Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
The length of The Order: 1886 has been a hot topic around the virtual watercooler ever since a Let’s Player posted a video “confirming” that the game is only five hours long. Of course, not everyone plays games the same way. A professional streamer might be able to polish off The Order in five hours, but the average gamer playing an hour or two after work every night might need ten hours or even twenty. But that fact remains that paying $60 for a game that could be completed in five hours is not a great value proposition.
Polygon’s Ben Kuchera understands the length vs value argument, but he also believes that some games work better as shorter narratives. So who comes out on top of this rather silly debate? Actually, it’s everybody as it’s OK for games to be short, but it’s also OK to be annoyed at how short some games are:
The Order: 1886 has many, many problems, and its relative lack of length is not the most troubling.
But the pre-release stories about its supposed length, and what it means for its success, were passed around and fretted over endlessly among the gaming press and social media. The question of game length, and what it means for players, is a contentious one.
[…]
The Mona Lisa is, after all, very small. Does that mean it’s a lesser work of art?
Here’s the secret: Everyone is right.
The full article is available for your perusal at Polygon.
