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The thing to take note of is that standard episode times exist to make TV channel scheduling simpler. There's no equivalent of that in games, so why should designers worry about standard times?

It's not like standard times improve the experience. Look at movies; they pick whatever duration they like, just bearing in mind their customer has expectations that they'll get their moneys' worth and probably don't want to sit in a room for five hours, and because the producers probably couldn't afford to gamble with the cost of even more footage.

Okay, so it's a fact gamers will only play a given game for so many total hours. That's not a function of the time itself though. That's a function of the player's relationship to the game's experience. Difficulty is a large contributor to how long a player sticks around: too easy and predictable, or unforgivingly difficult, and you won't try to go further.

In movies you'll get tired after five hours because you want to be elsewhere. The solution in games? Saving. There, another problem we don't suffer from: games can last for more than one sitting now.

The thing to take note of is that standard episode times exist to make TV channel scheduling simpler. There's no equivalent of that in games, so why should designers worry about standard times?

We know gamers will only play a given game for so many total hours. We are those gamers. However that's not a function of the time we spent, we didn't look at our watch, notice we'd chalked up ten hours total on Mario and suddenly ceased to enjoy it. We stopped enjoying a game because our relationship to the experience changed over time: it no longer had anything we enjoyed. It became too easy or predictable, for instance. Difficulty is a large contributor to how long a player will stick around.

The thing to take note of is that standard episode times exist to make TV channel scheduling simpler. There's no equivalent of that in games, so why should designers worry about standard times?

One source of the idea might be because people only play games for so many total hours. That's not a function of the time itself though. That's a function of the player's relationship to the game's experience. Difficulty is a large contributor to how long a player sticks around: too easy and predictable, or unforgivingly difficult, and you won't try to go further.

The thing to take note of is that standard episode times exist to make TV channel scheduling simpler. There's no equivalent of that in games, so why should designers worry about standard times?

It's not like standard times improve the experience. Look at movies; they pick whatever duration they like, just bearing in mind their customer has expectations that they'll get their moneys' worth and probably don't want to sit in a room for five hours, and because the producers probably couldn't afford to gamble with the cost of even more footage.

Okay, so it's a fact gamers will only play a given game for so many total hours. That's not a function of the time itself though. That's a function of the player's relationship to the game's experience. Difficulty is a large contributor to how long a player sticks around: too easy and predictable, or unforgivingly difficult, and you won't try to go further.

In movies you'll get tired after five hours because you want to be elsewhere. The solution in games? Saving. There, another problem we don't suffer from: games can last for more than one sitting now.

Standard episode times exist because it makes time scheduling simpler. Games, not suffering from such a predicament, are free of the burden of attempting to adhere to scheduling standards.

A game exists for a designer to generate an experience for a player, and a game should go on for exactly as long as the designer feels it's necessary to generate that experience. An arbitrary time constraint has no use here unless it actually contributes to that experience.

People will play a game until they cease to enjoy doing so, and time along has no bearing on it. Instead it has to do with a player's experience, and how that experience changes (or doesn't) over time. You might cease to enjoy a game just because you realise you've spent so-and-so hours/days/years on it, but that's still just because of the player's experience of the game - they now experience that game as a waste of time.

Difficulty level is apparently a significant contributing factor to whether the player would actually like to hang around, but there are no doubt a ton more gameplay factors responsible (e.g. whether the game gets repetitive or remains interesting).

The thing to take note of is that standard episode times exist to make TV channel scheduling simpler. There's no equivalent of that in games, so why should designers worry about standard times?

One source of the idea might be because people only play games for so many total hours. That's not a function of the time itself though. That's a function of the player's relationship to the game's experience. Difficulty is a large contributor to how long a player sticks around: too easy and predictable, or unforgivingly difficult, and you won't try to go further.