Short games are underrated

Somewhere along the way, gamers decided that value means hours. A 60-hour RPG is worth your money. A 4-hour narrative game is not. That's the logic, anyway.

It's wrong.

The hours-per-dollar trap

The price-per-hour calculation makes sense on paper. You get more content for your money with a longer game. But content and quality aren't the same thing. A lot of those 60-hour games have 20 hours of actual game and 40 hours of running across empty landscapes, crafting menus, and unskippable side content nobody asked for.

Short games can't hide behind length. If the first hour is slow, you're already a quarter of the way through. Every scene has to earn its place.

Most of us don't have 80 hours anyway

If you're in your 20s or 30s, have a job, maybe kids, maybe other hobbies — when exactly are you finishing that 100-hour open world? It becomes a 14-month commitment you pick up and put down and eventually just stop.

A short game fits into real life. You can finish it in a weekend, or spread it across a few evenings, and actually reach the ending. That matters more than people admit.

Finishing things feels good

There's something about seeing credits roll that a long game rarely gives you anymore. Not because you gave up, not because you got distracted, but because you saw it through. Short games give you that more often.

A completed list full of things you actually finished beats a list of 40-hour games you're "currently playing" and will never touch again.

They're often doing something interesting

Short games tend to be passion projects — smaller teams, tighter scope, a specific thing they wanted to say. That focus shows.

Portal is three hours long and people still talk about it 15 years later. Journey takes about two hours and it's one of the most emotionally resonant things the medium has produced. What Remains of Edith Finch runs under two hours and it will stay with you for days. Inside, Limbo, Firewatch, The Stanley Parable — none of them overstay their welcome, and none of them needed to be longer.

More recently, A Short Hike is exactly as long as it needs to be, Unpacking tells an entire life story through the contents of moving boxes, and Katana Zero is over before you want it to be, which is exactly the right feeling to leave someone with.

You don't need to spend a week with something for it to stick with you.

Where to start

If you want somewhere to begin: Portal, Journey, or What Remains of Edith Finch. All under three hours. All genuinely great. All sitting in someone's Steam library unplayed because they felt too short to justify.

They're not.