Game Length and Quality: Should Play Time Matter?

In recent weeks, the topic of game length has been a hot one. With games like Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes and South Park: The Stick Of Truth getting knocked because of their length, (the former being beatable in under six minutes), the question keeps popping up. Should length be a deciding factor in terms of whether or not a game is worth buying? After all, the point of gaming is to have fun, regardless of if the game lasts five hours or five minutes. On the other side, when gamers are expected to spend $60 on a game that can be completely finished in a sitting or two, it’s easy to see why so many people are up in arms about the dwindling hour per dollar ratio games today are pulling in. But as long as the game is fun, should length really matter?

There are plenty of games that back up the idea that length doesn’t make a game. Take Portal for example. Clocking in at roughly three hours on a first run, its level of wit, innovation and solid game mechanics launched it into legendary status. Does the fact that it can be finished in less time than it takes to download a PS3 update make it any less great? It definitely didn’t stop it from being one of my favorite games of all time. Even back when I was a kid, games were routinely $60 and could be finished in even less time than Portal, but people didn’t make nearly as big of a stink over it as gamers do today, (unless you were our parents).

The cake was a lie, but the value wasn’t!

So what’s different about today that makes it a big deal compared to the days of bit wars and pixels? Namely, standards have changed a great deal since then. Many of today’s gamers seem to have became “hardcore gamers”, (a term that I hate, but it works nonetheless), during the PS1 or PS2 days if my Gamestop days indicate anything. Back then, the standard PS1 game was $40 with $50 being saved for your big games like the Final Fantasy series. Even short $60 games like Star Fox 64, (which gave my mom a heart attack when I proudly announced that I beat it the same morning we bought it), had multiple paths that were hard to find without a guide, two endings, medal challenges, a multiplayer mode that still holds up and a RUMBLE PAK! Definitely worth the price I think.

Star Fox 64 was short, but oooooh so sweet!

Fast forward to the HD era, and you have games that not only cost more, but are either much shorter or hold back content through DLC, sometimes both! Additionally, as I mentioned before, past games were traditionally cheaper and provided more content. It’s easy to see why gamers are unhappy with this idea of being asked to pay $60 for a 12 hour RPG with no new game plus or content outside of the story, or a prologue game charging $30 for an hour or two of campaign play. 

However, focusing too much on length pressures developers to pad their games with meaningless content for the sole purpose of making them longer. Games like Knack would have been much better received if they got to the point hours sooner, instead of dragging out the story for fifteen hours when the game play didn’t support it. What we were left with was a game that didn’t know when to quit, expecting us to find enjoyment with the same abilities we learned in the tutorial all the way through. Protip: That didn’t happen. Even great games like Resident Evil 4 could have done without the majority of the Salazar section of the game. How many times did we have to rescue Ashley again?

RE4 was great. It would have been better with less of this guy.

With that said, length definitely belongs in the discussion as to whether or not a game is worth it as long as the content is strong. Take a game like Lightning Returns. It has a long campaign that rarely feels like filler, has addicting game play mechanics and tons of side and new game + content. Compare that to Stick Of Truth, a game that released only a month later. It was highly enjoyable for a plethora of reasons, but aside from the story, there was almost nothing to do after the credits rolled. The only reason I would replay it is to laugh at its fantastic plot, but I could get that from a Let’s Play on YouTube. I couldn’t get the same experience from Lightning Returns unless I played it, which further adds to its value. I fully understand that South Park took a lot of time, funding and writing from Matt Stone and Trey Parker to make it come to life, but couldn’t it have had a bonus dungeon that didn’t require new dialogue? A new game plus? The ability to go back to completed dungeons? Anything? No? Okay then…

Stick Of Truth‘s biggest flaw was its “city” amount of content.

But the biggest issue that I have as a reviewer, is whether or not that should affect scores. Reviews absolutely should call out games for being padded or being too short if the game had the potential to offer more, but as time goes on and prices drop, (which can happen as early as a month after release lately), the value goes up. So when someone buys Ground Zeroes in a year at $10 and looks up reviews after he finishes, (naturally to see how many people share his or her opinion since it’s the only one that’s right), and thinks the reviewers are idiots for knocking the game’s length. After all, this person got it for $10, and $10 for a few hours is definitely better than $30. Over time, the length becomes less and less relevant compared to the price, which makes that review become less relevant in the process.

True Story.

In the end, the best games are the ones that know how long its content can stay entertaining, but if two games are equally entertaining, but one lasts longer, I don’t know how it could be argued that length isn’t important. The end goal of gaming is to have fun, so as long as that goal can be reached, that’s what’s most important, but can we agree that games like Portal  were appropriately priced? And that its sequel was justified in its $40 price hike since its campaign was easily close to triple its length on top of an entirely separate co op campaign? What about the idea that Lightning Returns offers much more value than South Park? And can’t we agree that sequels especially shouldn’t have less content than its predecessors, (like InFamous: Second Son compared to its two prequels)? There’s no way that this can’t be considered anything but a problem, and it seems to be growing. Taking everything in consideration, while length doesn’t come close to the end all be all of whether or not a game is great, it’s impossible to say that length shouldn’t matter.

Don’t agree? Of course you don’t, it’s the Internet! Did you love Ground Zeroes despite its length? Or maybe you have your own examples of games that are too long? Let me know what your take on the situation is!