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[Tidus_Great]

Does a game have to meet a certain number of hours for the main story for you to consider it a 50-60 dollar purchase? on a scale of 1-10 1 being it's not a big factor and 10 being a huge facto how much would you say a games length factors into a games value in your eyes?

 

[Roubjon]

Probably like a 2. Journey was one of the best games I've ever played and it was 2 hours. Xenoblade was horribly boring and yet it was 70 hours.

All I'm looking for in a game is how fun or interesting of an experience it will be. The length is arbitrary really.

But I do understand why some people value longer playtimes. It makes logical sense, I just don't follow it.

 

[James Scott]

Now if the game is too long that's probably a detractor to a game for me.
I got money and I'd rather have shorter more condensed games with the option to do more stuff on the side always being ok.
I feel like SE thought 30 hours for a JRPG wasn't good enough for some reason so they they made the game 70 hours long but with only about 30 hours of decent content which absolutely ruined the game for me.

 

[TheXbox]

Playtime is a factor, but not necessarily length. Metal Gear Rising is a short ass game but I've played it to completion around four times. That's a good value.

 

[To Far Away Times]

Now if the game is too long that's probably a detractor to a game for me.
I got money and I'd rather have shorter more condensed games with the option to do more stuff on the side always being ok.
I feel like SE thought 30 hours for a JRPG wasn't good enough for some reason so they they made the game 70 hours long but with only about 30 hours of decent content which absolutely ruined the game for me.

Bravely Default?

 

[Tidus_Great]

Probably like a 2. Journey was one of the best games I've ever played and it was 2 hours. Xenoblade was horribly boring and yet it was 70 hours.

All I'm looking for in a game is how fun or interesting of an experience it will be. The length is arbitrary really.

Journey was precisely one of the games i was thinking of it's 2 hours but a it's a very great and meaningful experience and one of my favorite games ever.

but you have to think it launched at 14.99 I believe?

Would people pay 60 dollars for journey. To waht degree does quality >>> quantity apply?

 

[dhlt25]

I buy all my games cheap anyway so length is not a factor. I'm at a point where I prefer a 6 hrs experience if possible.

 

[Tidus_Great]

Now if the game is too long that's probably a detractor to a game for me.
I got money and I'd rather have shorter more condensed games with the option to do more stuff on the side always being ok.
I feel like SE thought 30 hours for a JRPG wasn't good enough for some reason so they they made the game 70 hours long but with only about 30 hours of decent content which absolutely ruined the game for me.

This is my problem with many 35+ hour RPGs as well. they tend to have large degrees of filler in the form of back tracking, repetitive plot points and boring sidequests :/
sometimes i;d rather have them edited down to 25 hours.

 

[kittens]

It's pretty important. I'll pretty much never buy a $60 game unless I plan on playing it for months. That's why I like multiplayer games so much. I do buy relatively short single player games at full price, but I almost always resell them.

 

[texhnolyze]

Yes, I wouldn't play a game that have less than 5 or even 10 hours of gameplay to finish it.
It would left me with this "I want more!" feeling.

 

[Altima]

More than 20 hr - always worth my purchase.

Less than that - Depend on experience I got from the game.

Anyway, I usually cannot play bad game more than 5 hr.

 

[cheesekao]

Outside of RPGs, I expect a $60 game to have an SP campaign that is roughly 10-12 hours long.

 

[Currygan]

depends on the genre, but 20 hours is a good starting point for me

10-20 I'm starting to look at the price

1-10 I hope this shit is 9.99

 

[Bo Knows GAF]

I was in the mood to play a stealth game so I bought MGS ground zero on the ps4 store. note, I have never played MGS before. So I drop in game, figure out the controls and 30 mins later realize I just beat the fuckin game. I was super pissed. So to answer the OP's question, game length matters a TON, AFTER I figure out if I like the game or not. What a huge waste of 20 bucks though, holy bejebus.

 

[bigkrev]

Pretty highly- if a game is longer than I think it should be, i'm not going to buy it.

If you are anything over 15 hours or so, there better be a damn good reason for your length.

 

[Love Deterrence]

Spoiler

Ground

Zero

Spoiler

es

.

 

[potam]

I have no set length, but honestly if I get ~10-15 hours out of a $60 game, I feel content. If it's a $5 sale game, I couldn't care less how long it is. I think I may have put an hour total into Crysis 3 when I picked it up during the winter sales, but I don't regret that purchase. It was a nice little tech demo to me.

 

[Bessy67]

depends on the genre, but 20 hours is a good starting point for me

10-20 I'm starting to look at the price

1-10 I hope this shit is 9.99

This is pretty much my thoughts as well. If I look at a game and can't see myself getting 20 hours out of it I usually wait for sales.

 

[Elitist1945]

Pretty highly- if a game is longer than I think it should be, i'm not going to buy it.

If you are anything over 15 hours or so, there better be a damn good reason for your length.

Better to have the game too long than too short though, right?

For me it doesn't really matter, unless:

- Its single player only (then it needs to be 10+ hours)

 

[gigantor21]

Now if the game is too long that's probably a detractor to a game for me.
I got money and I'd rather have shorter more condensed games with the option to do more stuff on the side always being ok.
I feel like SE thought 30 hours for a JRPG wasn't good enough for some reason so they they made the game 70 hours long but with only about 30 hours of decent content which absolutely ruined the game for me.

Pretty much how I feel about it.

Padding out a game's play time isn't particularly hard. You can add more fetch quests, collectibles, force more backtracking, grinding, and so on--all the irritating tricks devs use to stretch the content as much as humanly possible. I'm far more interested in how much I enjoy the time I spend with the game than the actual number of hours.

Quality > Quantity.

 

[Piercedveil]

I'd say like an 8 or 9 if I'm paying $60. Something like GTA V (when it releases on PC) seems worth it to me because I know it's a game I can easily put 100+ hours into if I decide to. I do buy a lot of good, shorter games but I almost always buy them on sale.

 

[GungriffonEX]

1, which is also how many hours its takes to beat Rez, one of my all time favorites and I paid full price to import it back in the day.

 

[JayEH]

Spoiler

Ground

Zero

Spoiler

es

.

This. Also..

 

[shinobi602]

Fairly high for me. I work very hard for my money so I'm a little more stringent but, if I know for a fact something's a 5-6 hour experience, no matter how good, I just can't justify plopping down 60 bones for it...

 

[Surface of Me]

For full priced $60 games, greatly. I typically buy long SP games or MP games I know I'll be playing a lot nowadays. I don't understand paying $60 for a 5 hour linear experience.

Budget/indie games I don't care as much. For instance Jazzpunk and Ground Zeros were two of my favorite releases last year despite both being short.

 

[Juice]

Shorter the better. I just dont have enough time for filler in games. I'd rather play a really densely packed game that ramped up the mechanics and kept the story moving than one that padded the content at all.

Would rather pay $60 for a brilliant 4 hour experience than a solid 30 hour one.

 

[Laevateinn]

It used to but now I worry more about a game being too long. I'd rather play a Genesis game with high replay value that I can beat in a couple hours over a modern action game that goes on for more than 15. RPGs can go on forever if the characters and story is good though.

 

[RBK]

If I can't get at least 20 hours out of single player only game, I don't even consider the purchase at full price.

So like a 8/10. MP no matter how good or bad it is probably knocks it to a 6/10.

 

[xevis]

I'd rather have a short focused game than a long one packed with filler and bereft of direction. Ideally something that's easily replayed. 10-15hrs max. Heck, even 15 probably too long; 5-10hrs!

 

[ItIsOkBro]

Not that they're even remotely comparable, but the barometer I've been using is a game should be 6 times longer than a movie, because it's 6 times more expensive than a movie ticket. This works out to something like 12 hours of content, less than that and I feel I'm not getting my money's value.

 

[potam]

Fairly high for me. I work very hard for my money so I'm a little more stringent but, if I know for a fact something's a 5-6 hour experience, no matter how good, I just can't justify plopping down 60 bones for it...

What if it's like a 6 hour celebrity orgy sim on OR with robo-vagina included? I'd fucking throw down $60.

edit: who are we kidding? If it were a 3 minute walkthrough of the celebrity orgy chamber, I'd pay $60.

 

[Zeuanimals]

Almost nothing at all. Too many games have too much padding these days and the length of the games (technically the crappy side quests and collectathons) don't make them any good.

 

[Crayolan]

Below 15 hours or so the lower a game's length the higher quality it's going to have to be to make up for it. Still, there are a lot of games I really really love which are pretty short--Sonic 3&K, Sonic Generations, and SMB3 are all very short games but they're some of my favorites of all time. Replayability helps a lot.

 

[Lothar]

Shorter games are better. If it's too long like Dragon Quest 7 and Xenoblade, then it lowers the game's quality.

 

[GamerJM]

It's not too important to me, I have enough money and games to last me a lifetime

What is important is that a game justifies its length. If I finish a game wanting more then that's a negative, if a game goes on for too long and feels like it should have ended hours ago then that's also a negative.

 

[Dajanksta]

Big time for me. I love getting lost in games and get pretty bummed out trying to replay something. I can only replay a few games without getting bored. I've never found a game that was too long. If I had my choice when playing skyrin, fallout, or any other long game I'd gladly double or triple their length and I'd be happy as hell with it.

 

[PensivePen]

Very little. Maybe a 3 if I had to put it on a scale? I obviously don't want to pay much for a game if it's only going to last a few minutes. But aside from that length is no real factor and I generally prefer shorter, high quality games that lend themselves better to being replayed.

 

[iconoclast]

The length of the story doesn't matter at all to me, but I will only buy a game for full price if I know I'm going to spend a whole lot of time with it (eg. Vanquish, Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, etc.)

 

[HyperOne]

Less and less as the years go on and I have increasingly more important things to do.

Now it is more about the quality of the hours spent.

 

[Gilly]

Never consider it, always buy my games for dirt cheap and long games are often filled with more filler than quality content. Imagine if Limbo or uncharted or something was like 30 hours long it wouldn't be nearly as good as they are at their current lengths.

 

[mikey1123]

I don't have a set length a game has to be for me to feel I got my money worth. If I enjoyed playing it, then I consider it money well spent. $60 for a video game today is a fair price if you ask me.

 

[jacksrb]

If I enjoy it and get more than about 10 hours with it - then I am generally ok with a full price game. However, there are a lot of games that I get more enjoyment out of if it is less than 20 hours and I can therefore play more games.

Having two kids under 3 doesn't lend itself to a lot of gaming time. Loving the smaller size games on Games With Gold (for example) that I can finish in a week instead of something that takes me a month or more.

The other thing is just related to expectations for how long a game should be. I have an expectation that a new console Zelda will be 30-50 hours for me. I have an expectation that a Call of Duty campaign will be 6-10 hours. I am usually hoping that those guidelines are held too (including not being a lot longer).

 

[Anon67]

I only purchase games for $60 if I know I'll play them for 50+ hours. Because of that, I mainly buy multiplayer games for $60. Otherwise, I wait for good sales for shorter games.

 

[Whiteblade999]

Length is a factor for me, but not the factor. A game should be as long as it needs to be and not a second more. Dragon Age: Inquisition was a game that had a lot of great parts, but was brought down by all the trash content. Something like Transistor on the other hand was a nicely paced game from start to finish.

Edit: I should mention that I'm pretty frugal on my purchases. Full priced games are a rare thing for me, it has to be a game I really want to get my hands on. Otherwise I just grab the game on sale. The games I grab tend to be longer, but I have bought a few shorter games at full price.

 

[Kurt Angle]

quality > dragged out hours

 

[GOGOheadray]

10 without question. In fact for the most part the only games I buy at full price ( 60 bucks) are sports, Open world games ( DA:I; GTA; etc) and RPGS ( Skyrim, etc). When I pay full price for something I am expecting a whole bunch of hours out of said game.

 

[elfinke]

Probably like a 2. Journey was one of the best games I've ever played and it was 2 hours. Xenoblade was horribly boring and yet it was 70 hours.

All I'm looking for in a game is how fun or interesting of an experience it will be. The length is arbitrary really.

But I do understand why some people value longer playtimes. It makes logical sense, I just don't follow it.

Agreed 100%. At this juncture of my life, I value a well-made, full-priced game (that admittedly is going to be <$50AUD or less these days) vastly more than other metrics. HowLongToBeat has been one of my visited websites of the last while while I work out what to play in my backlog.

If you're making a game that is 10+ hours long, it had better be fucking good and give me solid reasons to keep plinking away at it (this is where something like an iOS game has its value, as I can put 30mins per session anywhere I have my iPad on me, across several weeks and rack up 10+ hours).

Otherwise, give me Jazzpunk every day.

 

[Corine]

10 without question. In fact for the most part the only games I buy at full price ( 60 bucks) are sports, Open world games ( DA:I; GTA; etc) and RPGS ( Skyrim, etc). When I pay full price for something I am expecting a whole bunch of hours out of said game.

Yup same with me. I would never pay $60 for a game I wasn't gonna get a ton of playtime out of. Short games I just buy on a cheap Steam sale.

 

[Hypron]

Probably 2 or 3. Replayability is way more important for me. I won't buy a 6 hour game that has no replay value for $60, but I'll definitely buy a 6 hour game that's endlessly replayable (eg. MGR:R) full price.

 

[glyndski]

3

Not every game needs to be really long. I don't like games that overstay their welcome. I think 8-10 hours is a good number for FPS story line like Wolfenstein which I thought was the perfect length. Whereas a good RPG I'd expect to cram out a good 30-40 hours out of it. Really depends on the game. At the end of the day, if I got my entertainment, I'm happy.

Most of my gaming purchases are based off "going to the movies".

A movie ticket costs $20-25 for 2-3 hours of entertainment. If I pay $60 for a game and get 8-9 hours out of it, that's been worth the money.Like I bought Call of Juarez: Gunslinger for $15, finished the main story in 5 hours and couldn't be happier with my purchase ... infact, it was easily one of my top 10 games of the year. Same with games like World of Warcraft. I pay for a month of game time and if I get 4 hours of solid entertainment out of it for the month (which I get a lot more), that purchase is completely justified.

Also allows me to give up on games that I don't have any interest in completing. If I bought a game on sale for $20, play for 3-4 hours and give up on it, I don't really have any guilt as I got the hours I wanted out of it. Just like the movies. I'm not going to enjoy every movie I see but it was still entertaining.