Stop boasting about the length of your game

PC Gamer writes, "Nobody is going to finish it anyway."

[Kaii]

Website In question gave the latest FC 75/100 & AC 92/100

I don't think It's fair to bite the hand of this studio when they don't even do yearly releases, 2015 DL 1 was released & we're In 2022 so how about we wait for what the reviews/previews show :p

You also gave BF 2042 80/100 so "Lack of credibility is apparent" alert.

[IMissJimRyan]

How dare a site can give these scores to society numbers one and two enemies: EA and Ubisoft?

[neutralgamer1992]

Quality over quantity and don't buy ubi games is my policy. Too much fluff just to stretch the game. Give me 15-20 hours of amazing quality

[jznrpg]

Some will finish it . Of course most won’t but it’s cool you can get some good hours in a good game if you want to , imo anyway . It’s better than GaaS that never ends and you buy passes and dumb shite MTs .

[stefd75]

I love a long game, I see it as good value of money, if Dying light 2 is 500 hours long then i would not need to buy another game for ages

[GhostofHorizon]

I don't think I've ever bought a game with this mindset.
You can always go back and replay a game to get the same effect. Playing a 10hr good game twice is preferred over playing a 10hr game with additional 10hrs of boring side quests and/or fetch quests.

Gaming is not that expensive these days if you're not buying games on release day. Value proposition is also one of those thing that you don't have to worry about if you have decent expendable income.

[stefd75]

problem is i am nearly 50 and dont have the expendable incom i did when i was in my 30's. With paying for a house, plus bills and travel to work and a wife and 2 kids to look after, there is not so much money left and everything is going up in price again. I dont buy as many games as i did either. i have finished all my backlog so love the longer games and they are the only ones i buy now, games like Forza, Assassin Creed, Yakuza, RPG's. I got Tales of Arise and Demon Souls for Xmas so they will last me a while however we all have different mindsets and look at games differently. :)

[GhostofHorizon]

That's a fair point, at the end of the day we are all different and our lives impact what we are looking to get from games quite a bit.

I'm still trying to get through a lot of my backlog and find that I have less free time than before these days due to other interests. So it usually feels nice to finish a quick game before jumping into something longer again.

That's why I don't think there is one easy answer here. Game length is also only a small portion of the ever changing "whole picture" of life and games.

[MadLad]

I'd much rather several truly quality titles than one title that, while quality, wastes my time with fluff.

[anast]

@stefd

I'll be playing Demon Souls for years. I know what you mean.

[SurgicalMenace]

Time is money, and it takes 900 hours to become an expert. Let that settle.

[Azurite]

Depends on what supposedly adds to the time, could be generic quests/missions to fetch/deliver things that will take time but won't really add any 'fun value'.

[Ashunderfire86]

Its the world building with your evergrowing decisions that is the game length. Come on man, Techland never disappoint us, they give us a feature complete game out of the box and digital release.

[galgor]

Oh okay.. so let's encourage developers not to take some pride in their work? Whoever wrote this article is a moron.

[CorndogBurglar]

Haha. Yes, let's also encourage devs not to let fans know what they are in for. Let's encourage devs to let fans go into a game without any idea of how long it is. Let's make sure they don't tell us if there's no DLC or microtransactions while we're at it.

[H9]

This article will trigger people especially that the writer sound so angry and made awkward examples, that it will come off as unprofessional, but the point is valid nonetheless, there's nothing wrong with long games even extremely long ones, but just making a million copy pasted quests to make the game longer is nothing to be proud about for a lot of people, studios would rather hire more people to make the game bigger(obviously the bigger the game is the more people you need to make it and more was testers) instead of hiring one excellent writer to write a couple of great quests, yet there's a reality that this formula have a target audience, and I believe that every audience should be given what they want, in condition that they don't overshadow others

[anast]

A lot of people enjoy the grind and "fluff". I don't but I am not about to try to change other people's fun landscape to fit mine.

[SegaSaturn669]

What can I boast the length of then?

[CorndogBurglar]

Not your weiner, that's for sure.

[Fist4achin]

Ooooo, roasted weiner that is.

[Outlawzz]

The only time I take issue with a long game is when the content is repetitive and exists to simply pad the length of the game out.

If content is engaging and varied I will definitely take my time with it like a fine aged wine that only ripens the longer I take to finish it lol

this is of course very rare and I usually end up moving to another game when I feel I've had my money's worth and there's nothing wrong with that imo as long as you enjoyed the time spent for the amount you payed.

[Fntastic]

I'd prefer a game that has a good amount of content, not too long, but fairly challenging to make it last longer tbh. Though it depends, GTA SA is a longer game than VC because it has 2x as many missions and more side stuff, but I enjoyed it so the length was good.

[GhostofHorizon]

Not something to boast about, quality should be the only thing that matters. I generally try to mix it up between long and short games, they both have their benefits.

Artificialy extending the game length always makes me feel like the developer is wasting my precious free time though.

[CorndogBurglar]

True. But I does go the other way also. I don't know how old you are, but back in the OG Xbox days, and early 360 / PS3 days, it used to be a problem if a game released but was too short. And rightfully so. So longer games are definitely great, but you have a strong point also. Making it long by adding monotonous quests and things that don't matter isn't exactly the solution to short games. It all needs to be interesting.

[GhostofHorizon]

It's a matter of perspective really. The games before them weren't really longer. Video game focus turned more towards story based games and suddenly you had to let people complete the games.

The first Uncharted was pretty short but depending on how you played it, it could last you 6 hours if you just went straight through the story or 12 hours if you stopped to collect the treasure along the way and looked at every nook and cranny to find everything.

I can't even remember how many times I've played through Super Mario Bros. where a vast majority of that time was spent replaying the game over and over because eventually you reach that game over screen.

It really comes down to how you play and what you make of the game.

[Rimeskeem]

I remember when the Witcher 3 and Skyrim came out and had literal 100s of hours of gameplay. I don't think many devs boast about the length of their game, just tell people what they can expect if they want to 100% it etc.

[NotanotherReboot]

ok but what about my dick??

[JeffGUNZ]

oh snap!

[CorndogBurglar]

Too short. Would not play again.

[Fist4achin]

Heard it was a "micro"transaction

[brewin]

It's all subjective. Personally, I love a nice long game. People seem to hate AC and Far Cry etc because of their length and the fact they have all these OPTIONAL side quests. I have about 30 hours in FC6 and over 120 in AC Valhalla, which I have been playing for over a year and a half now. I love them. Best bang for the buck. You can get thru the main story in like 20-30 hours, but I love all the extra content and usually do as much as I can and disregard the extra stuff I don't care about, like the tattoos in AC.

There's nothing wrong with great short games though. I enjoyed the hell out of the new ratchet and clank, but it felt so short! I would love a 30+ hour open world R&C! I started another playthrough of it, but it just didn't hold my attention as much as the first time around. That's a one and done for me and the $70 price tag wasn't worth it to me. If I'm paying full price for a game, I want that potential to play it for months on end. That's just me though. I understand people don't have that much time and there's so many games out there, but for me, that 100+ hour potential is a selling point. And if it's good enough, I will finish it regardless of the length.

[JeffGUNZ]

I agree. This summer I went through every assassin's creed game from release order on PC. I am currently 77 hours into Valhalla and love it. I feel like Valhalla finally got it right where the side stuff isn't the exact same thing. You can beat the story in like 20-30 hours if you want and then be done or you can complete all the extra stuff. I like having those options. I am very OCD so when I see a flicker of gold on the map I missed, I gotta immediately go back and complete that. I finished Odyssey in like 150+ hours haha

[brewin]

Yeah exactly! I love having the option to just get completely sucked into the world. They have created these amazing worlds and I get constant enjoyment from seeing some of the stuff they went to great lengths to create. It's just amazing to me that they put so much detail in so many aspects of the AC games in particular. And then there are the expansions, which I thought were great as well. I'm currently working through the Siege of Paris DLC now and I love all of it!
Also, when you hunt down those little trinkets and such, that's when you find all these little Easter eggs and stuff like that. Those dungeons and caves are like side levels that you wouldn't see otherwise, so it's all about a feeling of fullfillment for me. I get a sense of satisfaction when I find this stuff.

[bunt-custardly]

It's usually ~1/3 who finish games.

[rippermcrip]

Seems like something odd to rant about.

[Neonridr]

As long as it's a good experience I don't care if it's 8 hours vs 20 hours. Some games pad their length and start to drag on by the end.

[Magog]

Depends entirely on the game. Some I wish would never end and some outstay their welcome.

[plmkoh]

Techland have a lot to prove if they want to brag about game play time. Because they've demonstrated in previous title bland side quests and filler fetch quests. I am excited to play their game for the main quests but will definitely skip through most of the junk missions unless they are on the way to main quests. I don't think them bragging about 500 hours of gameplay is a good thing.

[Bronbron92]

I’d rather hear a dev boast on how long or how much time it’ll take to complete a game than to get a game that only takes a few hours to beat and not much to actually complete it

[isarai]

That's a selling point for a lot of people tho. I get that for a lot of enthusiasts it doesnt mean much till you know the quality vs quantity situation, but for most they just want something they can keep playing

[CrimsonWing69]

Well, not only that, it’s like 9 out of 10 times it’s completely inaccurate.

[Vizigoth04]

I’ve become a little crazy about Trophies and Achievements so I’m more then excited about the play hours. Plus this will probably mean they have all of the map build when when they add DLC content. But I like a combination of both long and short games. But huge fan of the first Dying Light.

[CorndogBurglar]

Columnist asks how it became a selling point? It's simple, most people don't want to get a game and beat it in 7 or 8 hours. That actually did used to be a thing and many gamers complained about it any time it would happen.

So now it's much less common, and we have developers making sure gamers know that their game is plenty long enough.

Also, 500 hours seems crazy, but that is including all side quests and extra things that are not required to finish the game. All open world games have what seems like much more time spent on side quests than the actual main story.

This is honestly no different than devs making it a point to advertise when their games don't include DLC. It's sad that it came to that, but they are just making sure the fans know they aren't present, and by default, it becomes a selling point. Much like this. Devs want fans to know they won't finish the game in 1 or 2 sittings.

[brewin]

Well said. I'd much rather have a game take Weeks on end vs a single Weekend!

[anast]

Journos don't want long games, it makes their job harder. "People with lives" just complain because they haven't realized their tastes have changed. No one has to beat a game in two days, some people just like to. I don't feel the need to finish 4 games a week.

If the game is fun, I will spend north of 300 hrs replaying and exploring, which takes me months or years, in the case of RDR2 and Dark souls 3, because I "have a life". If the game sucks, I won't spend much time playing. I have spent less than 30 minutes on a 20hr game because it sucked to me.

Time doesn't necessarily change subjective fun. To think this is well...Our concepts and emotions toward what we want to do with our time determines our expectations of subjective fun. But if those clicks are still cashing in, why not write "games are too long" ad infinitum?

[brewin]

We all know that journos don't often finish the games they're reviewing. It's sad. I don't trust them at all and would rather go by something like Metacritic where you can see a general consensus about a game then check it out if you like what's being said about a particular game. Some games have great critical reception but bad fan reception and vice versa. It's much easier to see who's paid off and who didn't actually play these days.

[ElvisHuxley]

Stop making articles that have declarations as the headline, as if game journalists have any sort of authority or credibility.

[sourOG]

The typical game reviewer can’t be bothered to play a game that’s longer than 10 hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get the cliff note version of games to review. They get a giant box of swag and the dumbed down training wheels version of the game. Useless lol.

[darklaw]

When you say fully complete, that means find every secret, item, easter egg, sidequest, area. and trophy, almost no one does this in my opinion.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

Bragging about 500 hours of gameplay is more of a way of saying “you’ll have to play for a very long time until you get bored”. Obviously very few people put 100+ hours into any game.

[mastershredder]

Geez. Can we get over this shi7? Story (Main) length vs. Content duration are completely different things. And like many said, there is nothing wrong with a game packed content. That's a great freak'n deal and show of dedication to their base. Meanwhile Frasure feels entitled enough to tell the development community how they need to describe their games. Hey Frasure... eat one, and I didn't finish reading your lame article anyway.

[GamingSinceForever]

Why get so upset because someone is telling you that they made a game that you can play forever? As long as it is entertaining why complain?

[Rdeal]

i sick of people moaning about long games, when in 100% of them you don't have to do the fluff, if you want a short game just play the story and that's it

[Ashunderfire86]

Why the F is this a problem to anyone? 500 hours of gameplay justify the $70 dollar price tag! My biggest regret to gaming was buying The Darkness 2 on Steam for $60 bucks, and the campaign was stupid short to 4 hours! And The Coop was 2 hours, which brings the game to a total of 6 hours with no replay value! I rather pay Dying Light 2 long campaign with so many choices and ending, plus coop for 500 hours! That is money well spent. I will be playing it on my vacation and Horizon Forbidden West. Can't wait for both games to keep me busy.

[Kaini_Industries]

Length != substance. Fetch quests, and kill X in Y radial area quests, and other filler don't count in my mind. If a quest feels like it can be generated by a random quest generating AI, it's filler.

[metalgod88]

Dude, if developers added a ton of content to their game and made it available at launch rather than creating a ton of DLC and charging extra money for content already on the disk, then yeah, they can boast all they want.

I mean, even if it was DLC, they could still boast, granted it probably wouldn't go over very well lol.

[Vanfernal]

"Nobody is going to finish it anyway." Go to YouTube. Look up the Completionist. Stfu

[SpineSaw]

So let me see if I got this right...... Hours 1 through 10 is getting started and hooked on the game because its great but then hour 11 starts and it last through hour 489 where your doing no more than a mindless grind of unimportant task only designed to make sure your simply logged into this game and doing nothing else, but!!!!..... When you get through to that all important 490th hour the whole complete story comes together and you get to the big finish to wrap things up in the 499th hour but it was good enough to get you to come back for the 700 plus hour $20usd DLC and the 3rd game...... I think I nailed it and its a hard pass for me.

[philm87]

No need to get on Techland's back, one of the best developers out there. The way they supported the original Dying Light is ridiculous. Using the wrong example to make his point.

[Towers]

Normally for me, anything over 8-10 hours and my gaming eyes start wandering. However Dying Light was a game I played online co-op for so many hours, so if there's a ton of variety in those hours of gameplay, I'm all good for it.