Title mostly describes how I’m feeling now.
When I was younger, my main worry when deciding what game to buy and play next was that the game wouldn’t be able to keep me entertained until I can buy another game.
Now I have a backlog of almost 100 games that I own and haven’t played yet (although some come from bundles, not all are worth playing). My new concern when I’m playing a game is whether or not the time I put into the game is well spent.
I used to really like the idea of games where it would take me 100s of hours to get to 100% completion, but now I tend to almost avoid playing them entirely even if I know I don’t care about completion anymore.
I don’t think I’m alone in this, but what I’m really wondering is if this is a result of getting older? Or is it because the gaming space itself has changed?
I think you’ve nailed it by outlining the worry of kids without an income of their own - if you can’t buy what you want whenever, game length is a plus, but when you’ve got disposable income, summer sales, the odd free game, and new good titles coming out all the time, brevity’s more valuable than each game being a forever-game.
forever-game
I have sworn off of these. Destiny 2 was a soul sucking time sink. My entire life had to revolve around it or else I would miss content in the game. That’s great for the people who enjoy that, but it’s just not for me anymore. Like OP, I really just want games with concise stories that end when they should.
Yes. Also, I don’t need a game to drive engagement. I don’t need (or want) some tangible reward for playing every day. I don’t want to compete with anyone - I mean I can enjoy pvp in some games, but I want success to be purely based on skill, not who has collected the most kills to buy specialized pvp gear without which someone can’t even compete.
If I have to grind to earn “fun,” I’m out. Some games can be fun to grind. I’ll play Diablo just to watch destruction fill my screen. But for example around the time WoW added daily quests, I realized I had to be done with the game. I loved Team Fortress and every few years I’d reinstall it and play some more, but now there are rewards and stuff that changes the balance of the game making it “impure.” If the game isn’t fun to play without earning rewards that unbalance the game in your favor, is not worth playing at all.
I’m “in the middle” of Horizon: Forbidden West. Then Jedi Survivor (or whichever the new one is) came out and other responsibilities ate into my time and now I don’t remember where I am, what I was doing, and I frankly barely remember how to even play.
I enjoy the games. There is so much to do and the worlds are so large. They are well written, the voice acting is great. But I just don’t have time to engage with it all. And heck I don’t have to experience every iota of content, but I have to grind all the systems to become capable of finishing the game and I just can’t.
other responsibilities ate into my time and now I don’t remember where I am, what I was doing, and I frankly barely remember how to even play.
This is my biggest issue with long games. I feel like if it’s getting too long and I want to try something else, I can’t come back to it in the middle and pick up where I left off. I have to either consume the game in one chunk, or accept the fact that I’m never going to finish it… which makes me not even want to start it half the time.
Due to the way I approach a lot of media (eg. games, TV, comics, etc.), I almost never play more than one game at a time. The only exceptions are the occasional multiplayer game which is rare.
Shit, I often don’t even mix media. I’ll be in TV mood and ignore games and comics, then be in a comic mood and ignore TV and movies and games, then a game mood where everything else is on the back burner. But in each of those cases, I finish things up and almost never jump out in the middle.
This has the nice benefit of not forgetting where I am (well, not any more than usual, which can be a fair amount when it comes to my brain), but the disadvantage of potential burnout.
Totally agreed with everything you said. I’m currently towards the end of Jedi Survivor, and I have really enjoyed it, but I would probably recommend to people who aren’t Star Wars fanatics like me to wait until it’s less buggy, because it is quite distracting. At least it isn’t crashing for me.
I would love to play Forbidden West, but it’s not on PC. :(
If you’re enjoying yourself while you play, then the time was well spent. Like you said, try to remember that nobody is making you play every game you start to 100% completion, that’s an entirely self-imposed rule.
That said, for me personally, the length of a game is generally irrelevant to whether or not I will enjoy that game. If I enjoy a game, I enjoy that game. If it’s long, it’s long. If not, cool.
The big thing for me is that if I play narrative-focused games like immersive sims, I want to dive deep into those worlds, and that takes a certain amount of brain energy.
Exactly don’t take that away
As a dad of two young kids, I am 100% with you.
Best example for me: Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.
I loved the first game but I had significantly more spare time back then. I picked up TOTK on day 1 but I just couldn’t connect with it because it’s too big. The map is too big, there’s just too many options it overwhelms me now. I maybe can spend one or two hours a day playing and I really enjoy it now if the game just takes me by the hand and guides me. These massive open world games are not for me any more I’m afraid.
Yep, kids changed it for me too. Picked up RDR2 on sale and just can’t get into it. I have like an hour to play a game at a time, and I don’t want to spend 20 minutes riding a horse to a destination.
I always check howlongtobeat.com before investing in a game. 10-20 hours is perfect. 80+ sounds terrible to me.
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omg i had pretty much the same experience with TotK, not only were the maps huge but the animations and cutscenes took waaaaay too long.
As someone who loved BOTW, there’s no way I’m playing TOTK. Just for so many reasons.
I hate crafting and building. I can’t deal with such a massive world right now. And I think what it really comes to is that, while I can enjoy periods without narrative, I’m just not the kind of person who thrives in a “make your own fun” situation. Sandbox games never appealed to me, and TOTK is even more of a sandbox than BOTW was.
I think I was just lucky to be in the right frame of mind when it came to BOTW.
Yep, I don’t have time to get lost for hours on end in a game. Guide me through it or I’m out.
Welcome to the Patient Gamers world. Now that I’m in my late 30s with responsibilities, I’ll take a short linear game (e.g. Mafia Definitive Edition) with a compelling story over long, repetitive games (e.g. Assassin’s Creed). Quality over quantity for me. Since I don’t have a lot of time, I want to spend some quality time with the game.
I don’t really see how what you’re describing relates to patient gaming – isn’t patient gaming moreso to do with waiting until games drop in price, then getting them patched up with all their DLC?
I have to say, it’s also a subculture of it. When I used to participate in r/patientgamers, a lot of people (myself included) realised that we didn’t care about the latest releases because of our responsibilities (and maturity), and many of us preferred short to long.
But it’s not homogeneous.
I’d say it’s parallel to or supportive of patient gaming.
Like, that commentor has less time to dedicate, so they’ll go for games with plots they may have heard were good/engaging which may not always be the latest, pricey, AAA content. They may also return to a game they’ve already bought because they enjoyed it so much.
In researching games that they’re interested in, they’re already making value decisions based on content, so it makes sense that they may add in value considerations based on pricing as well.
I have a system.
For every hour of play a game offers, I’m willing to pay $1.
this is a really terrible system. there are a lot of fantastic games that are short and more than $2.
I agree. A lot of it for me is the quality of the time spent. I’d rather pay $10 for high quality six hours of gameplay, then play $40 for 60 hours of gameplay but like 30 of those hours are very low quality.
Oh, I know, but getting them on sale at the price I want is inevitable.
I’m not sure why this became popular. I’ll easily spend £8 to watch a 1.5 hour film so why would I limit myself on a game I could enjoy if it’s short. I just play games I think I’ll like. I’m not picking up a 100 hour multiplayer because it’s better value
Well, for me, that’s just how I define a good value, and thanks to Epic and Steam, sales happen all the time, so getting the game I want in the price range I want it is just a matter of waiting a little longer. No big deal.
I don’t. There’s nothing worse with finally getting immersed in a game then running out of stuff to do in 10 hours.
I don’t finish games and have a huge backlog, but I’m looking for the small handful with mechanics that work, and when I find one running out sucks.
It’s definitely both for me, time management and responsibilities definitely play a part in what I’m able to dedicate to a game and some games definitely have subjectively useless filler for me.
I’ve definitely moved from playing RPGs and competitive shooters to just RPGs as I’m done with grinding for the most part and don’t want to spend my limited time that way lol. Totally get that a lot of people like rogue likes and souls type stuff where the grind is more the point, but it’s not really my cup of tea anymore.
I also see that there’s a trend for studios to just pack their games with a lot of content (Red Dead Redemption 2 having had some more interesting filler, to me, and stuff like Assassin’s Creed getting more grindy).
I find my gaming is more like how I consume books, now. I’ll have a couple RPGs going at a time (usually a replay of something I’ve enjoyed and want to reexperience and another that I’ll be trying out of my backlog) and just play what strikes my fancy.
I get what you’re saying with the bundle kinda thing where you may just skip a game if it’s not something that really grabs you.
I’ve definitely had a few false starts and games where I just kinda saw what they were about and didn’t want to continue or wasn’t super interested.
There are definitely games I’ve put on my docket that I’m more interested in because of their history and relation to the gaming industry, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines and S.T.A.L.K.E.R for example.
I think most of it is that I’ve needed to extend my playthroughs to make them work with my life as I’m no longer able to just come home from school and game for like 3 hours a day. I mostly want to either get into (or back into) a cool plot or story and/or consume some older gems I had not been exposed to earlier as I definitely don’t have as much free time.
I’m in a similar boat. I like to focus on more unique and interesting games nowadays (e.g., Outer Wilds), and let me tell you, Vampire The Masquerade is surely one them. I loved that game despite the jank, even if it won’t be your cup of tea, there’s nothing like it. (and STALKER is great too)
Haha I actually kind of loved the jank at points. It was also delightfully early 2000s campy (love those kinds of movies and still show 10 Things I Hate About You in my Shakespeare unit).
Big fan of STALKER so far and I’m slowly getting through the trilogy lol.
I just play whatever I want. If it’s long but fun then I’d play it over a few months period. No big deal.
Yeah I don’t get the hate, if a game is great then you’d want it to be able to last
I think it just depends on whether you feel like the game is respecting your time or not.
A long game that’s eating up time with boring random encounters, fetch quests, grinding that you don’t enjoy, and so on? Ain’t got time for that, I’ll play something else.
But a long game where I’m enjoying near every minute and every aspect, like an RPG that’s been crafted absurdly well and isn’t filled with bloat and has fun combat in every encounter? I’m all in for that.
I think the issue is mainly that for obvious reasons there are FAR more of the former than the latter, even before accounting for personal taste.
For me it’s more that I forget where I was and what I was up to, as well as having to reacquaint myself with the controls. Shorter games don’t have that problem.
I stopped playing AAA games because there is so much filler. I would prefer if games went for 3-6 hours for playtime with a clean and tight plot.
I don’t read books that have a cool intro, 300 pages explaining how everything works, 1000 pages of characters just doing random stuff for random people, and then a return to actual plot in the last 100 pages.
I hope for a world where fun and optimization are prioritized over length and graphics
Tbh I think that in the world, games would be cheaper and micro-transactions would be seen in a better light. I think people don’t mind supporting a developer who makes an actually good title
Even when it’s a small developer, I’d still rather buy the whole game/expansion at once. It’s easier to find reviews that way, and less immersion-breaking. I don’t want to be reminded of real world-money while playing.
Yeah same. I was thinking about Vampire survivors so I think we’re on the same page. I should have said DLCs instead of micro transactions
I don’t think I’m alone in this, but what I’m really wondering is if this is a result of getting older? Or is it because the gaming space itself has changed?
Both. When you’re older you don’t have as much time to play video games so you want that time to be more meaningful and for the games you play to be more concise. In addition, a lot of games have added “hundreds” of hours of content by large and relatively empty open worlds that are full of worthless autogenerated side quests and collectible trinkets, which is undoubtedly a worse gameplay experience.
To me, enjoyability is completely separate from game length. It’s more about enjoyment per hour of gameplay imo.
a lot of games have added “hundreds” of hours of content by large and relatively empty open worlds that are full of worthless autogenerated side quests and collectible trinkets, which is undoubtedly a worse gameplay experience.
coughDIABLO4cough
Same. It seems like all games have gotten longer, and many want to be your one and only. Mostly I prefer VR games now, partly for that reason.
I’m always juggling 2-3 games of various time commitments for this reason. It’s works well for me tbh. I just stopped caring about my “backlog” or finishing a game. Video games have been way more fun for me ever since.
Since getting married, I’ve been popping in and out of multiplayer games more often as well as more closely curating what single-player games I purchase.
I enjoy longer narrative-driven, single-player games; they’re like a good book and I aim to be just as bummed out when the game ends as I would be at the end of a work from my favorite novelist.
But I cook, I clean, I do the shopping, and so I end up with a lot of short periods of free time throughout the day. The newest (but not franchised) multiplayer game is usually what I’ll play if I can come and go at my leisure without provoking the ire of other players.
I’ve never really wanted to 100% a game, pretty sure that was just FOMO, but every now and again I will want to replay an old game.
Yeah, there’s a happy medium.
For example, Elden Ring is a great game, except for the fact that it just drags on for SOOO long. I’m convinced that both Faram Azula and Mountaintops of the Giant were meant to be completely separate from the main sequence, much like Haligtree or Moghwyn Dynasty is. Then they just shoved them onto the end to pad time.
Yeah but that was really the point of Elden Ring IMO. They were showing what they were capable of with a few hundred employees and they showed that amazingly. Also I don’t think that they just shoved them onto the ending considering the whole point of the ending is to burn the tree down and going to those endgame places to finish what you started. Haligtree and Moghwyn Dynasty are secret areas that you have to figure out how to get to. I think they did an amazing job with the lore and the length of the game.
Also, I 100% it on steam and only had 100 hours.
It is a very good game for sure. That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize its flaws of course. The balance in latter sections was just not that good.
That’s fair, I raged hard on some of the last bosses but got through it eventually. But yeah I agree with you, balance on latter sections isn’t great
I tend to lean the same way, with a kid and busy job I just don’t have enough time to finish long games. Hearing something like FF16 is not 80 hours makes me happy.
That being said, I also lean toward sandbox games as I get older with no definitive ending. Factory builders, city builders, colony management sims, etc… even though those games can last hundreds or even a thousand+ hours. The difference is sandbox style games typically always allow you to quick save or save anywhere, and I never have to worry about finishing some storyline to feel good about my playtime.
