>>717513605 (OP)
On one hand, I purchased my most recent retail copies of games with playtime in mind, 2 were very long and the other had no defined ending.
On the other, the ones I play the most right now are short games I got on steam for under $20 that can be beaten in 3 hours or less because it's difficult to bother starting up an ultra long game after a day's work and I'd much rather just play something short and immediately fun.
Back to the question though:
I would say we're in a bit of a weird situation where the economy is so terrible that people are extremely focused on value for their money over everything else. Therefore the standard has become such that only games that are extremely long are able to charge full price (overpriced) unless they're brands like Pokemon, and all shorter games are capped at a low price, with any price higher than this being deemed a ripoff.
Consequently this means AAA has become focused on long blockbusters and indies are the short ones. In general this means a game must typically crack 40-50 hours for certain genres of games, and if it doesn't then people will not accept a price above $20-30 depending on the game. More people than ever are using the extremely flawed dollar per hour value model to guide their purchases without considering replay value or genre style, or other factors such as how overladen it is with mtx to offset a lower purchase price. More poeple than ever have turned to f2p games as the cost of living skyrockets and people reduce luxury budgets to paper thin levels.
TLDR: Times are bad, money is tight. Don't wanna be mad? Price it light.
