Simon Estey Can't Help But Wonder "Why Are Games So Long" | Winter Spectacular 2024
I am not an economist, but I did study the field for one whole year while in college which in internet credentials is basically a PhD. One thing I do remember during this course was the law of marginal utility which essentially states that for every additional unit of consumption, the enjoyment or utility of that unit decreases. The example my professor (who actually had a PhD) would use is that if you’re hungry and buy two cheeseburgers, the first one will sate at least a portion of your hunger making the second burger, inherently less useful. It’s a pretty basic and easy-to-understand fundamentals of economics, and yet the current landscape of video games seems to run ramshod through it by offering 40-100 hour experiences with even the highest acclaimed titles overstaying their welcome. How did we get here, and what effect is it having on the industry?
Video games have always been a part of my life but it wasn’t until the GameCube and PS2 era when I started to actually follow the industry and read magazines for reviews to know what games were worth my time and money, mostly the latter. I was a kid, and any game I picked up would need to last until Christmas or a birthday so if a review said “on the shorter side” that was a death knell. Why should I drop $50 on Luigi’s Mansion when I could be done with it in less than eight hours when Wind Waker could take me almost four times as long! It seems like I wasn’t alone in this sentiment as a short length was a common negative for most critics, while longer titles were consistently praised for their runtime. It’s an attitude that seems to have remained prevalent to this day, with many a Reddit-pilled gamer saying they expect $1 per hour of runtime. But is that realistic or even a smart way to evaluate value?
Imagine if you spent $4 to rent The Departed, which is two and a half hours (151 minutes to be exact). After watching it, you probably wouldn’t be thinking about how the movie owes you an extra hour and a half of Matt Damon, instead, you’re thinking about what you just watched, how it made you feel and probably how great it was. The cast and crew had a story they wanted to tell, and they weren’t concerned with making sure the audience received a set amount of content for their money. Why don’t we think of games the same way? If I spend $60 on a game, does it matter if I only get 40 hours of entertainment out of it? Even if I get the full 60, going back to the law of marginal utility, was hour 55 just as enjoyable as hour 38? In my view, probably not as the longest game I played this year was certainly not my favourite.
I am a big Final Fantasy nut, so Rebirth was probably my most anticipated game going into the year. When I started playing the game, I was hooked. After being somewhat disappointed in Remake, the sequel was everything I wanted. I loved exploring the world battling monsters with an engaging combat system and the terrific cast, and I loved playing Queen’s Blood - Oh, how I loved that damn card game. I was engaging in every aspect of that game and wouldn’t change a thing. But then I kept playing. I kept doing the same tasks in new areas. Sometimes the game would mix it up, by providing a new chocobo or a car or have me jump from Queen’s Blood to Fort Condor in my side activities , but at the end of the day, I was doing the same actions. At some point, probably around the 50-hour mark, my surefire Game of the Year winner became a slog. I stopped doing everything, and just wanted to get to the end. There were tons of games coming out every week, and I wanted to see what those were about but I still had 50 hours of Rebirth to get through. I was still invested in the story and wanted to see how it ended, but I wasn’t really enjoying the game. I paid $80 for the Collector’s Edition, and I got damn near 100 hours of content, but I wish I only got those first 50.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth is far from the only offender. In fact, looking at the nominees for Game of the Year at the Game Awards, half of the titles take at least 30 hours just for the main story, but could be significantly longer if you include side-quests (FFVII: Rebirth, Black Myth Wukong and Metaphor: ReFantazio). Even one of the remaining three is fairly long as Shadow of the Erdtree is a 25-hour DLC expansion for a game that takes already takes 60-80 hours to beat. This isn’t even accounting for other high-profile releases such as Star Wars Outlaws, Persona 3: Reload, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. It’s notable that one of the highest-rated games of the year is Astro-Bot, which can be 100% completed in less than 15 hours. So many AAA games are unnecessarily padding their length to provide the feeling of near limitless amount of content but they aren’t really receiving any additional accolades for it. All they are doing is harming the industry.
Video game budgets have ballooned in recent years as evidenced by Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 which released last year. Due to the massive information hack of its developer, Insomniac, we know that the PlayStation 5 exclusive had a budget of $300 million, which is nearly triple that of its predecessor which was released in 2018, only five years earlier. Triple-A gaming is getting more expensive and while we may not know how these massive budgets are being allocated, some portion of it has to be going to the design and implementation of all of this superfluous side-content that really doesn’t enhance the game in any meaningful way. A common argument for longer games is that the side-content isn’t required but it is there if you want it, and while that’s true, their inclusion is still leading to the instability of the industry by increasing cost which can only be sustained by more sales which often times are not happening.
Those who are following the video game industry know that sales have been plateauing for a while. Part of that is due to artificial heights created by the pandemic, but could there be another part of it? Most of the people who are buying and playing these games are adults, who have a limited amount of free time. It may take them months to get through something like FFVII: Rebirth, and during that time they may not pick anything else up. Even if they are the type that feeds the backlog beast, they are most likely not paying full price and instead are waiting for a sale since they have their main title they are working through. Modern games appear to be designed to make sure there is no room for players to watch Netflix, or read a book and while they may be accomplishing that task, they are also sabotaging themselves in the process.
2024 was a fantastic year for games. As an RPG fan, the games I was most excited for at the beginning of the year were the epic adventures like FFVII: Rebirth, Metaphor: ReFantazio and Unicorn Overlord and even though I enjoyed all those games, there was at least one point during each of them where I was ready for my quest to end. On the other hand, titles like Astro-Bot, Thank Goodness You’re Here and Minishoot’ Adventures not only kept me entertained the whole way through but also left me wanting more. To be clear, some games do deserve a long run time, but I would be hard-pressed to think of any game that needed 60 hours to say something that couldn’t have been said in 40. With those extra 20 hours, you may have the time to give an indie dev some money and find your next Game of the Year.
