If you want to know your playthrough length, run your game a hundred times or so with random test and the full text set to on. It’ll give you a total word count you can then divide by the number of times it ran though to get the average playthrough length of your game (without code).
If you want to see how much of your entire game is code, CSIDE has a wordcount option for with and without code included.
Even the most linear games possible still end up having playthrough lengths of about 60% of the story. Let’s say that a game is 100k words: a linear story might show you 60k, a regular one might show you 35k, and a branchy one might show you 20k.
I’m really struck by how our players’ attitudes have shifted on this over the years. Back in 2011 we sometimes got complaints that Choice of the Dragon (30K words, 7K playthrough) was too long.
A number of online reviews of HMS Foraker (90K words, 14K playthrough) complained that it was too short in comparison to Choice of Broadsides (60K words, 12K playthrough). I have to assume that players were just misremembering how long Broadsides was, but I think it’s not just that. Our players have gotten used to long games, and can now no longer enjoy short ones.
My fear is that our customer base also can’t really afford longer games. We should charge something like twice as much for a 400K-word game compared to a 200K-word game, but when we’re already charging $5 or $6 for a 200K game, we can’t get people to pay $10 or $12 for a 400K game.
That’s gotta be the best, most fulfilling 7k word playthrough ever. 
That’s why I was thinking that 200k ish word stories are right at the sweet spot as far as pricing goes. After that, the dollar per 100k word ratio starts to go way down.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s where some of the push for longer games is also coming from. It’s cheaper per word to buy a 400k game than it is to buy a 100k one because it starts to get hard to price things for what they should be worth after a certain point so it’s seen as better value for money. For example two extremes: harbringer’s head (46,000 words) is $4, where as zombie exodus (310,000 words) is $6.50. So zombie is 6.7x as long, but only 1.6x more to buy. I know it takes more effort per word to get a short game up in terms of man hours and store fees so I’m guessing that’s where the the extra costs are coming from, but I have seen a few comments in the feedback sections relating to value for money to the buyer and most people are not going to recognise the extra costs that go into producing a game are not purely the number of words it has.
(From the COG range since I used HG examples before: Dinoknights: 177k, $6.50, Blood money: 290k, $8, Rebels: 637k $9.50.)
I’d pay $10 for a 400K game since I think it’d be worth the enjoyment, but I’m aware that I’m in the minority for this one. (We on the forums are probably a minority.)
I can’t really answer the poll as it is. As a reader, obviously I’d prefer a longer story that I can sink into deeper. However, as a supporter of these games and the writers, I can’t help but question if their effort would be better spent on making two 150k games, since 400k would be really taxing and two games would mean more income. As @Samuel_H_Young said, perhaps something like 200k would be a sweet spot.
@snowgoose
Two 150k word games as opposed to one 300k word game would mean higher prices overall, but probably significantly fewer sales. Granted, there are a lot of sub 200k games that are best sellers, but generally 200k + word games seem to have better reviews and sales.
I wonder if the shift in game length might not also indicate a shift in what people think they are getting.
For example, I came into this scene fairly late, and I always thought of the thing I bought as interactive novels. Thus what made me feel satisfied was a fairly solid playthrough length where it felt like I had some control over the narrative, and which provided a story/mc which I could connect to.
Only later, when I went around trying out more things, did I realize that there were a lot more gamey games out there. I never really had any interest in them, and when I tried some, they tended to leave me feeling frustrated because the story didn’t deliver what I wanted. And, since I wasn’t fond of my first playthrough, I never bothered replaying, thus I never discovered any alternative paths.
So, a 100 000 game with 5 major branches of 20 000 words turned into a 20 000 word game for me, which felt short. If I had written a bad review (I never do) I would have pointed out the shortness as a main problem.
On the other hand a 100 000 story which was heavily railroaded with some customization might have 50 000 words in a single playthrough, which has reached a short novel length. If I had written a bad review, I might have pointed out that it felt railroaded, or that the RO’s felt like afterthoughts, or that you had little control over the narrative (which are things I read in reviews).
So, both games might end up with bad reviews and a similar score, they would just focus on different things.
tldr: Maybe we are starting to see a shift where it will become feasible to separate things into ‘choose your own adventure games’ and ‘interactive fiction’?
Did I open this can of worms through that earlier poll that I made?
(I’m happy for opening it, if I did…)
Essentially when I started I had some conversations with some authors round here, and I reached my own conclusions that any game should be at least 20,000 words per playthrough, and that meant at least 100,000 of code (in order to avoid the worst of too short/too railroaded criticisms). I thus decided to make my games higher than that, 30,000+ per play, and 150,000 words. But, even that started to feel short. Highway Wars jumped to almost 200,000 and 35k playthrough. Now, I feel readers are asking more, and maybe requiring 250,000 and 40k (that is where Birth of a Hero is going to).
However, I fear that this is an unsustainable path for me (and all of us in general).
Maybe this has to be stopped somewhere? (but, how?) Maybe CoG needs to cut longer games into two (like, any game that is 600,000 words gets cut into two, Choice of the %%%% I and II). Same for hosted games. Essentially, we sort of agree what is the length that a game “should” have, and divide it.
Some might complain about this, but it is accepted in the book industry. Lord of the Rings has 3 parts, harry potter has 8. Many people over here already write in installments (Samurai, CCH, etc).
Maybe the way forward is thus to ask for those writing longer pieces to have clear “cliffhangers” at 30,000 or 50,000 word playthrough points? (then, if they want to write a longer piece from the start they can, but CoG just divides their game into two. That way, they can charge $6 for each side, addressing the point made by @dfabulich)
Perhaps it is best that everyone just produce their best story based on their strength , disregarding the potential expectation ? No matter long or short games, there should be enough interest from potential buyers/readers , as much as we want to believe longer games will gain more popularity and sales, we shouldn’t forget that “the Aether life as a god” manages to draw 100k downloads for its “short” game, even though the rating is not high (average 4.0) … the 100k downloads had proven that ratings not necessary influence sales or popularity 
Hence , if authors develop their games by playing into their strength … ( gaming or stats property , character interaction , story telling , romance , drama etc ) , they will have their own fans disregarding the length of their games
@Eric_knight of course, that would in theory be the best way. And, I suspect, the way CoGs have let things go for 7 years. The system still works, obviously.
However, I suspect that cracks are starting to appear in the system (hence these emails). They might be worried that this increase in game length makes it difficult for them to get authors for their CoG line. Simply, if readers expectations continue to grow, at one point it is completely unfeasible for a professional (and I add even more emphasis to this) author to continue writing.
Of course, you can point at bestsellers. But, aside from any big bestseller hit, they have to continuously publish books that people want to read (and obviously hope for these bestsellers from time to time). If the length of these increases, less professional authors will want to write (also, people who are hoping to flip from other jobs to professional authors will get discouraged). I stress that I do all this as a hobby (I really enjoy my life as an academic), but I also feel that if I start to know that I need to produce 300,000 pieces every time I might stop (as a hobby author… a professional authors might have a higher bar, but I doubt many of them would want to write in excess of 500,000 words…)
Don’t worry my friend , just do your best naturally 
If you get discouraged by human’s expectation …it will be like people starting to perform plastic surgery just because people telling them they are not pretty or handsome enough :-)
I believe you will have your best work by performing your goal naturally …don’t stress yourself too much of other people’s opinion :-)
You know lord of Rings Quijote and 90% of books are selling separate where writing not same time. Many years have passed between the parts in many cases.
If I know a company has the entire game done but is holding it hostage to sell it in pieces that weren’t planning. By moral principle I won’t buy anything from the company. That’s EA levels of messed up. I agree however to let player choose a season pass to all work from an author.
For instance @Cataphrak works bundled and something like that or Bundled by themes of several short games…
Of course! Please never take anything I write in the forum harshly (if anybody does, then they probably misunderstood the feeling behind my reply).
I write interactive fiction because I like doing so. As I said, it’s a hobby (along with diving, snowboarding, sleeping off hangovers). Just, I have to be realistic with how much time I have to do it. If I have to start churning out 300,000+ novels every time, or get destroyed by reviews, then I will stop doing it. I mean, getting a bit of money from these games is nice, but often I write the stories for myself, and because I enjoy the fact that some people like them. I accept not everybody will like them (hey, I know I’m not the best author around here). But, if nobody appreciates them anymore because of the “short” length, then I’ll be happy to just go back and write more academic stuff.
@poison_mara I take your point. It is a good and valid point, which touches on issues of morality. However, there are also issues of keeping a company we all love (at least I do) financially healthy, so that they can feed themselves and continue to produce (and help us produce) things that we love. By my own judgement, CoG is an ethically sound company, which is not greedy in any sense, and is very careful of the feelings of a wide variety of socio-cultural groups. Now, currently the system works. But, imagine that more and more authors produce 600,000+ (even imagine, 2,000,000 books… clearly, these are works of art, with months/years of gentle care put into them). While these books would be great, they can also interfere with the expectations of readers, and be detrimental in the long term. Authors have continued to push up the standards of these books (and that is great!), but there has to be a limit to it?
Conversely, I’m a little wary of buying episodic content unless the content creator has shown themselves to be capable to finishing said content. As the recent Telltalesplosion has demonstrated, sometimes shit happens and you’re left hanging.
If the game is content completed but is releasing in increments, it’s basically the same as the LOTR movies, which were all completed shooting-wise but shown in separate years. As long as the price/length of each episode is fair, I don’t really see a problem with episodic releases.
EA withholding small parts of games as DLC is very different from chopping up large games into different games. Quite a few developers have done that before, actually. Mostly in the Japanese sphere, where the legnth of some JRPGs were so long that they had to chop it in two games.
Of course it has to be a limit business has ro be fair for BOTH sides . Freemium culture is destroying market and giving unfair expectations to player. More and More and free or cheap as hell and all has to be that That destroys small companies like this. And instead a culture of bad works with crap premium currency.
Cog is rare and Should find new ways without sell their soul to loot boxes… or Chop games in hostage like butchers
If the game is entire done and you chop and have half in a freezer like a corpse is immoral. And Japanese games have very very immoral practices and i don’t usually buy anything for them anymore
It doesn’t seem all that immoral to me, but different strokes for different folks. Some authors I know finish writing their story before releasing it in chapters. That’s the same thing to me, and I do not find it immoral at all. A story is not a living thing. A story can be divided, edited, cut, released for pacing reasons or for ease-of-digestion chunks. (I don’t want to play a 1000k story in one go, for instance.) If it helps supports an author to make more games by dividing it (with pricing that’s fair for the reduced length), then I don’t mind. Your mileage may vary.
I’m quite aware of ‘immoral’ practices in JP gaming, btw—gacha or completion tokuten—but those are entirely different issues.
It’s a little intimidating as a writer thinking of the ceiling for ‘average length’ going up to 300k. I mean, that’s half of War and Peace 
To be fair, the odds of all those words being unique are very, very low. A 300k story could have tens of thousands of words copypasted into multiple branches. Still, if it does it to much it’ll get bad reviews based on that, so it would definitely have to be a lot, lot more words than your average novel. Maybe even your average Stephen King novel.