Growing out of gaming it seems. Soon no longer a gamer.

[Guy from the 80's]

I recently bought a PS3 in order to play the exclusives. I mainly play on Pc so thats something I do, I buy all the best stuff when everything has dropped in price. I have all the PS3 exclusives to look forward to.

So I buy the last of us, kill zone games and the uncharted games. I start with the last of us, I liked that game but to be honest I give it a 7/10...not the 9 or 10/10 most reviewers has given it. The game was good, a truly great storytelling game.....but I didn't get the feeling I once got when I played games like Final Fantasy 7, Metal gear solid or Max Payne.
I tried Uncharted and kill zone but I quit after 30 minutes.

The only games I play regularly is Paradox games such as Europa Universalis. All other titles I never even complete. I recon that in 5 years time I wont play games at all......

I'm starting to think that the only thing that can save gaming for me is virtual reality, or maybe not.


Anyone else feels the same?

 

[Phasmal]

Wow that kind of sucks, dude.

I tend to stay away from threads like this cause I worry it's contagious. >.>

I went through a phase of this years ago, and then Oblivion happened. I'd had a lot of boring IRL stuff to deal with before that and kind of got pulled away from games. I was just lucky I had an awesome game like that to pull me back in.

So you never know, maybe you'll see a game sooner or later that will just grab you by the insides and pull you back in. Or maybe not.

 

[theSovietConnection]

I go through phases like this sometimes, though it tends to be my fault because my brain decides to take a comment from someone else and make a big deal out of it. For a relevant example, until Pokemon X, I hadn't beaten a single Pokemon game since Sapphire because of a couple friends of mine who would go on non-stop about end-gaming and things like EV training and egg moves. It completely killed my enthusiasm for a series I once thoroughly enjoyed, and it took until just a couple months ago to finally get it back.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Thought the same thing a few times in the past but there has always been one game to pull me back in such as Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy VII and Prince of Persia Sands of Time being the big 3 that pulled me back in and reminded me of why I started playing games in the first place.

I dont game as much as I used to because other things take up the majority of my time now and to be honest there is a lot I dont like but so far there has always been one game that has reminded me of how awesome some games can be at a time I had forgotten.

Btw I also didnt think much of The Last of Us and did not like Uncharted (1 I liked 2 and 3 although 3 is just 2 again) or Killzone.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I don't finish games anymore. I get my fill and move on.

 

[Liquidprid3]

I go through phased where games just get boring, usually because I play too much. I usually try to learn to play a song from a video game, or I watch TV or anime in my time where I usually play games. I'm thinking you should just take a break from games for a week or so. Maybe you won't come back, and you'll find something better to do in your time. Or you should just try out a new hobby for a while. Don't force yourself to play games if you aren't enjoying them.

 

[krazykidd]

It happens,but maybe your tastes have changed. I felt the same way then i discovered fighting games. It was a genre i didn't touch for 10 years. It felt new and fresh BECAUSE i haven't played them in so long. So thats my suggestion, play something you haven't in a long time.

 

[Elfgore]

It happens in phases for me. Right now I'm kinda in one. All I've been playing is visual novels and you read those more than play them. Maybe when summer hits I might get back into more gamey games.

 

[Roxas1359]

Happens to me from time to time really. For me though the only games I seem to finish nowadays are the ones for my Let's Plays, I rarely complete games on their own when gaming in my free time. Before I started LPing I was starting to get that way as well, just not finishing any games at all. Now though I can say that I'm at least finishing them, which is a start I guess. :/

Whenever I get in that mood though I watch some funny LPs for a while and it helps to get me back into a gaming mood.

 

[Treeberry]

It happens, such is the way of hobbies. It's lovely though when you stumble across a game that drags you out of that pit and has you skipping down happy game lane until the next dreaded Phase of Despair.

I bought Earth Defense Force 2025 the other day and realised something. It's one of the few (maybe only?) PS3 games I have that didn't immediately go through the Installing Game Data - Installing Patch - Checking Game Data etc. BS as soon as I put the disc in. It was strangely liberating and made me realise how oddly demoralised I've been feeling towards modern games.

I seriously miss the simplicity of games consoles. What happened to getting a console you could easily plug in and just play games without having to go through a song and dance and without all this forced media crap (photo albums, media storage, intrusive DRM checks etc.) that I have other, better devices for? My PS3 sounds like it's about to take off despite being clean and otherwise healthy yet my other consoles including ones from the 80s and 90s rarely even get warm.

And don't get me started on the decline of quality writing in games that claim to have a strong story.

 

[Artina89]

I have phases where I don't play videogames at all, then I will go through a period of time where gaming seems to be the only thing I do. I would give it a little time before declaring that you are no longer a gamer. There may be a game that sucks you right back in, on the other hand, maybe not. Who knows what the future holds?

 

[MysticSlayer]

Normally when I go through these kind of phases, it is due to a change in interests. I used to be really big in shooter games, especially military shooters, but in the last couple years, I've mostly moved away from them. Of course, a couple years ago, it felt like I was losing all interest in gaming, as shooters had basically dominated gaming for me for years, but once I rediscovered some of my favorite platformers (Mario and Prince of Persia especially), got into RPGs, and started getting back into stealth/stealth-action games, I realized that it was mostly just me getting burned out on certain games. Even in those genres, I sometimes feel burned out a little until I come across a game that manages to capture what I loved about them in the first place.

Personally, I would advise that you look into the games that originally got you into gaming and see what has been made recently to recapture the spirit of those older titles. Also, don't be afraid to branch out to stuff you normally wouldn't play. Of course, it won't help if you really are just moving away from games, but it might also just be that your interests have changed and you haven't yet found the games that meet your new interests.

 

[Padwolf]

I have phases like it, however whenever those occur a new Harvest Moon game happens to come out and suddenly I'm sucked into them and can spend an entire day on them. God I love Harvest Moon. Though I don't love the DS ones very much. Though I sometimes get into a phase where I don't want to play any games at all other than an MMO. I hate those phases because they normally strike when I don't have money for my WoW sub

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I would say that what you're experiencing is closer to game burn-out.

It happens to me sometimes, and I am currently in that phase now where I just want to play for short periods of time (5-20mins) instead of the long sessions I used to enjoy when I was younger.

Those usually get fixed when I buy a new game but new releases have been kind of meh up to this point in time.

It could be worse though, it could be the summer games drought where there is nothing new, nothing interesting coming out and you just end up re-playing old stuff.

But yeah, you're not growing out of games, you're just a bit tired of them.

It will pass.

 

[Riverwolf]

When I was a kid I didn't have many games. I think most of us were in that boat. As a result, we played to death and with love the games we did have, even if they turned out to suck in hindsight. Furthermore, as children, there wasn't much else in the world to worry about.

But as we grow older and have less time and more matters to deal with, most pastimes (games, movies, books, all of them) start to get pushed to the side, and sometimes discarded altogether. That we now have access to literally thousands of games coupled with an unspoken cultural obligation to play them all is intimidating. It causes burnout.

I'm sure all of us have had an itch to play something, anything, but have stared for a long time at our various libraries and couldn't decide what to play, ultimately not playing anything, or choosing something only to play for a few minutes before quitting.

But I still regard myself as a gamer, and I still play games a lot, even though not as much as when I was a child. I don't have a PS4 or an Xbone, nor do I have any plans to get either. I also didn't play a lot from the last generation; I have a 360, but never got into Call of Duty or Halo or any of the other iconic 360 games(I don't even have any of them). The games I played on it pretty much all have PC ports, except Kameo which nobody seems to know about. I don't have a PS3. I have a Wii, but mostly used it for the Virtual Console and my GameCube games (both of which pretty much became obsolete when I transferred to my WiiU.)

And that's the key: last night, I spent 3 hours trying to FINALLY beat Ninja Gaiden, since the ability to play the WiiU curled up in bed without the TV is one of the reasons I love the hunk of junk (I don't have a 3DS). I am still a gamer, but primarily a retro gamer. There's thousands of games from the late 80s and 90s that I haven't tried or haven't mastered yet, and so has so much to offer on top of being much cheaper than investing in new stuff.

...and seriously, how come nobody talks about Kameo? That game's great! Is that just going to be my Psychonauts?

 

[michael87cn]

Sounds like you don't really know much about video games. You seemed to have just bought 'the popular' ones. Try some other games. Dark Souls is a great series on the PS3.

Really, though, Xbox had a lot more games than the PS3. At least, good ones.

 

[mattaui]

Yep, I've experienced burnout like that before, with lots of hobbies. Usually just means I've let myself get too set in my ways and I need to branch out, either into other parts of the hobby or into other pass times for awhile. Given the number of gamers I know in their late 30s and 40s (including myself in that number), I'm not sure you necessarily 'grow out of it', but your interests could certainly change.

 

[shootthebandit]

Im getting like that. I used to look forward to playing a game but now it just seems like a chore. Currently I have a GBC app on my phone and im having a gen 1 nostalgia trip. I just pick it up when i have a spare hour or so

I work 7:30 - 4:30 every day so by the time I get home and cook a meal I just dont have a lot of time. Weekends im usually in a club incredibly drunk snogging the face off a random girl then too hungover the next day to even consider moving from my bed. Its kinda good in a way that ive sort of "grown out of" gaming but it means on the off chance ive got a few hours spare its more of an occasion when I do get to have a game.

 

[wulfy42]

This is a problem for alot of people lately I hear. I still play games a decent amount a week, but at the same time I have a HUGE list of games I own and have not played...and I look at that list trying to figure out which ones to play but can't find the motivation to start.

I often just fall back on flash games or ipad games as they are easy to get into and fun (rpg/tower defense mainly).

The longer games on pc and game systems, just seem like too much work. I don't have the patience to get started with them so I often give up right away before it starts to get good. I've tried to play Xenosaga 3 times but each time I just get bored and move on, and RPGs used to be my favorite genre.

It's really sad, I have more time now, and plenty of money to buy games...not to mention freaking thousands of games to play already, but just can't find the motivation. I'd rather read or watch a show..or heck even watch a lets play of a game, then play it myself at this point.

 

[Signa]

Well, OP, you should go play those old titles you mentioned, and see if you still find them fun. I'm of the opinion that nearly all new games suck, or pander to you until they get boring. You may have finally realized that on some level and now don't know what to do about it. I feel like that a lot these days, but I always have a blast going and playing something old.