Games are too long. Wish they were the length of movies

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Applies to campaigns rather than multiplayer.

A game should ideally be 2 to 3 hours long. Also if they were priced around the same mark as movies. I'd be happy paying £10-£15 for a 2 to 3 hour game.

A lot of games are just padded out to fill time. I'd rather have an intense 2 hour game than a waffling 40 hour epic.

Also I'd feel like I'm getting what I've paid for as I don't complete that many games. I'm guessing lots of other people are the same. You pay £30-£40 for a game then don't get to see it all.

I don't have a massive amount of time for games currently. Breaking it down I think there are two main reasons behind my suggestion:

1) Value for money. If I pay £40 for a game and don't finish it I feel like I haven't got value for money. As I don't have a huge amount of time to game this happens quite a bit. Looking at my history I'd say I've completed less than 10% of the games of played. If a game was £9.99 and lasted 3 hours I'd be happy with that as I feel I'm getting value for money (I know you can get a £40 game that lasts 300 hours but I don't have this time)

2) Time. As I don't have a huge amount of time I'd rather play and complete 10 smaller games in a year than say half compete 1.

A good example of what I'd like to see more of is the Dead Rising DLC that originally appeared on XBLA. That was fantastic. For £3-£4 I got a complete experience which lasted just over 2 hours. That was me done. I didn't need to go and buy the full game. There was some replay value in the game for those who felt 2 hours wasn't enough.

I'd like to see more of this. As I understand it the Dead Rising DLC was a big success and one of the best selling titles on XBLA (might have my facts wrong on that though). I'd happily pay for something similar that gave me a 2 hour story from say COD.

Finally to avoid getting flamed I should state that the longer games should remain but there should be more shorter experiences available like the Dead Rising standalone DLC.

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I'm not sure I agree to be honest.

I want more game than less.

A lot of people complain that COD (for example) isn't long enough as it is (approx 7-8 hours). I find that about 8 hours is my sweet spot for FPS games. I can always play them a second time if I want more out of the single player.

I'll take COD4 as another example. That game is an 8 hour epic paced game. If it was an all out 2 hours action packed game then the story/single player would have been forgotten about yonks ago. But the pace of it is perfect for an 8 hour game.

What games are you basing your opinion on? As I can't see this working for Racing/Fighting games etc either.
 
Thinking of story/campaign modes really.

I'd happily of paid £10 for COD4 had the campaign been 2 hours just like I was happy to pay £10 to enjoy Inception.

Instead your asked for £40 and I'm guessing not everybody finished the 8 hour campaign.

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When a game is really good, I don't want it to end. If it was the norm for games to be 1½-2 hours long, I wouldn't be into that at all. I paid £10 for Might & Magic recently on XBLA and it took me 33 hours to complete everything it offered (and there's online multiplayer too) and I enjoyed every minute of it.

To me, a game is more comparable to a TV series in the way I enjoy it.
 
Nah, 2 hours is far too short. I want something I can really invest in and explore. I can't see how you'd get into a game story in a couple of hours. Yeah, a movie is only that long and you can get into that, but you're fed the story and the decisions and you just follow it. In a game, you have to think and make decisions - that automatically makes a game need to be longer.
 
Yeah, a movie is only that long and you can get into that, but you're fed the story and the decisions and you just follow it. In a game, you have to think and make decisions - that automatically makes a game need to be longer.
Agreed, plus films are designed to be enjoyed in one sitting because they're shown in cinemas and there's only so long people are willing to sit in one place. If a film was 20 hours long and you watched it in segments, well, that's basically what a TV series is, and it's how most people play through games.
 
Two hours is too short, with games you've got to get to grips with the controls and gameplay.

I don't mind FPS's being 6-8 hours long which by many is also conceived to be to short. Valve have done it before by releasing episodes but that was a AAA title, not many companies can afford to release duff short titles.

Try the arcade games, there not usually epic but most are short and sweet.
 
Agree and disagree in a way, i love my long games, Fallout, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, i play those things for 100+ hours and cant get enough, if they ever stop making them like that ill be sad.

I think there needs to be more high quality short games on XBL, stuff like Portal:Still Alive, basically a very short full retail game on Live Arcade, if there were more titles like this id play them more.

Theres room for both i reckon.
 
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A game should ideally be 1.5 to 2 hours long. Also if they were priced around the same mark as movies. I'd be happy paying £10-£15 for a 2 hour game.

A lot of games are just padded out to fill time. I'd rather have an intense 2 hour game than a waffling 40 hour epic.

Also I'd feel like I'm getting what I've paid for as I don't complete that many games. I'm guessing lots of other people are the same. You pay £30-£40 for a game then don't get to see it all.

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So most games these days are like 5 - 12 hrs long. You pay £30 - £40 for that game. So using your 2hrs for £10-£15, thats what we get now lol.

Most films imo are padded out to fill 2hrs and there a many movies I would love to edit down to like 40 mins to get all the best bits in. I am yet to play a game where I would like to edit it down. For the most part I want hours more.
 
OP, don't get LA Noir.
It's a long ass movie type game.:D
 
Guess this must be only me then.

Surely there must be others that feel games are just padded out to fill time.

Good example for me was Bioshock. Loved the game but boy did it go on. If it was 2 to 3 hours and only costed £10 I'd have been happy with that.

Maybe they need to make more episodic content games. Pay for and download the first 2 to 3 hours. If you like you can download and pay for more.
 
Films... can't remember how long ago it was I last actually paid for one :rolleyes:

Gamewise anything under 6 hours gameplay and i feel like i've been ripped off , the best value games these day's are the likes of Fallout and Call of duty (as you sepnd a few days just online on call of duty)

I don't think i could stand 2 hour long action packed games , it would be too hectic and you would not really be able to immerse yourself in the storyline.
 
Thinking of story/campaign modes really.

I'd happily of paid £10 for COD4 had the campaign been 2 hours just like I was happy to pay £10 to enjoy Inception.

Instead your asked for £40 and I'm guessing not everybody finished the 8 hour campaign.

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Pro rata it's the same price £10 for 2 hours. But yes like others I feel that games are now Intentionally just too easy.
Back in the day I would spend days/weeks defeating an end level boss. There was a real sense of accomplishment once completed. Now the medium destroys the message.
 
Never complained about a game being too long, that's true value for money.

But having borrowed Assassins Creed Brotherhood and had it for months on end still not close to completing it, I probably would have preferred the game to be more of a streamlined experience because I feel I'm forcing myself to play through to the end so I don't miss out on the story for the next game.

Minor niggle I know but those are my 2 cents.
 
Guess this must be only me then.

Yep.

Gaming has been dumbed down enough over the last few years. Reducing games down to bitsize, throw-away experiences is not good for hadrcore gaming. Leave that to the iPhone.
 
Try the new Flashpoint its really short.

What about modern times forever ? Its only 240 hours long :laugh:
 
240 hours for a game is just crazy.

Maybe I just have a short attention span and get bored easily.

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240 hours for a game is just crazy.

Maybe I just have a short attention span and get bored easily.

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No thats a film :D

I have spent over 100 hours on various games :D
 
I think I would prefer some games to be slightly shorter too. Maybe not 2hrs, but something around the 5-6 mark would suit me fine.

Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed playing the likes of Fable, Mass effect to the end, but when faced with a sequel that promises to be x amount bigger than the first, I find myself being put off.

For me personally, its all about the amount of time I have to play games. I get about 1.5hrs a night and in that time I want to enjoy, unwind and feel I have progressed in the story and not be sent on random quests. I know quests are optional, but I then feel I am missing out on something too.

If I had the amount of time to play when I was younger then fine, but these days I tend to choose shorter games as a rule...

Again this is just my personal thought on it.:smashin:
 
I just don't have the time available to me to commit 50+ hours to a game like I used to be able to do as a kid, I would welcome shorter games... As long as they offered some sort of replay value or, as the OP is alluding to, they were cheaper.

But then I probably spend more on arcade 'pick up and play' games than anything else for this very reason.

I'd love to get into the RPGs but know I don't have the attention span or the dedication to really getting into them just now.
 
Maybe the answer is a game that allows you to jump the story and only show you the key bits. Almost like a trailer or a for TV version of the film ?
 
Think that would remove any building of tension, could be a bit too much like NYPD Blue with stuff just jumping around incoherently.

Definitely scope to do something refreshing though, just depends if someone is able to find a good way of telling the story :)
 
Normally within the first 2 hours hours of a game I am just getting into it.... getting the hang of the controls, the setting, the story. For it to be over by then would leave me seriously peeved. The only game I've played within the last year or 2 that I can think of wishing had finished sooner was Dark Void. But to be honest I wish I'd never even put the disc in!
 
I'd say about 8 hours is optimum for me. Any longer and I usually start to get itchy for another game.
 

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