Are Games Getting Too Long?

PATREON: bit.ly/3LIDh9C next videos gonna be on dmc2 lol. gonna be a wild time tbh. a wacky lil oment

"this game is 120 hours long" went from a promise to THREAT

In the 90's we used to complain that some good games were too short. Guess now with more options people are more picky about the time they spend in a single game. Glad to have another of your videos man!

I’m replaying FF4 again and yet again it amazes me how short that game actually is vs how massive it feels

Not a new game (even if a remake just came out), but I've been playing Persona 3 FES lately and it's had me thinking that if I was a teenager and this was one of like, maybe six games that I had access to back then, I'd probably really appreciate that this game is like 80 hours long. But there's way too many games (and excessively long Youtube videos) out there, there's only so many hours in the day, and I am waaayyy too bitter and old for this shit nowadays.

I will never forget listening to one of the lead devs of Spec Ops: The Line giving a GDC talk. He said that his team had six extra weeks to work on the game due to some publishing complications, and that they spent all of that time on trimming down the game to improve pacing. And it shows! It’s only a ~10 hour game but it’s incredibly well paced

me clicking on this within a minute because thor objectively makes the best videos

This is definitely a valid topic to think on. Tbh I treat long games like how I read long books. It's all a matter of how you pace yourself (obviously skill/difficulty/getting sidetracked in-game/being efficient in game is a huge variable depending on the person). But for REALLY crude example. 100 hour game. 2 hrs/day every week? So it's like what, 14 hrs a week (if we talkin' MON-SUN). So that'd be more or less....2 months for a game like that? Of course again, I wanna reiterate that it's a very crude example. But it could help people chip away at a game instead of feeling daunted by having 4+hr game sessions getting burnt out. That, and using guides, I feel like people tend to get a bit stubborn with those but I feel like guides are an important tool for experiences like these if people just want to play and experience without watching some let's play or stream. Along with this though, I feel as if side-content shouldn't be included when it comes to a game being "too long". Because that's something the player *chooses* to do. Unless every gamer suddenly became a 100% completionist, ya can't get mad if you went out of your way to do stuff that is extra by nature.

Please never stop bringing back Jack Garland. Future generations deserve the Chaos jumpscare.

I sure I would like it if this clown world wasn't forcing me to be productive all the time.

The only reason that they made FF7 Rebirth so long is because they attempted to correct everything wrong with FF7 Remake in one shot. It's chalk full of filler content that just makes it a mess of an experience that lacks focus. If it wasn't obvious enough with removing the remake title now its just like attempting to build a big house on a weak-rotten foundation.

Lame answer, but there just isn't a correct answer to that. If you have more free time you can tolerate longer games more easily, if you're vibing with the game it might as well just go on (never wanted Rebirth to end, lol) and depending on the release window it can also be tough to concentrate on a title when the next thing is already around the corner. I think we should all just try not to force to beat everything immediately ... The next FF, the next mainline Yakuza surely isn't coming out any time soon, so might as well savor what we got for now.

Goddamn dude i just love your writing style so much. The explanation of the first major open world zone in ff7r is genius. Explained the opening of the game exaxtly as i experienced it, but, just worded so uniquely. Never stop being you my guy.

nah i didagree dude. Yakuza 5 can reach up to 100 hours if you don't skip text amd do side quest. I did Saejima's bear hunting side story. That took me 2 days since zi have a job

I super agree with your opinions on the bloat and I have a couple thought processes to add in 1. We basically had no choice for RPGS in the 80s/90s, each year had like one or two major titles and that was it. They were usually the longest styles of games (besides maybe strategy/simulation types) and a lot of them were super bloated due to random encounter rates/“mandatory” grinding. As they became more popular, I feel like one of the things they retained were long playtimes due to the subconscious feeling that playtime=more value/deeper plot and characters. Now that we have them as popular as they are, that leads to…. 2. We are absolutely fucking spoiled for choice nowadays and I think that makes the longer lengths feel interminable. In a world where I already know there are like 8 rpgs on console alone that I wanna play this year AND FFXIV Dawntrail, I’ve given up on 100%ing games unless I’m obsessed with them. There simply isn’t enough time. I’m not even factoring in all the shit I WANT to play but know I have no time for at all. As much as I enjoy the Yakuza series I had a lot of issues with Infinite Wealth the more I played it. I realized a lot of that was a “Me” problem since you don’t actually have to entertain half the stuff they throw at you but around the time I finished the bonus dungeons with both parties I felt that “what the fuck am I even doing” And what did I immediately play after? Persona 3 Reload and that was another like 80 hours 😂 It’s always gonna be one of those things where a game CAN be long and amazing, but with our modern live service/time of gameplay metrics based/dlc ridden landscape some games just truly never feel “beaten” even when they are already 100 hours long and that makes me long for shorter sweeter adventures over epic plots. Also every other game needing to be an open area collectible hunt doesn’t help at all. For instance, I liked FFXVI but it being open world basically did nothing for it. It was just a big open beautiful world of almost nothing. Give me a world map where I walk 20 squares to next town over endless amounts of open areas that have next to no tangible reason for collecting the same shitty items you have a trillion of already. (If you can resist running up to the shiny items on the side of the road in Yakuza, you’re a better man than I) It feels like a lot of these huge open worlds exist only so that you feel really good when you get fast travel and no longer have to see the areas you’ve been forced to plod back and forth through to play fetch quest/chat tag with npcs 😂

the only time Rebirth's world expansion and side content got overwhelming to me was when I wanted to barrel through the story! Gongaga happened and a switch flipped in my brain where every side content was going to have to be done later because I needed to see where the story was going lol I can see how the extra stuff annoyed players but it never annoyed me- just made me feel a twinge guilty for pushing on ahead

You were recommended to me about one year ago and you have been a huge inspiration to me since. Your work and style is the constant topic of discussions I have with my only friend and you influenced what I play and purchase. You truely are one of a kind. I can't even explain it. You just think differently than most people. What you value and care about. And your videos keep getting better and are full of personality. Had to say that eventually <3

21:28 I haven't played Yakuza 8, but what you just described was what I thought of FFXVI. The story has you constantly going back to the same three maps to check in on NPCs to see if they have side quests and party members hardly participate in them. It's a lonely game.

I felt like yakuza 4 and 5 were way too long but i had fun

I give my life, not for honor but for you! That MGS3 joke got me 🤣