What I've noticed lurking at these forums is that a lot of people seem to measure the quality of a game in hours:

"Hey, I've played for 100, 200, 500 hours already, so I've got my moneys worth."

That is strange, and new to me. Admittedly, I haven't really bothered browsing popular games before - probably justly, as those often are remarkably similar to some pits in hell.
You can see a lot of those apologetic time-measurement comments in complaint threads (lots of those complaints seem valid to me).

How is it, that out of all possible statements about the game, it is the one that pops out so frequently? That just makes an impression that the game is expected to be, and treated like, some form of cheap time filler. Like some crappy chew to fill your belly with.

It's like going to the restaurant and commenting afterwards: "I've just got a big sack of unwashed potatoes, but man, did I get my moneys worth! Solid 7,000 calories!"

Surely, that is not a category to judge a good meal by. You don't rate a book by how long it took you to read it (at least I hope you don't). Or a movie by its length.

I'm sorry if my english is confusing, or the grammar poor. Yes, I'm not a native speaker.

Its not about the time nobody plays a game for 300 hours and just sits there bored, whenever someone says that their saying they've been entertained for that long.

I imagine it has to do with the fact that people typically don't continue playing a game if they are not enjoying it.

Personally, at any time when I have become bored with a particular game I immediately stop.

There may be some very short games that are lots of fun, but if you are playing a game that costs a certain amount and provides a few hundred hours of enjoyable entertainment, it is quite a good value in comparison to another game that you also enjoyed but only provided, say, 4 or 5 hours of entertainment.

For an RPG I want a lot of play time because I am that character and I don't want the journey to end. It's not that I don't care about quality, on the contrary, once the quality requirement is met, the next criteria is how long the experience can be,

Exactly. Where the mistake happens is when a company says, "our game provides 40 hours of gameplay." Don't tell me how many hours of content it provides. I'll decide that. You can do every level in DOOM in a morning if you're good at it. How many hundreds of hours did I spend play DOOM when I was a kid, though? Probably as many as I have put into every TES game combined so far.

People often tell me games are a rip-off because they cost $60 or $70 in addition to the cost of a machine to play them. Well, I payed my $60 USD for Skyrim and I've played it for hundreds of hours. Had I spent that time going to the movies, playing paintball, clubbing, eating out, etc. it would have cost me far, far more. How much does 200 hours of movie watching cost if you're not using Netflix? Skyrim is not only worth the money, but the time I spent playing it has probably saved me money.

First of all, let me say that your english is very coherent and your grammar near superb I wouldn't have picked up on the fact that you're not a native speaker had you not mentioned.

Now on to the topic at hand. I agree with you to a certain extent. The number of hours one plays a game is by no means a concrete indication of how good the game is. You could play for 500 hours and still think the game was lacking crucial elements.
On the other hand, hours played can also indicate that the game is a success, seeing as it is not likely a person would pour 200, 300, 500 hours of their lives into a game that isn't amazing or even good. Also, in my opinion, a game we pay good money for giving us that many potential hours of gameplay is something to be celebrated and truly does indicate that the game is doing SOMETHING right. I'd much rather pay 100 dollars for a game that I can get 300 hours of enjoyment for, rather than only 60 (give or take).

I've been playing for 140 hrs and the whole time I have been gripped by the game. I've never said to myself this quest is lame or boring. Everything about skyrim I love. My only problem is I'm feeling a but left out though because I can't get my game to glitch and fail like so many other people get. Why oh why bethesda did you make my game good. I'm playing on the xbox by the way.

There's an old joke... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of them says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.

(Woody Allen, "Annie Hall")

I`ve been playing for around 500 hours since release day, and thats not because it`s a cheap time filler but because I`ve enjoyed it and continue to do so.
I have a whole load of games sitting around that I haven`t played yet... like Batman Arkham City, Dark Souls, LA Noire and Halo Combat Evolved.

So, Hours played can be an accurate summary of how much you enjoy the game quality. Unless you have no other games, your hardly likely to keep playing a game that you don`t enjoy..

quality is immeasurable as far as the length of content but skyrim could use a few more mystery within the game to keep one interested in exploring it further for those unnecessary but precious hours.

I picked up the new Mastodon album earlier in the year, must of listened to it 20-30 times in a week. Brilliant.

Then I picked up Lulu.. Couldn't finish it.

Games are just like this.
I've spent 80-90 hours playing skyrim.
But I can't get into uncharted or dark souls

The length of time played really does relate to its quality. You don't play [censored] for 90 hours

Edit: but everything is down to personal taste. So the age old "is this good" thread is always moo

You can spend $15 for a good 2 hour movie. You can spend $30 on a good 2 hour dinner. You can spend $60 on a good 200 hour (so far) game.

All of those things are enjoyable and entertaining. The video game hours statement is a way to put the money you spent into perspective. It's very efficient entertainment.

You're comparing something with a defined end with an open world video game here.

There is only one point in time when you stop playing skyrim, and that's when you're bored of it, so the time you spent in it is a fairly good measurement of quality.

The same isn't true for a movie or book ofcourse, once you watched/read the whole thing you're done. Saying "this movie/book is so great, I watched/read it 4 times already and I'm still not bored by it!" is still a decent argument for quality, however.

I think that hours played are a good indication of quality. Nobody wants to play a crappy game for 100 hours, right? The highest playtime I've seen around here is 614 hours, I can barely imagine playing that much if it's an amazing game, let go if it's a bad game.

I noticed the 'STATS' tab last night and realized I've been playing roughly 142 hours to date (I'm still on my first character). I'm level 39, and the more I read on these boards, the more I realized how little I even know about the game (there's another thread I just commented on, embarassingly enough, where I just learned I could upgrade weapons... I hate myself enough as it is, please don't laugh at me LOL!)... So I've had all these hours of play time, and I haven't even scratched the surface of the game.

Seeing those hours I've burned just makes me realize how deep the game is, and how much time I've spent just being entertained by it and to me, that's a mark of a good game... As opposed to Fable III, where I was really hoping it would be deep, but my son and I played as a duo and knocked it out in a weekend, and were stunned... So I went back into it by myself earlier this year, without him rushing around trynig to push through quests, and I took my time, did side quests, did the real estate thing, explored everyehere I could think of to explore, married people and had kids, fooled around with sngle people, etc... I accidentally completed the game in two weekends... Now, I'm sure there is more to that game than that, and if I really FORCE myself to go back into it and take even MORE time it would take longer to play it... but why? To me, THAT would be the equivalent of the empty calories. Playing a game for the sake of FORCING yourself to make it last longer because you keep hearing and reading about how great people think it is.

Whereas, again, with this game, I'm not trying to take a long time or rush things, or anything. I'm just wandering around, exploring, doing quests here and there and suddenly 280 hours are gone and I didn't even know about marriage, or upgrading equipment until this week.

For me it is a bit of Bang for the Buck.

I play on Xbox 360 and do not play multiplayer online games, which seem to be the industry money makers at the moment. So when I play a game like Gears of War that cost me $59 retail and is over in 6 hours I am very dissapointed. But I understand who the game is marketed for so I am not angry, it was fun for 6 hours and that was it.

So when the same $59 can provide me with quality fun for 200+ hours, it is worth comment. To me, anyway.

It's not about the time really, it's about the money/enjoyment rate. There's nothing more frustrating than buying an expensive game and then finishing in 5 hours. It might have been fun to play, but you expected something more, something that'll keep you interested. You want to get your money's worth.

Now think about this: today a game with ~40 hours of gameplay is considered long. In Skyrim after 100 hours you've barely scratched the surface. It's amazing, it's unheard of in any other genre (strategy aside). There are so many things wrong with this game - bugs, performance issues, lack of balance... But before you start noticing that you've already put 50 hours in and you're hooked.

Skyrim is not "unwashed potatoes". People enjoy the hundreds of hours they put in it. That's well worth a comment.

I kinda agree. Of course it's important that a $50 single player game with very little replayability doesn't last 6 hours, but a 200 hour game is not necessarily better than a 20 hour game.

It depends on the game. Big exploration/sandbox games are by design going to give you more hours of gameplay per playthrough than linear games. One playthrough of Half Life 2 lasts like 12 hours or so. It's a good length for the game. Doesn't mean Minecraft is better because you can get more hours out of it at a lower price.

Bastion is around 8 hours. Which is a bit short, but it's only a 10 euro game and it tells a good story in a good amount of time. If it had been longer it would've started getting repetitive. It's one of my favourite games this year.

So I think the hours/price ratio do need to be good for all games, but not necessarily as good as it is for TES games.

If I told you I ate a large sack of potatoes, those ought to be some REALLY good potatoes, don't you think?

I've probally played over 200 hours in total, time spent wasted and unentertain, frustrated by gaping design flaws like followers not matching your level but enemies do, befuddled over a world where as you level cave bears become brave enough to sleep in groups on major roads, confused over why when I done a named quest nothing changed, the people at the core don't change thier daily routine to match or say anything in regards to what I done, flabbergasted that after fixing a problem before I have left the room someone will start talking to the person who asked me to look into it about how it's still an issue, including the person I just reported to about it being sorted. Annoyed all my progress made even in a sterile, empty and unchangingly stale world is lost as I'm required to restart over a bug that must be caused by something far away from the quest that breaks, or just breaks because I didn't start it soon enough. Puzzled over why when theres a common feature in games, this one even has at one point, to check the player inventory for an item they have requested to be found, I can't say "oh this old thing? I found it a month ago" and hit them over the head with it when they don't see it, leaving what is the bulk of this "quality" game with an "amazing" amount of quest easily breakable. Generally shocked over what Radiant story has cost the basic game even non radiant quests in terms of depth and reaction. Outright confused by the boastful freedom this game is meant to have, yet all these walls exist around the world, for unless you do it a certain way and order, you'll either have to leave skill books alone not to waste them because you have to stop an read them in a dangreous dungeon, be left with weaker version of artifacts that rarely feel legendrary anyway, break so many quests and lose out on others due to the stupidity of AI unable to not fistfight a deadly being and run, and as you contently explore the world you leave every friendly npc in your wake weaker for meeting you. And past all that theres plently of features of this game that are designed as nothing more then a time sink, so the amount of time played has little to do with quality. At best you could say walking though a forest where nothing happens is better then the forest not being there to begin with, but is it really much more then filler to make the game seem more then it is with more depth.

At this point to be honest I can't even bring myself to turn it on anymore, I don't know whether to sell it or wait for the first DLC and all the patches up to that point will bring. In the mean time though I think I'll go play sonic CD although only being a few hours to complete at most has provided solid entertainment and value for money. Or maybe FFVII and cry when Aerith dies again because she has more personality then the planks of wood in this game we're expected to care about when something happens to them. Even Squall has more personal growth then most of the characters and stories here and thats really saying something.

^this

I tend to equate time with overall value in this way. This process began with my friends and I starting going to a movie once a week, locally going to the movies is an 11 dollar charge. Movies became the standard for a value to time ratio. Soon we brought it over to gaming.

When it came to skyrim I have probably 200 hours invested into it now. I bought the collectors edition which was 175 bucks. In my view I got more than my monies worth because I played more than 1 dollar per hour. The key to all this is more of a justification for the price vs fun... for the amount of enjoyment I got out of Skyrim I'd drop that sum of money again.

The key factor of this is that these hours to me were considered well spent and were enjoyed. On the flip side CoD: Mw3 held my attention for 4 hours and I never played it again. 60 dollars for 4 hours (that I didn't enjoy) seems like such a detrimental waste of money and time that I express both to display my over all disgust.

Pretty much covered, but the reason is simple: MOST people will not continue playing a game that is not fun. If you do, you really have some definite issues..

So, for most people, a measurement of how many hours they've played translates directly to how much fun they had playing it. In the end, the amount of enjoyment provided is really the only important measure of how good it is.

I planned for at least three play throughs, Warrior, Mage, Thief based characters. My first time though I played a sneaky archer bosmer and played the Thieves' and DB quests, but my save file was corrupted around level 38 and I abandoned it. I did finish the thieves guild quest, but only got up to the third main DB quest.

Been playing a sword and board nord who has finished the companion's line. In both play throughs, I have not gone past retrieving the horn portion of the main quest (I just wanted to be able to get the "dah" portion of the shout)

So, with two incomplete playthoughs I've got about 110 hours played. Still have to play a mage, so 300ish hours total is not out of the question, not to mention, just like Morrowind and Oblivion, I will pick the game up after a few months for another playthrough.

Immersion hours is most likely one of the reasons sports games are so popular, when you think of it, although nobody talks about them, probably because it would make them realize how much of their life has vanished without a trace. Take Madden Football for example. One footbal game, using 5 minute quarters takes me roughly 45 minutes to play, (give or take). That means one season (16 games) = 720 minutes. Make it through the playoffs & Super bowl = 855 minutes (900 if you need wild card to get in). Career mode = 30 seasons, incl. playoffs+superbowl = 25,650 minutes of game time. This does not include the time you use between games checking your roster, free agency, trades... or off-season time with the draft, etc.

I've personally only played one complete 30 season career in my life because by the time I get 20+ seasons in, I want a new version of Madden, which I typically purchase every other year, or every third year, dating back to the first version for my Sega Genesis in 1988. Other sports games obviously take many more hours (Baseball = 160+ games in one season?!? - never been able to make it through one season, personally)

Point being, aside from people like me who allow themselves to get immersed into a sporting career, and aside from on-line gamers (which I am not), you almost NEVER get the ability to just sit back and lose yourself in a different world for several hundred hours and not even realize it. And that's the key. This game is a rarity, like Oblivion, but better IMO, where you jump into the game and before you know it, you look at the stats and say, "I've been playing this for 142 hours already?" So you're compelled to tell people about it because it only seems like a few minutes. It's a measure of quality. Like a movie... sometimes you can watch a 2.5 hour movie and leave the theater wishing it was longer, wanting to watch the next release immediately... Other movies you go see are about an hour and a half and your can't get out of there fast enough as you feel the precious minutes of your life slioooowwwwly slipping away from you.