Preach it, brother! :) That's exactly what's been driving me off from gaming -- vast quantities of filler that just pad out the total play time. I'd have to ad

Preach it, brother! :) That's exactly what's been driving me off from gaming -- vast quantities of filler that just pad out the total play time. I'd have to add something else: the propensity for filler, especially "filler quests" in RPGs, degrades the quality of the main game. I really enjoyed _Knights of the Old Republic_ and _Jade Empire_, but their storytelling -- especially _Jade Empire_'s -- was a large step back from _Final Fantasy 4_ or _Final Fantasy 6_; neither of the Square RPGs had the hero wandering off to close a dam and kill an inn full of cannibals as opposed to progressing the story and/or interacting interestingly with the other major characters. I believe the genre that you're looking for, and that I am, is called "hardcasual" -- short, high-quality, high-content games, not casual games at all but completely free of filler, aimed at people with lives and jobs but still a keen interest in games. (For total time to play, expect 3 hours at the low end, 10 hours at the high end -- and note, you can fit a _large_ story into ten filler-less hours.) Unfortunately, hardcasual games appear to be rare; in particular, the mainstream games industry doesn't touch them...