Only 10% of all videogames sold are actually finished by gamers.

[CDFN]

Why most people don't finish video games:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/08/17/finishing.videogames.snow/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

"The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 41 -- nearing Just for Men-type levels. They're raising kids. In the middle of a career."

"The amount of digital distractions now is far greater than it's ever been before," he says. "People need time to check their Facebook, send a Twitter (tweet), be witty on their blog, play with their phone -- oh, and that game you made. If they feel as though the end is far away, they'll simply say, 'I don't have time for that' and stop playing."

I can relate to this, I don't have the time I had when I was 10, 14 or 18 but I complete most of my games because I don't buy more than I can handle. I know the time I have, buying more than that is a waste of money.
The biggest issue is probably hype though, people buy based on hype, they don't know if they will like it but if it's being advertised on TV it's probably the game you're supposed to buy. I hear people say "I'm gonna buy red dead" or "I'm gonna buy LA Noire" and those games are pretty long and they have no idea how the games actually play. They saw a few seconds of footage, thought it looked cool and that's it. Everyone's talking about it so I have to buy it.

[Kevadu]

10%, huh?

*Looks at game collection

Yeah, that's about right...

[Annubis]

...and then there're completionists like me (although I still refuse to complete: SO4, Eternal Sonata & Infinite Undiscovery)
Everything else has been finished or is currently in the works.

[Yoda]

I own 28 360 games (counting Sneak King lol) and beat 16 of them. (I'm counting Assassin's 2 b/c I would've beat that if it didn't Houdini my save file twice)

PS3 I own three games, haven't beaten any of them yet (Demon's Souls is taking me a long time)

PS2 I own 22 games and have beaten 2 (Gta III and Vice City). Most of those are RPGs I have bough recently to leisurely approach if I ever get to them. Only P3 and P4 will get serious attention soon.

I own 7 DS games, will probably never beat any of them. I just can't get into the DS for some reason.

I own 5 PSP games and have beaten 1. One of the games is Metal Slug Anthology, that's for random shoot em up action. I'll beat Ys:Oath and Trails for sure. I love those games.

That's about 29%. I'm not going to go over my N64 games or PS1. I've beaten most of my N64 games, but few of my PS1 games.

I attribute my low percentage to having:

a) bought most of the games counted here in the last year, year and a half. There's only so much time.

b)crazy work schedule

c)falling prey to deals and hording attitude.

d) having a girlfriend. Not to sound like a douche but games are a good hobby, but I don't ignore my personal life.

[Vanguard]

That's really the reason I quit playing video games as a serious hobby a few years ago. I had dozens and dozens of games I never finished. At this point, I own a grand total of five games (Radiant Historia, Chrono Trigger, DQIX, Pokemon White, and Pokemon Heart Gold). I've yet to beat Radiant Historia or my current playthrough of Chrono Trigger, but I'm still working on them.

So, 60% ain't bad.

[Yggdrasil]

So this is one of the reasons of why a lot games are linear as hell and are 4 to 10 hours long?

[Annubis]

So this is one of the reasons of why a lot games are linear as hell and are 4 to 10 hours long?

That's doesn't always mean the game is bad though. I've played some amazing games that fit this category.

[Yggdrasil]

Me too, but there's quite a few titles that are like that and they just felt like slap in the face.

[Yoda]

Ok that's it. I'm beating Bioshock w/in the week.

[CDFN]

The ironic thing is that when reviews say that a game is short (Vanquish for example) people say "no way I'm buying a 6 hour game full price!". Then they go buy a 20 hour game and only spend 6 hours with it.

Then there's multiplayer, I bet that more than half of the 15 million people who buy the COD games don't even touch the campaign, let alone finish it.

[Yoda]

My cousin has a 360, before MW1 came out he played other games. Since he got MW1 he's done nothing but play that game. He probably plays 5-6 times a week and for a few hours each time, STILL after all this time. He's never even touched the single player game. 0 Achievements.

[Chronix112]

Sounds about right. The percentages goes way down the more games you have. I know mine is a lot lower then 10%

[Wild Armor]

My percentage is waaaaaay higher than that, but ever since I started my degree it definitely dropped to around 20%. But as a kid, up until highschool, I beaten almost all my games. Only games I really like or want some closure to I play until completion. I may not even finish Suikoden IV out of disinterest, but I won't know till I play. Suikoden V was pretty awful for me...but Suikoden III will always have a place in my heart. :3

[CDFN]

Making a big game with the production values people expect these days isn't cheap, so publishers wont mind if gamers start to embrace shorter games. This part of the article sums it up:

"I worked on a project that took 50 people and 18 months to produce 20 minutes of game play," he says. "With the expectations so high for visual and audio fidelity, lifelike animations, enemy behavior and movie-quality cinemas, it can take two years for a team of 100 people to create six hours of playable story. At an average burn rate of $10,000 per man month, that's $24 million just in developer cost. You're not likely to find a publisher that will foot the bill for extending that campaign to 20 hours."

[Bytor]

If I go strictly by percentage I am way, way, way lower than 10%, however, any game I've done more than test out (in other words played for more than an hour or so) then my percentage is much, much higher. I freely admit I bought some games simply to have in my collection, oh I'll play them some just to fool around but I know I'll never finish them, others I buy with the purpose of playing and finishing, and the vast majority I do, a few here and there I lose interest in but overall I'd say I easily finish over 90% of games I actually play (that make sense?)