Gaming Needs More 10 Hour Single-Player Games

Shorter single-player games aren't dead yet, but hopefully that doesn't change because there's an important space for them in video games.

[william_cade]

they need to be cheaper than 100hr games

[Nyxus]

I disagree. I'd rather pay for 10 hours of quality than 100 hours of filler. Not saying it's either / or, but I don't think it has to be reflected in the price. Quantity should not be tied to a game's value.

[Potnoodle999]

Exactly, it’s about balance. Very well said friend 👍

[william_cade]

your right quantity and quality go hand and hand. I would rather pay 60 usd for a quality and deep game than 60 usd for a quality short game. What I said, has nothing to do with what you are stating. But way to go bat. rah rah!

[bouzebbal]

I think in general this gen single player campaign length greatly improved over last gen..

[SuperSonic91]

Agreed.
Its all about the quality not quantity.

[nommers]

As long as those 10 hours aren’t of the FPS variety that plagued the previous gen. We need more games like Super Metroid.

[Imalwaysright]

Why? Regardless of the quality, quantity always has an impact on the price of a product. 2 bottles of water are more expensive than 1 bottle of water.

[Nyxus]

@ Imalwaysright: a game is not a bottle of water.

[NotoriousWhiz]

Two bottles of water are not always more expensive than one. But comparing games to a bottle of water is a terrible analogy.

[Cobra951]

And I'd rather pay $60 for a brilliant 100-hour game. You present a false binary choice. Both quality and quantity matter. A spectacular bite-sized steak won't fill my belly.

[Nyxus]

@ Cobra: I specifically said it's not either / or. I just don't think it should be a requirement.

[Potnoodle999]

NO they do not. 100 hours is not the requirement. Most of these 100 hour games are full to the brim with so much boring crap filler. Whereas a 10 hour (or 15-20 is much more to my liking actually) has quality content throughout. At least the good ones do. 100 hour games with a shit ton of filler should be cheaper as they are a complete waste of your time. When did game devs stop caring about people’s time???

[william_cade]

Did I say it was a requirement? Are you all really that stupid or just playing dumb?

[Nyxus]

@ william_cade: you said yourself you think shorter games should be cheaper. People disagree with that because the game's length says nothing about its value.

[Fist4achin]

5-15 hours seems to be a sweet spot for a games length. There are always exceptions to make it longer with rpgs and their stories, but SP games such as FPS, platformers, action games, etc... seem to best fall into that range.

[kneon]

You mean those 100 hour games where 95 hours are spent rehashing the same small set of missions with only tiny changes to make then seems slightly different?

[william_cade]

Or those 100 hr games with great content. So no I don't mean those. You can't be this dumb.

[isarai]

That's like saying gourmet food should be cheaper than fast food cause the portion size is generally smaller.

[william_cade]

no it's not - no where in my statement did I mention quality over quantity etc. Knee jerk much?

[Imalwaysright]

2 portions of gourmet food are more expensive than 1 portion of the same exact food. Same with fast food. You are all twisting what the op said.

[NotoriousWhiz]

@Imalwaysright
Sure, and if I buy 2 copies of the exact same game, it will cost more than 1 copy of that exact same game. Thank you, captain obvious.

[Imalwaysright]

NotoriousWhiz

Exactly. Quantity and quality have a direct impact on the price of a product. Not just quality. Not sure why it needed to be explained but I'm glad we cleared that up.

[isarai]

OH MY GOD LOL!

[Double_O_Revan]

Stop being a total A hole just because people don't agree with you.

[Kornholic]

That's extremely stupid.

A high quality, gripping 10 hour single player experience as content is worth more than 100 hours of grindy open world borefest. Easily.

[Gamehard]

The problem with that statement is it's hard to judge how much replay value you can get out of a 10 hour game vs a 100 hour game. Alot of people are more likely to replay a 10 hour game multiple times and get a hundred or more hours total out of it, as opposed to playing the longer games one time through and never again, possibly not even finishing it.

[Ragthorn]

Absolutely not! That's like when people argue that a game should cost lower because it is only multiplayer or only singleplayer. The dev time put into it is not lowered by any chance, neither is the effort put into them! There are too many games to spend 100 hours in, so I'd rather spend my money on a quality 10 hour experience than a decent 100 hour game. Who knows, that 10 hour game could also have a lot of replay value too! Not every game needs to be like Destiny, Monster Hunter World, or Red Dead Redemption 2.

[authentic]

L

[KickSpinFilter]

I would gladly pay $60 for a stellar game like Inside, than spend 30 on something like Crackdown 3, or an Anthem.
Just make an amazing game SP, MP or Co-op and we will come.

[harmny]

I agree. 100hr games should be $120

[MrBeatdown]

Considering 100hr games aren't anywhere close to standard, maybe games that long should be more expensive.

Good idea OP.

[NeoGamer232]

Games have always been a bargain compared to other forms of entertainment.

Go out for a night on the town and you will easily drop hundreds of dollars for eight hours of entertainment.

There are really two type of game experiences. The first, is more of an artform and story telling experience as is in these 10 hour SP games. The other is more like a sport in that you compete with friends and people around the globe. Both provide equal value in my mind for different reasons and the value of a 10 hour SP game cannot be expressed in its length, it is expressed in the engagement, story, and art that it provides.

Game length is one of the last metrics I use to measure the quality/value of a game.

[Bane35]

Yeah i dont mine if some games are more than 10hours long like red dead redemption 2 or god of war

[bluefox755]

Eh, nothing wrong with 10 hour games, but I think 15ish hours is the sweet spot. Or if you're God of War, double that. If you can keep it interesting the whole time without meaningless fetch quests and padding, then the more hours the better IMO.

[Potnoodle999]

Yes. This!

[DrumBeat]

God of War did it right. You could plow through the story and be satisfied with the game's length, but there was a lot of interesting side stuff to stretch it out.

[annoyedgamer]

Witcher 3 too.

[PlayableGamez-]

Ubisoft is the one that needs to stop making all of their games open world.
Ghost Recon Wildlands should have never been an open world game.

[motorsport71]

Amen. every single thing you do in that game is repetitive.

"our biggest open world ever"

and its filled with NOTHING

[isarai]

Nothing like playing a simple "Point A to Point B" expertly crafted adventure. I loves me some open world games to mess around in, but they'll never match the attention to detail and impact a more linear or more condensed game holds.

[AK91]

It’s honestly got plenty, it’s just there are more broken alpha GaaS games (and 90% of them fail).

[TacoTaco]

One of my favorite experiences this gen was Hellblade and I finished it within a single 24 hours. Bayonetta 1 on Switch I'm almost done with after just a dozen hours, and I'm loving it. Playing Far Cry 5 alongside that and petting Boomer at the end makes every firefight worth it.

God of War and Spider-Man both took like 50 hours, Horizon was almost 70 for me. They each exceeded my high expectations for them.

None of these games have similar gameplay or experience.

Diversity and options > Arbitrary "games should be [this]"

[ShadowWolf712]

I used to love Far Cry 5.

[plmkoh]

Give me a reason to play the game first. Then maybe I'll worry about crossing the 2 hour mark.

[Tross]

Ah, the seemingly simple but deceptively complex debate of quality vs quantity. I love it when I get a lot of value for my money, but if it came down to whether I had to choose quality or quantity, I would choose the former every time. There are a lot of great games out there that are only 10 hours in length or sometimes even shorter, and they're often not given a proper chance because many look at the length, scoff and skip it in favour of something else, myself included, but I'm thankful for the short but great games I've played over the years. For one thing I've finished a much higher percentage of the ones I've played.

I've played many games that are long, but even if they are great I tend to have difficulty finishing them because they have to engage me for that much longer. A handful succeed, and hats off to them. They often make my list of favourite games of all time, because engaging me for that long and successfully encouraging me to focus on that one game rather than the plethora of other games I could be playing is no easy feat.

Games of this nature also often have repetitive moments such as stories with lots of filler moments, excessive lvl grinding (which isn't as commonplace as it once was but is still a thing), travel between point A and point B, etc. Moreover, that repetition often pads out the game's length considerably. If I feel sufficiently rewarded for putting in the time to power through that repetition then I give a game props for that.

I think there's plenty of room for both long and short games in the current industry, especially with digital pricing varying from title to title. Full retail releases tend to have more fixed prices so that physical and digital versions can be priced comparably, so the quality vs quantity debate definitely resonates more with those titles, but there are a lot of smaller games, often indie developed, that cost considerably less so it's less of an issue when they're not as long as a full priced game. Even for full retail releases though, 10 hours of great content is alright with me if the alternative is 100 hours full of filler and padding. If a game can have both quality and quantity then that's the ideal combination, but quantity alone is just a waste of time for me.

[Gamehard]

Capcom has completely dominated so far this year with the RE2 remake and now DMC5 in the short single player game market. Both are top notch quality with amazing replay value.

[Youngindy21]

I actually prefer shorter games. I don't have all day to be playing a video game. Most longer games aren't even actually longer they're just filled with meaningless fetch quests and "collectibles". I prefer quality over quantity.

[Bronxs15]

uncharted 4 was too long in my opinion.

[shauzy]

the days of ps1 final fantasy games are over, where 70+ hours are the bread and butter of the game, in other words the whole game

[Einhander1971]

Couldn’t agree more not bothered by how the long the game lasts but the quality!!! DMC 5 is a prime example of quality. Not interested in silly 50 hour + games that I will never play again.