I think something people haven't mentioned yet is that games are so much a digital media now that where I used to be able to keep infinity games at all times in a CD book, I now have to selectively decide which games get to occupy my limited hard drive space, and installing a new one means uninstalling another, and waiting to redownload it, and between my limited drive space and less than amazing network speed, those can absolutely influence what I'm able and willing to play at any given time.
It's more logical to keep ten games I know I like installed rather than choose one of those to cut off in place of a new unknown quantity.
Also, compared to other major sentiment I see in this thread, I actually quite like tutorial sections of games. I'm often very interested to see what the game itself has in store in terms of exactly what mechanics and systems it contains and how they execute them, and how that stacks up compared to reviews or word of mouth, which are often vague, biased, or missing portions of the experience.
After I fully understand what a game is trying to do, I fall off the wagon often times as it sinks into a routine instead of a novel learning experience, or maybe I actually love it, but standards continue to increase as more and more novel ideas and fusions of genres are created and become existing products. It becomes more difficult to make something that's not something you've already done, but slightly worse or only slightly better.
I still "get into games" plenty, but it doesn't happen quite as often, and it's the "sticking with" them that becomes more desired and elusive.
I did video games professionally for ten years (grew up on the ZX81, C64, Amiga) and since then I have a hard(er) time because the only things that changes in new games is :
A) better graphics (potentially)
B) The back-story
I don’t really care for A, and for B it’s kind of scarce… I only need to save the world of kill the dragon so many times.
I did a 180 and learned chess which I feel wildly rewarding!
I’m also making a “slow game” (12 “action points” every like 12h, fantasy settings) that you can play for 5 minutes a day, but can be really immersive (it’s text only).
I don’t really know what I wanted to say here, but I too hope I’ll find some new breathtaking game :-)
There as a brief period in the early 00’s where this kind of browser game was prevalent. I can’t remember the names, but same concept. They were perfect for lunch period, issue commands, and hope you made the right choices when you logged in the next day.
Yup. Used to be it was quite easy to find the games that were worthwhile to play since there was very little for profit games and not too much choice. Nowadays only if I hear from people I trust to have a taste for the games I want to play will I actually get excited. Its just easier to go back to classics because you know you’re going to have a better time than most things you buy new.
Always on the look out though, gems are still being produced, they just became a lot less findable.
Make it an appointment. Get ready to play the game on Saturday at 09:30 and stick with it until 15:30 give it 6 hours of your full attention. No phone within reach. Make sure to get the housework done by that so you can stay longer. That worked wonders for me. Oh, and play older games. I never played xbox360 or PS3 games (only CoD couch coop with friends) because I had a Wii and only recently got an old PS3 and the games are amazing.
Agreed that it’s harder now that we’re older, especially if you work a lot or have kids/family responsibilities.
The most rewarding aspect of playing a game these days (IMO) is the social aspect of it. Whether that be playing with friends or sharing a ‘physical’ neutral space with other players like in an MMORPG. If you have a friend or a group of friends it’s fun to start random games together and experience them with someone. If you’re a solo gamer you need a much greater reason to start a new game, which is harder as you’ve described.
I don’t have many friends who game consistently, so I’m basically left to choose between going back to an MMORP like WoW (ugh), which after a while you realize is still lonely unless you really invest in making friends on your sever, or playing a new game at launch. Even if it’s a single player game there’s a lot to be said about playing a new game as soon as it releases. You get that collective sense of community because everyone is going in fresh and finding out secrets and solutions and sharing them with each other online. It doesn’t feel like you’re totally alone, and although it’s short lived it can feel rewarding. It’s like watching a weekly release show and joining in post-episode discussions online. You can’t recreate that experience after the fact.
My taste in games has changed a lot over the years - I think to help accommodate adult life. As my time has gotten more spoken for I look for games that can quickly be picked up and put down. And as I’ve become more bitter and misanthropic, I’ve largely given up on multiplayer (except Tertis 99!). Basically things I can play when I’ve got any amount of downtime and I don’t need to follow a story line, or disappoint other people, or watch cut scenes, or even have my volume up.
I’m really into colony sim / base building / and automation types games now. Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, and if I go more than 3 days without playing Oxygen Not Included I start to get the shakes. I also like low key survival games like Don’t Starve, Astroneer, and No Man’s Sky.
I’ve been playing (and enjoying) BG3 but I don’t have enough time to get immersed so I’m still in Act 2 on my first play through.
When you’re young, you’re often engaging in a common animal behavior known as “play”. This is essentially practice-mode for life, where you physically or mentally act out a lot of the abstract ideas you’ve been learning about over the years. This is critical, because our abstract ways of understanding and communicating advanced concepts are still fundamentally incomplete. You can, for instance, teach a kid to be honest, that honesty is important, etc. But then they get into a school environment, surrounded by real life situations. Will honesty always benefit them, like a “good” thing is supposed to? No.
Our abstract understanding of honesty and its importance is one thing. Putting it into effective practice is another, and fundamentally circumstantial.
“Play” is how animals bridge these two things with personal experience, while hopefully avoiding the consequences of actually trying for real and potentially having an accident. Like, an animal could abstractly learn about hunting by observing its mother. But until it actually physically practices these skills, it will be very bad at them. Us learning about “the importance of honesty” is no different.
Humans have a vastly, exponentially greater number of abstracts we’re required to understand in order to be effective citizens of the modern world. We tackle them in the same way, though, with play. Play, is practice.
So, if play is practice in an attempt to bridge some kind of abstract, incomplete learning, then what do you have to gain at this current phase of your life, from this “play”?
Your subconscious gets this. You don’t need to play anymore, you’re good enough for the real thing. So, why should your brain want to play at something? Especially when getting older also makes it clearer just how much incorrect information is being taught in gaming. Like, how many people try to use their CoD experiences to understand the Russo-Ukrainian War?
Anyways, it’s complicated.
edit: Thinking further on this, I would propose the following: In the same way that horniness is the mechanism by which your genes make you reproduce them, and hunger is the mechanism it employs to make you fuel their work, “fun” is the mechanism by which your genes make you practice whatever skills or experiences might improve your chances of passing them on, in an environment where it is safer to do so.
This is why play gets fundamentally less fun as you get older. It begins to lose its purpose, outside of handing those skills, and the techniques for practicing them, on to the next generation. We prefer to go back to those same games we played though, because we’re refining the lessons we learned from them. This has an evolutionary benefit as well, actually, as even our methods of “play” can be improved through long enough practice and iteration. These refined methods of play can then be handed down instead, which will likely be more efficient than previous iterations.
Well, youre not going to find something “on the scale” of central park in other cities because no us city is “on the scale” of nyc…
-Size wise, nyc’s population is nearly double the next largest city… -Density wise, nyc’s population density is nearly double that of the next densest city -skyscraper wise, nyc has nearly double the quantity of skyscrapers as the next most skyscraper heavy city…
See the trend??
If you look at it proportionally though, many US cities have something similar, many of them have been brought up itt…
Personally, id say pittsburgh and chicago have roughly what youre looking for…
-chicago has a few large urban parks that are surrounded by skyscrapers… the only difference is that they are next to the lake… pretty much all the amenities in nyc’s central park can be found in lincoln & grant parks…
-pittsburgh also has a large urban park in the heart of downtown (hell, they bulldozed 1/3 of downtown to build it)… while it only has skyscrapers on one side, it is literally 1/10th the size of nyc, so give it some slack lol.
Central Park was established in 1860 when NYC was 1 million people. Other cities could have seen this good idea and set aside land when they were even smaller.
And the same still applied in 1860… nyc was double the size of the next largest city back then.
And to answer your question, they did do the same… chicago for example also built lincoln park in 1860 even though they were 1/10th the population at the time. The only difference between central & lincoln park is that lincoln park is larger than central park & not as square… its entirety (that isnt water) is surrounded by skyscrapers & is very much central to the city…
To add more, central park is 4 miles away from the citys financial district… lincoln park is 2 miles away… it is MORE “central” than central park lol
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