[General Discussion] How long do you like your games? What about girth?

When I was younger ploughing countless hours into games was easy. I had a decent amount of time of an evening to cram in plenty of things from playing with friends to watching TV, and well homework could be easily rushed (or ignored). Plus being a kid I could only ever really afford one game at a time, usually having to trade things in sadly, and so I'd always try to eek every ounce of gaming I could out of it.

These days spending numerous hours on games is not so easy. Apart from having one of those real life job things I also have plenty of other things to fill my time with, from seeing friends to boring (but necessary) chores and a whole load in between. But the benefit of having one of those job things is I now have money to buy most games I want (and lack the will power to stop myself doing so). So I have less time and more games, and as a result I find myself having to consider the length of gaming experiences more and more, which leads me to the question posed here: how long do you like your games?

OK, so the question is slightly silly because how long we expect a game to be will be determined by the kind of game and experience we aim to get from it. If you're about to sink into an RPG you'll probably expect to put in a fair few more hours than, say, a first person shooter. However, as with most things you'll probably find that you have a preference for how long you like games to last, or that games you really love fit into. You may, for example, be put off by RPGs because of how long they typically last, or find yourself frustrated by FPSs that end too soon.

For instance, my current game on the go is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2, and it's a great game that I've enjoyed every minute of so far. But boy is that a lot of minutes. I believe I'm about two-thirds of the way through, but so far it's eaten about 75 hours of my time all in all over the last couple of months. With a stack of games I really want to play starting to build up I've got to confess that I'm starting to find myself wishing I was progressing through it quicker. OK, so I could, I could just stick to the 'story' missions and be done with it sooner, but that's not how I want to play the game and I wouldn't find that fun. At the same time it'd be disappointing if it'd ended too soon because of the style of game, but I do find myself tending towards games that don't need quite so much of a commitment.

So what's your preference for game length, and why?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by speculative

However, what is most important for me, especially in an RPG, is pacing. I absolutely, positively do not want to be forced to play for more than half hour at a time without the ability to save.

This is a very solid point. The number of times I've hit issues like that when I need/want to go do something else but haven't been able to save yet. It's a truly irritating situation to find yourself in.

Pacing is a great point though. It's a bit like films, I don't mind a long experience if it makes sense that it's a long experience. However, if it feels like a short experience that's been padded or stretched artificially, then that grates (and vice versa on length).

Originally Posted by LeHah

Its not because the games have great stories or good combat or interesting ideas never seen before ... but because those games fulfilled a childhood dream of swinging around New York.

So replay is a big part of this.

I agree replay value adds a lot to how much time you end up putting into a game in total, but the core experience is still going to be of a certain length (you're just choosing to play a game again instead of playing a different game). You can argue though that 'replayability', to an extent, affects more sandbox type games where how enjoyable just messing about with the world is can greatly affect how much time you end up sinking into it.

However, I don't know as if wish fulfillment is quite the same as adding replay value. A lot of games provide an element of wish fulfillment, but not all of them contain replay value.

There's nowhere I can't reach.