Do I Not Like Video Games Anymore?

[Spaceman Spiff]

Find a back-up hobby. When I don't feel like gaming I like to read (usually either sci-fi novels or comics). You can always come back to the games when you feel like it.

You could also try out different genres. Find some older/used/indy games to try out. They'll be cheaper than the latest AAA games, so it's a good way to try something different without wasting too much cash.

 

[FoolKiller]

There are "great" games out there, I even own many of them. I just don't want to fucking play them because they all fucking suck.

Any Bioshock game, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Red Dead Redemption, New Vegas, DMC, Spec Ops, Persona 3 and 4, Pokemon X, Mirror's Edge, tons of indie games, The Walking Dead, Sleeping Dogs, countless others. They don't give me what I want anymore. Or maybe I just don't want what they give.

People grow and change. What they want out of their entertainment falls into this too.

As a child I hated Mario. I found the gameplay boring and repetitive. Now as an adult, I play those games as well as other "children's" games like the LEGO series and such. I realized that the longer, harder games didn't fit into my schedule any more but I still liked gaming to unwind. So now I pop in the latest LEGO game and just have a bit of fun. Recently I also beat Castle of Illusion (starring Mickey) HD, and Ducktales Remastered. I'm enjoying the simpler, shorter games these days.

 

[Raikas]

I find that my tastes in entertainment vary pretty cyclically - I played virtually no games aside from social/party ones from about 2006-2008. It had nothing to do with the quality of games that came out during those years, I just wasn't interested in the medium.

Same thing with almost every other format. 2007-2010 I to subscribe to concert series and see movies at the cinema every week, now I go for maybe 3 concerts/year and mostly watch movies at home, prior to a couple of years ago I read 3-5 books/week - these days I might read one every could of months. And I feel like all of that could change again in the future - Sometimes I think we just need to be entertained in different ways, y'know?

 

[Liquidprid3]

Yeah, I think you just might be tired of games for a bit. Sometimes when I play games a lot, for a week or so I won't really play at all. You're probably just burned out from a lot of gaming. If I were you, I'd take a break for a month or two, or try to play to play a game you don't feel like playing. For example, sometimes I want to play a game, but not any of the games I have. What I do is a pick a random game and play itt. More often than not I'll find myself enjoying the game, even if I didn't think I wanted to play that game. That's just me, though.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I personally love games still... But I also seem to struggle getting into something new... I feel some games have become stale where I am expecting something new.

To counter this I have a large tendency to play older games now, or to play games that didn't get very good crit from the start.
A game I started recently was Game of Thrones on the X-Box. Nothing special, however, I really quite like the gameplay and the dialogue, and that was enough to hook me. I went in with low expectations, and came away surprised.
I go into old RPG's like Baldurs' Gate and Neverwinter Nights fully understanding that they are dated, they may be clunky and that the screens may be complicated and counter intuative, but then I can easily see beyond it and enjoy it more.

I am like you... I pick up a game, play it a while and can just trail off... I have a list of games that I want to finish but never did... Lost Oddessy is one of these, where I got distracted by something better and never went back. I bet in a couple more years I will dust it off and be massively surprised about how much I enjoy it and play it all the way through!

Do you play many open world games? I find those easier to get value for money personally. I know that they are huge, and I don't really mind not finding all the collectables or completing 100%, but I get a lot of satisfaction from a Bethesda game, or a sand-box superhero game when I make a character the way I want and make my own adventures in the world... Same with games like GTA and Sleeping Dogs.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I feel like there are a lot of people who have fallen into this. These are usually people who played video games daily growing up, but recently things have seemed to stagnate and we're getting bored. We wanted our first person shooters, and we got them. Unfortunately that's all we get though. We wanted out open world games and we got them. Now every game attempts to be open world.

You know what I did a few weeks ago? I grabbed all three Modern Warfare games, and played them all straight through, one after the other. It felt...oddly refreshing to play something linear. Something crafted with the specific intent to entertain. And I enjoyed myself. A lot actually.

Another thing I've done is try playing a lot of games with my brother. My brother is the best co op partner in the world to me. We like the same games, play them very often, and we both know how we play. Playing games like DayZ, 7 Days to Die, Minecraft, Saints Row 2-4, Payday 1 and 2, and Nether wouldn't have been nearly the same by myself. It's added an insane amount of playability to games that I'd otherwise probably get bored with in about 4 hours.

I find pacing in open world games to be destroyed. A recent example was GTA5. The story plays out as if each even comes one after the other, but yet a large part of the games content is going out in the games world and finding the other stuff to do. Nothing connects for me that way. I feel like if I get too side tracked in the extra missions and activities, I won't have the drive to complete the story. And I feel like if I just try to complete nothing but the main story in one go, there's really no purpose in me doing all those extra activities to begin with.

 

[lacktheknack]

I was starting to get bored with games a bit until I started reviewing them. Now I can't get enough of the damn things. D:

Maybe you could try that.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

Maybe it's the case you should not try to derive much of your entertainment from video games any more. Read more books or go out more. After a while, try a video game again. Just be sure to not watch more movies.

 

[___________________]

I've been thinking the same thing as you mate. Games are just too boring now. Not that we've outgrown them. Hell, I play quite a bit of flash games at kongregate for example.

The thing about games is that everything that comes out is bland. Everything is brown, grey and bland. And I'm not talking colour patterns either. The concepts are all the same. The mechanics are all the same. Everything feels the same. Whether it's a shooter, rpg, etc. All the same. Why? because each genre didn't stay the same and they wanted to "innovate". So now you get a crap load of over-priced and very boring things.

If I'm going to play around with numbers, vectors and electric impulses that go from one machine to another, then I want to have fun. I don't want the same crap painted in a different colour....or different gradient in some more extreme cases of boredom.

Flash games are alright so far. My advice to you is play those. They're free and more entertaining than the "big" ones.

 

[EbonBehelit]

I'm kinda in the same boat. I own a pile of games I haven't even touched yet - hell, I have a decent ps3 library of which only two games have ever been played.

Right now the only games I play are Planetside 2, Monster Hunter 3U and - despite being seriously bored with it - WoW. I have no motivation to play anything else, and it's hard for me to put a finger on why that is.

Perhaps the problem is simply to do with choice? When I was younger, I'd only have one new game at a time - one thing to focus on. However, in recent years I've taken to buying anything remotely interesting and putting it on my mental 'to-do' list. The problem with this is that now I have so many games that I can't actually decide on what new game to try (being naturally indecisive doesn't help), so I just go back to being bored in WoW. It's quite vexing, and actually makes me depressed at times.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I am trying to stay away from gaming forums discussing whatever game I am currently playing. For a few years, I spent more time talking about games instead of playing them. I think that hurts the entertainment value of games just as with anything you deconstruct. My fondest memories of gaming are most certainly pre-internet.

I am trying to enjoy games for what they are and not for what the internet says they are/should be. I'll give you an example, it wasn't until the internet that I found out that Super Mario World was inferior to the Genesis Sonic games. I always thought they were both great but the internet says Sonic is better and now when I play SMW, I always remember that...even if I don't believe it. Another example is Final Fantasy X, I never thought anything about the laughing scene until I "learned" on the internet how horrible it is.

My suggestion, try to go back in time and play games as if there were no internet to deconstruct it for you, disregard if you are already doing that.

My most recent success story is Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. A PS1 game that I never got around to playing. When playing it, I make an effort to not look online unless I am really stumped. I try to remember that I don't really need to know all the secrets and that obtaining them all via the internet would harm my satisfaction. I am really loving the game. I doubt I will beat it but I have put many hours into it so far and I feel very satisfied about what I have gotten out of it.

 

[JohnnyFartPant5]

I am exactly the same situation as you. I find having an overwhelming amount of choice being the main stumbling block. I wonder if you, like me are just growing up. It's a scary thought. Maybe what was charming and challenging and exciting 10 years ago is now just dull and annoying. Or maybe you are just depressed and once you find your way back, gaming will resume it's charm once more.

Just give gaming a break. It's not going anywhere. You have just got to try and fill that void with something else.

Good luck!

 

[Gxas]

I can't name 5 current gen launch titles

I don't even think there were 5 new launch titles between the Xbox One and the PS4.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Yeah, it does happen sometimes.

Especially during the summer doldrums, there is absolutely nothing worthwhile coming out in the summer, and if there is, you swiftly devour it and move on.

Also, there is a point at which you start thinking that there is too much commitment involved into a game, so you just end up not playing them for a while.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I broke it down into 4 things that were keeping me from having fun:
- growing up brings new responsibilities and with it attention wavers
- chewing the same food or hobby every day starts to make it very plain
- over indulging in instant gratification methods turns everything else sour (it's real easy to press that Buy button and get all the new exciting games, but then playing them... nah that would take effort)
- consequently an over-abundance of choice actually makes it harder to choose, can get to the point where you don't want to be burdened with even choosing and avoid your existing library all together

So take a break from gaming(as in do something else), don't keep any more then one or two games around at any time, and most importantly stop buying shit you don't need.

 

[Seracen]

I feel the exact same way as the OP. For me, they just aren't making my kind of games as often, or entertain sensibilities that no longer interest me.

Case in point: JRPG's are a rare form nowadays, unless you have handhelds, which I've never utilized. I've never been as much into shooters as my friends, and I am very particular about proper storylines.

As such, there are maybe 1-2 titles a year that I really care for, and the rest of my time is catching up on my backlog, or playing games I never thought I would.

Keep at it man, you'll find something you like. For me, it's predominantly PC games. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other ways to spend your time.

 

[lord.jeff]

More then likely you just need a break from gaming, take up knitting for a few months and then see if you feel like coming back to gaming.

 

[DrOswald]

I think I might not like video games anymore.

I own dozens of PS+ games I'm never going to play. I own at least a dozen actual discs that I don't play. I own dozens of Steam games I don't play. I own a 3DS I don't carry anymore, same for my Vita.

The only games I've been playing recently are NHL 14 and Jetpack Joyride.

Before that I played Tomb Raider and The Last of Us. I liked Tomb Raider but didn't feel it was worth the $22 price tag. I loved The Last of Us but it feels like the exception.

For years now I've refused to pay the $60 for a new game because none of them were worth my time and money. Since the PS3 and 360 came out the only games I remember paying full retail for were GTA V, Borderlands 2, The Last of Us, Dishonored, and Portal 2.

I don't finish games these days. I finished those 5, I can't think of any others.

There are "great" games out there, I even own many of them. I just don't want to fucking play them because they all fucking suck.

Any Bioshock game, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Red Dead Redemption, New Vegas, DMC, Spec Ops, Persona 3 and 4, Pokemon X, Mirror's Edge, tons of indie games, The Walking Dead, Sleeping Dogs, countless others. They don't give me what I want anymore. Or maybe I just don't want what they give.

I started my love affair with games by playing FF7 and Pokemon Blue, it grew with Thief 2 and the Splinter Cell series. Portal blew me away. Everything else has felt like tasteless cardboard for years now. Nothing excites me anymore. I can't name 5 current gen launch titles, I just don't give a fuck.

I think I might not like video games anymore.

Eliminate games from your life for a month at least. Don't touch them, don't think about them, don't come to the escapist, all of that. Then come back. It is entirely possible that you have simply over saturated yourself with games and are sick of them. If you take a break then you might find your interest revitalized.

 

[Conner42]

Well, it's around this time that you should probably start experimenting with different games. All of those games you have listed all seem to be well known, AAA titles. And, yeah, a lot of them can be wearisome as, a lot of the times, it'll feel like you're playing the same game over and over again. And, in many ways, you probably are. You're mind is probably craving something for just something a little bit different for once, something that will challenge you in some other way.

It's kind of like that with me and music. I've moved on from a lot of what seems to be standard and, with few exceptions, have a hard time listening to anything anymore because it just sounds the same after a while. And, not only that, but a lot of songs I used to like when I was growing up in High School are songs that I absolutely despise now. I think it's a big reason why I can't really work with a lot of people in music anymore(I play guitar) is because that they seem to always want to take the safest, most boring options while I'm just craving for something different, something challenging. But, Pandora has opened me up through different kinds of music and I'm starting to realize that maybe I just like the soundtrack to movies or video games kind of music. The soundtrack to Skyrim is absolutely gorgeous on a lot of parts. Also, there are other musicians willing to experiment and try something new that I might like. A lot of the times, what they try to do won't always work, but, sometimes, I can find something really cool.

And, it's exactly the same way with games. When you've played so many, especially coming from the AAA industry, it does all start to seem the same. There are exceptions from the industry, I've been pleasantly surprised(I did actually really like Bioshock Infinite and I was surprised how fun Assassin's Creed 4 was especially after the giant mess that was Assassin's Creed 3). But, a lot of the games that I really like come from smaller developers who are willing to try something different. FTL is an example that comes to the forefront of my mind, as I find it a more immersive experience than the most highly advanced, highly detailed games(Like Skyrim) that I can think of playing. Sure, even indie games can rely heavily on a safe route option and maybe even just rely on nostalgia with a certain gimmick, but there are other developers who are really willing to try something different.

It's just time to try something different.

 

[Treeinthewoods]

You sound like the average poster on this website OP, not liking video games is pretty standard.

Play some of the games you used to love and see if you still enjoy them. If that doesn't work just accept that you have changed and take up a new hobby. Try scuba, maybe martial arts or rodeo. Something simple, you know what I'm saying?