Gamers who have gamed for a long time

do you find it difficult to get into games? I’ve got Epic Games and Steam Games libraries chock-full of classic top-tier games along with many other newer games like Stray or 2077, and a bunch of indie titles. I just can’t be bothered to download and install them, much less try to get into the characters and storylines. Used to be I couldn’t wait to see what happened in the story, what new items you could collect, what new worlds the developers had created. Not anymore. I return to playing the same franchise for a quick FPS match or three and then I’m done.

Candelestine, (edited )

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.

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I have noticed it’s been harder and harder to find something I want to play. I’ve gone down both my Steam library and my wishlist going “No…no…no…god no…”

A lot of my games that I thoroughly enjoyed in the past but I am done with. These include the entire Half Life franchise, Kerbal Space Program and I think Stardew Valley. Loved those games, played the hell out of them, will probably not launch them again.

A lot of games I’ve found diminishing replay value. Like I feel like I’ve mastered Subnautica, having done a number of self-imposed challenge runs like baseless vegetarian.

Talking about “story” makes me want to fuss about Tears of the Kingdom. This game doesn’t have a story; it has an anecdote at best. It’s amazing how far they stretched so little over absolutely nothing. They wrote so little plot for this game that they couldn’t come up with four different cut scenes for the defeated the bosses sequences. It’s a genuinely amazing piece of craftsmanship, the amount of hard work that went into the art and engineering that is that game is an astounding achievement but wow I don’t like playing it, and I think, for the first time since I was 5 years old, I’m not going to buy the next Zelda game.

It’s been awhile since I’ve come across something new that makes me think “yeah I want to play that.”

Have you ever run out of Youtube to watch? Like there’s just nothing you’re interested in on there? It feels like that but bigger.

Giu176,

There are two things that worked for me when I was in your situation:

  • Playing with friends, of course it applies only to multilayer games and scheduling free time for two or more people could be difficult but it works so well for this problem. We have a WhatsApp group to coordinate some gaming nights and play rocket league, age of empires 2, cs go, overwatch and others, recently we are replaying DS3 next will be elden ring when the dlc drops.
  • Review games. I know it sounds absurd but I put some effort into creating an excel sheet with all the games I played and I reviewed them on what I think are the most significant aspects (characters design, level design, story, gameplay loop, graphics, sound, optimization just to name a few) I reached several reviews of the sheet and now it’s very complete and complex. I like to complete games, fill the form and add them to the list, I usually complete at least the main quest, anyway Icontinue to play the game until I’m satisfied and I’ve elaborate a score for each category. This helped me reasoning on the game development, what it wants to tell me, the evolution of the gaming industry, I’ve figured out what I like and what not, all of this combined with the the genuine excitement about starting a new game to add to the list it’s what re-enabled my passion when I was stucked like you are.

I hope this can help you. Send me a private message if you want to add me on steam and play sometimes or if you want a copy of the spreadsheet!

time_fo_that,

I have ADHD and find it difficult to get into new games unless they’re multi-player games I can play with my friends.

dangblingus,

I’ve been through a bunch of life phases and gaming has basically been a part of all of them. Definitely, over time, the thrill of a new game is a bit more subdued than when you were a kid because you have done it so many times, and I’ll admit, if a game doesn’t immediately grab me, I probably will bounce off it. I have a ton of games that I still play from gen 2-6 if I need to feel nostalgic. But I realized that I have trouble committing to games that feel too samey as the most recent ones I’ve played. If I play a JRPG, I have to follow that up with a platformer, followed by an indie game, followed by a Sony 3rd person shooter. Fighting games are also great pallet cleansers. Sounds like you’re depressed, and you should really spend time in nature and remember what and how you found joy in the past with gaming.

Franzia,

Well if you don’t even want to install them… Its okay to just run a few quick matches and log off. You’ve gamed for a long time? Take it easy, its a marathon not a sprint.

I’ve seen comments making comparisons to old and new gaming industry. They don’t do story as well any more. What I find is they don’t do marketing the way that appeals to me anymore either. If I want to be excited about a game, I have to read about it slowly and find wallpapers and concept art. I have to lead myself to the water before I can drink. I hype myself up about it!

One really extreme example of this is Runescape special accounts where youtubers like never leave one area, or do hardcore ironman, or play on one square at a time or whatever. I can take one tenth of that energy and make my gaming more interesting.

ohlaph,

Tastes change. What are you in to now?

TheDarksteel94,

The older I get the more I know what kinda games I’m into. So everything else I try to play just feels boring very quickly. I get bored very quickly in general if I don’t keep a game fresh for myself by, for example, mixing main and side quests instead of doing just one for hours.

I’ve also had times when I didn’t play any video games at all and just watched YouTube all day. And sometimes I felt like I played games just because I didn’t have anything better to do.

At the moment, I basically just play Cyberpunk and Battlebit, because both of those offer various ways of approaching encounters.

Zarxrax,

I feel like a lot of games these days make it difficult to get into, ironically by trying too hard to make it easy to get into, with excessive tutorialization. Part of it might also be the types of games that you like. For example, I want to play a game to have fun and challenge myself, not to sit around watching a story play out for a half hour while I walk around doing nothing. So the majority of popular games that people are always talking about are the kind of games that I would absolutely hate. I want to just jump in and play. The new Super Mario Wonder game is a pretty good example of something that just gets out of your way and lets you play the game, so I have been enjoying it quite a bit for the past few days. The recent F-zero 99 is also an enjoyable racing game for me, for the same reasons. I have also been getting into fighting games more in the past few years, so I’ve been playing Street Fighter 6 a lot.

So the most important thing I have learned, is that I can no longer just look at which games are considered “good”, because in many cases I’m going to hate them. When I was younger, I would love just about any of the popular games. But now, I know what I like, and that’s what I gravitate to.

middlemanSI,

I’d be playing a lot less I suspect, if I didn’t get into simracing. Nowadays it’s that and a roguelike FPS for in-between.

Fleshtrap,

Come and goes for me, I try to play only one RPG or adventure type game at a time to remain hooked to the plot, several hours into Final Fantasy 8 on steam at the moment, played Xenogears on my steamdeck using emulation before it. I’m in my thirties for reference.

GustavoM,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

(Almost) 40 year old gamer here. Eh… it depends of my mood and how “new” the game feels. But I find easier to settle in PvP-oriented games tho.

vasametropolis,

Great games feel fewer and farther between after this long. Yes, you get a Witcher 3, or Baldur’s Gate, or Zelda sometimes. But really, and it sounds fucked up to frame it this way, they’re merely excellent. And I’ve played a lot of excellent games, so unless one is on a tier never before experienced by anyone on Earth, eventually things feel less special for some reason. It’s fair to say that some games are innovative, but they are very few. The best we usually get is stuff we’ve seen before, just insanely well polished/tweaked on ocassion. Ultimately, there’s not a lot new if that makes sense. It’s sort of a been there done that vibe, and it’s probably just a sign you’ve played too much good shit. Like an addict that has hit the same pipe too many times lol.

mudmaniac,

Nothing sticks in my mind anymore. I tried to reinstall CP2077 and do a replay, but ultimately each time i exit it gets harder to start up and resume. I struggle to bother remembering which part of the story im am at. 20 years ago i would get “tetris effect” from pretty much any game I play; daydreaming about an RPG im playing, see tetris blocks falling into place, etc. Nowadays I don’t even get that with literal Tetris Effect.

It may be work life, stress etc. But part of myself just feels gaming is missing that old multiplayer feel where a whole bunch of us are in the Computer Science Lab, installing Doom 3 on the lab machines and playing til they kick us out at midnight. I’m also missing that feel of a whole bunch of us huddled in a McDonalds playing Mario Kart DS multiplayer, screaming so loud when someone triggers a lighting bolt, that the store manager essentially banned us from playing there ever again.

As for games like 2077, the sad realization is that the denouement leaves the me kinda confused more than anything. so many games I finish now leave me checking online to ask “What was that?”

I feel old now.

PieMePlenty,

The problem for me is that Im overwhelmed. Theres just too many games coming out. I just got through God Of War Ragnarok after it sat on my shelf for almost a year. Im glad I did though, I liked it. I kinda want to go back to Guild Wars 2 and check out the halloween event but I also just started my first Diablo 4 playthrough. Spiderman 2 looks like its pushing the medium forward so I want to try that too. Oh and Starfield, the game Ive been waiting for 5 years? Forget it. A new Forza game is out and Ive played all the previous ones so…

Its come to the point where I welcome delays and hallipy accept when a game gets shat during reviews because It just means I dont have to worry about it now or even play it when it comes out.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • asklemmy@lemmy.world
  • localhost
  • All magazines
    •
    Loading…
    Loading the web debug toolbar…
    Attempt #