Smash creator Sakurai sparks debate with his hot take on long games

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai’s hot take about long games has sparked an interesting debate online.

On his very own YouTube channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, the legendary developer spoke about the uniqueness of game writing.

Near the end of his video, Sakurai touched on why story and background information should wait so that players can jump right into the action at the start of a game.

He noted that, depending on the game, “The idea that ‘longer games are better’ is a thing of the past these days, so I’d say it’s best to just get to the good stuff as quickly as possible.”

Smash creator Masahiro Sakurai sparks debate about long games

Twitter user hatok argued that this hot take from Sakurai “feels really out of touch.” Yet, replies to the post suggest many gaming enthusiasts believe otherwise.

“It’s a growing sentiment (a good one too),” one person pointed out in the replies. Several other people chimed in to say they simply don’t have enough time for longer games.

Someone else added, “I think this is the majority opinion now though. I think the people preferring longer games are the niche group.”

The original poster disagreed, specifically citing the unceasing popularity of open-world games like Tears of the Kingdom.

As others noted, however, the Smash creator’s argument about long games doesn’t necessarily apply to the open-world genre. “Minecraft is an open-world game, but you can *beat* Minecraft in under 30 minutes.”

How many people have time to sit through a 30-minute prologue, play a tutorial, then watch yet another lengthy cutscene? Such discussion recently reared its head following the launch of Final Fantasy 16, as many players felt its cutscenes lasted far too long.

Square Enix

Some FF16 players weren’t happy about the length of cutscenes.

The length of video games has been the topic of much debate for several years, picking up steam during the PS3 and Xbox 360 era.

As publishers used online passes and tacked-on multiplayer modes to combat the used game market, games also became far more robust. More content didn’t necessarily engender better content, though.

After all, this was the generation that birthed Ubisoft’s open-world formula, wherein sandboxes became packed with radio towers and other arbitrary tasks.

Sakurai’s comments about the storytelling and gameplay aspect of it all suggest this is one discussion that won’t soon come to an end.