There is more to value than amount of time played. It also has to compete with other games. For example I have over 3000 hours into The Binding of Isaac, and I paid something like $4.50 for that game. I'm afraid that is the completion that they have to deal with.
yeah, value = time/$ just doesn't work with video games. I wanted to get into it, thought not, then you posted, lol.
So think about it this way: "We" have more or less collectively determined that "we" are generally OK with spending $10-15 for ~2 hour brainless movie that we will forget about by the time we drive home. So, for entertainment purposes, that puts our comparative $/hr value proposition at $5 to $7.50 per hour. ....Let's call it $6/hr.
Today, AAA, major release games release at about $60, if you aren't counting all of the day-of-release DLC and ridiculous "deluxe" nonsense. This means that for minimum acceptance of value, we should expect at least 10 hours of entertainment from a $60 product...but it's a video game. We don't tend to judge them that way. In fact, I think most would consider that a
terrible value for a video game. We expect something north of 25-30 hours minimum for a single player campaign, with hopefully many more hours of late-game, replay, whatever content....assuming with all else being equal, it's actually a competent, and objectively good game (the alternative being: a $10, 30+ hour game could be considered a terrible value because it's just a terrible, lazy, broken game, or for whatever reasons).
I actually think of a game like Mafia, which is actually very short and deceptively lacking in content because of its sandbox design but general lack of sandbox content, to be a very good game, because I think it's designed very well for what it is--almost like an interactive "movie" ....which I understand that most people dislike these days. ...And I get it, but Mafia is different to me because it isn't on rails and you do have freedom to run around do unnecessary things, even though there really isn't much else to do. I think that game (Mafia II) takes something like ~12 hours to finish with a rather high percentage of content completion, IIRC.
Anyway, it's a sliding scale that can't really be defined by cost/hours, because it all depends on the game and the user. ...I also tend to consider that those AAA games that are very expensive to make, involving teams of hundred(s), generally approaching and even eclipsing major Hollywood budgets, are often sold on deep discounts, typically soon after release for many of them. Or even so, because of steam, for many years these games have now been understood to be discounted heavily on sales or down to permanent lower pricing. This never really happened when all games were media-based, or always took some year or years to reach that point. ...so you can also factor in the cost of a game that is very expensive to make and its sale price, MSRP or discounted, as part of what you consider value.
So because of steam, and the open access to more independent developers that are able to go back to classic models and release the type of games that never otherwise be made (like Rimworld)--the games may be great, and certainly the value may be there....but there is a general understanding of what someone is willing to pay for that; especially when comparing to the paradigm of how distribution and pricing works nowadays.
I think it's perfectly fine to want to pay that price if you consider part of it a "donation" to a team that did good work and you want to see continue putting out similar, quality content, but I don't think the bulk of the market will sustain that. At some point, the devs will have to figure out if they would be able to sell x more copies at a lower price than they otherwise would at the current, "permanent" price.