Well remember in the old days, a lot of games could not be saved, so whenever you poped it in you had to start from the beginning. SNES first started to have some games that saved progress but until N64 and PS1, thats when 100% of games all gave you the option to save progress.
Now a days if I can get 12 or more hours out of a title the first play through, I'm happy with that.
Also, when I was younger I was only allowed an hour or so of gaming a day. Now that Im older and live on my own, I can play whenever I feel like it. lol 