Bird is the word!

u know its a good dame when u call off of work 3 days in a row to play it

When you have fun playing it

When you have 50 hours into it and don't feel burnt out at all.

You play over a hundred hours.

Or its basically a matter of opinion really.

Not so. I have played far longer than 50 hours. I would rate it as decent at best.

To me, Oblivion was a good game. Not because it was superior in every way to Skyrim or something, but the fact that I played it for well over a month, putting about 5 hours a day in, and the only reason I stopped playing is because I had done literally everything. I made every kind of character I could, completed the game three times, collected all the daedric artefacts, checked UESP wiki to make sure I hadn't missed any missions, completing missions in different ways, making a mage with the most ridiculously powerful spells or the ultimate warrior, the master of stealth and most in between. 700 hours I have put into Oblivion. 400 into Fallout 3 and around 200 into New Vegas, and I consider all of them to be very good games.
That said I consider Arkham Asylum and Deus Ex to be exceptional games too, and I have put less than 50 hours into both of them.

Skyrim, around the 40 hour mark the bugs and glitches began to exasperate me, my character was OP as hell without me even knowing about the exploits (all I knew is I wanted dragon armour, so I legit practised my smithing, without creating 1000 iron daggers). Nothing was a challenge, not even the toughest dragons, giants or draugr, I began to realise that things I was made to believe would be in the game (radiant AI, dynamic snowfall etc.) were not going to appear, the guilds were horribly short, poorly written and made no sense. Choice was more of an illusion than a presence, with literally nothing you did had any consequence or effect on the game world, not even the civil war quest completion changed anything apart from the guards appearance, there were far far too many essential NPC's which reduces the "choice" in the game, Alduin is pathetically weak, I began to miss spellmaking, and spells in general among many other issues I had with it from 40 hours onwards that don't need to be mentioned.

Once these issues (which I didn't really have with Oblivion. Sure, the story was a bit lacking and the environment was a bit bland but other than that it wasn't half bad) had cropped up, they didn't go away no matter how long I played it. I persevered with my warrior, done the main quest and then left it for a stealth character, which was good while I done the Thieves guild quests (missions were a bit lacklustre but the story was good) and the DB quests (could have been done so much better) but after that, quickly fell into the same rut as my warrior; it got boring. I've heard and seen how bad mage characters are, and I know how bad and short the mages guild story is so I'm putting off a mage and hoping that magic is seriously revamped and revised before I play one. But I've never been bored in a TES game before I have done all the quests. But in Skyrim... it just feels a bit bland. The quests all feel a bit samey, being either "kill all of these" or "find this", barring a few clear exceptions e.g. Sanguine's quest. It seemed to be style over substance, while the kill moves are nice and all, and the armour looks good, I would have much preferred to have spellmaking, seperate upper body and leg garments and better, more unique quests, less essential NPC's and more choice. Always more choice in an RPG.

Anyway, like I said that is my view, and why I don't really consider Skyrim a "good" game. Just so people who want to defend it know exactly why I am disappointed with it. (TL;DR - because it gets boring before you finish).

And to answer OP's question, I consider a good game to be something you can play from beginning to end, regardless of how long that may take, and have fun, be entertained and consider it good for the entire time.

I know a game is good when I spend 80 hours on ONE character without touching the main quest with a 20-foot pole.

I know a game is good when I feel frozen and lonely in the glacial waters to the north.

I know a game is good when I stop and stare at the night sky, mesmerized by the aurora borealis folding over the moon like silk.

I know a game is good when I get attached to my characters and their choices.

I know a game is good when I keep rewards from quests as trophies, out of sentiment.

I know a game is good when it has 'The Elder Scrolls' on the box.

lies. you play for 50 hrs- its a good game. your just a whiner.

sure maybe you think it could be better, but you obviously enjoyed it enough to invest THAT much time into it. Just because the "end" game isnt what you want it to be doesnt all of a sudden make those 50hrs "pure torture"

I know its a good game when i start wishing for time/life to pause and hold still while i marathon this game to my hearts content wihtout repercussions,
i know its a good game im compelled to sink all available free time into it
i know its a good game when i have to sit back and be grateful i get to experience such a cool and engrossing entertainment experience in my life time. I do that with my smart phone too. How cool are smart phones!! its like my childhood fantasies come true!

When turning off your game system after a Skyrim session makes you feel melancholy.

Actually, that happened once with GTA: San Andreas - guilty pleasure, what can I say. Controller was rumbling - and I thought that was odd - just fed CJ. Oh, the controller is shaking as it's laying against MY stomach, which is making the rumbling. Gotcha.

I have to admit, I totally don't understand this fascination. I use it to play music, browse the web and make phone calls. I don't even text.

Can you believe it?

Maybe I'm just getting old. :whistling:

And there it is. I knew someone would call me a whiner, and then try and tell me that my opinion is wrong.

Seriously, I played it for so long because I felt invested, and hoped it would get better, finished it, was disappointed and yet still tried to make it fun by going at it a different way... and was mildly entertained for a few more hours. I don't think it's good. Simple as. If you think it's so good, don't waste precious playing time calling me a whiner.

As I said (if you had bothered to read past my first sentence, you would have seen this) I consider a game to be good if I play it from start to finish, irrespective of how long that may be, and enjoy it throughout. Skyrim started off as one of the most incredible games I have ever played. Then (as the many other people with "wrong" opinions have also said) it began to get stale, and the honeymoon period ended. But all of this is in my first post so read it through a few times, until you grasp the concept that the entire post is my perspective, my own personal opinion, and then write another reply stating how I obviously enjoyed something that I already stated that I did not enjoy because you enjoyed it...

Plus, who can say they have never sat through a crappy movie, or watched a crappy TV show, or completed a crappy game... Oh! And bear in mind that I said I thought Skyrim was decent, so I don't even consider it crap, specifically bear that in mind when you make assumptions like my 50 hours of playing it were "pure torture".

Also bear in mind that didn't say I did not enjoy playing it (see how wrong you got this?), I just said I began to enjoy it a lot less the more I played it, and that I have enjoyed previous ES games far more, and for longer periods of time.

As an aside, I know this is quite petty, and you have far more pressing issues to address, like your inability to infer, your rampant hyperbole and the fact that it seems to offend you that people have opinions differing from your own but.... your grammar is really bad.

lies. youre just a spoiled and whiny gamer whos expectations far exceed what ANY game will ever be able deliver in your miserable gaming life.

Funny that you are the one whining, and what about all the games that have delivered and even exceeded my expectations that I mentioned? Of course, no reasoning behind trolls.

Now, stop trying to troll, go back to playing Skyrim if you enjoy it so much and, oh, even though you are a troll, your grammar is still awful.