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

depends on what game u guys are talking about.

If it's a platformer/action, 20 hours is too long.

But if u are talking about rpgs, then to me, 20 hours is a tad too short unless they are able to create an decent story and left a cliff-hanger, then that's okay, otherwise, i want my games to be at the very least 30 hours and above.

[quote name='Ikki' post='3581800' date='Apr 10 2011, 02:08 PM'][quote name='KingdomBlade' post='3581385' date='Apr 10 2011, 07:39 AM']Portal, Limbo and Braid were all criticized for the short length in relation to their price[/quote]
Who complained about the price of Portal?
At first, it was bundled with 4 more games and now it's 10 bucks, it even was free for a while.

I don't see why anyone would complain.
[/quote]
I got it when it was free, so I certainly didn't.

[quote name='Guild McCommunist' post='3581822' date='Apr 10 2011, 09:27 PM'][quote name='Ikki' post='3581800' date='Apr 10 2011, 03:08 PM'][quote name='KingdomBlade' post='3581385' date='Apr 10 2011, 07:39 AM']Portal, Limbo and Braid were all criticized for the short length in relation to their price[/quote]
Who complained about the price of Portal?
At first, it was bundled with 4 more games and now it's 10 bucks, it even was free for a while.

I don't see why anyone would complain.
[/quote]

This. Same goes for Limbo and Braid (which are like what, $10-$15?).
[/quote]

But it's around 5 hours long, which, if we base it upon dollar to hour ratio, isn't worth the price since 10 bucks can get you much longer games for that amount. That's exactly the reason why some people said the three were examples of "quality over quantity", and I agree with that.

It all depends on the type of game, really. For a game like Mega Man (the original/X/Zero ones, not Battle Network or anything) it should be somewhat short, I'd say 6 hours at the absolute most. For RPGs 20 hours is a decent length, but I usually wouldn't mind them being a bit longer. I enjoy games packed with content that I can play for a while, for example, I clocked about 70 hours on FFTA2. And then there are open-ended games. I have a Pokemon Diamond cartridge with over 200 hours clocked on it.

For RPGs I prefer a solid 60-120 hour game with a new game + preferred for consoles, handhelds can be as low as 30 hours but I prefer 40-100 hours, more is welcome.

Although for action games I prefer a lot of replay value (Gundam Assault Survive and Macross Ultimate Frontier for example)

6 hours is waay too short for a full price game, but 20 hours is perfectly acceptable if you ask me. Go above that and it just starts to get boring.

The most I've ever spent on one game was around 8 days, or 192 hours, but that was a multiplayer game. Single player, probably Twilight Princess, maybe like 75 hours. Anyway, my attention span is short, so 8 hours for a single player game is fine for me. One of the reasons I never complete RPGs is because of how long they are. I just get bored after awhile.

20 hours is in no way short; it all depends on how the gameplay is spent. For instance, Crysis took me ~15 hours to beat (with most secondary objectives), and it is one of my favorite games of all time, even with the price tag at around $50. Of course, I'm sure it depends on what type of game is being played, but it's not fair to say that 20 hours is short for all types of games.

EDIT: Changed a word that completely contradicted myself..

I like to think of entertainment value in terms of time length. If we are willing to pay 10 dollars to go see a movie thats 2 hours long and be entertained. It should be reasonable that a 50 dollar game then keeps you entertained for at least 10 hours. Pilot Wings is 40 dollars and keeps you at it for 20 hours. That is certainly worth it if you ask me.

Depends on what kind of game it is. For an RPG I'd say 30 hours minimum, but for an action game 20 hours is enough.
It's also about how much fun you have in those hours.

After 20 hours I'm usually getting sick of good games. Excellent games like CoD 2, CoD MW2, DQ VIII, Oblivion and Age of Empires 2 go far past that mark.
I've got 80 hours in DQ VIII now and I'm still not finished with it, to give an idea.

CoD 2 got 300 hours and I still play it sometimes.

It really depend on the game though, for an RPG or a nice adventure 20+ or 30+ or even 40+ is OK, the story , the reading etc. makes up for it.
But an action game or platformer can become boring over 20 hours.
I remember one of the selling points of Donkey Kong 64 when it came out, was the 40 + hours of gameplay.
I went very, very far, but to this day, I still didn't finish it, and that's because after a while the collecting, back tracking, jumping left and right got really monotonous .

We cant really measure a game by the time we spend playing through the "main" stuff.

As some people have mentioned, some games "main" story doesnt last close to 10 hours.
Crysis is an example, or Crysis 2. Gears of War, etc etc
Those games dont take longer than 10 hours to play through, but does that make us say "wasnt worth the money?".

It really depends on the game itself, not how long it takes to finish the game.
BUT

For myself, ye I would personally say 20 hours is short lol. I spend a lot more time on a single game. At least 40 hours.

I don't judge games on time. That's just a sad thing to do, in my opinion.

Look at Portal. It was probably an HOUR long, but I had a shit-ton of fun with it.

I think using glitches in the game and some other trickery you can finish the PC version of Portal in about 15 minutes. A bit longer if you go through properly, I think.

[quote name='Depravo' post='3581825' date='Apr 10 2011, 01:29 PM']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.[/quote]

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

depends if you just run through it, or try to get everything

[quote name='ProtoKun7' post='3582633' date='Apr 10 2011, 12:40 PM']I think using glitches in the game and some other trickery you can finish the PC version of Portal in about 15 minutes. A bit longer if you go through properly, I think.[/quote]

Yeah it's not that hard to go through it fast. You quickly learn faster ways to complete each level and shortcuts.

20 hours is a bit much for a game I played before... I prefer a game that I've played before to take me ~15 hours to beat (somewhere near 90+%).

But for games that I haven't played before, I like it when they're about 40-50hrs. But then again, I think I played Luigi's Mansion for the first time like a week ago. Took me 8 hours to beat (I took breaks and stuff, I'm a pretty busy guy) and I had FUN.
On the other hand, I'd gladly play 100+ hours for the newest Metroid, Golden Sun, Zelda, Mario, etc game.

In a wrap, I like games that can captivate me for awhile, but come time I want to replay them, I want to be able to enjoy them in one sitting, from start to finish, like a good book. (Hence, 20 hours of gameplay is pretty good when I'm on break. Just sacrifice a day of my life for sheer joy)

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