If I’m not convinced a video game will give me at least 24 hours of playtime I won’t buy it. That’s why I’ve given up on Call of Duty. I’m not spending $64 dollars on a game with a formulaic campaign I will beat in five hours. That’s like $12 an hour! Screw that! I’d much rather play a game with a nonlinear story that I can beat in my own time, have plenty of side quests and collectables, incentive to explore the map, and actually have a different experience every time I replay. So I play games like Assassin’s Creed and anything by Bethesda and Rock Star. They actually care about bringing new things to the table and have the thought to make stories that are more complex than “blast every enemy away from point A to point B in order to save the world in five hours.” The only thing I have more than that formula is the reason why many studios that shall remain nameless adhere to it: why innovate when you can fart out the same shit every year and its guaranteed you’ll make millions?
Of course many gamers feel the exact opposite of me. To them they like being done with a game relatively quickly, and view long RPGs and open worlders as just big long errand quests. They have a different mindset. They feel games are something to be beaten, whereas I prefer games that are about the journey and not the destination. Besides, the whole appeal of the types of games I like is that you can spend as much OR as little time as you want. You don’t have to do everything there is to do, though I do try to.
D.J. Garcia, Gentleman & Scholar 