Hmm: The End Of Long Games?

Gamasutra have posted a brief interview with one of our favourite developers-with-beard, Mr Warren Spector. In that interview he talks about the fall of the long game.

"Game costs are going to be $35-40 million, even $100 million, and the expectations are huge. You have to differentiate yourselves. One-hundred hour games are on the way out… How many of you have finished GTA? Two percent, probably. If we're spending $100 million on a game, we want you to see the last level!"

But do you, the player, care if you don't see the last level? Aside from the fact that GTA is a really bad example to use in this instance (given that people use it more as a playground than as a story), do we agree with Mr Spector's statement? Games with huge play-times seem to me to be very much healthy, and staying. Perhaps if anything, as Kieron suggests, it's actually the middle ground that is being lost. Games are either going to be very short, or endless.

What do you think, interbrain?