Do people actually enjoy their games anymore?

I pretty much see everywhere now a days where gamers keep saying "damn I gotta big backlog, I gotta rush and beat these games!". Really? You HAVE to beat them? Whatever happened to taking your time and actually enjoying them? It just seems to me that people with tons of cash to blow just end up buying all of these games, and feel the need to rush and finish them as fast as possible. I don't really see the fun in that, but to each their own I guess.

Thoughts?

Once you've invested enough time into games, being up on them becomes part of your identity. People like their identities.

that's how i play games. i beat a game whenever i feel like it, and always move onto something new. 

Completion's fun, dude. I like beatin' games. That's the whole point of playing hard ones, too.

Sometimes I buy a game with the intent of playing with a friend, which rarely happens. But then, there are those games I buy to play through methodically. Most rpgs and adventure games I play through with my wife. And yes, that can be (and is) enjoyable. =D

Blazing through games can be fun in its own way, but it's kind of like blazing through a book - you only can remember so much afterwards.

I just play games until they're no longer fun to play. I'm not a collector, so I have only a fraction of the video games I've played in my life. The only time I might have a backlog of video games to play would be around Christmas, because I bought about two or three new games. I still don't try and beat them quickly. I just play the ones I like best until I finish the game or get bored and move on.

I do keep some games around that's fun for short bursts..

If I have a backlog of games it's because a number of good titles have come out that I'm genuinely interested in playing through but don't have enough time to knock them out to my personal satisfaction.   That usually means making it through the main plot if it has one or I feel like I've exhausted the gameplay to the point it is no longer interesting to me personally.  I generally don't bother getting 100% achievement completion on titles either unless they're genuinely fun achievements.

Everyone enjoys games in their own way, some like to marathon through a whole stack of them, some people like to take a much more paced approach.

It's *because* I enjoy games so much that, on the rare occasion that my broke ass has a backlog, I jump from game to game so quickly. It's a "grass is always greener" thing for me. (This game is great, but this other game hasn't even been started yet! What if it's better!? Oh god, so many games, and only 50 more years to play them, if I'm lucky!) :P

I just play games until they're no longer fun to play. I'm not a collector, so I have only a fraction of the video games I've played in my life. The only time I might have a backlog of video games to play would be around Christmas, because I bought about two or three new games. I still don't try and beat them quickly. I just play the ones I like best until I finish the game or get bored and move on. I do keep some games around that's fun for short bursts..

I don't enjoy my games, I hate myself instead and cry silently whenever I pick up a controller.

I don't enjoy my games, I hate myself instead and cry silently whenever I pick up a controller.

I'm a completionist. I really don't have a choice but to finish a game I started. I hate putting down stuff  that doesn't feel like I've seen the whole thing. Because of this OCD-ish sort of take I'm very picky in what I buy. I remember getting MechAssault on the original Xbox, playing five minutes, hating it but still finishing the damn thing. Ugh.

people have a back log because they end up buying the newest game and forget about the game they were currently playing. it's what happens to me all the time. i say sweet this game came out, start playing it and then a new game comes out. i end up buying that game and stop playing the one that i was currently playing. i'm on my way to beating the games that i currently have.

Im playing throught Dead Space 2 at the moment and its gotta be one of the best games ive ever played

I  am definitely a back-log gamer now that I have some sort of a bank account but I hold off playing the new stuff (usually) until the old stuff has been played.  My gaming is also very mood-based so if I don't feel like playing a game, I won't.  I think the point is that getting through that back-log shouldn't be work because that's missing the point of arts and entertainment (i guess gaming is the A&E channel).  So there's a balance between sitting down and giving a game its due when playing it and always thinking about what games to be playing next.

I highly doubt most people with back logs rush through their games to get through them enjoying them less as a result.  I think most end up starting games but never finishing them or just skipping them entirely.

As a bit of a collector who likes to play all the games I buy, I sort of get that mentality myself sometimes.  The truth of the matter is that while I'd love to say that every game I pick up is a good game that has me fully invested into it, that's just not going to happen.  It doesn't change the fact that I want to get my money's worth, however, so unless there are reasons I absolutely can't (Metal Dungeon, you stinking turd, I'm looking at you), I do try to at least get about 2/3's of the way through a game before allowing myself to shelve it for a while.

And then there are very, very rare moments when I want to rush through some of the boring parts to get to the good stuff.  I can only think of two examples of this in my collection off-hand, Final Fantasy XIII and Lord of the Rings Online.  FFXIII has a great late game, so I try to rush through the early stuff that doesn't hold my interest to get to what I believe will really appeal to me.  In the case of Lord of the Rings Online, once I feel like I've been saturated with a certain area, I'll often rush through the remainder of the quests or ignore them completely in favor of seeing something new and different with the end goal being that I really, really want to see the late game additions.

Other than that, I certainly don't try to rush through games unless they're either borrowed or rented, neither of which happen very often. 

You wanna see my backlog??? its FARKING HUGE, mainly because i play ONE game at a time and finish it before i start anything else, im a shift worker so i game every few days

 Ok here i go...

GULP

360 backlog (most of which are still sealed, will put in brackets what i have finished)

Forza 3 Ultimate Edition
Ninja Gaiden 2
Assassins Creed
Splinter Cell Double Agent
Splinter Cell Conviction
Dead Rising
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Fable II
Fable III Collectors Edition
Alan Wake
Mass Effect
Halo 3
Halo 3 ODST
Halo Reach
Metro 2033
Bayonetta

PS3 
Silent Hill Homecoming
Enslaved 
Vanquish
Guitar Hero: Metallica
Borderlands GOTY
Dragon Age Ultimate Edition
Prince of Persia Trilogy
Bioshock (FINISHED)
Bioshock 2
Dead Space (FINISHED)
Dead Space 2 Limited Edition (CURRENTLY PLAYING THROUGH)
Fallout 3 GOTY (FINISHED)
The Elder Scrolls IV :Oblivion GOTY
Resistance: Fall of Man
Resistance 2
NBA Jam
Eternal Sonata
Devil May Cry 4
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (FINISHED)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (FINISHED)
GTA Ultimate Edition
Yakuza 3
Metal Gear Solid 4
Valkyria Chronicles
Burnout Paradise Ultimate Box
Killzone 2
inFamous (FINISHED)
Batman Arkham Asylum (FINISHED)
Demon's Souls
Assassins Creed 2  (White Complete Edition)
Assassins Creed: Brotherhood
Castlevania; Lords of Shadow
Final Fantasy XIII
Super Street Fighter IV
Resident Evil 5 (Gold Edition)
Resident Evil 5 (Collectors Edition) (FINISHED)
Darksiders
God of War Collection (FINISHED)
God of War 3 (FINISHED)
Heavy Rain
Dante's Inferno
Dead Rising 2

PS2/PS1

Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil (FINISHED)
GTA Trilogy
Persona 3 FES
Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2
Metal Gear Solid 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Manhunt (FINISHED)
Devil May Cry (FINISHED)
Devil May Cry 2
Devil May Cry 3 (Special Edition)
Onimusha: Warlords (FINISHED)
Onimusha 2
Onimusha 3 (FINISHED)
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 3
Silent Hill 4: The Room
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XII
Okami

Wii & GC
Okami
Resident Evil 4 (Wii Edition) (FINISHED 3 TIMES)
Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube Collectors Edition)
Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
Resident Evil: 0 (FINISHED)
Resident Evil Remake (FINISHED)
Resident Evil 2 (FINISHED)
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker (with Ocarina of Time)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii Version)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GC Version)
Metroid Prime Trilogy
Metroid: Other M
A Boy & His blob
Super Paper Mario
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Allstars: 25th Anniversary

i'm too jaded and cynical to actually enjoy anything, if i rush to beat them at least i can say i've finished it

I agree. I never rush to finish games. And finish them multiple times if I really dig them. 

People play games in a variety of different ways and for many different reasons. There's no one "right way" to enjoy games.

  "damn I gotta big backlog"

its not a case that people dont enjoy their games but in the last 2-3 years the industry has moved away from a seasonal model where all the triple A titles come out between oct and jan.
so many great games come out year round and people, myself included, dont want to miss out on a big release because they have 5-6 games left to finish.

I play through my games pretty fast but I almost always pick them back up again, after I've played through all the recent games I wanted to play.

I've been playing LEGO Pirates the last couple of days, I also downloaded a good old Tex murphy game from gog.com. I am downloading The Witcher 2 at the moment and I'm eager to pick up L.A. Noir on friday. 

I like having a bunch of games waiting for me :)

When I find myself busy or particularly taken with a title, and I have six or seven games waiting to get cracked open, I usually just shrug and tell myself I'll hit them in the summer months when nothing is coming out. After the summer, I wait until the Christmas break if I manage to accrue another back end.

I dont like leaving games unfinished

There isn't as much of an emotional or intellectual commitment overall, I fear.

I tend to not finish a lot of games.

I'd say I finish about 20% of the games a I buy, and I tend to buy a lot. I also don't play a lot of multi-player. I find that this is because I work hard and have a family - so I don't play too much. Often when I finish a game it's because I think its so good that I can't put it down and usually finish them in a few days.

Otherwise it takes me much longer to finish a game and usually a new one that I want comes out before I'm done with the last one which distracts me. And this happens again and again etc. until I have big back log. When I start to see games pilling up, I try to go back and finish the ones I liked the most or which I feel like playing some more - otherwise I gather them all up and sell the whole lot for store credit on some new games.

So I'm not a collector - except that I find myself doing that a lot less these days because I realize how wasteful it is in terms of money. Especially since at times I get an urge to play a game I didn't finish and end up buying it used again. So what I do instead is I wish and pray a lot for games to show up for purchase on XBLA.

But that only describes my Xbox habbit. I find that I buy less PS3 games, but I have a nice collection going as I never seem to sell any of those. I believe this is because I only seem to own games on the PS3 which I consider gems. But on the 360 I buy a lot of games, they aren't shit games or anything like that - its just that since I've resigned to buying 3rd party titles on 360 due to quality and online play, the PS3 naturally take a back seat. So the games I own on PS3 are all exclusives.

By the same token, on 360 I have games that I won't ever get rid of - but a lot of those I have actually gotten rid of once they showed up for digital purchase. I have to say I really do enjoy not having all the damned game boxes around and much prefer loading up digital copies right from the hard drive. Makes my man cave much neater and trust me with two kids it gets messy enough without all the boxes and disks all around the TV and unfortunately I'm not a neat enough person to keep up with it all. Especially when you consider that I have a saturn and PSX down there and a bunch of those games which I still play.

I don't enjoy my games the same way i did 6 or even 3 years ago, the industry has big suits capitalizing on our hobby as we stand still taking their dicks in the ass...

I still love it.

I keep a select few games around to replay because they are awesome. God Hand and Doom 3 are still in my collection because they are awesome.

I enjoy games, which is why my backlog is huge, I take time to play them and not rush.

I know it happens to me because with work and everything else its harder to find time to play games.  But if I know its a good game I will pick it up anyways and keep it until a day comes that I have time.

Many MMO players do not enjoy what they are doing ingame, yet they keep playing anyway.

If I didn't, I wouldn't play 'em. Simple as that.

There are few games that I feel the need to rush through. It's rare I sit down with a game and finish right away. There are a few that are so addictive and fun that I will play for hours each day until I finish like Borderlands, Alan Wake and a few others. My problem is I got so wrapped up in buying games on clearance that I ended up with 60+ games. THANKS CHEAPY D!

this is an issue for me too. I don't necessarily rush through titles I have not completed yet but just leave them in the backlog with a plan to one day return. If I find a game boring I won't make myself complete it just for the trophies/achievements. However I find myself enjoying newer games less, maybe because I have less time to play them or maybe because much of them are not that good. I still play some of my old favorites from time to time.

Pfft, I think I've completed like 20 games in my life. Tops 30.

It's me spending $60 on a product that I want to fully enjoy. My taste in different games keep expanding as I see my backlog grow and grow. Games don't really have that summer low moment when instead of getting sun I can stay inside and catch up. Now I work full time, have a wife and home, and barely any time to enjoy what I want. I don't like to start games and not finish them unless I absolutely don't like them.

Im the opposite, im saving games for when I can really delve deep into them with the right mindset. Right now im waiting for my lungs to recover so I can smoke a big bad bowl of weed tomorrow so to finish portal 2.

I never worry about finishing games anymore.  I just play when I feel like it (which can include long periods of inaction) and then I play until the game is no longer all that interesting.  If I've gotten my money's worth of entertainment, I am satisfied by the purchase.  If not, then I know to be more cautious next time.  I have a bunch of games unfinished and quite a few unplayed.  I'll get around to them or I won't.  It doesn't really matter in the long run.  It's not like curing cancer or anything.