How long do you play a game to decide if its good or bad?

[Danimal1209]

Do you quit after a few minutes, hours, days?
How long do you need to play a game to decide its not for you?

 

[gothamhunter]

Until I experience the direction of the story (or lack thereof) and get a firm understanding on the gameplay (usually after all the "tutorial" areas). This way I know if I'm going to like the storytelling or the gameplay.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Depends on the type of game. If casual, a few days. If I pay for a major release, I check it out top and bottom and NEVER buy at release.

 

[KaOTiK]

Depends on the type of game. Some you can tell almost immediately, while others it takes a few hours. I try to give any game a fair chance of a couple of hours but if it has something I just don't like and can't get over I will just quit it.

 

[Wyndru]

Sometimes for me it depends on the cost of the game too, if it's a bargain bin game I'm much more likely to put it down if I don't initially like it, because I figure I didn't waste much money.

This is why I have a ton of steam sale games that only have about an hour logged.

 

[pontifex]

Sometimes for me it depends on the cost of the game too, if it's a bargain bin game I'm much more likely to put it down if I don't initially like it, because I figure I didn't waste much money.

This is why I have a ton of steam sale games that only have about an hour logged.

this


also, i can usually tell if i will like a game within a few minutes of playing.

i don't get people who say oh it gets better after 100 hours! give it a try! why the hell would i play a game i don't like for 100 hours for the possibility that its better after that? that makes no sense to me.

example - Age of Wushu - I was ready to uninstall after about 20 minutes but I thought I'd wait until I got to pick my school and decide. all the boring useless crap up to that point made me not want to play. the combat tutorials made combat seem really boring.

I wasn't even going to try it out to begin with since it's PVP centric, but I like martial arts stuff and it was free so I gave it a shot.

 

[Kneedragger]

Within a couple hours for me.

 

[SMOGZINN]

For me it is about 2 hours. If around the 2 hour mark I find that I'm not having fun playing it then I uninstall the game.
If it makes it more then 2 hours, I'll give it a little more leeway, but in general I quit any game when I realize I'm not enjoying playing it.
It is the reason I will no longer play MMO's. I discovered that I didn't enjoy about 80% of the time I spent playing the game. So why bother when there are many other games I can play where I enjoy almost ever moment of my gaming time.

 

[CPA]

Usually about an hour is long enough for me. If it takes more than an hour to understand the mechanics, story or items of interest, then the game sucks by default.

 

[motsm]

Depends on the game and what I find, but many times a few minutes is plenty.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'll play for a few hours, usually before bed. If I want to play it again the next day, that's usually a good sign.

 

[alcoholbob]

I really disliked Tomb Raider for the first 2 hours but now I'm 6 hours in, its starting to grow on me, so I guess you can't really rely on first impressions.

 

[crabbyman]

Biggest thing for me is controls. If I have issues finding the controls intuitive, I will give up a game fast.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i can usually decide right away, like in arkham asylum when i realized i can win fights by random button mashing, unless....the game devs pull a conan/swtor where the noob town is amazing and then you realize they mailed in the rest.

 

[KentState]

I put 10 hours into Witcher 2 before I decided I hated the game. Beyond that, I don't have many games that I've hated lately.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Some of you guys make me laugh. I mean, there are some games like RPGs that start off very boring with lots of character introduction, plot set ups, easing you into the combat, explaining special tactics and such. All before you are given your freedom. These can take hours to get through all the character dialog and things like that. If you give up in the first 10 minutes you never even got to play yet. You were riding the train to the game and haven't arrived.

Usually about an hour is long enough for me. If it takes more than an hour to understand the mechanics, story or items of interest, then the game sucks by default.

This is incorrect.

Numerous top tier RPGs and adventure games take a long time to get the mechanics down. Play Persona 4 for an hour and you barely got to know any of the characters which make up the backbone of the game. Play a couple of The Legend of Zelda games for an hour and you probably haven't left the first village yet. Or Play Skyrim for an hour and you don't even know what skill perks do or any shouts yet.

Fallout 3? After an hour you probably didn't even get to the first town.

 

[cmdrdredd]

double post

 

[coldmeat]

Biggest thing for me is controls. If I have issues finding the controls intuitive, I will give up a game fast.

This. Controls are just about the only thing that will make me give up on a game entirely.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

My biggest challenge is that it is really hard for me to start a new game. Same thing with TV Shows, books, movies, etc. I have to force myself to play for about 2 hours, otherwise the game can't hook me. Also games that give you little direction frustrate me, I really need a story or an objective (the exception is Sim City 4).

 

[Sohaltang]

Usually 10 min to an hour. A lil more if it is highly rated or something I really wanna like. My kid rented Legends of War/Patton and played it for 30 min over a couple days. I figured it was too grown up for him and he said it was turn based. I figured hey sounds like something that might be fun. Needless to say about 5 min in I was watching netflix. The control were a nightmare. Maybe better on PC..

 

[Zenoth]

A few sessions would normally be enough for me, but like others have said it also depends on the type of game. I find that, for me, the RTS and Action adventure (usually third-person) games will necessitate more play time to see most (if not all) features of the game. Sometimes you have a game's starting point or "tutorial" which can be boring and gives a false impression for the first hour or so when finally you realize after a specific point that you were actually just going through some tutorial and you're "now" finally playing "the real thing" and it gets better from there. One example I can think of is TES Oblivion, sure I liked the graphics the first time I popped in the prison cell and played with the hanging chains to check the physics but then it was tedious to walk and escort the trio and the king until you finally get outside to the breathtaking scenery.

I would say that Fallout 3's tutorial was better than Oblivion's, but still boring to get through and couldn't wait to get outside, but at least I knew then that it was just a repeated game-play mechanic and that I was actually just going through a tutorial (which I wasn't that well aware of when I played Oblivion, considering that Morrowind's "tutorial" on the boat was probably just five minutes long so I never really considered it as such in Morrowind, to me Bethesda really started with that whole tutorial stuff with Oblivion, at least in length). As for an actual 3D action adventure type of game it's been many years but I'd have to say Shadow Man. The first hour or so felt awkward, thought I didn't like the game's story or setting much, but kept playing and suffice it to say that to this day it is still installed and it ended up being one of my all time favorites (and I wouldn't have known about it had I just stopped playing when I felt it was boring during the first hour or so back when I first tried it on the N64, but later ended up buying it on the Dreamcast).

With RTS games (depends which ones) I usually wait until I've seen much units, or tech upgrades, or at least a good portion of the game's campaign(s) if available. There's one exception though, Empire Earth III which I've mentioned recently in another thread. That one... well I think I've played it for maybe three hours or something like that, can't remember but it wasn't much time and ended up uninstalling it, but that's an exception to "the rule" (for me). Another example I can give is Dawn of War 2. It took me lots of patience going through the campaigns (with expansion pack's campaigns) since I never really liked the game-play style overall and I actually enjoy The Last Stand game mode almost exclusively (when on the other hand I really liked DoW1's campaign and regularly play skirmishes with that one). It still took me maybe two days playing DoW2's campaign until I "realized" that I was actually bored with the game (but kept going to follow the story and didn't want to just watch the CGIs on YouTube).

So yeah, it varies from game types to game's stories (if the story is good and the game-play is bad, chances are I'll keep playing anyway) or game's features (when I want to see all features before turning the switch off when I'm bored with it). The type of games for which I find it "easy" (fast) to know if it's bad or boring are purely action-oriented FPS'es, fighting, racing (car controls immediately tell me if I'll like it or not right from the very first track regardless of anything else), puzzle or purely story-oriented games (with story-oriented games I need to get immersed right away, otherwise the rest won't matter to me and I'll uninstall).

 

[Ayah]

5 minutes to an hour is usually more than enough.

 

[Sulaco]

RPG--Usually around 4-6 hours, unless it's atrociously bad beforehand.

Strategy--3-6 hours depending on complexity, and to see how good/bad the AI is.

Pretty much everything else--1-3 hours

 

[greenhawk]

I've probably played too many games over the years and have developed a dislike for a given interface style.

Take dragon age 2, I skiped that game and gave up on it just by playing about 1/2 of the demo.

Farcry2 I gave about 8 hours, but The killer for me was the interface and paying rrp at release.

dungeon seige 3 (IIRC the game), syndicate (remake) and a few others I knew I would not like them just by watching the trailers for them.

So the short list of things that make me dislike a game are "how much I paid for it", controls, and perspective (3rd person to the side is just wrong for me).

 

[Chaotic42]

For bad games, it seems like it's usually 3-5 hours, more if I'm playing with friends since that masks the crapiness.

It took me 5 hours to decide that I didn't like Bad Company 2 (or rather to confirm that my initial dislike was warranted), but 21 to decide to uninstall Black Ops. DNF was only 49 minutes

Good games tend to be good from the outset.