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Fans Are Tired of 100 Hour Long Games, Says Former Starfield Dev

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Unfortunately that’s now kind of a criteria of mine when buying as I get older. If it’s a marathon, I’m out. When I was younger though I loved longer games so I see both sides here.
 

Idleyes

Gold Member
As long as a developer listens to the voices in their own head like this clown instead of gamers, they'll keep churning out dumpster fires disguised as games.
 
100 hour games need better story pacing. I would be fine with them if it felt like I was playing a game, it's sequel, and the next sequel to that in the same game.

Instead the current way these games are paced is that it's one long story experience (save this, kill big bad), stretched out beyond it's maximum threshold into what essentially becomes busywork, with sidequests that are 50/50 hit or miss. The crazier thing is that people have been so used to this type of busywork that they are asking for more of it, not realizing the tight narrative experiences that they lost over time, simply because they either think they find monetary value from it or they love the grind itself.
 
He's not wrong. 100+ hours are very unappealing to me. Too many great games to play, to have that type of time sink. Metaphor is a game that comes to mind for me. I'm nearly 80 hours in and just dropped it. Game is awesome but it's too fucking long. Shorter and more compacted experiences please.

Yea I felt the same way about Persona 5. I love it but man near then end I was just like end already. Which is what happens every time with these games I get towards the end and I just want it to end. I end up skipping most of the side content at the end of the game at that point and just start rushing the story.

I was so glad when Dying Light 2 said there next game would be a smaller more focused experience. Good. DL2 was a good game when it was focused on what it was doing but most of the side content was pointless and there were to many activities that just weren't needed. When I was just going through the story though overall it was a great game.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
(Plural noun) are (adjective) about (adjective) games.

Generalize the blanks however you want, guaranteed to be correct and incorrect.
 
Yea I felt the same way about Persona 5. I love it but man near then end I was just like end already. Which is what happens every time with these games I get towards the end and I just want it to end. I end up skipping most of the side content at the end of the game at that point and just start rushing the story.
I was able to finish persona 5 and loved it but damn, I would be lying if I said I'm still dumb founded that that whole mementos section was thrown in at the end. Just end the freaking game already!
 

Raven117

Gold Member
Im tired of 100+ hour games that are nothing but silly busy work.

Witcher 3 (and yup, even Skyrim), I couldn't get enough of.
 

ZoukGalaxy

Member
Like, no, at all.

Cat Reaction GIF by MOODMAN


Fans are tired of content filling like Ubisoft style 100 hours long games: 100 hours of pure uninteresting CHORE and FEDEX quests.
 
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stn

Member
I'm good with long games if they have depth and a proper reason to be long. Games that have boring collect-a-thons which artificially increase the length are what we don't need.
 
2024 was my year to play some open world games that I had skipped previously for various reasons (time investment being the main one). I had read a lot of positives about CD Projekt Red’s games and thought that I would start there. First up, Cyberpunk. In short, it wasn't for me. I stopped playing after about 20 hours. I just couldn't get into it. Looking to wash out the bad taste left by CDPR's latest offering, I pivoted to Ghost of Tsushima and loved it. The beautiful world, music, story and characters all drew me in and I really enjoyed it. I then searched for something similar that ticked the same boxes as GOT. I kept seeing The Witcher 3 mentioned as one of the best games of all time. Should I give CDPR another try? Yes, and I'm glad that I did! I avoided TW3 for almost ten years due to the reported length of the game. I generally grow bored with large open world RPGs, but man this game has grabbed me by the balls and won't let go. I truly fell in love with it. With over 140 hours invested so far, I finished the main game and just started the first piece of DLC. I loved the main quests, side quests and even the monster contracts. And don't get me started on Gwent. I've spent several hours just playing the card game. So addicting. I'm now wondering what other open world games I need to visit/revisit. Another game that I wrote off due to its perceived length was Red Dead Redemption 2. Is RDR2 on the same level as TW3 (story, characters, music, environment, etc)? I never played RDR1, but read where the second game was a prequel so it wasn't necessary.
 
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Sentenza

Member
I dislike games that make most of their length feel like some tedious busywork AND I agree that there are several games out there (even GOOD ones) that would probably be made better by "trimming a bit of the fat"...

BUT

I never hated on big games just for being big.
Baldur's Gate 2 and 3 keep feeling fresh 50 or 70 hours in because they keep throwing new situations at me, they don't make me feel like I'm "grinding" to get by.
Gothic 2 was a massive game and one of my all time favorites.
Most Ultima games were like embarking on a fucking odyssey.
And so on.
 

Fess

Member
Can’t agree to that. Why would I want something great to end? Makes no sense.

No joke, if a game is great I never want it to end. Going away from a game you love knowing you probably won’t play it again is a brutal feeling. One reason why I prefer open games with lots of character build customizations and creative gameplay mechanics over linear story focused games.

Starfield gets lots of hate online but I’ve probably spent 50 hours just building spaceships. And something like No Man’s Sky I’ve played 100s of hours just building bases. And Elden Ring, reaching 700 hours there going through it with different character builds. And don’t get me started on Skyrim with all the openess and exploration, so many hundred hours there, still haven’t finished it, top 5 fav game of all time.

Meanwhile. Halo 5. One playthrough. 9 hours. Done. Won’t touch it again.
 

CLW

Member
People are tired of games padded with filler quests and activities.

The issue is filler, not how long a game lasts. Make a game with 100 hours of real quality content, not filler, and no one will complain.

That devs cant understand this simple fact is telling of how much they are disconnected from their audience.

You think costs are OUT OF CONTROL now IF you really got a game with “100 hours of real quality content” you are looking at Billion+ development cost
 

hinch7

Member
wda
I still remember the sinking feeling I had when Todd announced there would be a thousand+ planets. The whole "bigger is better" mentality is such a detriment to many studios, including Bethesda.
Yep, pretty much everyone saw that coming from a mile away. And "16 times the detail" whatever that means, lol.

The problem with their game is that most of it is based on a dated and old design. And most of that is filler. Even with quick travel, the RnG aspect just adds to repetitive-ness of it. It just felt so lazy.
 
I was able to finish persona 5 and loved it but damn, I would be lying if I said I'm still dumb founded that that whole mementos section was thrown in at the end. Just end the freaking game already!
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Although I did read tips and basically the #1 thing I took from the tips was to do mementos throughout the game. Am I to assume if you ignored it you had to do the whole thing in one go?

Can’t agree to that. Why would I want something great to end? Makes no sense.

So when something is great you never want it to end? When you play a great game you want to play that game for life and never want to move on?
 
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People are tired of games padded with filler quests and activities.

The issue is filler, not how long a game lasts. Make a game with 100 hours of real quality content, not filler, and no one will complain.

That devs cant understand this simple fact is telling of how much they are disconnected from their audience.
Yeah, it's all about whether it's 100 "real" hours or 40 hours extended out to 100.

I think basically every single genre could be shorter outside of maybe FPS. JRPGs for me are perfect in the 25-50 range for example. Horror games are also too long, like I loved SH2 remake but it should have been like 1/2 to maybe 2/3 as long aka closer to the original.
 

Fess

Member
So when something is great you never want it to end? When you play a great game you want to play that game for life and never want to move on?
Well yeah as long as I’m having fun I don’t want it to end. What’s the upside? I loved Astro Bot and then got the Platinum and haven’t touched it since.

Only time I want something to end is when I’m getting bored, or if I want to move over to a sequel like right now when playing FF7 Remake so I’m ready for the Rebirth PC release later in the month.
 
Fans don't love 100 hour games with reused assets repeated over and over, and AI-generated lifeless areas with mindless tasks like planet scanning to boost the time to 100 hours.
 
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Although I did read tips and basically the #1 thing I took from the tips was to do mementos throughout the game. Am I to assume if you ignored it you had to do the whole thing in one go?
No I did mementos throughout the game. I really just mean the last dungeon that has you go through that (can't remember if it had a separate name, just always considered it the mementos dungeon). It came across as really pointless to me
 
I do miss 9-12 hours single player good story campaign.

Astrobot was just perfect.
Wukong took me 30 hours and I just finish it because I already spent too much time on it 😂
 
Eh, I just think it's really hard to make enough engaging content to keep people happy for more than 50-60 hours, when they're all competing with so many releases these days and it's hard to focus on a single game.
 
100 hour+ length one needs to have enough interesting things spread out to appeal to people which is where Elder Scrolls, Fallout games are good at and Witcher 3 but not Starfield which is the first bad single player game by the Legendary Todd Howard.
 
Agree, not counting RPGs, I'd say most classics I ever cared about are below 20 hours or even below 10 and I therefore replay them often, while I'll never touch any of the bloated monsters like GoW Ragnarok again.
 
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All they had to do was put in the tiniest bit of effort in making travel in Starfield a bit more immersive and they wouldn't have to make these ridiculous blanket statements about people not wanting to play long games.
 

MaestroMike

Gold Member
I have 215 hours in totk been playing it for like a year and a half almost done I think with the main quest I’m about to just cook/eat sleep work clean and just play this game until I’m done I’m cutting out everything else that may be a distraction (still will watch ufc events and come browse this place but no other bs is gonna take my time I gotta beat this game)
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
The only 100 hour games that I can still muster are Dragon Quest games or a few Persona games.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Huge Bethesda coping going on

You're right, when the story and quests are so fucking dumb I don't feel like putting 100h into it.
 

Crayon

Member
I'm very glad you didn't mention Rebirth in there, it's a good 50 hour JRPG bloated to a needless 100~ hr length.

It's good the game has all that fluff. The gameplay is tits and I need monsters to kill.

In fact, most of these hundred hour games are really 40-60hrs. If you want to spend more time in the game, there's a bunch of less consequential optional stuff. It's not a bad solution, considering you are trying to sell millions and cater to lots of people.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
yea I’d like more enemy variety if they expect 60-100 hours. Better loot too. Rebirth was good but those towers and other stuff on the map was a huge pass for me. They also slow the game down and I’d rather keep walking or exploring. I’d rather hike it to the next town and level up than sit there and trigger cutscene after cutscene. Not everyone loved what Xenosaga did.

Western developers basically translated what JRPGs were doing, but they added useless junk to collect or go explore. Half the map looks dull and lifeless. Stupid small character arcs that don’t add up to anything take up your first couple hours. I didn’t get into Horizon or the newer AC games because they were all 30+ hours that I didn’t want to commit to. I’d rather have a handful of those than one right after another. I loved Ghost of Tsushima, RDR2 and TLoU2. RDR2 moved at a snails pace at times, but there was so much unique aspects to it that I didn’t mind. TLoU2 felt like it could have shaved off a couple hours. If I love it so much I can replay it. Souls games I’ll replay and clock 100+ hours in, but that’s like 1 of the only type of games besides a JRPG or The Witcher where I don’t mind.

After the 20 hour or at 30, I’m looking for things to wrap up. I bought Far Cry 4 and 5, but that felt like a chore once the hype wore off.

The Skyrim days feel like they aren’t there anymore. “Infinite quest” or whatever sounds like a nightmare that never ends. I liked TES4/5 and Fallout 3/4, but I’m glad you can just focus on the main quest and be done with it. Too much bloat or fluff sucks when you don’t want to do it. Even if you want to 100% the game. If the trophies have you doing boring or mundane things then it’s just worth getting to the credits.

As much as I liked KH3, half the talking was a god awful, time wasting experience. The gameplay in these games are great at times, but pointless looting/exploring and stupid dialogue makes it boring to play beyond X hours.
 

Allandor

Member
Imho 20-30 hours for are optimal for the main story. Additional and optional side quests can increase this to 100+ hours.
Worst case so far was assassin's creed Valhalla. 5h fun, 70h bored and than 2h fun and an abrupt end when it again gets interesting. Side quests weren't great as they didn't do anything for the story or fun (pooping witch ... common ... That wasn't really interesting).

An almost perfect example would be cyberpunk. You can play through the main story in 20h but you can also do many interesting side quests that build up on the world/story.

Another negative for me was Witcher 3. The game was great but just to long. When I reached the middle I already forgot what happened in detail in the beginning.
 

sigmaZ

Member
I'm bored and burnt out on 100 hour open world games, even the stellar ones such as Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom. It feels like the games never end amd just goes on and on and on. Preferably for me would be 50 hour on rpg and open world and 15-20 hour for more linear and compact single player games. Make the games shorter but more replayable with good game mechanics, ng+ and tight level design instead of empty worlds with fetch quests and endless filler content.
Agreed.
It's mostly filler a lot of the time taking advantage of people who mindlessly consume content, but unless they lower the price with the amount of content people are gonna be unhappy paying 60 plus dollars for games that are not full of filler.
 

Ozzie666

Member
I think people only have time for 1 or 2 of these type of games per year. Last year I sunk 100 hours into FF7 Rebirth. Atlus games like Person 5, 3 re-loaded etc over the past couple years. It's a freaking job. Most gamers are locked into a Gaas these days, when previously it may have been an MMO taking up all your time.

I'm not the type of gamer who can move from 1 80-100 hour game right into another. I am sure I am not alone.
 
I’ve always preferred linear, shorter games because imo they seem more well designed and structured normally, I’m also getting tired of so many gigantic, lengthy games as well especially when they are filled to the brim with filler, busy work and pointless, side quests that artificially pad the length.

It wouldn’t be as bad if there weren’t so many games to play. I’d imagine longer games are more appreciated by gamers who don’t buy that many games a year or like to explore as much as possible in a game. With my excessive backlog, I unfortunately usually move on to the next game as soon as I finish the current one I’m playing.
 
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