The ideal game length is often debated and largely attributed to personal preference.
While this is true, in a sense, I believe it has to do more with the game itself.
What makes those who play video games so interesting is they all have different preferences with unique backgrounds. You can look across the Boss Rush staff and see just how different we all are and how that affects our gaming preferences.
One of those unique attributes is how much time we have to game. I am the father to three children who works a full-time job on top of writing for Boss Rush. This often leaves me with a few hours to game a night.
There are others out there who don’t have children and can dedicate much more time to gaming. You would think this is the deciding factor on what the ideal game length is, but it’s not.
I play a lot of different genres including role-playing games, action-adventures, and platformers. My ideal game length is different for each of these genres.
RPGs tend to be longer which means I’ll be taking a lot longer to beat them. Platformers, on the other hand, don’t take very long to beat though they have a lot more replay value.
I’m ok with either length, but it’s the genre that determines that. I’ve come to expect RPGs to take me 40 hours or more to beat. Jump over to platformers and I expect to dedicate about 10-15 hours into them.
If I were to play a 40-hour platformer, it’d feel way too long. On the flip side, if I played a 10-hour RPG, I might feel like it didn’t have enough time to flesh out its world or conflict.
That is why the ideal game length depends on the genre. It’s not a one-size-fits-all situation because not all games are the same.
Many players know what they are getting into when they pick a genre so they’ve resigned themselves to that fact. That said, the person may have their personal preference within that genre and it will likely differ from others.
I prefer a 35- to 40-hour RPG but I know some who love 20-hour adventures or gravitate to 70-hour outings. That’s what makes this topic so unique.
Personal preference absolutely plays a role in what you consider the ideal game length. More importantly, your ideal game length will differ based on the type of game you play.
Sure, you can average them all together but talking about platformers in terms of RPGs doesn’t make any sense. This is because they are two completely different games with different experiences.
I think anyone you talk to will likely have a different answer but those answers will likely fall along genre lines. The better quest may be to ask what is your ideal game length of a certain genre rather than a blanket question of the perfect amount of hours.
But what do you think? Does genre matter more in selecting an ideal game length? Does your ideal game length change depending on the genre? Let us know in the comments below or head over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.
Featured Image: Oliver Beer (via Unsplash)
The Boss Rush Podcast: The Flagship Podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network
The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord.
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