"People don& #39;t finish long games, therefore you shouldn& #39;t make long games," was a specious corollary developed by publishers to give teams smaller budgets.

Most people also don& #39;t finish short games.

AFAIK no one has ever researched the correlation of "didn& #39;t finish" with "unhappy about buying/playing the game". I asked the heads of a highly reputable research group if they ever had and they admitted they hadn& #39;t even thought of asking.

Confirmation bias is epic.

Short games can be good. Long games can be good. But, "People don& #39;t finish long games," has never been a sound argument for not making them unless your ultimate goal is game completion rate (as opposed to sales and player satisfaction).

Sincerely,

A Long Game Maker