do you find it difficult to get into games? I’ve got Epic Games and Steam Games libraries chock-full of classic top-tier games along with many other newer games like Stray or 2077, and a bunch of indie titles. I just can’t be bothered to download and install them, much less try to get into the characters and storylines. Used to be I couldn’t wait to see what happened in the story, what new items you could collect, what new worlds the developers had created. Not anymore. I return to playing the same franchise for a quick FPS match or three and then I’m done.
I lost interest in new releases a while ago. I mainly play retro games now but I did try the new robocop and it was great. I will be getting that day 1 and it will be the first time I played a new release in years.
(Almost) 40 year old gamer here. Eh… it depends of my mood and how “new” the game feels. But I find easier to settle in PvP-oriented games tho.
I think there are a lot of reasons for this, but I’m in the same boat.
- Most games tutotialize you like you have never played a game before
- “Cinematic storytelling” is everywhere. I turned off the dialogue in Need for Speed Unbound, and the game is wayyyy more enjoyable without it. And its…a racing game.
- There just are more games. Used to be I’d bring a physical copy of a game hope, and that’d be my game for a bit. Now I have thousands of games accessible at any moment. It’s hard to wait for a game to “get good” when I know that.
I’d also say that I feel no need to complete games or get further into them at this point. Especially seeing how people said Starfield is best in new game plus or whatever, that game barely has legs to stand on in a first playthrough. It’s not worth it for me to play a game for 60 hours for it to maybe get better, and I tend to know when I’m done with a game early now.
100% agreed with all of these, but I would add one more factor: Limited spare time.
When I was a kid, it was a lot easier to spend a few hours in front of a console undisturbed, immersed and focused on the game. When you’re an adult and come home from soul-crushing work, hungry and exhausted, then your last bit of energy goes into household, pets, chores, family and the like and then it’s late at night already and if you don’t go to sleep soon then the next day will be worse. Where and how do you cram a couple of consecutive, undisturbend hours of playtime into such a schedule?
If a game isn’t immediatly interesting, fun or otherwise a good reality escape, it is not worth sacrificing time on it when you have to strictly ration your limited amount of spare time already.
Yeah totally. I’ve noticed everyone’s bandwidth dropping as capitalism worsens. It’s even more apparent when every live service game wants you to treat it like a job.
Agreed with your last point. I’m at the point where I can call how much is enough for me for any given title, and it makes me a lot happier than feeling obligated to finish games I don’t enjoy.
Yeah, the bar for should I buy this game is higher when you’ll be giving up sleep and/or rent money if you want to play it.
That being the case, truly excellent games can still clear that bar; ToTK easily siphoned a few cumulative months out of me, despite, well…gestures vaguely at everything.
I still have no desire to do the final boss fight at the end, though.
Yeah for me it’s the sheer number of games, plus the increasing enshittification of games and just being older and having less free time. I literally have like 200 games I’ve got for free across various platforms, so if I fire one up and it’s clearly not finished, or it’s immediately trying to sell me stuff or even if it’s just a bit boring and annoying I’ll dump it immediately and move onto the next one.
Whereas when I was a kid I had a SNES with about 10 cartridges and that was it, so I played the shit out of those even when they sucked lol
I know right! Every time I come back to a game and they’ve changed every thing about it again I wonder why I bother. I think that’s part of the reason Melee has survived for so long, the community establishes the meta more than someone whose incentive is to keep selling you things.
I kinda need to be in the mood to play a game. Usually, once I finally start playing something, it’s easy to keep going. But sometimes I’ll have to be pretty bored before I’ll play a new game. I still haven’t played RDR2, but I seem to be more eager to play metroidvanias and PS1-style indie horror games.
I have been playing games since 1980 or so and never have trouble picking up new games to play. Gamepass is awesome that way, I get to try a host of new games each month and one or two stick for weeks, months or longer. I almost never go back to previous games, apart from expansions of course.
The older I get, I find that I tend to default to two things:
- Games that I’ve played before that help me turn my brain off. Kind of like a form of meditation.
- Games that have a mechanic or a story that is genuinely new or engaging.
Same as above, as a kid (80s) games were new and interesting, even shovelware games you would get for free on C64 mags were interesting.
Over the years games have just become more and more streamlined, and action focused, it’s basically like Hollywood now where they just churn out nice looking mediocre films to make money.
The 2nd point though js why I responded as I really agree with the point on something new being what makes games interesting now. They don’t even have to be amazing, just offer a new experience.
For example when Dayz came out, that was a nice breath of fresh air, every time I loaded up the game with friends I never knew what was going to happen. Same sort of thing with Phasmophobia, was genuinely amazing for the first week we played it, just nothing else like it. Now you can’t move for DayZ style games or Phasmo ripoffs.
I am bored of playing the same sort of stuff, like I’m bored watching super hero movies, I want new experiences (VR has some good experiences).
For me, I’d like to add “games that let you set your own pace and objective and let you achieve things your own way” (obviously something like Minecraft, but I also enjoyed Tears Of The Kingdom because of that)
Or, if multi-player: Be co-op, make me do some crazy shit and make me laugh (e.g. Human Fall Flat)
I’m playing Tears of the Kingdom now and it’s the only game that’s kept my attention since Dark Souls 3. I am not generally a fan of open world games. Even as a huge souls fan I didn’t really care for Elden Ring. But this Zelda game is incredible. There is so much more going on than I expected and it is just plain fun.
It’s probably the game which has distracted me the most from my current objective.
The number of “ooooo what’s that?” moments that derailed the next couple hours entirely was massive.
Maybe my first oblivion playthrough comes close but not much else.
I have some titles I play a lot and some what often. Other are just for fun to break it up. I don’t know if I am going to play it forever or just for a couple of days.
I stopped buying games after I noticed I still only open my typical three :/
Also is a good way of saving money :)The older I get the more I know what kinda games I’m into. So everything else I try to play just feels boring very quickly. I get bored very quickly in general if I don’t keep a game fresh for myself by, for example, mixing main and side quests instead of doing just one for hours.
I’ve also had times when I didn’t play any video games at all and just watched YouTube all day. And sometimes I felt like I played games just because I didn’t have anything better to do.
At the moment, I basically just play Cyberpunk and Battlebit, because both of those offer various ways of approaching encounters.
I’m in my 40s, and in particular I don’t find I love the AAA, over the shoulder action games. Assassins Creed, Spider-Man, Jedi Outcast, all of them feel very samey to me and more like the evolution of Dragons Lair + SF2 special moves than anything else. I find the cinematic complexity of the actions caused by my simple button press actually disconnect me from the world. I don’t feel like the character is my avatar, more like an actor in my movie. And then it all usually happens with a lot more barriers and more linearity than the design implies, kinda the difference between playing make believe in the park, and visiting Galaxy’s Edge at Disney.
Now I don’t think it’s bad on a philosophical level or anything, but it doesn’t work for me personally. I grew up with a very direct and often simple relationship what it means to control a game, even those SF2 style fighters; whatever is there to be done, you’re in complete control. I just get taken right out of it when “back + A” does a 360 spin melee while simultaneously targeting three enemies and summoning my helper NPC (I’m exaggerating, but you see the intended point).
Like others, I don’t really find as much time for gaming, what with work, family, and other hobbies, but when I do, I like retro gaming, RPGs with a fair amount of stat and inventory management, Minecraft (that blunt instrument of click to “mine”, rclick to “use” is the opposite of cinematic AAA actioners), and other stuff that naturally connects inputs to resulting actions, like driving games.
Yeah, it’s called clinical depression, it’s entirely normal, happens to everyone. 🤷♂️
One can not have depression and still not be into games anymore.
Must be a tumour, then. 😞
It’s not a tumor! Not a tumor, at all.
I get into story games a lot more now. If it’s hard, repetitive, or a grind it simply isn’t fun, I have reality for those types of challenges.
Most of my friends don’t play video games anymore but I love em more than when I was a kid. Like in school I had no time to play but now I can work from home and I can automate lots of it so plenty of time for hobbies.
The only issue is my tastes are rather niche, I think I finished every story and choice focused RPG where you make your own character. I do like games like Stardew Valley or Minecraft and I play those while a new RPG comes along.
I’ve lost all patience for gaming. I tried play one of the Wolfensteins a few weeks ago. The beginning of the game is basically on rails, and I was required to put out a fires or something, I was like, uh I just want to shoot some fake people, to hell with this.
Depends on the game…
Really enjoying Gotham Knights currently…
Certainly didn’t have any trouble getting into Red Dead 2.
I have struggled to stick with Cyberpunk 2077 though… Haven’t tried getting back in since this recent update though.
