I love the art of creating games.
Most games I purchase are ‘Just to check it out’. I want to see the graphics and enjoy new types of gameplay IP’s. I rarely play games to the end. I have so many games to play in my library that I should know better than to buy more games I will play for a week… then get bored of.
I really only play 3 games, but I own about 200 going back to the 90’s.
Back 4 Blood is my favorite game by hours played. What can I say…I like shooting monsters.
Cyberpunk 2077 continues to blow my mind… especially in VR.
Formula 1 racing is my Jam. I always race each event in VR with wheel and pedals before I watch the race on TV.
Thanks everyone for the responses, I have been ruminating on this for a while and I guess most of what’s been said here has crossed my mind at one point or another but its good to get some sanity checking.
I don’t think I particularly value computer games anymore, but at the same time I still enjoy playing them from time to time, so I think I’m going to do a bit of work towards making gaming a less central aspect of my leisure time and try and put that time into more rewarding hobbies instead.
I feel like games are basically brain junk food, OK to have as an occasional treat or when you need to eat but are too tired to cook, not something to be had regularly.
I jist tried to play Bloons TD6. I am fairly decent with tower defense games, coming from the old Warcraft3 mods as well as Dota 2 mods. Initially I thought it was a good game but I notice a lot if sneaky things it does and puts out a spiking difficulty that will kill you in later level quickly, sometimes forcing you to pay for upgrades or lives, sometimes.
I already paid for this game but it has a lot of microtransactions as a “shortcut” to earn skills. As Jim Sterling puts it back then, it was tempting me to “pay to not play/grind”.
I uninstalled it.
It does not seem to respect me. Had I not played it in more than 2 hrs in 2 days, I would have refunded it despite its -80% off price. Clearly it is engineered to tempt me to buy ita in-game currency.
These are the kind of games I am encountering these days.
If nobody can put out games that hold your interest long enough to finish or games you find relaxing enough to play then why force yourself to play videogames. If people quit buying mediocre and bad games, studios would stop making them… either before or after they closed up.
Sure there’s always a few bright gems out there hidden under the mountain of bad ones, but still generally speaking the quality of games has trended downwards. Game developers know players value their time, so now micro-transactions allow them to fork over money to save time in one way or another. Other studios do a rush job launch with the rest of the game following in DLC, or they just iterate on the same cookie cutter game with slightly better graphics. It often seems like multiplayer is included only so that studios can do the bare minimum effort (or entirely skip) developing the single player “AI” or a solo world.
I still enjoy 4X and strategy games that challenge the mind and allow one to see the outcome of their strategies and decisions later, but even now I am disillusioned with several studios that once put out great games. They burned their bridges and I know the corporate greed is too high for them to ever get rebuilt.
I was forced to agree with your analogy that many videogames are just junkfood… Most handheld and smartphone games in particular, those just exist only as a means to kill time and for myself I’d rather kill time by reading interesting books with expansive universes. I won’t quit PC gaming yet, but I have become very choosy with what I’ll buy anymore. Certainly I game far less than I used to even though I have more time than I used to to play.
It is like a cycle for me. Sometimes it will be a couple years and i wont touch any video games at all. Then one day i will see something and i will be like ‘yup, i am playing that’. But do make sure you have other hobbies too.
For me it becomes a mental wall due to ADHD. I like having a proper 1080p gaming rig and I turn it on every day, but rarely end up using it. I’ve actually started to call it my “thousand dollar RGB table lamp” for that reason, but at the end of the day it is what it is. On the rare occasion that I do load up a game though, it’ll last either an hour or all day (and then some.)
Personally, I don’t see a problem with that…
I bought a new GPU some months ago to be able to play more demanding games and I am yet to make it spin it’s fans. It’s idling all the time.
I also used to play games like Skyrim or Dark Souls or whatever and play for hours and hours on end. The game I played the most last year - Halls of torment. 30 minutes rounds. The game I played most this year - Sea of Survivors. 20 minutes rounds. Before that was 20 minutes till dawn, also 20min rounds.
I have not started a game in weeks. I just don’t feel like it.
Gaming is just a hobby. You can absolutely burn out on it. But when you feel like it, when you see some interesting game, you can always jump right back in.
I don’t think I want to play huge games like Baldurs Gate or whatever. For now I am sticking to those smaller wave based bullet hells…
What helped me, was changing the form factor. I primarily play on my Steamdeck now or on the couch on my TV. I sit in an office chair for 8 hours, so I am not looking forward to spend my free time in one too. Secondly it almost has a “I am at work fee “ for me, which might be related to the ‘rona homeoffice, which also sours my gaming mood.
For me it’s also easier to pick the Steamdeck up for a session or two and to put it down. For demanding games I stream them via shadowplay / sunshine, so the gaming PC doesn’t go to waste. This isn’t a call to consooome more, the streaming part can easily done with whatever portable device you have around.
Getting older, and the lack of quality content has really done it for me. Hell, being disabled and on meds for a month+ this winter didn’t even get me in gear to game. Over that month the only thing I got into was Forbidden West for a week.
BG3 was a revelation, it was the first time in a while where I didn’t immediately skip every cut scene. I’m dabbling with Diablo 4 right now, no idea what the story is about, just after the next shiny bit of gear. It’s very much a feeling of “wtf am I doing with my life”.
And… If you’re a millennial, low grade depression. We all, absolutely have low grade depression.
I think the installing games but not actually playing them part is something a lot of people can relate to. Sometimes I’ve found that I enjoy gaming much more when I stop treating it like something I’m supposed to keep up with. A short session can be enough.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think it’s getting older and getting the same, or better, stimulation from real life that makes people fall out of love with gaming. Or at least it felt like that for me.
Progressing your career, doing well at your job, building and maintaining a relationship, improving your home, successfully raising children, all of those real life accomplishments make the “accomplishments” in video games feel cheap in comparison. Because they are cheap, they are obviously not even in the same league.
I still enjoy games that have, in my eyes, a lot of artistic merit. Expedition 33 comes to mind recently. Like a good movie, or a good show, or any other form of art, they can be stimulating and give you something else, that you can’t necessarily get from real life. But “input time to make number go up”-type of games just don’t do it for me anymore. Might as well input time in real life and make numbers go up there.
There are very different kinds of video game experiences too.
Stating the obvious here:
Single player is a solitary exercise
Multiplayer is a social exercise
I’ve grown a bit out of SP, but MP while busy working was my primary friend group outside of work for years.
I’ve had long stretches (6 years is the longest) with zero gaming because I had no PC or console. And long stretches of gaming 5 nights a week. I don’t think much of it. It’s the same with books, movies and TV shows. Newest show I’ve seen is GoT
Man Expedition 33 truly felt like a new gaming experience with OG Star Wars vibes in how quality it was. Everything is a 10 (gameplay, story, combat system, well handled ode to jrpg classics, etc.)
Doesn’t sound like you have time limitations. Nothing wrong with getting burned out with gaming. It’s time to try something else. I remember dropping gaming completely and doing RC’s for a while. I spent way more money then I should have, but it got me outside doing things and learning new mechanics. I then moved on to working on cars for fun and convince.
Now a days, I just don’t have time to game. Most everything is focused around the needs of my wife & kids, then work, and then anything else that needs done around the house. Not saying I won’t every play games again. Every once in a while, I’ll pull out the controllers and play with the kids on Steam. Once they get a bit older we’ll play more but at the moment, it’s just limited.
And that might be where you’re at. There’s no community to enjoy it with. People do things to hang out with other people, and if you don’t have that, it can get pretty boring.
I definitely have gotten burnt out of games but when there isn’t an activity otherwise and I am still so invested or have singleplayer games I still want to beat or replay I find the best way to do it is with other people. Getting that comforting feeling where I can relax and experience something new, I need others for parallel play in a voice chat. Might share the game while I play but mostly it’s just so I have other on and off conversations. Sometimes old classics that someone else hasn’t experienced but wants to see, I will specifically replay those games and that actually helped bring a new interest and drive.
Playing the entire Half-Life series again for a friend who loves all games but isn’t good at FPS while I gave commentary was one of my funnest recent gaming experiences.
I’ve also found that with games like pvz fusion english version , the desktop environment matters less than having the right compatibility setup and a stable system. If everything launches cleanly and the controls feel right, I’m happy. i usually downloads this game from pvzfusionandroid website
That’s something my friend (teacher) told me which is in the same vein- Most of the RL things you can teach / learn digitally are at least100% more efficient and rewarding if done in RL.
Regarding feeling burned out on gaming, some of my two cents:
Modern games haven’t evolved that much in the last 10 years, especially if you are glued to the same genres you might go through the same motions, especially in the AAA space. I remember one supercut of AAA Sony games lineup (when the God of War Reboot was new) and damn if not for the protagonist and some enemies they could have played out easily in each other’s universe.
AAA games often don’t respect your time. I mean I like FF7 like the next guy, but does the remake really need 3 separate games and Ubisoft watchtowers to unlock stuff in the open world?
For me it helped to go back to the classics I loved as teenager / kid and trying out stuff I missed. The Steamdeck also helped me going through lots of indie titles because it was easier for me to pick up and play than sitting again on my PC space already use for work and projects.
I was never a major gamer, but I really fell out of it in the early 2000. Maybe a puzzle game here and there. Just something to do. I figured I was really done with gaming. But then someone stuck a VR headset on my head and my world changed. My brain changed from watching everything tough a LCD window, to me being IN the game. I was standing in a Slavic town in Half-Life: Alyx and hiding from the baddies. I was standing on a moon, watching the sun to go supernova and end my existence so I could start the time loop again in Outer Wilds (with VR mod). Crying in my VR headset at the end of Moss.
It combined my love of travel and experiencing difference places, with my love of story telling.
It does not work for everyone. Some people just go “whatever” and don’t care. But for others, it’s a “game changer”.
And yes, there is a massive amount of “box a cartoon squid in your living room” style meta phone games on the VR/XR platforms. And that is what most people experience. But connect that headset to a PC, and a larger adventure awaits.
