In Praise of the 3-Hour Game
Found on Wired on Wednesday, 25 March 2009
The Maw is a very short game; downloadable from the Xbox Live arcade, you can get through the entire storyline in about three hours. And this was the one thing that annoyed the otherwise-thrilled critics.
Still, the uniform kvetching about The Maw's short span made me wonder: Why exactly is 40 hours considered the natural length of a videogame?
Forty hours might sound like a reasonable amount of play. But the truth is that very few games offer an experience that truly requires - and rewards - 40 hours of play.
40 hours aren't long enough. A good game should make you play longer without getting boring by having to do the same over and over again. What's important today are the graphics; the story often comes second. Or perhaps I'm just too old for today's games.