Can a 40+ Hour Game Tell an Engaging Story?

I have trouble remembering the details of a movie plot a few days or weeks after I've seen it. However, compared to my retention rate of significant events in video game stories, my movie memory is outstanding. Even the shortest of plot-based games (typically some kind of shooter or action game) are 6-8 hours long at the minimum. When RPGs or strategy games stretch into the dozens of hours, played over many weeks or months, how am I to be expected to recall something that happened in the beginning of the game.

As much as some game designers strive to create cinematic experiences, the nature of many games as a temporally-longer medium inherently works against that desire. Movies routinely place a small character or seemingly insignificant event near the beginning of the film. This bit often comes into play as a significant factor in the conclusion. And in a roughly two hour movie, it's usually not too difficult to recall this tiny bit of information (usually with some help from cues in the movie itself. But in a game that is many times longer, this technique is not only impractical, but also would require a great deal of explanation to catch the player up to speed.

The demands (by some) for longer games as a return on a financial investment in them can actually be a detriment to the ability of game designers to tell a cohesive, satisfying story. Due to the high cost of games, many people commonly think that more game play time equals a better value, simply due to the resulting price per hour. True, a $10 movie ticket might be a $5 per hour value, while a $60 game is a $1-3 per hour value. But this often can lead to repetitive game play, and the developers tacking things on to the core package just to extend the length of the game for its own sake.

Just like with anything, longer isn't necessarily better. Even in movies, one of my biggest criticisms is that the editors should have cut it down a little bit, tightening up the narrative. Similarly, as games like Portal have shown, games can contain compelling narrative elements without taking weeks to complete.

In the PSP strategy game Jeanne d'Arc, battles between story scenes can easily drag on for over an hour. Since this game typically requires a generous time commitment per play session, I don't pick it up that often. Thus I have trouble remembering what happened last time, what I'm supposed to be doing, and how the characters are connected. On the other hand, Shadow of the Colossus is much shorter, only eight hours or so, and also has a somewhat simpler story that is paradoxically thematically complex and nuanced. Through my sixteen battles with the colossi, I always know that I'm trying to bring a girl back to life. The story is never lost in the game play.

Particularly as I get older, I find I don't have the time to sit for hours and be engrossed in a game. The longer a game, the more likely I am to put it down for a lengthy time and forget major details about it. This is a major detriment, I think, to games' ability to tell a story, which is of course but one of their many functions. How can developers get around this problem? One common way now is to try to integrate the story into the game play itself. More importantly, I think the community and developer mindset of "bigger and longer is better" is a huge detriment. I would much rather play a tight, compact game like Portal or Shadow of the Colossus over a 40 hour epic. Of course, I wouldn't want this trend to reverse too much, or I might end up an old man rushing through ten minute games before I fall asleep in my underwear.