Hellblade 2 is 8 hours long,rejoice! Or at least that’s what some are saying. Other’s are saying for a game to charge that much money it must be longer than that. Indeed a games length relative to it’s price tag has long been a topic of discussion online, and every time a “short” game comes out (or in Hellblade 2’s case, is closer to release) this discussion seems to pop up. Where does everyone fit in this discussion?
Speaking for myself, I’m firmly in the camp that prefers shorter experiences, and by shorter I mean anywhere from 10-30 hours. Hellblade 2 falls a little short of that by the sounds of things, but if the game is great I’m more than happy with an 8 hour experience. At the end of the day, that’s what matters most to me, a great experience. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a big, sprawling 50-100 hour game like a Like A Dragon game. I absolutely loved what I’ve played of Infinite Wealth by example.
The problem for me is, my time is more limited than my wallet. I want to experience all these great games and support as many as I can, but such a long game prevents that. I’ve put about 40 hours into Infinite Wealth but I’m barely halfway through the game and sadly had to put it on the back burner because so many games came out I wanted to get to. I hope I can get back to it, but I just don’t know if I will. So it just becomes harder to get fully invested in those games knowing I need to block off a month to play them.
But then there is the other camp. The group of gamer’s that need the big long experience to feel like they got their money’s worth. And I get it, if you spend $70 (or more depending on where you live) on a game you want to get the most out of it. I feel like gaming is a bit unique when it comes to this thinking though. People will have no problem spending $15 on 2 hours of entertainment at the movies but need basically $1 per hour entertainment from their games. Same with going out anywhere really. People drop hundreds of dollars just to see Kevin Hart or Ed Sheeran for an hour or 2, but not a short video game. Those are obviously much different experiences and I’m not comparing them, but it does add intrigue to the mindset.
And really it’s your money so you spend it how you want. There is no right or wrong answer here. I think there is absolutely a space for both. I will say it feels like its becoming rarer and rarer for a game to clock in at that 20ish hour mark for whatever reason.
Hopefully games like Hellblade 2 can still flourish and show developers their is a solid market for those smaller,more focused games and they will continue to develop them just as much as we get those sprawling massive games.
One Response
I think there is a unique angle with games. There is some expected downtime between encounters in games. Movies can be highly concentrated experiences, but say in GTAV you are doing a lot of driving to different locales which can get tedious.
Not that they didn’t do work on the driving mechanics and make them fun as hell, but that it’s not as dense an experience as say a well crafted bit of dialogue in a film. Not only that, but there is usually an expected grind and expected failure points in a game where you may be experiencing content again. Elden ring has taken me many an hour, but that’s me grinding enemies, making new builds, and failing hard at bosses.
Then there is also the concept of pickups and puzzles a la Ubisoft where the meme is they just copy and pasted a bunch of unfun stuff around a map. In short I agree it is a difficult nut to crack, but I think a good gauge is to look at what players think is “worth the money” and go from there.