I was reading through Masterlookas’ review of Wanted and it started the rusty gears in my brain region spinning. As the cogs spun around I was reminded of Ernest Hemingway. The great American writer gave us such classics as A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea.

He was noted for his bare bones journalistic writing style. Hemingway didn’t feel the need to pad his novels with 2 page long descriptions of furniture like a lot of other writers. In fact, he once said he could tell a story in 6 words “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” What in the world does this have to do with anything?

Well hit the more button and find out.

If you were to ask any story teller worth her salt how long a story has to be, she will tell you ‘it needs to be long enough to tell the story.’ Kind of a simple idea. But try to think of it like a painting, how many colors does a painting need? More doesn’t always necessarily mean better. Hemingway’s little story, as simple as it is, can convey enough for the reader to sense a great tragedy. A 1,000 page book isn’t better than a 200 page book unless the extra length contributes to the impact of the story. This impact can come from more character development or more investment into the story but there is a fine line between adding rich atmosphere and 2 pages about an old chair. This is the danger in adding too much to your story. The key is finding the perfect balance between providing enough without adding too much.

Yet as gamers, we have preconceived ideas of how long games should be. This length varies wildly from genre to genre, but there are definite guidelines for how many hours it should take to beat a game. A RPG fan looks at the measly 6 hours it takes to beat many action games and wonders what’s the point? An action game fan looks at the 40 or 50 hours it takes to beat an RPG and wonders why does it take so long to get to the good stuff? We have ideas about how long games in each genre ought to be and when those rules are violated we become upset. For example, take a game like Mass Effect, which is one of the best reviewed games of all time, but many RPG gamers were disappointed that the game clocked in at a measeley 20 to 25 hours. Almost all RPG fans expect their games to last at least 40 hours or more.

These preconceived notions of length are also part of the movie experience. Most people don’t realize it but movies in the same genre generally have about the same running time. Most comedies are about 90 minutes, dramas about 120 minutes, and action movies seem to fall right in between. Ever watch a movie that seems to be dragging on? This is probably because the movie is violating these general guidelines.

For gamers, we approach games with these ideas about length in the back of our brains. When these expectations are not met we feel disappointed, as if we were cheated. The quality of the game can become obscured by its brevity. Amazing graphics, kick ass story, and cool gameplay often mean little if people believe the game is too short. Although when a game like Wanted comes out and is only 4 hours long, gamers probably have a right to feel cheated. Since it came out at $60, gamers are paying $15 per entertainment hour ($12 an hour if you are not that good at the game). For many, this feels like a rip off. The game is not being judged on a standard scale because it has violated our basic guidelines for game length.

Try to imagine the literary community raising up in arms if the new John Grisham novel was 350 pages instead of 400. Seems kind of bizarre to think about, but that is exactly what we gamers do. All the time.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more for your money. This is one of those driving forces of economics. We all want to get more without having to spend more. If we can get a triple cheeseburger for the same price as a double burger with no cheese, most (sane) people go for the triple. But what about games that add pointless fetch quests or needless backtracking to lengthen the experience?

Was anyone happy in Super Ghouls and Ghosts when they got to the last level and were told they had to go back to the beginning of the game? Did you think it was fun to travel back through the areas you had already been through in Metroid Prime to grab the whatchamajiggers so you could beat the game? This kind of lazy artificial lengthening wouldn’t be tolerated in any other medium.

Imagine a Hollywood blockbuster pulling garbage tricks like this: ‘the protagonist has fought his way through thousands of enemies, to make his way to the lair of the villain but before he can enter and commence to kicking ass he has to go back and wander around the earlier areas of the movie to find some pieces to make a key.’ As gamers we accept these contrived situations as part of games. There is no real reason for this other than padding the game length. Would Luke have enjoyed Wanted more if there were an additional 2 hours of wandering around? Probably not, but it would have helped him feel as though he got his money worth out of the game.

In large part, all these issues come down to the fact that video games are still considered to be entertainment rather than art. We are consumers of a product rather than people experiencing a work of art. This seems like a subtle distinction but it is very important to understand that for most games, the finished result is seen as an entertainment product rather than a work of art. What exactly does this mean? Well in the simplest terms a work of art can be whatever it wants to be, but a product has to deliver what the consumer is expecting. An artist is free to express themselves in whatever ways they want but a product comes with an entirely different set of expectations. We judge art by its beauty, its message, or its emotional impact, too often we judge games on their length.

Whether or not games are art or not, is secondary to the fact that they are perceived as entertainment products by the vast majority of players. This perception changes the entire dynamic of the experience. With a product we measure whether or not it was worth the money, with art we measure the experience.

There is some inherent danger in comparing to vastly different mediums and I am not trying to say that books and video games are exactly the same. Video games by the very nature of the interactivity are different animals than books. However by examining the differences in our expectations and perceptions I think we arrive at a deeper understanding of both.

So after all this how long does a game need to be? Long enough so that the player feels like it was worth it, but not so long that they grow bored with the experience.

Tags: books, hemingway, length, story, wanted, Wanted Weapons of Fate

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 8:29 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.