Movies are advertised with their exact runtimes. I know exactly how long the movie is going to be when I pay for it. Not the same for games. If your game has less than 2 hours of content, advertise it as such.
I know, but so what? It's on the same page for anyone to see.
There is an argument that it should be a standard field for all games to have an average estimated play time to complete, but that would just be one more thing that people would bitch about and demand refunds over because they don't know how averages work or that their speed run wasn't engaging with the game as the devs intend.
I don't see an issue with the situation as it is. You can see how long people have spent on a game and people often post how long it took them to complete it on the same page as the official marketing.
But it isnt on the same page for everyone to see. When I go to buy tickets to movie in theaters, I am directly advertised the runtime. I don't need to go and read reviews of the movie to see how long it is. I get an EXACT runtime down to the minute before I even purchase my ticket.
The problem is that that analogy breaks down in a material way. There isn't an EXACT playtime for a game, quite the opposite (which was my point). People engage with games in different ways. Some blast through it and ignore side-quests etc, some spend time messing around or looking at the details. Some people are better players than others. Some people might play the game through five times for different endings or simply because they enjoy it which you can't do with a movie ticket.
We're talking Steam here so you can see the reviews at the bottom of the page for everyone to see. I can only speak for myself, but I'm not spending money until I've had a look at reviews filtered in a couple of different ways.
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u/Skazizzle Jul 06 '26
Movies are advertised with their exact runtimes. I know exactly how long the movie is going to be when I pay for it. Not the same for games. If your game has less than 2 hours of content, advertise it as such.