Struggling to enjoy gaming?

Associate
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Guess it must be an age thing, as I'm the same to a degree. The games that I've literally lost myself in over the last 15 years, are limited to Bioshock, Far Cry 2 and 3, Fallout 3, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Blackflag, Skyrim, and GTA IV and V.

I've dipped in and out of other games of course, but none have held me for hundreds of hours like the aforementioned.

I thought I'd return to true immersion with RDR2, but as enjoyable as I found it, I haven't completed it yet, and haven't been back to it for quite a few months.

Same story with Death Stranding...played that a LOT but suddenly stopped playing it back in September and not been back to it since.

Many other things in life of course, and I'm sure there will be future games that will hold my attention.
 
Associate
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Im 42 in march, do still enjoy gaming but in spurts, hardly ever finish a game anymore and a lot of the time get bored quick, i find myself playing online games more nowa days like gears 5 etc but after 1 hr tops thats enough for me lol
years ago i could literally game for 20hrs straight, not anymore though, dont know if its a age thing or if games have just become a lot worse than they used to be, i dont know lol
 
Caporegime
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I've been playing Warzone and at 36 I can't keep up with the kids anymore, plus they're super annoying talking about being dog water and wishing cancer on one another.

Playing HL:Alyx on the Quest 2 has been really impressing me though. Still enjoy wandering around in Witcher 3 too.
 
Associate
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Age is the primary factor. As you get older, you have experienced more in life, there is not much left to see that you haven't already. This doesn't just apply to games.

The other factor is dopamine downregulation. Hitting those dopamine receptors over the years through any form of stimulus that once gave pleasure, such as from gaming, alcohol consumption etc will eventually burn you out.

One final thought. People have had everything handed to them on a plate these past 20 years. Everything is readily and instantly available, be it a movie, music, a game, and information, all through the internet. There is no sense of achievement in anything when there is such an overwhelming choice at the fingertips. The consumer winds up being disappointed 90% or more of the time.
 
Soldato
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-Not enough attention paid to making bread and butter mechanics the best they can be - so it feels like there is a layer of awkwardness between me and the game.
-Unacceptable level of day one bugs without enough priority put into fixing them - no pride in the finished product, etc.
-Too many real world issue(s) agenda lead - I play games as much as anything for escapism and that completely destroys my immersion especially when it is entirely irrelevant to the content but shoehorned in.
-Far too much fluff content - I don't mind a bit of cosmetics, etc. but far too many games these days you have to wade through a fair bit of meaningless items and features that don't actually have any proper functionality in the game.

Agree too.

I also have found myelf not as willing to grind in games, I think this one is down to me been older and realising time is valuable, in my 20s I would think nothing of doing nothing but grinding for a month.

Otherwise I still enjoy gaming, but its mostly single player older style games. Most games I play are made before 2019. FF7 Remake is the only exception I can remember, I brought a Series S solely for its xbox 360 library.

I think after original vanilla wow, I learned this too that time is rare as you have family and less time to burn, grinding in games in now a pet peev as its just wasted repetitive nonsense - needs to die.
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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28 Jul 2010
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50 years old been gaming since the ZX80.

Games have to much fluff these days with over complicated systems designed as nothing more than grind.

I would like a new sub based MMO with no cash shops for cosmetic crap just your £15 a month for a decent community. No stupid anime characters just good old fashioned wizards, priests, rogues, & fighters oh and druids will allow a druid for pet builds. (With PVP limited to a flag system) and no dev development put into it) I hate PvP in MMOs


Ps

I am just angry as VR makes me sick.
 
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I'll just add that not so many years ago, games were something new and exciting- we've come a long way since the early consoles or CGA graphics and a game on a single floppy disk.
Every generation brought new thrills and developments, it was all groundbreaking stuff, which in turn generated interest and hype.

Today, modern computers can pump out near-movie grade graphics, perfect sound, incredible physics... at some point it all becomes 'boring'. Been there, done that...

We've come TOO far, I think. It's all about how shiny it looks and how much money can be made now. None of it gives that thrill any more, it's already been done.

/twopenn'orth
 
Soldato
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I find it's not the game itself it's how happy I am. If I'm happy in my life and everything is good I game, if things are going a bit bad and I'm unhappy I don't game.

Grinding final fantasy 14 atm but I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it that much
 
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I'm 44 later this year and find myself struggling to find games I truly enjoy. As a solo player (with young child commitments), I don't have the free time for group led MMO's with little to no solo content which has led me to 'win' Eve Online and quit after 16 years of playing. Over the past couple of years, I've replayed Borderlands 1, 2, Pre-sequel, Far Cry 4, Far Cry 5, Far Cry New Dawn, Dying Light/The Following. Played and completed Borderlands 3 (with all the side quests I could find), Cyberpunk 2077 (with all the side quests I could tolerate - looking at you beat the brat side quests), The Outer Worlds, Horizon Zero Dawn (which was excellent).

Until the next big reasonable FPS/RPG (not keen on the COD series - far too linear), I'm back on BF4 (where I get constantly banned from servers for 'cheating' - https://bf4db.com/player/328091601 ) and Bloons TD6. I still have The Witcher 3, Death Stranding to carry on with (its very time consuming) and Elite (the sheer size of the game makes me not want to start it again).

I love gaming but find the thrill of some of the better games quickly wears off and they become a grind, maybe its just me getting old and having less patience.
 
Soldato
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Hi guys,

So i'm 35 and have gamed most of my life until the last 5-6 years due to just life taking over. I was the generation that played Goldeneye 64 Mario 64 enjoyed games on Snes like Mario until the online games took over and played at a very high level at an old FPS shooter Kingpin then moved onto CS1.6 and BF3.

I have recently upgraded to a top tier PC and struggling to enjoy any games apart from Racing games and CS:go online - they feel cold they dont hold my interest and don't feel like im engaging in the story it still feels like a game I don't get lost in the game like I used to or like a movie.

Is this a reflection of my age or modern games? I wonder if anyone else is getting these sort of feelings. Unless its competitve and other people involved just feels sad me engaging with a computer system playing alone except racing games.

I'm pretty much the same these days and I think it's half the formulaic games and half my lack of patience and willingness to learn new things. I find most of the the AAA stuff doesn't hold my interest at all now. RDR2 I was bored of after a few hours, for example. There are exceptions, like Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn (played on PS4) and Detroit: Become Human (PS4)

I still play the old games in emulators and find them engaging (Super Mario World etc) but recently I've found indie games are far better for me. Axiom Verge was a revelation and I really enjoyed that. Risk of Rain 2 is fun as well with friends.

I was in another rut recently of just staring blankly at my Steam Library and playing nothing so got Ori and the Will of the Wisps on sale, as I loved the first game. That was immensely satisfying. I could quite happily replay the Mass Effect games yet again so will probably get the remastered version when it comes out.

I'd love to do more multiplayer but most of my mates play stuff I don't really enjoy these days. On the single player front it seems it's just a matter of finding something that you click with to re-ignite the spark. :)
 
Associate
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I'm the same, I can only play for about 15 mins then just get fed up. but many years ago i could play for hours and really get into the game and that was on the old 8 bits, c64, spectrum and acorn electron.
 
Soldato
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England
I don't really game anymore. It took me quite a long time to realise that I don't really enjoy it anymore. So I switched to Linux and spent my time trying to program instead and learning other stuff about computers which means that I don't feel like I am wasting so much time. I did buy Total War: Warhammer 3, one of the few game series I still enjoy playing.
 
Soldato
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Aquilonem Londinensi
OP, stop being a pussy and start playing PUBG.

It'll grow hair on your chest and make you a man.

Doesn't PUBG turn you into a bathroom-hiding tweenager?

I'm in the same boat tbh. I've played 25 hours of Cyberpunk since it launched and that's about it. I've Gamepass on PC, a stacked Steam library, many GoG games and yet no desire to play any of them. Planning to go back to BoTW on Switch as a refresher for the (hopefully this year) sequel. That was the last game the grabbed me
 
Associate
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Peterborough
31 here, I've found the types of games have switched over the last few years. FPS, especially online ones have pretty much dropped off my play list entirely with a few sessions of CS:GO for nostalgia. I now play far more RTS and single player RPG type games. For example I loved RDR2 and Witcher series which i was less fussed about when younger. I also re played the metro games which i appreciate far more now than i did on release.

Think I've come to appreciate a good storyline and or puzzle more than the competitive reactions of shooters nowadays.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2012
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8,332
funny was just playing through morrowind recently as i missed it the first time and somewhat aware of it's legendary status in the series.

and wow that's a drawn out game, even when i got bored and just started using console commands to bypass parts of the game just so i could content tour the main questline it still took bloody ages, how any human had the time and patience to play through that game vanilla without exploits is beyond me.

granted i can see the appeal insofar as unlike skyrim you don't just magically get told you're the legendary hero at the start and it would feel like an acheivement to get to that level by working up to it, but likewise the level of requirements to get there are absolutely ridiculous.

tbh since playing it i kinda get why the nords hate the dark elves in skyrim because now i hate them too.....
 
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