How long before you decide a game is trash?

Ughubughughughughughghlug

RIP Cats 4/20(blaze it)/25
kiwifarms.net
Joined
May 14, 2019
For me it seems to be anywhere from two to ten hours, based on time put into Little Nightmares, The Crew, Ghost Recon Wildlands and something else I can’t quite recall at the moment.

It’s short by game length standards, but awfully long compared to other mediums.

Trash here means that I finally uninstall it completely because I realize even having the option of it is a waste of my life.
 
Sometimes I 100% a trash game, like Final Fantasy 13 or God of Bore: Fags and Cucks, just so that Sekiro or Bloodborne will be that much better when I replay them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AnsemSoD1
5-10 seems OK, some games start slow and bad
Some stuff just exists in such an uncomfortable medium of mediocre, or is something you know has a high investment of time to pay off/learn, that it can keep you suckered along.
I blew 10 hours in Ghost Recon Wildlands because I had some hope and confusion that it might at some point stop being the worst Ubisoft goyslop I'd ever touched. And it was just good enough to play mindlessly, but not actually enjoy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AgendaPoster
I can usually tell within an hour if a game is just going to waste my time. There are way, way too many games out there worth playing to put up with the crap of anything that takes hours upon hours to grab me. Stuff like Final Fantasy XIII and its fans insisting it picks up 20 hours in is just absurd. There are plenty of great games where the entire runtime is shorter than that.
 
I have very little patience for most bad games. If it doesn't hook me within the first 2-3 hours, I'm probably dropping it.
 
Not all that long anymore. It used to be longer but with how many free games are given out I bin things pretty quick... an hour usually give or take longer for rpgs
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kit Marz
Some games you can tell from a screenshot. Some games I've played the whole thing and still can't tell whether it was good. Hell, these days I feel like I complain more about the games I like than some of the shittier new releases. The latter I just don't even bother with after an hour or two, the former I can sperg about all the little issues I'd want to change after 100 hours.
 
Some games you can tell from a screenshot. Some games I've played the whole thing and still can't tell whether it was good. Hell, these days I feel like I complain more about the games I like than some of the shittier new releases. The latter I just don't even bother with after an hour or two, the former I can sperg about all the little issues I'd want to change after 100 hours.
That's just passion. And there's also the games that had a beautiful idea at the core but just weren't executed that well (I could list a ton of those, let's just Nantucket as one). And if you're me, the games you barely touch at all but just like thinking about (Paradox games, I legit get more enjoyment out of thinking about modeling historical processes in them than I do actually playing them; I wound up going into a field where I do work like that).
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Anonitolia
With an FPS which is honestly my bread and butter I usually need at least 1 or 2 days of total playtime to figure everything out, including maps, map flow, metas, and a bunch of autistic shit I'd love to sperg over but isn't the point of the thread. Once I do all of that I can tell you if the game is shit or not.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Anonitolia
It varies wildly. I can tell a game is trash within seconds sometimes, depending on the genre. If it's a platformer then quite literally a few seconds is enough.

JRPGs are the ones that take longer to figure out usually. The stories generally start slow and introduce gameplay later, so it can be a couple hours before discovering it's trash.
 
I'm an impatient fuck, but it depends on the platform.

If I'm playing on Steam, I give each game 30 minutes to woo me before I bounce. If the tutorial is still going at that point, it's being unquestionably refunded. If I'm having trouble but I'm more frustrated than I am interested, it's also being unquestionably refunded. If I bought it thinking it was one thing and it turns out to be another, it's another unquestionable refund.
Those last two reasons are why I no longer have Rain World (despite the unending raving about it making me curious even after I refunded), and that first one is why I no longer have Monster Hunter World. I'm sure both of those games are great for some people but I bought Rain World thinking it was a difficult Metroidvania (when in reality there was a much heavier emphasis on survival as opposed to exploration), and Monster Hunter World will not shut the fuck up and let me learn by doing already.

If I'm playing something I bought for a console, I'm very very hesitant to refund. I'll often get 20+ hours into a game I'm not enjoying before I give up and bother refunding. Might have to do with sunken cost, especially since I exclusively buy physical copies of games whenever it's possible, might have to do with not having a 2-hour time limit on my gameplay before I can no longer return it... not sure. Doesn't really matter tbh.

If I'm emulating an older game or otherwise playing something on my PC without paying for it, I tend to hover around 2-5 hours before dropping it. If the game is shorter (especially if it's, like, NES old) then it tends to be more of a 1-3 hour thing.

I'm curious as to whether this is just a me thing? Dunno if anyone else alternates their time limits based on context. I'm sure plenty of people out there do but I'm not sure how many.
 
Back