These days (I’m 37) its not about the time taken but whether a game just feels like work.

I know that would be different for everyone. But I pumped 140+ hours into Eldenring. Loved every battle and experience. But most other games after a few hours if it feels more like work than fun then I give up. Time is too precious and I’m already overworked.

I can see why easy mode exists now, I want a sense of fulfilment and experience but I dont want a game to create unnecessary work

I don’t have a minimum, and my maximum is negotiable. I’ve played <5 hour games that felt too long, and >50 hour games that felt too short.

I generally shoot for 20-30 hours, but that’s because it seems like a sweet spot where most games with tons of filler are longer. I actually have a category for short games, because sometimes the 2-3 hour experience is what I’m looking for.

Number of hours doesn’t really come into it these days compared with how fun the game is for me. I’m nearly 40, and whether or not a game is engaging is most important. I’ve got about 50hrs into Avernum: Escape from the Pit (a retro style isometric RPG), but I’ve got nearly 80hrs into Teslapunk, my favourite Shmup(completing the game takes about an hour).I Iove Dark Souls 1 and 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, but eventually got bored of Elden Ring and its open world.

Ultimately how fun a game is combined with how painless it is to get started is what I’m most interested in these days. I don’t have enough free time to be worrying if there are enough hours of gameplay.

Really depends on the game. A linear story game is not going to be very long. Then there’s sandbox games where you can have hundreds to thousands of hours.

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I just want to have fun, no matter the length. I love Titanfall 2’s campaign and it only takes a couple hours to complete, even shorter than most shooters. People complain that it’s too short but I think that’s its strength. But a lot of AAA games I’ve played just feel stretched and bloated like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, where it’s just not fun at all between all the tedious things I have to do.

It really depends on the type of game and how it presents itself.

Some games have a very long and complex story but others might have a shorter story told more indirectly, then there are also multi-ending games which might take longer than a regular story game since you have to replay them. Then there are sandbox games which don’t necessarily have a limit on how long they can be since it’s dependent on how much you want to put into them.

Ultimately in my opinion there’s not really a required amount of time for completion, the thing that I think is most important is whether the games are fun and enjoyable. In the case of story games they can be as long or short as needed depending on how they tell a story.

Some games like Ultrakill are short and sweet, but others like Factorio can keep you busy for weeks. Both of them felt right for me, but then again I have quite a bit of free time.

If you like shooters, check out anything from New Blood, Turbo Overkill and Postal brain danaged. Those games are segmented into individual levels, which is great for when you just have half an hour.

I like a game I can keep playing forever. I just want to disappear in it.

I think it’s highly dependent on the player. I’m not a completionist in any sense, I mainly play games to have fun. I stop playing them when I stop having fun. I’ve put down games after a few hours and I’ve played some for hundreds of hours.

The gameplay loop in that sense is important whether it remains fun and keeps me coming back. Time is short as you get older and I guess I don’t really care about beating games.

Generally, I’m not into the “price per hour” reductionism… I’d rather a game was a short, remarkable (bonus: replayable) experience – 10-20 unless a longer game truly is that long without filler. Can’t put a price on having fun 100% of the time!

Sonic 3 and Knuckles takes like 3 hours for an average person to beat.

A session should be doable in 2 hrs or less (a single RTS game). Vampire Survivors nails it for short and sweet but I love open ended creation like Factorio.

Wholly dependent on the game. Lots of Indies feel like decent, self contained games ranging from 3-8 hours of gameplay. Gris, Inside, Abzu, Thomas Was Alone, etc.

I don’t think I could pin down a universal number. I really enjoy when a game understands the staying power of its gameplay loop and finishes up before it gets stale.

I’ve got 180 hours into TotK and I’m not sick of it yet because I discover something new every time I play.

Conversely I 100%-ed Dredge in 20 hours and that felt like the exact right amount of time. Any longer and I’d have been sick of it.

Or we can go even lower with something like Untitled Goose Game, which was under 10 hours and also finished up just as it got old.

So yeah. I’m all about the self awareness of a game with regards to the experience. Whatever amount of time that takes is cool with me.

Have a hard time dedicating consistent time with a single game because of other things like work. So any long story-driven game is gonna be a pass for me. If I need to remember a town name, map, or a character name and its more than a couple hours, its a nope. I simply have a hard time with dedicating the time to something like that, even if I enjoy it. MMORPGs or anything with dailies have similar issues.

I mostly tend to play games where I can spend a short period of time in a session and it doesn’t matter if I come back to it in months. Over the past year or so, beatsaber and Terraria are the games that have fit that bill for me the most. Have over 1500 hours in Terraria and expect that number to probably grow over in bursts over the next decade.