments called Puzzles, Plot, Combat, and something else that escapted my mind. You could not eleminate a category (there was always combat and no way to simply remove all enemies from the game) but you could make it extremely easy. If you wanted to sneak and hack your way through the game you were free to do so; on the other end of the scale you could make it a pure shooter where only a minimum of plot and puzzles got into your way.
If you never played it, go try it

I meant that only when I finish the game I feel free to think more critically about it, and that's what I like the most.

I knew it would be something like that! Yes. And that's something that is on my mind ever since I started to make games. The minute you take the role of a developer you start analyzing and in a way that really "ruins" gaming for you. As a mere consumer you enjoy a game in a much different way. Just a slightly different case of tvTropes Ruined My Life I guess.

[Janos Biro]

MillsJROSS, I agree that every experience needs a minimum length to generate satisfaction. But can we measure the standard length for games? You can say that a book, a movie, a song or a meal is too short for it's price if, and only if, you understand how much effort it took to make it, or the price of production. Saying that people will not buy it for its length alone may be a good business argument, but it is not a valid criticism for a game. What is game criticism? Like movie, literature, music or culinary criticism, game criticism is not a consumer guide, so it is less about the price/worth of the product, and more about it's cultural relevance. If the game provides a full experience, but the length is shorter than what players expected "for it's price", it is possible that the problem is in the players expectation. Saying it's too short because you won't be satisfied as a consumer unless it lasts as much as other titles is not a valid criticism, it's just a reaffirmation of the idea that a game's value is attached to the amount of time it takes from you. It would be valid criticism if you also considered the reasons why players want it to be so, instead of just accepting that as a necessary fact, "like it or not". Knowing what consumers want and designing your product to fulfill their desires is a very good market strategy, but it not so important when what you are making is a work of art. So you have to decide what is more important to you.

If the content is wonderful and the price is fair (considering the cost of production and the demand value), and still you won't buy it because it's "to short for it's price", then you are taking the side of those who think video-games are time-wasting machines. In the same way, most people think that food only serves to fill theirs stomachs and satisfy psychological needs for "fulfillment", not really for it's nutritional rates. That's why they are getting sick, while indigenous people are healthy eating much less.

I agree that fillers are not always bad. But to satisfy the consumer needs is not always a good thing, because the consumer culture can be a problem itself. If I'm going to charge you the right price for something that it is really good for you, but it doesn't generate "dependency", because it is not some electronic drug created to make you play until you eyes fall out, then you, as a smart consumer, will not buy it, and soon it will cease to exist, and you will lost it forever. But if you were trained to be such a consumer since your childhood, you are really a victim, and you don't even know what you are losing. You are like those fat people in the Wall-E movie. They surely would never pay for a good salad when they can have another milkshake. So, it is really your decision.

Ghost,

System Shock is a great game. Tried to play System Shock 2 with a friend, but it is not the same thing.

[Fitz]

A lot depends on whether you play the game just to finish and be done with it -- or because you enjoy playing it. I often find myself storming through a game. It's especially true of those more linear games, where the level starts at point A and you have to reach B, C and accomplish goal D and E along the way -- and then the game takes you to another location, where your goal is clear, your path leads onwards, with no forks in it, and the there's not much else to do other than killing people. Consider Max Payne or Hitman. Both took me only around 10-15 hours to finish the first time around -- including the slow discovery of the game mechanics and the multiple deaths resulting repeating portions of the game. But both were fun in their own ways. The Max Payne series has the iconic bullet-time mode, which made it one of the most enjoyable franchises in gaming history. Hitman, in turn, lets you pick between different gameplay styles: you can blast your way through the location, killing everything that moves, or you can sneak your way through to the only person you need to eliminate. So while both games were a rather short -- if very intense -- experience, there's a high replayability factor. Played MP3 three times already -- mostly for the sheer fun of shooting, but each time I also got more and more of what NPC's were saying in Portuguese (which I only learned a little). Hitman I will play again, too. I remember spending more time in Hitman 2's demo, back in 2002, than I did on Absolution -- just having fun completing the mansion level in every way possible.
For me a large part of the enjoyment stems from having fun with the game mechanics: bullet-time, changing clothes -- or, say, the grappling hook in Just Cause 2. Which, btw, happens to be the biggest time sink of all games that I played, at 204 hours -- having completed 99,95% (which is as high a score you can achieve, due to some bugs and programming faults) and finished the story campaign/faction missions twice. This is a good example of a game that's both marvelous and essentially flawed. It has by far the biggest fully explorable area of all games I played -- available from the very beginning -- with forests, meadows, deserts, mountains, villages and cities, all of which are pure eye candy. It has the dynamic daytime cycle, a multitude of easter eggs -- and the grappling hook, which REALLY makes your life easier. But it has its flaws, too. The enemy AI is laughable. The story itself is even dumber. The voice acting is bad. But you learn to love these flaws. You have fun pissing off the goofball soldiers -- who will chase you with such zest that they'll kill each other or themselves in the process. Car chases are especially fun in that respect: I once saw a military jeep drive off a cliff at full speed when he missed the bridge. At some point you stop questioning the story and just roll with it: be it teleporting ninjas, tanks on top of a sky-scraper or what have you. But then there's lazy design. Most of the 200+ settlements/bases that you have to destroy and pick clean are a baaaad example of copy/paste -- and so are the base takeover missions. A fun game, always a pleasure to look at -- but a large part of it is completely artificially bloated. I think it's that part that may leave a player a bit cheated. It's when you spend a lot of time and energy on something that amounts to nothing (is that's even a valid complaint when playing a game?). Another example that comes to mind is Far Cry 3 -- where there's a whole story arc that feels completely and utterly redundant, and happens to be the most annoying part of the game. So there's this guy who promises to give you a break if you get him this one thing... and this other thing... and then that other thing! After hours of blood, sweat and cursing your lungs out, you get him everything he wants -- upon which he decides he'll kill you. So you kill him, instead. As if you couldn't do that in the first place. Again, overall a fun game -- with a lot of little things to do in your spare time that seem consistent with the story and expand the gameplay (such as collecting plants for health boosts and skinning animals to craft bigger pouches) -- but it spends too much time trying to create adversaries more wicked than Vaas.
Bioshock: Infinite is another game guilty of having way too many crazed, murderous arch-villains -- but while that just fits in with the story, in the end, I was bitterly disappointed with the game mechanics. The pre-release materials made me so excited about the floating, sky-borne islands and the rifts. In the actual game, however, travelling between parts of the city was completely linear, and the rifts' usefulness was usually limited to summoning an automatic gun or a hook from another timeline. The sky-lines were a bit handy -- but way too confusing at times. Also, what seemed like an actual living world, with regular people passing you by in the beginning, turned into one endless battlezone in the end, with some annoying bullet-sponges -- which is another thing I really don't like. I just... don't enjoy dying in games I like games that throw cannon fodder at me -- not make ME the cannon fodder for The Patriot I guess my issue with games today is that even the EASY/CASUAL difficulty level is never easy ENOUGH . I went through most of the 90's and early 00's games with my Godmode on if available -- just to kick ass and have fun. And the most fun I had was playing the good ol' Painkiller (Godmode, of course).
I guess what I meant to say -- in way too many words -- is that when I finish a game and I'm not utterly sick of it in every way, then it's a game I'm happy with, regardless of the length. And so, while I have/plan to replay Max Payne and Hitman, and I'll certainly hang around the islands in Far Cry 3 and Just Cause 2, some games were a one-time thing -- if only because they were too hard-core for me. I might be in the minority, but I play games to relieve the tension, not to get more of it. They're supposed to be an escape from the problems and frustrations of every day, not another source thereof. And the best way to make sure you don't overpay -- in my experience -- is waiting a bit till the prices go down or there's a discount I got most of my AAA titles for 10$ each or less.

[Janos Biro]

Hi Fitz,

Thank you for your answer. I only recently started to actually buy games, and when I do I wait for the discount too. Before, all I played was free games and sometimes pirated games, like most Brazilians do.

I've recently played Max Payne 1 and 2. I think 10-15 hours is not short, it is the absolutely right length for this kind of narrative (emphasis on that aspect). Max Payne was created to feel like a graphic novel, and I think the length is consistent with this proposal. The point is: It doesn't mean that I was completely tired of Max Payne by finishing the first game. When I finished, I immediately wanted to play the sequel. But we have to understand that a game is not short if the length is consistent with the proposal and justifies the cost of production. Making a game is very hard and expensive. You can't expect to get quality game time for so little price, unless every game maker was like Radiant. He crafts games, but most game designers are just creating products. It's not their fault, they are taught to do so. So you can't expect something else unless you want to start a revolution. The fact that some games can provide hundreds of hours of entertainment doesn't justify that you demand that from every other game, you see? It is a very unfair demand, because every game is different, and the length is usually related to the specific proposal of the game. Some players think like angry consumers that just want to maximize their satisfaction no matter what, and that reduces games to some kind of drug. This is bad for creativity and for the evolution of games.

I believe in appreciating a game regardless of its length (providing the length is consistent with the narrative). Price is not the subject here, but I also follow the lines of the scratchware manifesto. Death to the game industry and the commodification of gaming! Long live to gaming as a free human activity! The question about length is a question of culture industry. It restricts the art of making games because of market pressure. That's why I criticize the idea that games serve get a certain effect: be it relaxation or whatever. I don't think you are alone in this, I hear that all the time: "Games only exist to help us relax and escape from the problems and frustrations of life. They are a result of our need to take a break from reality, and they are made to fulfill that need". NOT AT ALL! You can choose to see games like that, but games can communicate with the full spectrum of human emotions. Just listen to yourself, talking about games like someone talks about alcohol. We only use games to fulfill that specific need because we created a society that makes us feel empty. Even the less frustrated of all persons still needs to play games.

In the end, I feel that my complaint is one of a minority wanting to be recognized as a valuable gamer too.

[Mandle]

You know, why read Lord of the Rings? Just read this: "World is saved by guy clutching a ring falling into a volcano."

Blimey mate!!! Where's the spoilers alert?!

[Fitz]

See, the problem is most of us tend to judge a game not for what it is in itself, but what we've come to expect from it. Incidentally, the Max Payne franchise fell victim to that more than once. The first installment was born in pains over the course of several years -- but I think the end result blew most people away. When the second game hit the shelves only 2 years later, it was widely booed for the gameplay time, which someone estimated at 8 hours or so. I never thought of it that way. Yes, while the first one did seem longer to me, it might've only been because I played it at a friend's place, whom I only visited in the weekends, and so it took me a couple of weeks to finish. But MP2 felt just right as it was. I didn't feel like it lacked anything. If anything, it was more coherent and stylish -- it had some trippy parts, but it didn't go all out crazy, dabbling in some weird nordic voodoo like MP1 did I love both games equally, treating each as an individual piece with its own flavor -- and I don't think any less of MP3. Not sure if you remember, but ever since they announced it was in the making, it's been taking quite a beating for their plan to leave New York and move the story to Sao Paulo. I remember having my doubts, too. But when I finally got to play it, years later, I loved my trip through the favelas. But it seems the game bombed. Not sure whether it was the general high expectations -- or the audience's dissatisfaction with the story's departure from the dark and gritty NYC (which still gets a whole playable chapter all to itself). And I already pity the poor makers of Far Cry 4! I hear they went for some wintery setting this time -- and haters are hating already! It's obvious you can't satisfy everyone -- and the more you try, the greater the chance that everyone's going to hate it anyway for being too bland, too casual-friendly or whatever. I don't know what category I fit into. I'm the kind that gets a game, races through it like a maniac, killing, collecting, destroying -- and then goes on about his life without playing another for months... until a new discount hits Steam Which would make me a casual -- but I despise the term I'm a pro... with butter fingers

[Janos Biro]

Fitz,

It is great to hear your experiences with gaming. Yeah, we tend to judge a lot of things for what we expect from them. But, in this case, there is an industry generating expectations. My theory is that the common expectation for longer lengths is encouraged in order to maintain the status quo. It clearly benefits some kind of games over others.

I'm waiting for a better graphic card so I can play Max Payne 3. I'm the kind that likes to savor what the game has to offer in terms of a experience, and then think and talk about it for a while, until I can get to a conclusion. That's why I treat games like works of art.

"Casual" or "Pro", it doesn't matter. Gaming must opened to everyone.

[MillsJROSS]

MillsJROSS, I agree that every experience needs a minimum length to generate satisfaction. But can we measure the standard length for games? You can say that a book, a movie, a song or a meal is too short for it's price if, and only if, you understand how much effort it took to make it, or the price of production.

The standard length for games is driven by the consumers and will always be driven by consumers. It's a moving target based on genre/fans/cost. I can still say something is too short without knowing a single thing about the cost of producing it. My opinion doesn't stop anyone from making a short game, but as soon as they start selling their game it goes from a pure expression of art to consumer product that is competing for my hard earned dollars. I do not download games illegally, as a person who's in the software industry I always choose to reward the company/person who develops a product I like. I, however, will not purchase a product that I don't think will be rewarding for the current price being asked.

If games are truly an art form, and I do believe they are, then they open themselves to criticisms. I don't have to like something just because it's art, and I can certainly choose to criticize something that was too short. Certainly length shouldn't be the only thing consumers base their criticisms on, but it's no less a valid criticism than me remarking on the music/art/gameplay.

If the content is wonderful and the price is fair (considering the cost of production and the demand value), and still you won't buy it because it's "to short for it's price", then you are taking the side of those who think video-games are time-wasting machines. In the same way, most people think that food only serves to fill theirs stomachs and satisfy psychological needs for "fulfillment", not really for it's nutritional rates. That's why they are getting sick, while indigenous people are healthy eating much less.

But that's just my point. If the price is fair then I'll purchase it, but if it's not, I won't. It can't be a fair price and be too short, because I won't judge it as a fair price. I'm not taking the side of anyone. There certainly are people who think games are time fillers and others think of games as a truly unique interactive artform. I choose to think both are true, and depending on my mood I might choose a game that is a time filler or I might be in the mood for something more. My purchases are dependent on my current needs.

For the record, I actually tend to think games are too big rather than too short but I don't get tons a of free time so I prefer to play 5-10 hour adventure games that I can knock out in a weekend.

[Eric]

If I paid full price at a movie theater for an hour long movie, for a song that was one minute long, for a book that was fifty pages, for meal that was two bites, etc...I would make a criticism that I did not feel I got the value out of those purchases.

To play devil's advocate, I would gladly pay full price for Resnais' Night and Fog, The Descendents' "I Like Food," Fitzgerald's A Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and any number of high-quality amuse-bouches because they're worth it. I've never personally had a narrative experience where I thought, "This has not sufficiently passed enough of my time" on a quantitative scale. I've thought that some efforts could have spent some more time developing characters, or, more often, taken less time to get to the point. But those are questions of how time suits the story at hand, and not some external sense of how many minutes I expect it to take up.

[Janos Biro]

The standard length for games is driven by the consumers and will always be driven by consumers.

Can I give my non-free-marketeer opinion? If I can't, don't read the following:

NOTHING is driven by the consumers in our society. Consumers are driven by publicity, that generates desires. An opinion about the length of a game is a consumer opinion about a product, not a criticism of a work of art. And while games can be both, you cannot evaluate them in both ways at the same time. Criticism is based on knowledge and therefore can be valid or invalid, true or not true, good or not good. Consumers opinions can't be valid or invalid, true or not true, good or not good, because they are just opinions. No one can discuss opinions. And no amount of consumer opinions can define if the price is fair or even if the game is good. Popular games are not necessarily good games, because the masses don't always recognize what is good. It depends on how educated people are.

Do you know how much of your hard earned money goes to the people that really makes the games, compared to the amount that goes to the people that only publish and distribute the game? If you don't, you really should get informed about that.