Game length does matter, but it’s right to be skeptical about grand boasts

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Over the weekend, the internet was once again up in arms over something video game related. Taking a break from rightfully dunking on (but perhaps inadvertently promoting) NFT nonsense, it was the turn of Dying Light 2 to feel the flames of outrage. The game’s social account put out a statement that the zombie survival parkour open-world sequel would take 500 hours (about 3 weeks) to complete. Boom. That is an outrage.

There has now long been a kind-of disconnect between games media types (that’s me) and consumers (you, unless you are a games media type drawn to this via my baity tweets) over how long video games should be. As someone who plays them for a living, a game being – quite honestly – more than five hours long can be a source of stress. Most games media types who need to play games before writing about them will need to find these hours, somewhere. Where? Most likely in the evenings, when the family is asleep, when you should be asleep, and when you aren’t being paid.

It’s video games, though, right? Fun. Not work. Everyone wants to have this kind of job. I’m being deliberately confrontational to emphasize the point, but even hobbies and fun activities can start to grate when you are on deadline and need to batter enemies for another 15 hours, knowing full-well that only 12 hours of possible “work” time remain.

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