Video game "running times"

I can definitely understand that, but it may become really complicated at some point, as we have to interpret the game maker reports as the "average" playing time against the reliable findings of minimalist speed-running players, completionist speed-running players, experience-farming players and easter-egg-spotting players, while also accounting for adjustable gameplay difficulty settings.

@Michelle How exactly does one calculate the average, when the sample size can be hundreds of thousands of players, and be severely affected by extremes (e.g. speed runners)?

To use an anecdotal example: I have friends who have finished Animal Crossing: New Horizons (i.e. completed story mode) in about 10 hours. I myself have spent over 2,000 hours "completing" it over the past three years, because my own completion criteria is that I need to absolutely get 100% in every aspect, including completing the catalogue.

So what should I submit as the running time? 1,000 hours, or thereabouts?

On a very side note, one on my anecdotes is that I've noticed that it tend to be able to "100%" an open world sandbox video game containing many side quests faster (maybe by only twice or three times) on my second playthrough than on the my first. A thing like that can perhaps distort a player's perception of how much time an average newcomer would spend on playing a game from start to finish. In general, a video game's playing time just seems like it would be a non-scalar value in many cases.

@eboy​ Exactly - with the best will in the world, and all due respect to @Michelle , there really isn't any adequate method of calculating an average playing time to within even a few hours, never mind an exact to-the-precise-minute figure that can be applied to an IMDb record.

I was thinking about the console version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, a game based upon speed, and a perfect playthrough in which the six chaos emeralds are collected would probably completed well-within an hour's time, whereas taking the time to explore every stage (locating all its hidden bonuses) and also complete it within the time limit and without restarting would be a few minutes higher than something like ten minutes multiplied by three multiplied by six, a total of three hours, but even then, given the way some of the stages are designed, it isn't really possible visit every nook and cranny without playing some of the stages more than once, as the various pathways represent versions of the experience and there isn't necessarily ways to perform backtracking. And that's merely an example of a video game with a somewhat simple travel structure, and notably its sequel/successor games have steadily grown in complexity with the development and release of each one.

@jeorj_euler​ Funny you should use that example, as I was just thinking about Sonic CD. 

How long does it take to zip straight through each level to reach the end as fast as possible?

How long does it take to explore each level to find and destroy the generators? (And how much extra time does it take to find a good spot to time travel in the first place)

If you do the latter, what's the time difference between your first playthrough, and your 50th playthrough after you've memorised all the locations?