Idk if it is me getting older or if videogames just suck now.
I would argue it’s a side effect of getting older.
Not that you’re growing out of games, but moreso that you’re spending more time working, and doing other life related things that gaming no longer feels productive of fun.
I’m working full time and take online classes, but I really love gaming still, I’ve just had to find games that respect my time, since my time is so precious to me right now.
I’ve grown to loath multiplayer match-based games because it’s the same thing over and over again with nothing to show for it, while things like DOOM, Skyrim, Dishonored, older assassins creed games, and various indie titles are all quick, fun, to the point and offer good stories that I enjoy.
I just can’t deal with round after round after round of the same thing. Or an MMO where it’s just “Do this for hours and hours to grind out this skill and that skill”
Like I want to play the game, not click 30,000 times.
You’re getting older unfortunately. I’ve been watching this happen among my friends for a long while now. They all slowly grow up and leave gaming behind replacing it with other hobbies or interests. Your free time becomes more limited the older you get and the more responsibilities you aquire in life (career, spouse, children, etc.). I’m one of the last hold outs from my childhood friend group, and even I’m slowly starting to lose interest in gaming. I don’t think I’ll ever give it up entirely, but it definitely doesn’t hold the same appeal for me that it once had.
If I can ask, around how old are you and your friends? How many years do I have left Doc?
I’m in my early 40’s. I’m still hanging in there, and I do still enjoy gaming, just not with the same passion or levels of enjoyment I once had. Every once in a while a new game drops that will bring it back but only for a little while though.
Its not your age, it’s the games you’re playing. There’s a ton of great games out right now, but if you’re playing the same kinds of games you’ve always played, maybe you’ve outgrown them. You could be frustrated with their mechanics, or think their progression isn’t as good as the old games, maybe you cant see as well or grind as hard as these twelve year olds on adderall, whatever it may be.
Try playing games you enjoyed before. You’ll probably still like them. Branch out into different genres, even if it’s something you don’t know if you’ll like or not. I don’t care for top down games, but gave Hades a try and absolutely loved it. Maybe try to play remakes/remasters/new takes on old games. The REmakes for Resident Evil (particularly 2&4, I liked 3 but it gets a lot of deserved hate), and even the continuation of the RE franchise in Biohazard and Village are fun and scary. Just some recommendations. :)
Definitely changeling taste and enshittification. Don’t care to play another million dollars AAA fps-box purchaseing simulator or whatever this years dead horse is.
Get me a chill basebulding and automation game and I will literally risk unemployment from staying up late. Bonus points for boobs or warcrimes.
You played Against the Storm yet? I find it’s the best base building game. No war crimes yet unfortunately
Microtransactions are killing, or have killed if you’re cynical, modern gaming. Whether you have disposable income or not, it is viscerally tedius to try to escape into a game just to be pestered to use real money. I play games to avoid our capitalist exploitation dystopia, not further engage with it.
I’ve largely abandoned live games for this reason. I used to be good at online FPS, but it just isn’t worth the “buy this skin or you suck” every single login bullshit. I’ve been modding the Bethesda games and there’s really no getting bored of those world’s with constant new enthusiast content.
There’s nothing really “new” anymore, at least not mechanics-wise. Sure, graphics have become pretty good looking. But it’s all still the same RPGs, first person shooters, and other shit from the 90s. When I see modern FPSs, I’m still seeing Wolfenstein 3D from 1992. Not a damn thing has changed.
I’m over 40 and finding wands in Noita fills me with joy.
“So, this one homes on enemies, has triple cast and delayed explosions… Hmmm, but what does orbital and bouncy do together?”
*shoots near beehive*
>Entire screen explodes
And I just restart the game with a grin. I feel like that game made what actual magic would be. Starting the game by silently teaching us about the dangers of fire was a stroke of genius. It’s always fire with magic, just weirder, bigger and wilder types of fire, and both me and my enemies don’t command it, we simply live in a world with it. Nothing but a video game could make me experience this. Nothing but a video game could generate near endless amounts of endlessly unlearnable amounts of raging wildfires to be amused by.
Probably both. A lot of games really do suck ass. CoD is just comically bad in so many ways.
There’s some cool stuff out there, though. battlebit is aces, better than any CoD or Battlefield in years. Hunt Showdown is unqiue and cool. Darktide is an awesome horde shooter. Warframe… is warframe. Deep Rock Galactic is fun spacedorf action. Splitgate mixes up old school HALO:CE gameplay with portals that let you pull off cool kills or radically change the movement rountes across the map. There’s ARMA3 and Reforger if you like milsim, with varyiung levels of milsimminess from “Sir yes sir” tryhards to people who just try to use basic infantry tactics and cooperate. There’s apparently a huge star wars mod scene right now.
You’re not crazy, you just need to get away from 40 hour long open world chore games
Arcade style games that give you a quick hit are what I miss. Things that drop you straight in the action and don’t let up.
I think some are making a bit of a come back on the Indy scene though.
Pretty sure I’m in the same boat. Literally nothing is enjoyable anymore and I have 0 motivation to do anything “productive” after work since it’s all just more work…
My friends must think im nuts when they see me bounce from game to game to game within 1-2 hours because nothing keeps my attention lol
This has been me the majority of the time since about 2020, which I chalk up to depression and more recently suspecting that I have ADHD (I know self-diagnosing isn’t cool, I intend to explore this more formally eventually, but I have many reasons for suspecting it in general). Sometimes it’s bad enough that if something doesn’t grab me in 5-15 minutes, I’ll bounce off to something else and probably repeat the cycle a few more times before giving up and doing something else instead.
I find that I can’t really play modern games at all anymore. They just feel like work and are more concerned with monetization rather than being enjoyable to play. Modern experiences feel so hollow to me now. I miss when the main draw of a multiplayer game was feeling your skills improve rather than spending 100+ hours to get some skin from grinding out a battlepass. It feels like a chore. I fell off of TOTK in May and apparently haven’t been too eager to return to it. I’ve been doing a decent job sticking with Mass Effect lately though. Helps that it runs perfectly on Steam Deck so I don’t always have to be on my PC. It’s my first time playing ME1, which helps. We’ll see if I can stick with it through 2 and 3, which I played many years ago.
This has also led to me drifting apart from many of the people who I previously considered to be my friends. Most of them barely leave the house anymore and only hang out and communicate on Discord, which I am barely on anymore due to my general lack of interest in games lately, my general disinterest in modern games specifically (which is all they play), and my disinterest in participating in more voice calls after being in Teams calls during the workday beforehand. They also have significantly more free time than I do due to almost all of them being single, so the rare times I have tried to play anything progress-based with them has been a bust because I inevitably fall behind. It’s unfortunate to drift apart like that, but it took longer than it should have for me to realize that we probably weren’t actually that close if me losing interest in games is all it took for them to cut me out. Oh well.
I know, self diagnosing isn’t cool
It’s cool and useful as a starting point. The main thing is to be authentic and say it the way you said it: That you suspect it.
I know a few people on the suspectrum, and it’s fine as long as you don’t try and claim that you most definitely have the thing and that your self diagnosis is valid/means you should have access to healthcare/etc.
I’m definitely feeling this.
My schedule makes it hard to play online with people I know and I hate playing with randos.
I switched to single player games on easy mode just to be able to make progress and get through some of my huge backlog of games.
It is starting to feel a little forced though.
Take a break, try something different.
Playing on easy instead of challenging yourself just go get through it is making the games worse for you in my opinion. Edit: This was a bit heavy handed, easy mode is fine I just meant to suggest harder difficulties
Weirdly I enjoy playing most games on hard or higher despite not having a ton of time. A level a day, of even every other day is fine. The game can wait for me especially in single player.
I get your point but at this point I get more satisfaction simply progressing and completing rather than overcoming harder difficulties. It’s a trade off I guess but I have a huge anount of games I haven’t even played so I guess It’s quantity over quality given my free time and that’s ok, I can change the difficulty back at any time but yes, I’m sure it impacts the enjoyment from the gameplay itself.
For sure, also I didn’t mean to so heavily handed state “playing on easy is the problem”
If you enjoy easy mode then by all means go for it, I didn’t mean to sound like a “Easy mode is for chumps” type of person, just in my own personal experience I’ve found higher difficulties/challenging games are more fun for me.
Especially for games with strong story elements, sometimes hard gameplay sours the experience. Just like strong story sometimes ruins games with great gameplay…looking at you DOOM Eternal.
Anywho, my only other suggestion would be trying different games you’ve never tried before.
Enjoy Indie Rouguelikes? Try a puzzle game, enjoy puzzle games? Try an arena shooter, enjoy survival? Try a horror game, etc. (I especially recommend horror, even if you suck with horror you can argue that’s a new feeling you don’t feel playing games, and overcoming the fear is a whole new dynamic should you experience it)
Niche genres that build skills as well, like rhythm games? Muah. What a breath of fresh air from the constant “run through hallway, shoot bad guy” routine.
Playing on easy instead of challenging yourself just go get through it is making the games worse for you
This definitely depends on the person, I love when games have easy modes. Games can really make me anxious and stressed, so being able to lower the difficulty improves my enjoyment immensely. Don’t get me wrong, I love challenging games too, but that challenge can ruin it for me sometimes too - especially if it’s a single player story mode.
For sure! I said that a bit too bluntly and blanketed.
Old games especially are nice when it comes to difficulty. I will NOT play Half Life 1 on Hard, enemies just take too many bullets and that’s not fun. I always find modern action games are more dynamic and you can think smarter making higher difficulties encourage creative gameplay. But obviously I get that it’s not for everyone.
Sometimes I have to switch a difficulty a touch lower because I’m trapped in a horrible section or somehow ended up in a death loop, so I’m not bashing it at all.
Also RTS games for me I’ll generally avoid the hardest difficulties, but for skill based reflexive games? Gimme Nightmare :)
I stopped being as interested in video games and gravitated toward board games. It’s an activity I can do with friends around a table instead of sitting alone staring at a screen. And the same puzzles are present in board games plus you get the social aspect.
I gravitated toward pen & paper rpgs. I don’t get to play as much as I’d like to, but when I do it feels great to play whoever I want and to do whatever I can come up with, with my friends.
And after listening to the “Sounds Like Crowes”-podcast, even RDR2 feels shallow and limited to me. So if I play something on my computer, it’s some quick 15 minutes of Brutal Doom or some arcadish indie fun.
