Random: "The Time Players Spend In A Game Is A Cost" - Sakurai Talks Long Runtimes

Has anyone made a dub of these video? I’m sure I can just grab the transcript and read/TTS it from there.

As someone with maybe a couple of hours per day to play games, I have to admit that I do look at some games in my backlog and considerd if I'm truly willing to sink in the hours. Xenoblade Chronicles took me about 2 months to finish, because of my limited time and during that time I wasn't really able to play anything else.

That's why I sometimes prefer shorter games, but I really love games that take long to finish. It's a very real dilemma when you're middle-aged and have to spend your free time cautiously when you work fulltime. And I don't even have kids, haha!

Man, I just love Sakurai. This is it, people!!

He's not wrong. I would much rather play a game that takes at most 15 hours to finish. I'll have to really be into a game to put more time than that into it.

I prefer shorter games, but I can play longer games also like JRPG as long there is a hint or pointer to tell the direction of the next mission.

These days I largely ignore most longer games, partly because I don't have as much time anymore but also because most of them have a lot of filler content to pad them out

I love games that i can turn on, play very quick, save it and turn it of haha. Thats what i still do with smash, play couple of games online, then finish and do something else. Same with Zelda Tears.

For me, it's really a calculation of length vs. novelty. If a game keeps giving me new and interesting mechanics, environments, enemies, etc. to play with, then I don't mind if it goes on forever, but things like open worlds and roguelikes that expect you to slog through remixed versions of the same content over and over again get old pretty quick.

The roger ebert quote applies here: no bad movie is too short, no great movie is too long

I have a full time job, a commute, a spouse, a personal life, and as I get older I'm getting increasingly impatient with things that waste my time.
I'd rather play and replay a 3 hour game that I love (example: Untitled Goose Game) than a 100 hour game I only tolerate (example: Breath of the Wild).

Say's the man who created Meotos which epitomises the 'go on then, just one more....'

I don't think he is the only one thinking this way, there are many games that can be completed in 15-20 hours, which previously would have had much longer play times. You could question if this was a decision based player engagement, or a saving in production costs.

Yeah, Ultimate is my most played switch game

I have more hours in ARMS than in Smash.

Smash Bros. just needs fresh air and a new direction for me.

yeah well no.. Actually the reason I avoid certain games is never because they are too long (value for money) but because they are short, sure.
Metroid Dread, Mario Wonder, Link's Awakening remake and currently Astro Bot are examples of games that even if they look amazing, due to their extremely short run time I just try to avoid unless a juicy sale is on or become part of my subscription (PS Extra ofc because my Nintendo Online is useless)

@Diowine Welcome to the "dollar an hour" club.😁 That's what we call it in our house anyway. Well mostly just when my family makes fun of me. 🤑 Sakurai isn't the first person to talk about game length, it comes up a lot, but those same people rarely bring up that maybe small shorter games should cost less than expansive longer ones.🤷‍♂️ The $1/hr thing is kind of a joke, I recently told my wife b/c of inflation I'm now up to $2 an hour, but 10-15 hour Astrobot does seem like it would be better served at $40 or even $50 than $60. I'm playing Plucky Squire instead this month, it's only 8-10 hours but also only $30. I paid $15 for a month of PS+ Extra to play it and Crisis Core.

I don't understand why people have to take sides so much in the world and compromise is so frowned upon. I play a lot of long JRPG, my wife likes the stories and character interactions, and I play a lot of short platformers and other action adventure games in between them. Make games the length that feels right for the game, if it's good people will find the time to play it. Though maybe not right away if the game doesn't seem to be priced right.

30 hours max. I can’t do more than that.

@rjejr I totally agree.
All those games that I mentioned seem amazing, but full price for their short duration/content?
When compared to lengthy JRPGS, Action RPGS and other +50h games...
It just feels wrong paying full price for a ~10h game.

I do agree with sakurai on this. Glad he mentioned it. I don’t really see game developers mentioning this. This might be my problem because I play a lot of jrpg which are usually long and there’s the botw totk stuff that’s too time consuming to me. Especially since they are essentially the same game to me in some ways. Didn’t even attempt to do a lot on totk. Lol. But I digress. My way to handle this is if I have a long game to tackle, then I want to make sure I have a short game or 2 to play along with it. Preferably different gameplay from the long game. That way I keep things fresh even while doing a long game and avoid burnout.

I understand Sakurai's comments, but rather than a cost I personally see my time playing a given game as a return on an investment. We pay a lot of money for videogames (especially if you're a serious hobbyist), and over the years I've been forced to become more selective, and I've gravitated toward games that A) have high production standards (not talking "AAA" necessarily, but titles you can tell have genuine passion and effort put into them) and B) offer a good amount of play time. I've spent countless thousands of hours playing RPGs, SRPGs, and Strategy games like Civilization along with platforms like the Mario franchise, adventure games like Zelda, and a wide variety of other genres. That's not even counting the countless hours spent playing multiplayer titles like Mario Kart and Daisenryaku around the TV with friends and family.

$30 to $70 is a lot of money, yet I have many games in my personal library which still ended up costing me literally pennies per hour spent playing. To me that time isn't a cost; it means I got great value for my money.

i prefer a game to last 15 hours or less. There are many many games I havent touched because I just dont want to commit the time. If a game is of a good quality and is 15 hours or under I'm far more likely to spend more time with oddly, Metroid Dread, Mario Wonder for example, I've completed both a few times, but I know I can pick up, blast through them from start to finish having a grand time and then be done with them till next time. So, if a game takes 100hrs to finish I wont play, but if its 15hrs or under I'm more likely to spend 100hrs on it over time. It takes me 3.5-4hrs to 100% Mario World every time I play it, but I'll complete it regularly for that reason and have put crazy amount of hours into that game as a result. A great adventure is better than a looooong great adventure that can become a chore despite its quality.
I do once in a while play a longer game, but not often and even then I often find 25-30hrs is the limit for me
The only exception to that I can think of is BotW which I 100%.

I like the idea of designing games so that they can be entirely completed in a manageable amount of time.

One of the things that's difficult for me — particularly as someone with OCD — is maintaining the mindset that I won't complete every objective, see everything there is to be seen, etc. I often say I will just play for the core experience, but then it becomes a quest to do everything that ends with 75 hours played, a bunch of stuff still undone, disappointment, and other games that were never played as a result. So, for me personally, if completionist times were reduced, I'd be happy.

More than ever, it seems like a constant struggle for game developers to balance the length and amount of content in their games. Luckily, I think it's easier to reach different groups. There seems to be a larger audience now for shorter, retro-style experiences. There are plenty of options for those that like longer games. I think the hard part for the players is figuring out or finding the games for them.

I get the idea of value for money being correlated to time spent in the game. A good long game must feel like an excellent value. The problem is some games can feel overly long, and that's not value. Going back to the Gamecube days, I loved Wind Waker. Some people thought it was too short and unfinished. When Twilight Princess came out, it was common to hear it was 40+ hours of gameplay. 40 was like the new thing then and was considered hefty. For me, it felt like a slog, just stretched out specifically to reach a certain length. And plenty of people love it, so that's fine. It was not that it was badly made, but I have no fondness for it. I just bought Shadow of the Ninja Reborn on Steam last week. I think it was $18. I beat it for the first time within 24 hours, but I already felt like I got my money's worth. I went and beat the game several more times, and got a lot better along the way. I yelled at the game a number of times too. I had a great time. A lot of my favorite games are short, but are also games I can play over and over. Punisher arcade, which just finally came to home systems, is a game I can literally play over and over without taking a break and it will never stop being fun for me. But I can totally understand it being too short for many people, even if they like arcade beat-em-ups. I thought Streets of Rage 4 did a great job of making a beat-em-up game longer without hurting the enjoyment. In SoR4, I can play two or three longer stages and feel a similar level of satisfaction compared to a full run of something like The Punisher, so they struck a great balance, in my opinion.

For 3D stuff, Metroid Prime is one of my all-time favorite 3D games and the 15-20 hours to beat it felt just about perfect to me. Other 3D stuff I enjoy, like the Tenchu games are level based with less narrative, so it's easier to jump in and out which makes it easier to add length without feeling long.

My sweet spot is between 7 and 8 hours.

@LadyCharlie I'm not dunking on Botw, but when ppl say like "I'm 400 hrs in and still exploring" it's too daunting for me. I know you can cater your own playthrough, but just the thought of it is really not my style. Agree about repeating shorties being good for my lifestyle

To me, it depends on whether the game respects the player's time or not. I was struggling to complete the Mass Effect trilogy via the legendary edition with all the padding and running around those three games have, but I'm 250 hours into Elden Ring because getting around is pretty swift there and it doesn't take long to find something to do.

One of my goals when buying a game is to find one that will hit that magical spot where it devours all my free time, but doesn't end up feeling like a second job. Like I play it for 10 hours a week because it's what I'd rather be doing, not because I want to check it off my list and get that monkey off my back.

When a game takes over your life in a good way, it's magical. Who didn't love that first few weeks with Smash Bros. or Mario Odyssey, or maybe some of those revered games from your childhood, where every free moment was a chance to dive back in and have some fun.

But then there's the bad way, where you dutifully march back to the game during every spare moment because you've invested so much time in it and you want it to MEAN something. You get a lot of that with cell phone games, and even some beloved titles like Animal Crossing.

The game's play-time should be whatever comes naturally to that game. How much time you spend playing it should justify the price tag, but also not become a burden. It's a hard line to walk and I've been on both sides.

People want to escape reality and immerse themselves in a different world, and even live through that game as if it is a Second Life. But achieving this by padding out the storyline with a huge completion time is growing increasingly outdated.

Old-school Monster Hunter was one of the best ways to achieve ambient value. Short, minimal storyline, short time commitment per play session, with huge amounts of replay value.

The crux in the formula is creating an immersive game world right from the moment you press the Start button, with replay value enhanced just by the ambiance a player unlocks by picking up the game right from the beginning. Making a player feel rewarded just by spending time in the game is the modern standard.

He makes a compelling point considering how, at least in my life, time has become a commodity I have very little of. I don't know how many times I've stopped and started Tears of the Kingdom and I'm even dragging my feet with Fire Emblem Three Houses. The only thing that brings me back is to take neo retro sabbatical gaming excursions, which are more bite sized, and online gaming, which clears my palate. But it really is a challenge these days and it used to be easy. I don't know what I'll do when I finally get to Xenoblade Chronicles 3. 😞

i wonder if theres any studies/surveys been done to see how age correlates to ideal game length. when i was younger i would gravitate towards really long games, but since i was like 21-22 and was settling into having an income ive ended up enjoying much shorter games. i dont even have a job (disabled, in case anyone gets notions) so i have a lot of free time, but i dont actually start that many games. i think i used to weigh price and play time since i would only get a few games every year, but now that price isnt as much of a consideration i guess time has also lost its significance for me??

anyways i really hope i can get back into some rpgs. i started fire emblem three houses recently and its been a struggle to keep going even though i really enjoy myself every play session 😩

As I've gotten older I've started to appreciate shorter gaming experiences or great stories more (ie Gris, Celeste, Last Campfire, etc) or quick pick up and go and leave when ya wanna games (Dead Cells, Brotato, Spire, etc). I always love most of the Mario titles.

I feel like more isn't always better. I really love NMS and BOTW but just the thought of logging on kinda stresses me out most times. I know, it's just a game right? I guess I don't want my game to feel like a job after I just got home from my actual job.

Walking 10 miles to do 5 chores for some guy you know 4 towns away in hopes he'll toss me some ingredients for your pie? Dude...get it yourself? How about we just blow some stuff up and call it a night.

I don't pay $60 for 15 hours games. No Mario Wonder, No Astrobot, NEVER.

I pay $10 for 300 hours games like Enter the Gungeon, Balatro, Brotato...

This kind of game you can play forever or play 10 minutes one day, 15 minutes another day....and keep going with a lot of content and replayability. I have 35 hours playing Brotato in two weeks. And i see 5% of this game or less (finishes with all characters unlocking 5-difficult levels with more characteristics and challenges in the middle of the gameplay, with every character.....i think this game has 54 characters...with different gameplays and strategies).

I pay $60 for Mario Tennis Aces, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Mrio Strikers, cause this kind of game is competitive..and i can play forever.

But i won't never play a Mario 2d/3d game twice. I play....finished? Never more. I prefer rogue-like games that you finished and play again, but the game will be different every time. Metroid Dread, Mario Wonder....its aways the same. I dont have patience to play again and again the exactly same levels...So, these games for me....are like $10 ..$15...games...

@LadyCharlie Videogames by default are a waste of time no matter the length. Every time you play your 3 hour game, you waste 3 hours which could been spent doing something productive.