Reaching Game Burnout

[AidoZonkey]

I've recently got back into gaming after having about a month of not playing anything. I felt like I needed some time away from games after I was sprinting though games in a couple of days. I completed Bioshock Infinite in a day and a half and I 100% the Mass Effect series in 3 days minus achievements. I eventually found that there was nothing I truly wanted to play so I just stopped.
Im now playing games, but now but taking my time with them.

So have any of you guys reached gaming burnout and what game made you reach this point?

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Yeah, I'm hitting that point now I think. I've got a sub to Star Wars the Old Republic, a single level cap and a bunch halfway there. I just can't summon the energy to play any of them, because it's a bit of a slog right now. I've tried to start new characters on Skyrim but can't settle on a class, treasure hunting in Uncharted 3 hasn't gone well and there's nothing on my Steam library I'm in the mood for.

I'm playing Final Fantasy VII again, very slowly in the background. I start college again in September so I'm hoping that will help!

 

[CloudAtlas]

There have always been times when I played too much and times when I played barely anything at all. But burned out? Once, yes, definitely, about 7 years ago, with WoW. Took me long enough, but the point finally came when I realized that if the thing you're looking most forward to in your semi-mandatory bi-weekly raid is its end, you just gotta stop.

 

[SadisticFire]

I *was* hitting burn out. I was switching between RP'ing, Team Fortress 2, and Minecraft for all summer. It was getting really hard to figure out what the hell I wanted to do cause it call got boring.(I did hardcore minecraft only to get blown up by a creeper fighting a boss :|) but then I realized I had the Payday 2 beta. Been playing *a lot* of that now. Shame the ranks will reset tomorrow when the game comes out.

 

[rasputin0009]

I'm so jealous. I'm at a work burnout right now. 12 hour days minimum every day until my next day off in 18 days. I've played 6 hours of Farcry 3 and 10 hours of Battlefield 3 in the last 4 months lol.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I don't really reach burnout that much because I can't really focus on a game for more than a few hours a week.

The exception being Fire Emblem: Awakening, which I've played a bit too much recently.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

There'd be periods where I enjoy watching movies and going out more than others after I finished a really good game. I will keep going back to video games at the end.
I normally switch between different genres to keep them fresh. So an RPG accompanied by a racing game, an adventure game or a fighting game, something easy to pick up and play.

 

[AidoZonkey]

The exception being Fire Emblem: Awakening, which I've played a bit too much recently.

Yeah I had to give that game to a friend for a bit just to stop me playing it. I must have put something like 40 hours plus, damn that game is addicting

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm...Not on a game kick right now. I'm not burned out, but the last couple weeks I realised I have waaaay more games from the Steam Summer Sales than I have time I'm willing to dedicate right now. This is unusual for me, as I only kill what I plan to eat.

I've been reading a lot more instead. This, I don't think it burnout, but rather my natural fluctuation of interests.

 

[sextus the crazy]

The exception being Fire Emblem: Awakening, which I've played a bit too much recently.

Yeah I had to give that game to a friend for a bit just to stop me playing it. I must have put something like 40 hours plus, damn that game is addicting

Yeah, man. I put in something like 130 hours into it last semester, through 2 playthroughs and the DLC, which I still need to finish.

 

[william12123]

Ya, I go through periodic game burnout. I'm in one of those phases now: I've got a ton of great games from the steam sale to play, but I seriously cant motivate myself to play them. I'll get back into it eventually, but it'll take a while.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Since video games are kind of part of my job, I can't afford to burn out. But I don't think I've ever burned out on them and I don't feel like I will any time soon. I'm more picky now, that's for sure. I have higher standards and such, so I play less games than ever. But the new generation's made me tired of looking ahead so much. I'm playing a lot of games I missed like Final Fantasy VII and Persona 3.

I burn out on comics a lot, though so I know the feeling.

 

[cikame]

It's hard to say, i'm not replacing what i do with anything else, i just balance it differently these days.
I've always read about games and the industry but now i do that for most of the day and only play for an hour or two, when i was a kid i completed San Andreas in 2 days, then played through it again, these days it takes me weeks to finish something, and even then sometimes i move on to something else, so each game usually takes me months.

I do however play alot more fighting games now, probably because most can't be 'finished' so i don't need to commit to them, easy to turn on and off.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

Yeah I know the feeling.

I's sure a lot of people don't fell like doing a lot of gaming in massive spaces of free time after a while.

For me in my massive free time I like doing multi player with my friend and single player games are much more appealing when they are relief from my college work load. I know what pushed me through Fire Emblem Awakening and the first part of Soul Hackers was the fact that it was a nice sanctuary away from my work load, but here in the tail end of summer I dont feel too motivated to go through a singe player game.

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I hit my burnout point over a year ago due to frustration with the industry's obsession with DRM, penny-content DLC, and their refusal to classify their products as anything but "subscriptions". The one issue that really pushed me over the edge was Valve's highly anti-customer EULA changes, and after that I just got fed up with the whole scene and started boycotting various companies. I eventually stopped playing games completely for a couple months.

I eventually realized that nothing in the industry was going to change, so I sulked back to my favorite hobby and am now happily playing games again. I'm just a little smarter making purchases these day.

 

[Evonisia]

I've not reached a burnout point with gaming as a whole, but I do reach it occasionally.

Multiplayer games rarely have such an effect, maybe a slow burn (one does not simply play Gears of War 3 Multiplayer to over level 75 pre-patch without dedication)
I tend to burn myself out of singleplayer games by burning through them quickly in one or two sessions, it's happened with most of the games I've played this year and makes me less likely to play them for a little while.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I love Burnout. My favorite was Revenge. I miss Crash Junctions.
...
Oh.
Yea, that's happened to me. I just do other things. I missed the whole PS1 generation doing other things. Sometimes I just go back to an old game I liked. Before Borderlands 2 came out I was playing San Andreas again.

 

[chuckdm]

I never used to have this problem, but around a year ago I hit a wall. Almost 30 games installed and I couldn't bring myself to play any of them. So I spent some time trying to figure out WHY this was the case and I came to 2 conclusions.

1) The ME3 ending put me in a mild depression in general for about 3 months. I don't know why because I've never even played the first one and only played ME2 maybe 3 times, so I wasn't uber-attached to the series. And I felt nothing for shepherd dying, that was fine, hell even expected. I guess mostly I just wish there had been more space combat. As in any at all. I fully expected to play as Joker and pilot the Normandy third-person and blow up some reapers first-hand. I still wish that would've happened.

2) Partially because of ME3 and part just from looking down the list of what I have installed, I realized something: nothing has a Skirmish mode any more. Back when I first started gaming (I'm gonna say around 1997 or so) I played RTS games almost exclusively, and they ALL had a skirmish mode. Hell, the only game I had for the first 2 years on a PC was Command & Conquer: Red Alert and I didn't play a single online match OR any of the story missions until 2 years ago. I played nothing but Skirmish. When I got into Unreal Tournament, same thing. I used to spend hours with a redeemer in camera mode just nuking the fuck out of everything. And it was fun.

So I reinstalled C&C3: Kane's Wrath, Red Alert 3, and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, along with Unreal Tournament 3, and guess what? I don't hit burnout any more. I still play a TON of story games, but when the story gets too much, I fire up one of my new-old-favorites in Skirmish mode and focus on the gameplay and the tactics and just ignore the story. I do that for a day, and I'm craving for good narrative again.

 

[Neverhoodian]

It happens. I'm going through a bit of a phase myself right now. You can't force yourself out of the slump, so just go with the flow.

Personally, I've noticed that it's becoming more common with the passage of time. As an adult with a full time job trying to juggle bills, housekeeping, and a social life, I find that I don't have the time or inclination that I used to for gaming. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely changes my priorities. Whereas I used to jump at the opportunity to play a game with an intricate story and dozens upon dozens of hours of gameplay, now I find such a scenario daunting more often than not. I still indulge in the occasional long gaming session, but it takes more of an effort to do so nowadays.