I was just checking my stats in Steam and discovered something quite interesting.
The top three games in total time played are three of the smallest games in my collection.

1. Avadon: The Black Fortress 87.9 hours 114.7 MB
2. Puzzle Quest 77.4 hours 99.7 MB
3. Bookworm Adventures Deluxe 75.5 hours 34.5 MB

That's a little bit of a cheat as my wife also plays Bookworm Adventures on my account. In case you are wondering I have 274 games including quite a lot fo whoppers that I have played through (Deus Ex HR, ME2, ...).

Currently playing Dragon Age Origins and it is already 6th place to this probably wont last.

I'm not surprised, the typical playthroughtime of a multiGB AAA title is 8 hours or so with not much replay value.

It's not about size, it's about... density...?

Avadon is a bigger game than 3-4 AAA RPGs combined.

Actually I have Avadon, won it. But never tried to play. Now it looks like I should give it a chance. :D

I am impressed so far with DA:O - a lot of good fun content (admittedly I waited for the "Ultimate Edition" with all the DLC). I'm about 54 hours in and still got a fair ways to go I think.

It's not just "density" but replayability and sheer fun - Puzzle Quest & Bookworm Adventures fall into those categories - as does Frozen Synapse which is sitting in 4th place. Civ IV is 4th if you are wondering.

Do it! It is not Spiderweb software's best game, but it is quite good.




And for me there are some pretty big games that I've spent a lot of time on.
Killing Floor: 85h
Warlock: Master of the Arcane: 65.9h
Fallout: New Vegas (+DLC): 53.2h
Avernum: Escape from the Pit 44.2h

Geneforge has the most interesting setting, but Avernum: Escape from the Pit had the best gameplay. I've not played all games by spiderweb though.

TR Legend is the most popular in that series and I've played demos that lasted longer.

I can add 48h of SPAZ to the list (150MB). That was in the not so distant past, I don't exactly remember my average stats from before...

Terraria:
32MB

122h gameplay.

I was thinking of time to completion but if we are going on install size I have to mention STARS!. Teeny tiny and it can take days and days and days to complete just one game in small galaxy. Then again it's mostly text so maybe it shouldn't count.

While not direct PC games, emulators support this theory for me. For play time to size, a 128-512kb NES Rom, or 1-4MB SNES Rom can give more play time than a multi gigabyte "AAA" title.

My top played game is Skyrim, at 208 hours I've not even come close to finishing it.

Ofcourse, when it comes to actual size i've definitely played Morrowind faaaaaaaaar more but it's not attached to my steam account. Considering the hours I've spent on Skyrim it's probably best that I don't know how many hours I spent on Morrowind. :P

Steam's playing times are less likely to e accurate than a broken clock. Unless, that is, you believe I've completed HL2 twice in 3 minutes.

It's not that short.