So 20 hours for a game is short now...?

[celeron53]

i laughed at how he just ended his post with "Annnnd..... should I buy Pilotwings?" hahhahahhahah

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I grew up with the classics of NES and SNES, so yes, IMO 20 hours is a short game if you haven't played it before and you're not using a guide...It's not really fair to compare today's games with a classic game that you have played numerous times. 25 hours on your fifth playthrough is a far cry different than a 25 hour game on your first playthrough.

 

[Deadmon]

I fall into the "20 hours is a fair amount" category. Mainly because I just don't have time to play games anymore, and I feel obligated to play games with 30 hours+.

 

[ShinyLatios]

if 20 hours is short, what is 895:34 for a pokemon playtime?

 

[Kwartel]

20 is not short now. It is short, period. In the retro era, games were fucked up long. So 20 hours is short.

 

[Depravo]

It depends on the type of game. 20 hours is OK for a fast-paced shooty/action type game but not for an RPG. I would consider any RPG that lasted me less than 50 hours to be a 'short' game.

So how many hours have you pumped into Just Cause 2 so far?

Over 100 in total but that's because I'm such an OCD completionist. When I replayed the game in 'Hardcore' mode for the last couple of trophies it only took around 12 hours.

 

[DSGamer64]

20 hours of game play is the minimum for a full priced game, though for me this rule generally applies to PC and console games which are in every aspect supposed to be bigger. I am not going to go out and slap down 80 dollars for a game with a stupidly short single player mode, especially shooters. I was pretty content with Borderlands though, at 50 bucks with all the DLC available at the time, I put in 24 hours just on my first play through without doing any of the additional content. I am on my second play through now and am doing the extra stuff as I go and trying to get 100% by getting all the missions completed. I estimate I will put in a good 60 hours to complete everything after my second play through is done.

The length of a game does matter, 20 hours is pretty short and I don't mind it so much for portable games, having 20 hours just to play through the story or whatever and then having lots of online and extra things to do (Pokemon is a prime example), it winds up being considerably longer then it should be. I think people also, especially the older gaming population, tend to equate the length of game time by it's difficulty. Back when we had no saves and games were actually pretty hard (Contra anyone?), the length of time you would have to spend to beat certain games equates to being about the same as easier games that are just naturally longer because you can save and don't have to start from the freaking beginning when you lose.

 

[Arm73]

It depends on the type of game. 20 hours is OK for a fast-paced shooty/action type game but not for an RPG. I would consider any RPG that lasted me less than 50 hours to be a 'short' game.

So how many hours have you pumped into Just Cause 2 so far?

Oh boy.....I just started Just cause 2........I just gave it a try really because I' m almost done with Assassin Creed II ( I' m going for 100% completeness, but those damn feathers are really hard to find ! ) and I can see myself spending a long, long time on JC2 !
And by the way, I'm not really a fan of open word ,exploration and freedom to waste an unlimited time of hours a la GTA, I'm more for a classic , linear PoP experience, but JC2 is cool because it uses a grappling hook a la Bionic Commando, so I have to play it !

 

[retKHAAAN]

Silly to judge a game by how long it is. I remember paying $50 for Super Mario 3. I remember when people would finish a game in an hour or two...and then just play it again...and again... What the hell happened to the average gamer's attention span?

As far as games like CoD and such being 6-10 hours single player, the multiplayer must also be considered. Sure you may only get a week or two out of the campaign (assuming you're a normal person with normal person responsibilities and only play for an hour or two a night a few nights a week...) but with the multiplayer you can infinitely extend the play time. If you get bored with it...don't know what to tell you. Maybe if you didn't concern yourself with having to play every single "big" game that came out you could get more out of the few you do play.

The problem is, people now want to play games for hours at a time. It's sad to see people say stuff like "I expect to pay $1 per hour...". Do something other than sit in front of your TV/PC screen for hours at a time. If I take my wife to the movies, I don't expect to get 10 hours of movie (8 hours for a matinee...). Games are supposed to be a casual escape, not a life's goal.