Mike Reitemeier
Mike ReitemeierMy current gaming backlog is massively daunting. I have hundreds of unplayed games in my Steam library, a PS3, PS4, and 360 with a lot of long games to tackle, and this doesn’t even touch my other interests, aka my YouTube Watch Later, my Netflix queue, etc… it feels like it never ends. I truly feel like, at the current moment, I have enough to sift through for several years to come, not even considering upcoming games that I’m excited for, like Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk 2077, and Animal Crossing.
To mitigate what I should be devoting my time to, I took to howlongtobeat.com to get a rough estimate as to how long the games at the top of my list would take to get through. Seeing games like Persona 5 take 96 hours to beat just for the main story and The Witcher III taking more than 100 including side missions left me afraid to focus that much time on them; even if these games are widely-acclaimed and some of the best ever made.
On the other hand, seeing games only last 5-6 hours had an adverse effect on me, as games I had hyped up in my mind to be of epic proportions, like Asura’s Wrath and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, can be beaten in one day. Of course, if a game is of high quality, it will be a great experience no matter its length, but knowing that it will be a one-and-done can be a bit of a letdown, as I tend to remember the longer games more.
Please do yourselves a favor and do not bother with looking at this site before you play your games! While it is a supremely-useful tool, it has ruined my immersion, as I can tell which phase of the game I am in based on my concurrent playtime. In some cases, I even finish games a few hours before hltb’s playtime. It is more fun to go into a game blind and not know how much more of a game I have left to play.
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2 Comments
Ahmad Al-hemmally
February 12, 2020 - 6:48 amWell, I try to go into games as bling as possible, only checking reviews and opinions about them after I finish the game, not before that. I only glance at HowLongToBeat for a vague idea for how long the game is, I don’t register the time in my mind, so I don’t have this problem (I usually don’t check it either.)
NAGWIzard
June 2, 2023 - 10:47 pmI Broadcast Games a lot on twitch and I use howlongtobeat.com A lot! I use it to help me pick from my 2500 steam games and growing. I play all my first time playthrough blind except the intro summary paragraph. The Time I use to help me complete my goal for the month. so currently I am doing 20 games a month and then my main game 3 days a week. So The beginning of the month I do the 6 to 20 hour games and at the end of the month I pick the quick games like 30 min to 3 hours. So For that aspect of it I use it often and like it for that. some games I beat much faster than the listed time or a little longer so it is really as a quick reference to help plan the broadcast schedules. So if it is a 72 hour game I play it normally the beginning of the month and I also split those up with my main game stream days fitting that time frame in half to keep working on that game but without getting drained from it.