Memes

You’re not crazy, you just need to get away from 40 hour long open world chore games

When I hear this, I wonder if people are playing the wrong types of games for them. Most AAA games have great graphics and cutscenes, but the core gameplay loop is just tedious and feels like you're following a GPS from chore to chore. I don't fault anyone for feeling bored with 10hr interactive movies.

I still love games that challenge me and offer a real risk of failure, for example. If there's no chance of losing, then beating the game just feels like "finishing" it, like how you would describe a movie or TV show. I'd get tired of that too.

All entertainment fills a need in your daily life. It only makes sense that the need changes as you grow older.

When I was younger, I was poor and had something to prove. Thus, I loved big games with hundreds of hours of gameplay, grinding for the best bobbles, and competitive multiplayer experiences.

But as I get older, I don't care about any of that anymore. What I need instead is a way to relax within my short gaming windows, to have unique experiences, and maybe have a sense of control as my life gets more chaotic. As a result, I've tended more towards shorter indie titles. But also towards non-gaming things like travel, gardening, and crafting hobbies.

We spent so much of our lives building our identity around a single hobby - gaming. And maybe that was a mistake. So many of us end up sliding away from gaming as we get older and that change is okay and even expected, that shouldn't give us an existential crisis.

Your identity should reflect the person you are, not the thing you do.

Play a good game, stop playing the same zoomer-bait crap

I've gotten into gaming more again by simply sticking with indie games. No more 100 hour boring open worlds.

Now I only have game sessions that last for about 10+ minutes and only about 3 times per day at most.

My enjoyment in gaming has died out a few months ago and I have only been working for one year(23yo). My friends are still trying to get me back to Valorant and I'm having trouble explaining I have so many other important things that I need to do other than grinding Valorant. I just don't have the time to improve my skill at that game because it requires so many hours and so many of those hours could give me a good coding project for my portfolio which would improve my job prospects. I do enjoy coding but coding all day outside of work is turning me into a robot.

Screw this capitalism society.

Games (mostly MMO) feel like chores to me now, sometimes it even like a second job. Grinding the same endless tasks for hours, go there, do this, kill that.

Don't fight it. Just find another hobby that deserves your time and move on with your life. Games haven't been truly good for a long time. Unless you're a Twitch streamer or an esports athlete, games shouldn't be drudgery. "But it gets better after 10 hours," "you have to get to the endgame before you're really playing the game," "you can't say you've played the game unless you did 3+ runs," "AAA games suck but indies are still good" Man, shut the fuck up, I'm too old for that shit.

If you want to capture the excitement of how you felt when you first played videogames as a child, find a different hobby. Seriously, find a hobby that's completely out of left field. Gardening, fixing mechanical watches, backyard astronomy, raising an ant farm, croqueting, kayaking, trainspotting. You don't have to be that aging nerd who constantly malds at how modern videogames suck while continuing to fall for nostalgia bait that'll always fall below your expectations.

Ok going through this now.

I never thought it’d be like this though. I thought that video game would literally stop being fun. Like I’d grow out of them or something and not find them enjoyable anymore.

But that’s not it. They are still fun and enjoyable. What I didn’t expect was that my mind would be so full of responsibilities that it would just be impossible to enjoy video games. As if there just isn’t enough room in my brain.

I’m sitting there trying to play but I’m just thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow. Or this week. Or this month.

There is just too much to think about that I can no longer enjoy not thinking.

Honestly I have less and less love for videogames that streamlined the gameplay into a cookie cutter trope.

I noticed having way more fun when playing indie games because you never escape the wierd shit develloped industry free from the general gamplay loops.

This isn't unique to video games*. It can happen with anything that you spend a ton of time on, and either burn out on or start to develop more refined taste in. I've had it happen with:

• novels
• board games
• movies
• people

You start to see patterns, tropes, or just plain get burnt out on something. It's a sign you either need to take a break, or that your tastes have simply become refined enough that you require a higher bar to find something interesting.

I'm in my 40s and definitely don't play games as much as I used to. But there are still times I get sucked in and have a great time. Most recent example: Cosmoteer, a spaceship building game with loads of freedom and creativity. I'm also looking forward to the Factorio DLC and the Dyson Sphere Program combat update.

Edit: case in point that I can still get excited about games: I finally tried Shadows of Doubt and, wow, what an interesting game. It's like a Deus Ex shadowy sneak-around world with detailed voxel simulation.

* though the enshittification phenomenon is a real thing, and why people should play more indie games

Stop playing for a while and the love might come back (was like that for me).

Baldurs Gate 3 is the cure for me. It probably also helps that I haven't played that type of game in ages.

from what ive heard trying different genres might help

My enjoyment of games didn't die, but my tastes in genre changes. Online FPS just isn't for me anymore, I now prefer slower single-player story games

I started feeling this way especially with the intro of micro transactions in games like Cod. Went back to play older games I've said I wanted to play at some point which has kept the flame lit.

Use to do 10-15 hours on a free day. Now I have a hard time doing 1-2 without having to take a break.

I’m definitely feeling this.

My schedule makes it hard to play online with people I know and I hate playing with randos.

I switched to single player games on easy mode just to be able to make progress and get through some of my huge backlog of games.

It is starting to feel a little forced though.

Play some games completely different from what you're used to.

I play different games is the big difference. Lots of singleplayer of various genres. I really like engineering games, colony builders and RPGs.

I stopped reading for maybe a decade when I started post-secondary education. I tried books during that time but it wasn't until finding an author that resonated with me that the interest picked up again. I still mostly only read that author now but I try other authors in between.

Same with video games. I will slowdown or stop for a while but eventually pick it back up again when the right thing comes along.

I have recently gone back to Fallout New Vegas and I have been sinking tons of time into it exploring. It has reignited my love for single player games :)

For my money, I've found myself fascinated by the inner workings of games. Art directions, concept art, changes from beta versions, sound tracks, music theory of the soundtrack, and coding (panonenkoek, the guy who did watch out for rolling rocks in 0.5A presses). It lets me appreciate games that are pieces of art more richly and deeply. I know every surface texture and midi file of Majora's Mask. I have artist renditions of video game music on my playlists. Pallet Town on violin, Gusty garden galaxy on violin, song of storms on piano. I have a poster of a Pokemon card.

Do I play many games? No, not really. It doesn't mean the flame dies out, it just means my interests diverged and morphed. The appreciation never left. The same inner child who would be saddened by the departure would get a kick out of my writing. The same critic who didnt like Tales of Symphonia's sequel put their money where their mouth is and wrote about an ex-main character from an outside perspective. All of this lets me expect less from games and be able to see the effort that went into the individual parts. The dev team doesn't need to fill the open world with big laser beams, it can let me soak it in for a while.

I'm in my late 20s and have realized two things about video games

1. I've invested hundreds of hours into games and I've got absolutely nothing to show for that time investment, and basically nothing to brag about at work or to friends
2. The last couple of years I've been more often playing games to pass time than for the actual love of whatever game I'm playing

So I've been trying to spend my time doing other things. If there isn't a compelling game I want to play at that moment I don't just play games until I find one that compells me again, I just do something else entirely.

My wife on the other hand has realized she really enjoys video games and sees it as "look at all of this time I could have spent playing video games and experiencing these things!" So I suppose that gives some perspective that it's not all for nothing

I recently learned there are games where you don't even need a TV or computer. What an exciting new world!

This was me, until I discovered Super Tux Kart a few months ago. I play at least 2 hours a day of that game.

I've legit spent 50 hours modding Skyrim to play for like 9 - 15 hours and then moving on until the itch to play Skyrim come back and I spent another 50 hours modding testing something different.

One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ll take a long break from a game I enjoy and later I want to go back to it and pick up where I left off, but I know I’ll have to re-learn it all over again before I can start having fun. I don’t want to have to expend the mental energy learning it again when I just want to have fun, so I instead end up watching YouTube or tv shows and not really enjoying my free time.

Now, whenever I start a new game I make a folder where I keep any spreadsheets or information I collect while playing, and most importantly keep extensive notes, including keybinds and UI to refresh my memory. This saves me from a lot of those squinty eye moments saying “ooohh how tf do I do that again…” and having to research something online.