I, like many, have a wife, dog, 65+hr. per week job, etc. I was rein ally excited about Skyrim until I started reading reviews. Many reviewers had played 50-80hrs and "barely scratched the surface. Is Skyrim worth playing for the casual gamer? I only play 8-10hrs per week. That is 2mo before I would be where these guys were in a few days. Obviously I can play as much or little as I want but no game is fun if you only see the beginning after months. So, what do you guys think? How many hours do you have to play for Skyrim to be worth the money?

Yes, but it takes a long time.

Have to think of it like reading a loooooooooonng book.

its worth it. And the longer it lasts, the better.

It's not like one of those games that 8 hours in you are just hoping you are near the end. You don't even have to do a quest and its fun. It's that awesome.

It's an open adventure. Take as long as you want with it. Pick it up and go through one dungeon and call it a day after 20 minutes or go through half a questline in a 5 hour session. There's no restrictions to time.

The thing is, people say it's not as accessible as a sports game or a shooter. In those, you can pick it up and play two games online, but even then very often I get stuck having to leave in the 3rd quarter, and end up being late or forfeiting for time reasons. There's no point where I'm stuck and can't put down a Bethesda game and suffer a loss because of it.

Hehe so true, I felt the exact same way when I played through CoD Black Ops.

You can take as much or little time as you like, main quest is estimated at around 20-30 hours if you don't rush it, and each major faction will have a series of quests. If I only had a few hours a week to play this game I would still play it (I've only just started Skyrim, but basing this on previous TES games) because you can concentrate on the main story or one of the factions, then come back to it a bit later and do another part of the game, there's no need to rush through it in one sitting (nor would you be able to), and you can save at any point so you can come back to it later. I don't think you have any less time for gaming than the majority of advlt gamers with other responsibilities tbh. If you always feel the need to "beat" a game quickly then this may not be for you, but if you like to be able to start something and are able to put it down for a while and come back to it later you will be fine, your situation isn't any different than most of ours!