Game Length

[nekunando]

Everybody goes through games at their own pace so there's never an exact time that will fit all players but do you like to know roughly how long it will take to beat a game before you play it?

 

Currently, I seem to check HowLongToBeat to give me an idea of a game's length before starting or even to help decide what to play next. Sometimes I like to clear a few shorter games before starting into something deeper but I'm not sure it's actually such a good thing to know this information all the time..

 

I'm currently playing through Hybrid Heaven on N64 and getting close to the end. I know this because I know how many chapters are in the game In this instance, I'm happy to know the length of the game as I feel like it won't be a struggle to get to the finish but if I was going into Hybrid Heaven completely blind, I'm not convinced the game is good enough for me to feel like I could potentially have to make it through 40 or 50 hours. At around 20 hours, I knew I could probably manage it and enjoy the game for what it is

 

While I'm not particularly invested in the story, I can see how knowing the length might affect this area. With the end in sight, I know there isn't going to be a huge twist to take the game in a different direction or for some new places to appear and explore.

 

Anyway, do you always know how long a game is going to be before jumping in or do you prefer to go in blind?

[Rummy]

I always like to know a rough investment time for games - helped along even further in the last few years by the excellent HLTB that you mention. I often look for value of my games in terms of playtime vs price, and often use HLTB to get an idea of whether a game is about the kind of length matched to the price that I'm after.

 

Mentally I generally feel like I like a 10hourish minimum from my games. I dunno why, but I feel like 10-20 hours for standard pricing(even tho I always do my best to pay less than that :p) is where I'm at. I sometimes get shorter games but it tends to be rare - balancing the time reward against the cost makes me tend to avoid it unless the price/recommendations are excellent.

 

Despite all that however - I get a bit fed up with anything too long these days! I recall TP clocking up around 40ish hours; I'd probably do that again for a Zelda game but I find it hard to commit to that elsewhere, especially on a home console. The majority of my actual playtime is maybe on portable/3DS or online really(where I get social at the same time, two birds, more value etc).

[killthenet]

Like you guys I tend to want to know how much time I'm going to need to invest in a game before I play it. I usually just look at the average time taken on How Long To Beat or Game Lengths and add about an hour to it. I used to look up walkthroughs to see how many chapters or sections there were but that tactic got a bit too spoilery for me on a couple of games so I've stopped doing it for the most part.

 

My actual time spent beating a game can vary wildly though, 'Dark Souls' average play time was about 65 hours on How Long To Beat but it took me over 120 hours to finish.

[Grazza]

I like to have a rough idea, but only so far as whether the game is long, medium or short. For example, I'd expect a 2D platformer to be less than 10 hours, 10-20 hours for something like Metroid, the average Zelda to be 50 hours and many RPGs (or Animal Crossing) 100+ hours.

[Jonnas]

The total length of a game isn't too important. It's impossible to know beforehand if I'm going to grow tired of it before it's over, regardless of whether it's short or long.

 

The important question is: How much time do I require for each gaming session? With adventure/RPGs, I expect to dedicate an hour or two per session at least. Platformers are quite shorter, Puzzle games vary a lot, and Roguelikes just take longer than I ever expect them to.

 

So yeah, the length of each session (or rather, how long I believe it's going to be) heavily factors into deciding which game I'll tackle next.