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Hi,
I'm no experienced writer, so this is going to be a poorly constructed string of thoughts running through my head and I'll mostly just be writing them down as I go.
Lately I've been wondering why I don't get as much enjoyment playing specific games as I did when I was younger.
When I was younger me and my older brother had a NES, SNES, N64, and a Genesis (and eventually gamecube/PSX/PS2/etc). I don't remember how we got our games, but we probably had half a dozen for each one or more.
Naturally when I was younger I'd have quite the surplus of free time, especially on the weekends when school was out. Me and my brother loved to game. We were nearly addicted to video games and played every game we had thoroughly.
Key word thoroughly. When I was a kid I hadn't a care in the world. My mind was growing and other than basic education in school it would absorb every bit of detail and information that would be presented to me in games.
I'd play those video games like I developed them. I was intimate with everything: characters, storylines, equipment on my RPG characters, etc. I'd have Sabin's blitz codes memorized off the top of my head, where all the secret level finishes were in Super Mario. I'd have the layout of the entire city memorized in GTA3, etc. I can go on.
There was a slight difference between single player games and multiplayer games for me though.
Multiplayer games would be thrilling to play with my brother. Being close brothers, we'd literally fight all the time, but were born to complete with each other in every sense, especially video games. I wouldn't care what game we'd play; we'd play to win and would focus on solely that. There was only so much you needed to memorize the game, then the rest was just improvement of skill.
Single player games were of a different matter, not that I feel there was anything wrong with the enjoyment I would get from multiplayer games.
Playing through the game I would honestly appreciate all the aspects of the game. I would enjoy doing sidequests and reading what useless townsfolk have to say. I felt so attached to these games and my brain would absorb endless amounts of information. I didn't want these games to end. I wish the story of games like Chrono Trigger would go on, neverending.
Now, to the point. As I've aged I feel like that ability to hold the capacity and attention necessary to appreciate these games has come to a halt. It's disturbing, and makes me depressed thinking about it.
I play modern games that no doubt have crazy graphics, huge depth in story and evolve around your actions and decisions, but I find it hard to enjoy them still. Critically, there's nothing I can point out in particular wrong with the game, but I don't have that patience, memory, or appreciation for these games that I once did.
When I was younger I would look forward to waking up the following day and proceeding with the quest I was pulled from as my parents put me to bed. On the weekends I'd stay up as late as I could and would quite literally fall asleep at the TV occasionally.
Now I look at the clock every hour when gaming and go "well, guess I gotta go to bed or I'm gonna pass out at work tomorrow". I feel like there's so many games out there that are definitely good and worth playing, but that I am rushing through them just to say I've beaten them.
Not being there side by side with my brother bragging to eachother and watching eachother also makes me feel rather lonely in that regard.
It feels like my life is now filled with more important stuff, and I'm not living in the stress-free world that I once did as a kid. I know it's just part of life, but I really miss that passion and enjoyment that I once had. It's rather depressing thinking about it for some reason to be honest.
One game that I feel I've been attached to despite all this loss of what I would imagine is "passion", is StarCraft. And I think that's mostly because of this community and how I feel like it's taken that role of my brother. People I can share my thoughts with and a game I can never get bored of no matter how many times I play it. No matter how much I've grown out of gaming.
I almost feel like Starcraft is that last bit of living happiness that I still actively appreciate. Other than that... the feeling is gone.
I'm mostly just writing this down to get my thoughts out, but I'd be genuinely interested to know if this is something that any of you guys have experienced and where it's taken you.
If I could really cram these words into a tl;dr I would, but this IS my tl;dr haha.
Anyway, I'll wrap it up here, because I have to work in the morning.
 
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Maybe it's time you parted with video games?
Perhaps it's merely another phase of life. Many people go through stages of their life that are distinct from each other. I've been thinking along the same thoughts as you. I realized that none of these new games are important to me. None of these are games that I could...fall in love with. Legend of Zelda, OOT was a game that controlled my very world outlook. I decided that the world was comprised of the six elements: light, shadow, earth(forest), fire, water, and spirit. The storyline was divine. The purity of youth being fouled and the individual being forced into growing up too early. The intimate bond between two childhood friends. A great big world that, at the time, seemed endless and scary - though the scariness was both horrifying (shadow temple boss, Ganon, forest temple) and empowering (escaping from gerudo fortress and defeating those feisty women, figuring out the daunting puzzles from the forest temple to water temple and spirit temple). These are all elements of my own life at the time, so it's natural they had an even more significant impact. It took a while for me to give that up, and I would never find anything that would capture my heart again.
And hey, maybe it's just the industry and the world around us that's changed. All you can do is make a new life for yourself or you'll be living in the past all your life like Fry was in that episode he had the can of sardines.
I think your brain has just advanced further than your emotional processing speed. Or in other words, your brain needs to be beating those games in top speed or it will lag behind and decay, but at the same time this renders you unable to really engage in a single storyline and game.
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Grobyc I know exactly how you feel. I remember staying round friends' houses and playing Red Alert on Playstation link-up until 6 in the morning and, as you say, thoroughly wokring my way through FFVII and VIII, I had my special memory card with specific stages of the game I had accomplished so that I could go back to them.
Christ, even playing games when we were well young on our Amiga 600!
I really miss those times. As a married working man with responsibilities and other plans, gaming in the way I used to is a distant memory - I can't imagine ever being able to say to myself 'OK, I'm going to play this game for the next 6+ hours.'
I got in to SC2 and TL only in my adult life, a few years ago.
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Well, it's a fact that games typically aren't made for people with thousands of hours of expertise in every genre. As your skill, familiarity and understanding of games goes up your enjoyment goes down.
My advice is to widen your horizons away from the gaming blockbusters. Look at some indie games, non-traditional genres, etc. Heck you could even try your hand at making games.
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TLADT24920 Posts
It sounds like you don't enjoy playing most games anymore. Part of that is due to growing up and that there are a lot more responsibilities now than when you were younger. As a child, there wasn't much to worry about and with the free time you had, you could game for a long time and get into the game. Obviously that changed as you grew order. I feel the same thing as well. There are all these games that sound interesting or have a good story but every game I pick up, I feel like I'm forcing myself to play it. Diablo III which is a game I was anticipating had the same effect, just felt so shallow to keep pounding the numbers of the right mouse button and sadly, Diablo II had the same exact gameplay yet I was addicted to the game and would keep playing the game with different characters. Only Starcraft hasn't suffered from this and even then, I have my periods where I don't even want to touch the game even though I haven't played a decent amount of games in about 3 months time.
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On December 21 2012 16:45 Grobyc wrote:
Hi,
I'd play those video games like I developed them. I was intimate with everything: characters, storylines, equipment on my RPG characters, etc. I'd have Sabin's blitz codes memorized off the top of my head, where all the secret level finishes were in Super Mario. I'd have the layout of the entire city memorized in GTA3, etc. I can go on.
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Dang that brings me back. He was my favorite character because you could interact with his moves.
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If you want a game to be passionate about, play Planescape: Torment.
I played it this year, and it blew my mind. It was so good that I'm going to play it again, with different party members so I can learn more about the story.
It also gave me that feeling or looking forward to continuing it, after coming home from school, or after waking up. I don't care for most games. I only play a few multiplayer games, and almost no single player games, because most of them bore me. So that this game interested me as much as it did (and still does, even after I have beaten it) says something about it.
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I feel the same with video games no longer being able to attract my attention like they used to, for example i would beat pokemon over and over to see how fast i could get the win.
Different priorities take over life and we have to accept it, at least starcraft is good enough that even though I have quit watching or playing for like the past half year to year because of being busy with work and other commitments it has once again become part of my life now that I have time for it.
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I am so happy I don't have those problems as many people I know that have gotten to my age (21 here) have started not liking games and what not.
I still find myself enjoying them a lot and my passion definitely isn't going down. I always keep up to date and always have a blast.
Had a few games this year that I had an absolute blast in.
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I can relate to this. I grew up gaming with my older brother (1.5 years older), and we were competitive in everything we played. I do miss gaming with him. Its harder to enjoy games the same way as an adult... Thanks for the write-up grobyc
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Perhaps you just don't like the style of these new games?
There's a lot of gamers who have realized at some point that they like the old way they make games better and that the new games are awful.
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United States1549 Posts
Wow I feel the same way.
I remember playing Pokemon Silver for a couple hundred hours when I was younger just to delete it and play it for another couple hundred hours... All to start with a different pokemon >.>
But I still enjoyed the hell out of that game - I knew nearly every pokemon's location, the optimal way to get through the elite four, repeated nostalgia at visiting the kanto region every single time. I think that if I spent all that time learning an instrument I'd be damn good at it.
Now when I game I barely pay attention to the story or chug in the ~20 hours here and there just to say I've beaten the game and move on to the next one that piques my interest.. They just don't have any long-lasting quality to them that I appreciate anymore. Puzzle games are often way too easy, RPG's are uninspired or are monotonous, shooters are fun with friends but aren't good in a "personal" way.
Theorycraft:
I think alot of it has to do with adolescence and being able to really immerse yourself in a gaming world at such a young age where as you get older you can't help but have some presence of mind to keep up with your real-life obligations. When I used to play LoZ:OoT, I would literally dream about the story and how epic it was while I was playing it, be at school and yearn to continue the adventure at 3:30, play that sucker, rinse and repeat.
I don't think I'll ever feel that again about any game ever. Having to search through the trash games that get shoveled out these days and grad school to think about near 24/7, anything not named Starcraft or LoL don't garner any real emotion from me. :/
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This is only a good thing as you have more time for serious and useful stuff.
I have the same thing, I do have a big liking for actual boardgames now because I still like games in general but need the face to face interaction.
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Haha I truly envy the people who aren't able to relate; I wasn't sure how much if at all this affect other people. I'd like to take the time to reply with more thoroughness to posts once I get home from work.
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I know exactly what youre talking about, games was my way to get away, my own universe where I was in control of everything, noone could take it away from me because it was my world to absorb, live in, and live through!
Although, the passion has come to fade nowadays, its only starcraft for me.
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eh I honestly lost my taste for single player games a while ago. I only recently started playing GTA4 and I have fallout3 I borrowed from my buddy. Multiplayer is just a lot more interesting, even if you're not crazy about being super competitive
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It just seems that you get older and most people don´t enjoy gaming as much when they get older, maybe you should do something completely different and don´t play, untill you really have hunger for the games again.
Otherwise, why is it bad to go earlier to bed and live an healthy life?
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tfw no passion
Seriously though, sorry to hear that. Lost a lot of passion myself, once real life responsibilities and concerns begin to stack up, any rational person will prioritize real world stuff over gaming. That's my experience.
The social experience does play a huge role, which I guess is why SC has retained some of that passion value for you.
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I too realised that my interest in many games dwindled as I aged. I too could no longer fully appreciate the detail of the artwork or the emotion a character portrays. The intimate feeling of working with a game character as if he were real and important has vanished.
That's all gone now. It distresses me too. Sometimes I wish to go back to being a 6 year old child and enjoy the world again with a new found curiosity, and ability to absorb knowledge with the same amount of amazement as before. I feel like "this is game good but... ah it is boring."
I am two decades old.
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EPT
