Are video games becoming too long?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released this month and is easily one of the biggest games of the year, not only in terms of how much hype there has been around it but also in regards to gameplay length. With a massive 200+ hours, it begs the question, are games becoming unnecessarily long?

Modern day gaming and new powerful consoles brings open world games to the forefront of the industry. With games such as The Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto V that are extremely long and could nearly be considered unfinishable, other much shorter and linear games are being forgotten. Whilst shorter games literally don’t have as much content as the open world ‘endless’ style games, I believe they can still be equally as amazing – and sometimes even better. However, with the stigma that ‘bigger is better’ attached to videogames, these shorter games are being completely overlooked and put down, simply because of their length.

Whilst The Witcher 3 may have 200+ hours, the story itself can be finished in roughly 50 hours if the player takes an average pace throughout the game and completes the odd side quest. So what is the relevance of the other 150 hours and are they really needed or is the rest just filler so that the developers can claim it as a massive game with countless hours of gameplay?

As gamers, we tend to want value for money. So when a game, such as The Order 1886, can be completed in just a short 6 hours, we often feel that was it isn’t worth the same amount of money as the much longer games out there that have a lot more content.

A lot of people didn’t even play The Order because it didn’t take long for people to announce how quickly it could be completed, however, it was still a fantastic game with a great story and the most amazing graphics I have seen on the PS4 and although it had a different more cinematic style of gameplay, it was still a solid and fun game. However, because it could be completed within 6 hours, people therefore label it as a 'bad' game. But why? Should this game have cost less to buy because it contains less content, maybe with only a 50 or 60 dollar price tag instead of the 100 dollars that most big name games get.

I have played a variety of games, and length isn’t important to me at all. If a game has excellent content and I can honestly play it for 250 hours without feeling bored or feel like

it's getting repetitive then it's a damn good game, and I don’t deny that that can happen – especially after the few hours I have already put into The Witcher 3. Although, I have also played very short indie titles such as Westerado: Double Barrelled, To the Moon, Valiant Hearts, and many more that are not long in-depth, open world games, but they have incredible storylines and interesting and unique gameplay. And I often enjoy these games equally, or even more so, than the AAA titles that get all the limelight.

I think rather than judging games on length and what content they may be missing – such as fully open worlds, or random collectibles that don’t really mean anything – we should instead be focusing on the gameplay and story, and simply if you had fun with the game or not. Length doesn’t define a game and make it good or bad, it’s the content within the game that we should be focusing on.

People shouldn’t discredit a game because of its length, and definitely not before at least playing it first because this debate comes down to one thing and that is quality not quantity.

Play a game for what it is, not for what you think it should be.

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