What we shouldn't forget when approaching this topic is the mechanic nature of a videogame itself. The Media works because it achieves to create a unique way of expieriencing a situation (because of interactivity, the possibility of simplification of a problem, etc.).

If a story works within this context, a game can take more than a hundred hours but it needs to apply to different qualities when it does (Much more those of a movie rather than those of a game). Games of this kind have to create a dense atmosphere, they have to move players to create affection - hardly anyone would praise MGS4 because of it's shooting mechanics.

However, the shorter the game, the more compelling the mechanics (I'm not too fond of the word "gameplay") have to be to actually make a game work; it's not different from a board game. Perhaps those games still are what arcade games where when they first appeared: the real videogames.

So how long should a game be? It depends on what it's trying to do.

//schmoek

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