Do you feel the epic 80+ hour CRPG is dead?

My guess is they’re not dead – they’ll just be rarer. To make any given game level with today’s technology is much more expensive than it was 5-10 years ago. So to make a quality 80 hour+ game is an increasingly expensive proposition. As costs go up in order to make the same profit either the game costs have to go up or more units have to be sold. The former hasn’t really happened – heck, the old Ultimas cost the same or more than many games you can buy on release day today. And the latter – that’s a lot of risk.