I disassociated the concepts of value and quantity a long time ago. I feel that on the whole games nowadays are great value. They are cheaper than they used to be in the cartridge days (and would seem ridiculously cheaper if prices were adjusted for inflation before comparison) and are generally longer and better and they cost more to make.
I especially feel like I'm getting a great value when I buy awesome Japanese space shooters or rhythm games which years ago one would have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the benefit of playing. Feel very lucky.
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
I'm going to give a non-specific answer also.
Even if a game sucks, if I beat it I feel like I get value out of it. I don't regret having played Rage or Haze because just beating them contributed something to my overall knowledge of gaming.
If a game gets so tedious, bad, frustrating or is so broken that I cannot finish it, even if I've spent 20+ hours on it (like LKS, Kingdom Hearts:Chain of Memories or Phantom Hourglass) then I feel ripped off. Mostly because I've wasted valuable time on something I'll never be able to summate because I did not get to the finish line.
---
Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
Here's a few games I have played for many, many, many hours, and continue to go back to them year after year after year:
Super Mario main series
SSX 3
Wave Race 1&2
Excite Truck
Sonic the Hedgehog Series (Genesis/Sega CD games only)
Namco Museum classic games (Pac-man, Dig Dug, Galaga, etc.)
Animal Crossing Wild World
I like Yoda's method, which games did I put the most time in.
I have no way of calculating hours for games I played as a kid but I know I played them a million times. Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros 3, TMNT 2 were my go to games on the NES. On the Genesis I played so much Sonic, the entire series, Sonic 2 probably the most of any. I played tons of Mortal Kombat 1 and 2.
As time went on I became more like I am now, playing many different games. On PS1 I played RE1 and RE2 the most by far. I sunk loads of time into MGS.
But the game I think I put the most time into was PSO and PSO Episode 1 and 2 on GC. Yes I bought the online thing for the GC just for that game. Easily over 1000 hours and for me that is unheard of cause I dont play any game for long. I have beaten Zelda OoT about 5 times, even at 50 hours each time which is a stretch, that is only 250 hours, thats no where close to what I put into PSO. During the DC games I also sunk loads of time into NFL2K1.
Lately games that I have gotten many hours out of are RE4, MGS3, MGS4, LittleBigPlanet, and giant RPGs like TES and Fallout (but those feel like cheating simply cause they take like 100 hours to finish, its not that I love to replay them).
I've bought a few games I've been disappointed, but I don't think you could say that I've felt ripped off. I buy games just as much to collect them as to play them (don't make fun of my puny collection, Aspro. 
) so simply having the game automatically fulfils one large portion of its value to me. Disgaea 3 I was looking forward to, but being a STRPG I didn't get very far, and was also quite bored with the gameplay. Nevertheless I'm glad to have it, and there's always a chance I can go back to it. The Orange Box? Even if it was just the worst port of Half-Life 2, well apart from being part of my collection, it was an interesting experience to play through.
Most played games in no particular order:
RuneScape, Ragnarok Online, Rose Online, Gunbound, Albatross 18, and probably other MMOs I can't think of right now.
Playing real games for hundreds, if not thousands of hours? You're doing it wrong. 
I would have added Resident Evil 4 as well, but I feel more like they've gotten their money's worth out of ME on that one.
By time:
- SimCity SNES, SimCity PC (the 386 version), SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000.
- Animal Crossing DS and Gamecube.
- Gunship on Commodore 64 (if you include how long it took to load teh tape each time I wanted to play).
- Tetris OGB And pretty much my entire OGB collection because I was a kid and I was poor and I'd play the fuck out of anything back then.
- GTA4 (Because I was doing everything wrong). GTA San Andreas (because it fucking rocked).
EDIT: Oh and Drragon Quest Rocket Slime, even though it was not a long game, every second I had with it was pure joy.
aspro said:By time:
- Tetris OGB And pretty much my entire OGB collection because I was a kid and I was poor and I'd play the fuck out of anything back then.
So true about me as well. I bought my OGB second hand from a friend of a friend who agreed to let me pay him whatever little money I could save from my pocket money in dribs and drabs
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
bugsonglass said:aspro said:By time:
- Tetris OGB And pretty much my entire OGB collection because I was a kid and I was poor and I'd play the fuck out of anything back then.
So true about me as well. I bought my OGB second hand from a friend of a friend who agreed to let me pay him whatever little money I could save from my pocket money in dribs and drabs
I'd go back to those days in a nanosecond. Lots of good memories of sitting in the sun playing games like Mario Land, RC Pro-Am, Sword of Hope, Metroid II, Waverace and on and on. Fortunately I had the good sense to keep every single thing associated with my OGB (except the box).
aspro said:
I'd go back to those days in a nanosecond. Lots of good memories of sitting in the sun playing games like Mario Land, RC Pro-Am, Sword of Hope, Metroid II, Waverace and on and on. Fortunately I had the good sense to keep every single thing associated with my OGB (except the box).
I'm not a fan of Super Mario Land 1 (The music is random, the levels are random and the difficulty is beyond cheap), but Super Mario Land 2 is absolutely amazing.
I thought you couldn't play platformers, and hated Metroidvania? 
Those are the only two 2D Mario platformers I have beaten and that is the only Metroid I have beaten. I enojyed all three and never went back.
aspro said:bugsonglass said:aspro said:By time:
- Tetris OGB And pretty much my entire OGB collection because I was a kid and I was poor and I'd play the fuck out of anything back then.
So true about me as well. I bought my OGB second hand from a friend of a friend who agreed to let me pay him whatever little money I could save from my pocket money in dribs and drabs
I'd go back to those days in a nanosecond. Lots of good memories of sitting in the sun playing games like Mario Land, RC Pro-Am, Sword of Hope, Metroid II, Waverace and on and on. Fortunately I had the good sense to keep every single thing associated with my OGB (except the box).
My sister's godchild dropped and killed my OGB several years ago, but I still have my collection of games for it (in their clear plastic cases, though I don't have the cardboard boxes - most of which I never had as I got second hand etc). Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2, Balloon Kid, Robocob 2, Lemmings, Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, Motocross Maniacs, Super RC Pro AM, Gremlins 2, Elevator Action, Metroid II. Played the hell out of those games
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
aspro said:Those are the only two 2D Mario platformers I have beaten and that is the only Metroid I have beaten. I enojyed all three and never went back.
Do you have the same amusing (for the viewer) problems with Metroid-style games, or does the backtracking and the like just put you off too much?
Time for me to 'fess up: The idea for this topic came to me while I was playing Pokemon Black!
(Side note: Tiny bit of trivia for you all. If you look closely at the Pokemon Black game card, it is actually BLACK and not the typical dark grey color of all the rest of the DS games!)
Here's a game you could potentially play forever. There's 352 obtainable Pokemon in the game itself, not including trading from other games. These can be battled, raised, evolved, etc. Through trading from other games and various events, etc, the total number of Pokemon you could potentially have in the game is 649! Can you even imagine taking the time to do that?! There's also many additional game modes like the Battle Subway where you compete with other Trainers with your levels set at 50 and you see just how long you can survive. This is the kind of game where you could play this and only this, rack up hundreds upon hundreds of hours, and then a couple of hundred more. You could have pokemon you caught years ago brought into this game, which can potentially then be brought into Black or White 2. Years worth of gameplay, your personal monster team crossing generations of games and systems... It's true this particular example involves (potentially) more than one game, but just taking Pokemon Black alone you still get a crap load of potential for $35-40 dollars! I would not find it hard to believe that there's a kid out there who owns this game and only this game and is completely content!
I have a few ideas of my own, but I'd like to hear yours first! What game was a joy to play, that lasted for months or years... Maybe it had fantastic multiplayer, maybe it had never ending New Game Plus... Maybe it cost you very little, but the replay you got out of it was great... Maybe it was a Soccer game and your name is Foolz...
I know by default a lot of you will say Animal Crossing, but what else? What game was worth every, single penny, pence, shilling, rupee, whatever...?