How long should a full priced AAA game be?
Browsing through LinkedIn over the holidays of 2024, I came across Sergei Vasiuk’s post, asking the question “What is your ideal length for a AAA game to justify a $69.99 price tag?”. Asking his network to vote by reacting to the post with a certain reaction emoji.
We will gloss over sample sizing consideration here, but we can still use it as a data point that helps us better understand today’s player expectation when we price our games, and call it a AAA game.
Let’s take a look at how people voted:
What can we learn?
Let’s break it down into a table:
| Play time | Votes | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| <20 h | 373 | 25% |
| 20-30 h | 205 | 14% |
| 30-40 h | 165 | 11% |
| 40-60 h | 321 | 21% |
| 60-100 h | 310 | 21% |
| 100+ h | 134 | 9% |
The first observation I’d like to make, is that up to 30h play time, only meets 39% player expectation for a full priced AAA game. Roughly 2 in 3 players will be disappointed with the amount of available content.
Hitting the 30-40h play time mark hits 50% meeting player expectations. Only above 40h is starting to meet a majority of player’s expectation. Where about 2 in 3 players will be satisfied with what has been delivered in terms of available content.
The price tag itself creates an expectation of available content and playtime. It also creates an expectation in terms of quality. While that aspect wasn’t captured in this post, the combination of “AAA title” and full priced, means today that players expect 40+ hours of play time.
Meeting and managing player expectation is key in building communities and healthy brands. Want to learn more about how we use user expectations? You can reach out to us here!
