That deep fear of being homeless and hungry if shit goes sideways irl really takes the punch out of how much I give a shit if a sparkly pixel on my tv screen falls off a ledge or whatever.
I recently learned there are games where you don’t even need a TV or computer. What an exciting new world!
Like a steam deck?
VR
Sorry, I have ADHD. You can keep your cardboard agony simulators, just don’t ask me to play them.
When I feel like this is just crack open
Red Alert 2: Yuri’s revenge
Master of Olympus Zeus
Anno
Games were better in my day.
But tbh my love of gaming has died since you had to pay for online consoles and your can’t have bants on COD anymore.
Try Ghost of Tsushima or other great games but only short ones, avoid no man sky for now or other long games. Let it rest for a while and come back to it later.
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.
I just take a few minutes testing the different buttons.
But the flames has died
I’ve gotten into gaming more again by simply sticking with indie games. No more 100 hour boring open worlds.
Recently been just playing cozy games I used to scoff at. So much I’ve not only played more games this summer than the last few year but felt great joy actually finishing a game. Sometimes short and sweet is best.
I’ve heard good things about A Short Hike, it sounds like something you might enjoy.
Just picked it up with the Whims & Wonder Humble Bundle. I’ve been enjoying the shit out of all those games. I have yet to try A Short Hike but it’s on my list.
There is Something about a simple two hour game about a guy and his girlfriend getting stuck in the woods fending off the mothman.
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.
Yes but that chore stuff used to be fun for me.
I’d play morrowind for hours and hours in college. Now if I try to play an RPG, I don’t have the patience and it’s a boring chore like you said.
To be honest with you, I think a lot of it is just a factor of adulthood.
Between work and life, I don’t have the energy to start a new game, even though I daydream about playing video games all the time.
Yeah that‘s my point as well. I play games on the lowest difficulty possible because after a day of work I do not want to be grinding during my free time. And even on easy mode it‘s sometimes just too tiresome.
Exactly. If I’ve got time and energy to play something, it’s going to be for the experience. Not to die repeatedly until the bossfight is ingrained in my memory and I hate myself.
I think games with grind are just annoying.
Like I love Minecraft but I will explicitly play to have fun and build things, my building resources come from what I gather around my area, you’d never catch me using concrete as a primary component in my builds for example.
But MMO level grind? Never. I just want games that respect my time
Yeah having the time and energy to log on every night and play games is something I constantly daydream & fantasize about, but when I rarely get an opportunity to do it, it’s extremely hard to enjoy it because I know I’m not gonna get another chance again for who knows how long. My enjoyment is directly related to looking forward to the next time I’d be able to continue what I was doing in game.
This is why I bought a steam deck and have accepted joy in Stardew Valley.
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
Single player board games. Sounds lame but look up hunt a killer stand alone…
Perhaps your tastes have changed. I’m sure there must still be a game out there for you.
You’re not crazy, you just need to get away from 40 hour long open world chore games
I started liking games again by going back to long open world games
Arcade style games that give you a quick hit are what I miss. Things that drop you straight in the action and don’t let up.
I think some are making a bit of a come back on the Indy scene though.
Bro. Broforce
I got back into gaming with “bullet hell” games like Vampire Survivor and 20 Minutes till Dawn. All action and no BS, but they do get repetitive after a while.
I recently started playing Diablo4 and that was pretty fun. I am trying to like Baulders Gate 3, but my patience for dialogue and wandering around is not what it used to be, and it never was that high to begin with. It is an impressive game though, which might help me stick with it.
Vampire Survivors is amazing! I can’t believe it’s so cheap. It’s also one of those games that could have easily been microtransactioned to hell and back, but the worst I’ve seen is a few optional ad’s in the mobile version of the game. It’s a bit harder to play on mobile than on PC which is a bummer.
As for BG3, I’ve been very slow to start, and it does feel like a lot up front. I think the problem for me is I’m used to these kinds of games where I’d treat it like the Witcher or HZD and check off every box and complete everything I come across, and exhaust all dialogue options. The beauty of BG3 that I’m starting to realize is I can actually immerse myself in it like an actual role playing game. My last few play sessions I’ve actively been working against my instincts of trying to be the all-star savior of the world, the do no wrong Commander Shepard good guy liked by everyone, and instead choose an identity and play their story out. Having that mindset and treating the game like a marathon and not trying to keep pace with a community (like in WoW or something) is really what I’m enjoying about it.
I guess what I’m saying is, it’s a refreshing change of pace with BG3 to sit back and enjoy the journey, rather than race to the end and inevitably burn myself out in the game trying to min/max everything.
I started playing Ys origin again, such a simple fun game with instant action and feels good combat.
Yup. That’s me. I have to have games where it doesn’t rely on you logging on for a few hours a night, every night…. yeah sorry not gonna happen with a wife who doesn’t like video games and a 2 year old to entertain.
This happened to me the other day. I’ve had FarCry4 on my Xbox for years. Never played it. Well the other day, started playing it. Died A LOT. But was still having a blast, visuals are a little dated, but the atmosphere and game mechanics are still very fun overall.
Haven’t dived deep yet into the FarCry4 story/lore, but hoping it picks up more. But as I was dying a lot. I wasn’t having any fun. So I stopped playing it for a couple days, and came back to it, fully refreshed and fully restored to tackle the mission. Spoiler: the fun stayed :)
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 know every surface texture and midi file of Majora’s Mask.
That’s the old 3D Zelda with the blurry textures, right?
old
You take that back, and then get off my lawn
What a young geezer.
I’m at the age where my joints hurt and things from my childhood are considered old or “vintage.” I don’t like it.
Same, but for me it’s because of the depression
And age :(
Pretty sure I’m in the same boat. Literally nothing is enjoyable anymore and I have 0 motivation to do anything “productive” after work since it’s all just more work…
My friends must think im nuts when they see me bounce from game to game to game within 1-2 hours because nothing keeps my attention lol
This has been me the majority of the time since about 2020, which I chalk up to depression and more recently suspecting that I have ADHD (I know self-diagnosing isn’t cool, I intend to explore this more formally eventually, but I have many reasons for suspecting it in general). Sometimes it’s bad enough that if something doesn’t grab me in 5-15 minutes, I’ll bounce off to something else and probably repeat the cycle a few more times before giving up and doing something else instead.
I find that I can’t really play modern games at all anymore. They just feel like work and are more concerned with monetization rather than being enjoyable to play. Modern experiences feel so hollow to me now. I miss when the main draw of a multiplayer game was feeling your skills improve rather than spending 100+ hours to get some skin from grinding out a battlepass. It feels like a chore. I fell off of TOTK in May and apparently haven’t been too eager to return to it. I’ve been doing a decent job sticking with Mass Effect lately though. Helps that it runs perfectly on Steam Deck so I don’t always have to be on my PC. It’s my first time playing ME1, which helps. We’ll see if I can stick with it through 2 and 3, which I played many years ago.
This has also led to me drifting apart from many of the people who I previously considered to be my friends. Most of them barely leave the house anymore and only hang out and communicate on Discord, which I am barely on anymore due to my general lack of interest in games lately, my general disinterest in modern games specifically (which is all they play), and my disinterest in participating in more voice calls after being in Teams calls during the workday beforehand. They also have significantly more free time than I do due to almost all of them being single, so the rare times I have tried to play anything progress-based with them has been a bust because I inevitably fall behind. It’s unfortunate to drift apart like that, but it took longer than it should have for me to realize that we probably weren’t actually that close if me losing interest in games is all it took for them to cut me out. Oh well.
I know, self diagnosing isn’t cool
It’s cool and useful as a starting point. The main thing is to be authentic and say it the way you said it: That you suspect it.
I know a few people on the suspectrum, and it’s fine as long as you don’t try and claim that you most definitely have the thing and that your self diagnosis is valid/means you should have access to healthcare/etc.
Thanks, I appreciate your perspective, and I’m glad to hear that I’ve been handling the communication aspect of it properly - I’ve never used my suspicion as an excuse or justification of anything, so far I have just told a few trusted people that I suspect I have it, basically like I said here.
I have experienced several financial rough patches in the past year (job loss due to my employer shutting down, for example), but now that things have seemingly stabilized, I hope to begin pursuing a formal diagnosis soon, and I look forward to doing so! Thanks again.
Best of luck getting diagnosed! I know in a lot of places it can be tricky. For me my GP did it for my ADHD, apparently it was that clear and obvious.
Need a different hobby. Electric unicycling is great for this.
TIL
Then get off social media
Yup, that flame died out a long time ago.
Depression is a bitch.
