You’re not crazy, you just need to get away from 40 hour long open world chore games
Yup. That’s me. I have to have games where it doesn’t rely on you logging on for a few hours a night, every night…. yeah sorry not gonna happen with a wife who doesn’t like video games and a 2 year old to entertain.
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.
Thanks, I appreciate your perspective, and I'm glad to hear that I've been handling the communication aspect of it properly - I've never used my suspicion as an excuse or justification of anything, so far I have just told a few trusted people that I suspect I have it, basically like I said here.
I have experienced several financial rough patches in the past year (job loss due to my employer shutting down, for example), but now that things have seemingly stabilized, I hope to begin pursuing a formal diagnosis soon, and I look forward to doing so! Thanks again.
Best of luck getting diagnosed! I know in a lot of places it can be tricky. For me my GP did it for my ADHD, apparently it was that clear and obvious.
Don't fight it. Just find another hobby that deserves your time and move on with your life. Games haven't been truly good for a long time. Unless you're a Twitch streamer or an esports athlete, games shouldn't be drudgery. "But it gets better after 10 hours," "you have to get to the endgame before you're really playing the game," "you can't say you've played the game unless you did 3+ runs," "AAA games suck but indies are still good" Man, shut the fuck up, I'm too old for that shit.
If you want to capture the excitement of how you felt when you first played videogames as a child, find a different hobby. Seriously, find a hobby that's completely out of left field. Gardening, fixing mechanical watches, backyard astronomy, raising an ant farm, croqueting, kayaking, trainspotting. You don't have to be that aging nerd who constantly malds at how modern videogames suck while continuing to fall for nostalgia bait that'll always fall below your expectations.
Games haven't been truly good for a long time
Meanwhile, here I am loving gaming and thinking we're in a golden age of gaming compared to my youth...
Or just engage in moderation like every other medium, it's weird to me that playing videogames is automatically supposed to be a "hobby" but the same doesn't apply to watching movies or reading books or whatever.
Couldn't agree more. And even thought I hardly play games anymore, that actually makes them all the more special when I'm excited about a game and play it. It's rare nowadays, but games like celeste or a short hike were really wonderful. Other than gems that really speak to you though, you really should find another hobby.
Agreed. My most recent binge was Stray, and before that it was The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening on the switch lmao
Honestly I have less and less love for videogames that streamlined the gameplay into a cookie cutter trope.
I noticed having way more fun when playing indie games because you never escape the wierd shit develloped industry free from the general gamplay loops.
I've gotten into gaming more again by simply sticking with indie games. No more 100 hour boring open worlds.
Ok going through this now.
I never thought it’d be like this though. I thought that video game would literally stop being fun. Like I’d grow out of them or something and not find them enjoyable anymore.
But that’s not it. They are still fun and enjoyable. What I didn’t expect was that my mind would be so full of responsibilities that it would just be impossible to enjoy video games. As if there just isn’t enough room in my brain.
I’m sitting there trying to play but I’m just thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow. Or this week. Or this month.
There is just too much to think about that I can no longer enjoy not thinking.
Now I only have game sessions that last for about 10+ minutes and only about 3 times per day at most.
My enjoyment in gaming has died out a few months ago and I have only been working for one year(23yo). My friends are still trying to get me back to Valorant and I'm having trouble explaining I have so many other important things that I need to do other than grinding Valorant. I just don't have the time to improve my skill at that game because it requires so many hours and so many of those hours could give me a good coding project for my portfolio which would improve my job prospects. I do enjoy coding but coding all day outside of work is turning me into a robot.
Screw this capitalism society.
Honestly I've always hated any online coop / multiplayer game unless it had a significant single player aspect to it.
Multiplayer games are more like work, they aren't just for enjoyment.
That's quite true actually. I've had way more enjoyment playing singleplayer games than multiplayer games(unless they are casual coop like Stardew and the like) nowadays.
I still like fps but it requires too much effort.
Single player with cheats is where it's at. Sometimes I like challenge in my games and with some games it's the challenge that gives it flavor, like some wargames. But if it's just a game where you play for some story or it's about building stuff, give me Creative mode.
Also, "cheating" as long as everyone is in on it in multiplayer is fun. Of course trashing public lobbies with aimbots in CoD is just stupid, but playing a coop game like Raft or Payday with a friend and having the option of just turning off some of the difficulty elements so that you can focus on what makes it fun for you is awesome.
I'm a bit iffed by Payday 3 having some super strong anticheat that also kills mods. I'm not big on public lobbies anyways, why can't I just give my money for the developer, get a game and play how I like it? Anticheat for public lobbies makes sense. But please let me turn it off for me and my mate who just want to have fun and are both in on it.
Lol, meanwhile my friends all want to play hard mode on Minecraft so they don't play cheats lmao.
I stopped playing online competitive games a while back, the last ones were overwatch (1) and dota. Now I almost only play solo games and I have a lot of fun. Currently 110+ hours in TOTK and I'm far from done with it. It's a category that's far from dead and there are any flavor that could fit your tastes.
The only online game I keep playing is MK8D because frustration never last long and there's no ELO ranking to be obsessed with. Also Splatoon once in a while.
Competitive games ruin the mood a lot for me. I know it differs from person to person, but as a person who usually takes games seriously it's hard for me not to care about my skill within the game. It took me a pretty long period to stay away from competitive/skill-based gaming(fps and rhythm games) to be able to treat games as a casual thing.
They don't have the same punch but there are games that will bring that excitement back.
It's both. The 90s are never coming back, and you'll never be however-old-you-were-during-the-90s.
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.
lol I played CoD BLOps at the opening and had the existential moment of "WTF am I doing with my life". It's so shitty.
I started feeling this way especially with the intro of micro transactions in games like Cod. Went back to play older games I've said I wanted to play at some point which has kept the flame lit.
Between the worsening monetization and the endless reboot bullshit (where older games are sort of erased by directly reusing their names) I am no longer interested in TRIPLE AYYYY games.
I have recently gone back to Fallout New Vegas and I have been sinking tons of time into it exploring. It has reignited my love for single player games :)
Baldurs Gate 3 is the cure for me. It probably also helps that I haven't played that type of game in ages.
Exactly, its not that I'm not interested in gaming anymore. It's that none of the games released recently are worth playing.
In an endless sea of call of dooty clones and other derivative drek finding something decent has become hard. I want new ip damn it, not yet another remake or sequel.
Try Battlebit if you like FPS games. It was made by three guys and is dramatically better than any battlefield or CoD entry in the last decade. Looks like Roblox, plays like SOCOM.
My enjoyment of games didn't die, but my tastes in genre changes. Online FPS just isn't for me anymore, I now prefer slower single-player story games
Use to do 10-15 hours on a free day. Now I have a hard time doing 1-2 without having to take a break.
I recently learned there are games where you don't even need a TV or computer. What an exciting new world!
Sorry, I have ADHD. You can keep your cardboard agony simulators, just don't ask me to play them.
