RPG game length: is 40 hours enough?

[cortjezter]

http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=129845

As you can see, StAwesome and myself had a bit of a discussion in the comments section. I felt it was getting a bit more in depth than the feedback was intended for, so I decided to bring it here.

What do YOU think? Am I wrong? Am I being a douche? Does anyone even care?

Please note: Until StAwesome is here to defend his views, I will not be commenting, but I would like to know what you guys think.

[cortjezter]

any game that is 40 hours long is probably not going to be beaten by me.. rpg or anything else; i just don't have that kind of time to burn. the only games i can play for that many hours are those that have no real ending (tetris, etc). if i am going to put in the time though, it better be worth it, and often that indication will come in the first couple hours. some people say you need to play to the end to decide if it's good, but any GOOD game can hook you pretty quickly, not lead you on for a day and a half.

so 40 hours: more than enough, IMO.

[Golbez]

40 hours is plenty. However, any RPG that doesn't have at least 20 or so hours of gameplay feels short by my standards.

That isn't to say that I won't play a game that might run more than 40 hours. If the game is good enough to warrant that much playtime, I'll get through it. It just might take a little longer than usual.

[Yarbskoo]

RPG game length: is 40 hours enough?

Well, it's better, but not quite the topic I was wishing to discuss. I you read the last few comments on the story page, you will see that our conversation went of topic, hence why I brought it here.
I'll try to make a shortened version...

its like you are trying to convince yourself good writing is subjective, if thats the case, then why isnt someone publishing 4 year old timmy's story about cat poop? somebody is bound to find it brilliant, right?

That's exactly what it is. Subjectivity refers to a person's perspective or opinion, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires, whereas a proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are "mind-independent"—that is, not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity or subject. You believe Final Fantasy games have poor writing, but you cannot prove it. You cannot "prove" something is "good" or "poor". Those are opinions, and not everyone will agree with yours.

"That's exactly what it is. "
no, its NOT

there is bound to be people who like crappy stuff, that doesnt make it less crappy. maybe THEY dont think its crappy, but it is.
you can argue that the defective toyota cars are just as good as any other, and you perfectly fine with brakes that dont work, but your opinion does NOT make the car a good car.

the twilight movies are BAD MOVIES, they suffered from issues even uwe boll can get right, plenty of people still loved the movies, but that doesnt mean the director didnt suck at his job.

avatar (the crappy one) was great, objectively speaking, it had a solid story, its cg was great, its 3d effective, the acting was top tier, and its cinematography was nothing short of james cameron
BUT IT WAS A SH*TTY MOVIE (that is opinion)

"the twilight movies are BAD MOVIES"

Prove it.

You'll find that you cannot. "Good" and "bad" are NOT objective. They are abstract concepts created by the human mind. The very DEFINITION of subjectivity. There is no experiment that you can perform. There is no mathematical computation you can create.

You can say something is "good" or "bad", but you cannot prove it, and it makes little difference on the chances that I will enjoy it, so why should I even care? There are no "good" games. There are no "bad" games. There are games I enjoy and those I don't. In real life, that is all that matters.

Hit the link for the full version, but as you can see, the discussion went far beyond the original topic, which is why I had such a hard time coming up with a relevant subject title.

[Clowns8me]

Any game with an average length of 40 hours is really on plausible for me in the summer. For RPGs, i think anywhere between 30-50 is plenty. side note,

Does anyone even care?

i'm afraid not, bud. honestly the purpose of thread seems to be for you exclusively about your "debate" with StAwesome, not about RPG length. don't worry about it.

[AndyTheZombie]

40 hours is nothing lol. Tales Of Symphonia Has over 80 hours of game play which is insane haha.



But yes 40 hours is plenty.

[Devil_Rising]

Long games can be fun. I do distinctly remember thinking when I was a kid that it would be cool to have a game that basically let you keep playing it after you'd beat it, and still adventure around and make new changes, etc.

But at the same time, while I guess 40 hours is an acceptable length for an rpg, there is such a thing as too long. 40 hours itself is a pretty long time to be sitting playing a game, even in increments. RPGs do tend to need to be a bit longer, in general.

But it seems like any game these days, if it isn't over 10 hours worth of gameplay, some people feel like it's not worth the money. And while I do see how some 3D games can feel rather short, at the same time I also realize that back in the day, on the NES, SNES, etc., many games you could sit and beat in an hour, even less. And they always felt satisfying. 8 levels used to be perfectly fine for most games, a game with 10 or more levels was considered HUGE. Now, it seems like with the bigger memory and the fancier graphics, gamers also have ungraded their expectations of how big or long a game should be.

If a game is short, but it's hella fun, and perfectly crafted, it's still a great game. If a game is long or big as hell, but plays like ass and isn't any fun...... then it still sucks.

I guess what I'm saying is, game length/size is subjective, a case by case thing. Some games need to be long to tell a story. Some games can last you an hour, but be a blast and keep you coming back. It all depends.

[gtt]

40 hrs is enough.

[Mako]

40 hours is definitely enough, at least for me.

[BlankCanvas]

40 hours of gameplay is definitely worth the asking price of an average retail video game. Anything more, and the devs who made the game are just plain awesome (assuming the game is actually enjoyable).

[Jirachi]

Yall crazy anything less then a 1000 hrs is too little...jk but seriously feel 40 hours is basically a bare minimum here but if that 40 hours is because of grinding then it's absurb grinding is fine but don't use it to make a game seem longer then it is remember playing ff4ds and having gain at least 5 more levels to beat bosses then standard ff4

[Sigtaro]

You don't need 40 hours for the main adventure but I'd like to get sucked in enough that you want to do the extra stuff that it just adds hours. It's kind of waste to me if you don't even want to spend and hour or two doing side stuff like fishing, playing prize games, side quests, etc every now and then throughout the adventure, but if you're satisfied beating the game in about less that 20 hours then that's okay.