Games on the PC, Xbox or PS5 are getting longer and longer. Sometimes you can spend hundreds of hours in a single game. A developer explains that many players are tired of this trend and would rather have shorter titles again. He compares it to “mouthwashing”: It’s so successful because it takes so little time.
Games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or Baldur’s Gate 3 can keep a player glued to the monitor for hundreds of hours. But there is always criticism that games are taking longer and longer. The former PlayStation boss already explained that even in retirement he doesn’t have enough time to put 100 hours into a game.
Now Starfield’s lead quest designer, Will Shen, has also commented on the matter. And he also believes that many players are tired of games getting longer and longer.
Here’s what Will Shen said (via PCGamer.com):
It used to be the MMOs that did this. World of Warcraft has super fans who will never leave the game. And then suddenly games like Skyrim and other open-world games came out that offered so much content that you could play them almost forever. This was the big trend that hit the gaming industry.
But now the enthusiasm for such huge games has weakened and players want shorter games again. Because just because games get longer doesn’t automatically mean they get better.
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Games are getting longer and longer, but are full of useless stuff
The problem, says Shen, is that games are getting bigger without offering much in the way of meaningful content. And the result is that “a large or growing portion of the audience is tired of investing over 30 or 100 hours into a game,” says Shen.
Many players will be reminded of the so-called “Ubisoft formula” when hearing Shen’s words. For many in the gaming sector, it has become a symbol of open, lifeless game worlds with no real content.
Why should games get shorter? Shen also gives an example of why short games could be much more successful. He takes the indie game “Mouthwashing” as an example. This is a success because it lasts so short and not because you have to spend hours on it. This is how he explains:
Mouthwashing is a huge success because it’s so short. There are other factors, such as: B. the execution, the beautiful, iconic graphics and all those things. But the game wouldn’t be nearly as successful if it were longer and had a bunch of side quests and other content.
Brevity is the whole point, and this level of commitment was so refreshing to see from a developer who has made many great games. You can have a conversation with the fan base about a game that is much shorter because the brevity allows everyone to fully engage with the product.
The developer sees World of Warcraft as an example of a game in which you can spend hundreds of hours playing. And individual players are quite unique when it comes to their playing time. One person has accumulated particularly strange playing times. A streamer now reveals his time – and comes to over 40,000 hours: WoW: Player plays for 40,000 hours, doesn’t even use a mouse