How often do you 'start' over?

By this I'm not talking about New Game+, I'm more wondering how often this happens to others, where you need to start over a game for one reason or another.

For me, RPG's seem to be the main culprit. The best example I have at the moment is Pillars of Eternity. I was playing (and loving) that game when the Witcher 3 came out. Cue 150 hours of the Witcher 3, followed by 20+ in Batman: Arkham Knight and I'm trying to come back to Pillars. I have no idea what I was doing and, moreover, I'm no longer invested in my characters or the story.

So I'll start again and ideally finish in the next couple of weeks before MGSV comes out.

Not very often really. I tend to focus on one game at a time, especially if it's a narrative/story game, so I don't feel the need to restart often due to the lack of memory. I also don't restart to respec unless I'm less than about an hour and half into the game.

It's funny you mention Pillars of Eternity because I'm in exactly the same boat — I sunk 6 or 7 hours into it before completely losing interest once The Witcher came out. I'll probably wait until the White March patch lands before restarting. In answer to your question, I have a terrible habit of playing way too many games at once, and then restarting from scratch when I leave something for an extended period of time. I also have a compulsion to replay previous games in a series just before a new entry lands, which only aggravates the former.

I do this almost relentlessly in Bethesda games. I go back to them, start anew and just play as a different class or what have you just because I want to play the game again.

Of course, I'm more than guilty of getting distracted by other games, completely forgetting any story, and needing to start over.

@azulot: actually come to think of it I've never finished Oblivion or Skyrim, despite having hundreds of hours in both. I made it through Fallout 3 and New Vegas though

Rarely, I try to focus and beat a game before moving onto something else to try and avoid this type of situation.

Haven't played the game in a while: Start over. Install some new mods: Start over. Keep fuckin' up in the early parts of the game: Start over. Just launching the game to adjust graphics settings and controls: Start over. Clean install the OS: Start over even though the games and saves are on a different hard drive.

Beat the game over a year ago: Start over.

I usually just stop playing before finishing and never go back but if I ever go back after a couple years I probably just replay from the start and don't get any further than before. This happens quite often to games that I find striking or notable in tone or emotionally (or just played it at an important time in my mind). I can get these nostalgic cravings for them, but it's not really about the games so I don't have the patience to remember the mechanics or what's going on; these are usually the ones where I restart rather than continue from my save game.

Well, back in the 80s and 90s, I did it all the time. Aside from the fact that they were expensive and I never had a whole lot of them, most games didn't even have any kind of persistence once you'd turned them off anyway. I also had Final Fantasy and a PS1 without a memory card for a while thanks to being a poor university student.

I do this whenever I am playing a game (1) where build is important, (2) that doesn't allow an easy respec and (3) when I feel like I've made mistakes in my build because I didn't fully understand the mechanics at the time I started.

This happens quite frequently in RPGs. That said, with the exception of Souls games where you can totally fuck yourself with a shit build, I generally only allow myself one redo when playing these types of games. At least until I've beaten them, that is.

Generally as a rule I try to finish one game before another because if I don't finish, I do forget everything. This can happen if a game gets too drawn out or if a new game comes out that I REALLY want to play.

The hard thing is there's games I'd like to 100% or get close to that I never end up doing. If I don't do side quests during a main game it's not going to get done. The good thing is I don't spend a lot on DLC because for me, once a game is done, I'm mostly done. There's been some exceptions (Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is my best example) where there's a separate sort of campaign that can be done and adds from the original game, but a new 'side' mission isn't something I'm keen on, especially if there's a lot of uncompleted side missions already.

To be honest, not often. Outside of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (GOTY), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (GOTY), Fallout 3 (GOTY), Minecraft (Survival Mode) and Fallout: New Vegas (Ultimate Edition), I do not start over when I finish games (or in the case of Minecraft, bored of the world I am in and starting over with a new seed number). When I do finish The Witcher III: Wild Hunt later this year (currently 10 hours in), I do intend to try the New Game+ to see just how different the game is compared to starting a new normal save file.

I played ATV Off-road Fury Blazin Trails, I got all golds in the tutorials and finished a few GPs in career, before I stopped playing completely. This was a long time ago, I plan to starting clean slate in order to refresh my memory even though I'd have to do all that stuff again.

I restart games all the time. I put over thirty hours into Fallout: New Vegas before I finally got a character to level 6 and, it is a similar story for most rpgs I have played.

I end up doing this all the time, especially with JRPGs. I can't tell you how many times I've restarted various Shin Megami Tensei games because I start playing for a while, then give up when I'm expected to grind for hours to progress. I think the farthest I've made it in Nocturne is Ikebukuro.

I kinda don't at all anymore. I've learned to accept that the minute things I forgot most like won't matter, and I will pick up the broad strokes very quickly when I pick a game up again.

I used to restart every time I let anything lie for more than a month or two. I had more time and willingness to do that then....

Barely ever. I always try to finish the game before considering to start over. I might play again if it has different paths, but only after I complete it.

If the game locks my progress on some place that would be easier if I respec (and that place is several hours in), I just drop the game.

Very rarely, whenever I still have old saves and am able to load them up (not always possible since some are dependent on running on the exact same system, game version and combination of mods they were created on), no matter how old I tend to continue where I left off with them.

The only games I can think of where I have started over have been Wizardry 8, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls II. I couldn't even force myself to start over with Skyrim after playing 200 hours on PS3 and later upgrading my PC to the point where it was capable of running it.

I restarted Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us because I played them pretty drunk and at one point just found myself not knowing what the f*ck was going on. Also had to restart Fallout New Vegas after about 20 hours because the main quest bugged out on me, weird for such a well put together non buggy game....

Man, when I was a kid I was the worst at finishing games. I would seriously get to the last dungeon or final boss of a game and be like "Nope, screw it. Saving the world? This is too much stress for me. I can't do it." and then restart a few weeks later after my anxiety faded. I've gotten to the final dungeon in Final Fantasy 9 at least three times (although I've played through the first disc a god awful amount of times) and have yet to even face the final boss. I'm pretty sure I've restarted Chrono Cross about 3 or 4 times after playing to the second disc before getting overwhelmed. I tried a few summers back to beat Legend of the Dragoon after having gotten to the fourth disc a few times, only for my game to freeze right at the end of the second disc. Hell, I would've never beaten Final Fantasy 7 (a game I've restarted at least five times) if I didn't just sit down one day and loaded my last save from almost a decade prior.

I play one game at a time untill I've finished it, before moving onto something else.

I just restarted KOTOR2 this weekend after screwing up the build on a light-side character I had started over two years ago. This is my third re-start without ever finishing the game and each time I forget how long and drawn out that damn Peragus section is. Still a great game, though, especially with the full content mod!

I'm in the same boat with Pillars. I got just far enough to discover it's more Icewind Dale and less Baldur's Gate though so I'm not totally sure I want to play more. Well at least what I did. If I go back, I will probably not start over.

I'll start a new character any time an expansion or significant DLC is released for a game I've already completed. The Bethesda games like Skyrim and Fallout are good examples, as are both Dark Souls games. I like experiencing the new content in context, rather than picking up an old save with a character that's maxed out or overleveled.

I usually start over when I've committed to a character arc without fully understanding the mechanics of the game.

Games I've started over with include :

XCom Enemy Unknown
Dark Souls
Skyrim

and others in that vein.

I almost always play games for several hours then start over once I have everything down.

More often than not this does not work very well long term.

Way way more than I should. I've never succeeded with a complete play through of Skyrim, because I was constantly starting over. There is just no way I have been satisfied with one character enough to stick with them through the long haul. A lot of times though it really depends on the game.

It doesn't matter what type of game it is if I come back to it a few months later I will restart it. I usually care a lot about the story in just about every game I've played so going back into it without knowing the first half doesn't seem like a good idea to me. This doesn't apply to every game obviously like the Borderlands series or Diablo III.

I don't think I've ever restarted a game before completion. I just sort of relearn the game. It doesn't take that long, surely not as long as restarting it.

I used to do it with so many games, as I would lose interest and feel an intense need to start over each and every time: Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, etc. Most stupidly was probably Final Fantasy XIV, in which I've started over from scratch (at max level) twice, a crazy feat considering how monotonous the story can get. I just have an inability to pick up a character/story I left off months ago, even if I remember exactly what happened.