No motivation to finish/continue games anymore?

Hey y'all, was just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing I am with games recently. I seem to have become almost unable to finish any games anymore. Not because of difficulty, but because of motivation. I have bought around 10-15 retail games for PS4 , yet I have only finished two of them ( Shadow of Mordor because i sat down and forced myself to finish it and that game is fun as hell, and Bloodborne because its a Souls game).

I just never feel compelled to see the end of most retail games any more. If it's not a Souls game, I have almost no motivation to finish it or even to go back and continue playing it. The only reason I love playing Souls games is because they have a specific old-school feel that games just don't have any more; I just want to explore everything and see the whole world, which is not something I feel in the many open-world games coming out. Surprisingly, The Evil Within really captivated me in a similar way but I never made it to the end.

Most of the time, I'll look at my catalogue of games and think about playing each one, but the thought of starting it up and getting into it turns me off to the point where I just go watch videos online or browse the internet instead. I even have a few games (Knack, Killzone, various PS Plus free games) that I bought because of a sale and never even started.

So, is it just me? Could it be the types of games that are coming out these days, that they aren't as compelling as they used to? Could it be the length and amount of content in games coming out is to vast that it doesn't feel necessary to finish games anymore?

I have that problem as well, and know many other people who play video games that have the same problem. My problem comes from a huge library of games with not enough time to sit down and play them. It sucks because I really want to finish a lot of the games I purchase (usually on sale), but I can't find the time. I have also been working long shifts at work, and when I get home, I either just want to play a few games of Rocket League, or watch TV.

Last week I started a list of games I want to finish, and my goal is to finish the games on my list before No Man's Sky comes out, because that's the next big game I'm looking forward to.

Take a break from the hobby.

I use The Backloggery to keep track of my games, helps me set goals. But yes, as someone working full time, even without a family its hard to split my time between my interests and still make progress.

This is literally my situation. Work long hours, get home and would rather play an online game or watch Quick Looks and drink a beer than play a single player game. I also bought too many games on sale, either on PSN or Black Friday deals. Good to know I'm not alone in this issue.

Stop buying games! No, really, it helps not to have a lot of choices. When there is no choice as to what to play, you will play what you have, and it will be more satisfying. I still buy way too many games, but I have found slowing my purchases helps. Just my advice: different folks for different strokes.

@baofu: One thing that I've been trying to change is put in an hour or two of gaming a night. You look at a game and think "well the internet says it takes 20 hours, I don't have 20 hours." But every two hours you put into finishing a game, you're two hours closer.

"So, is it just me? Could it be the types of games that are coming out these days, that they aren't as compelling as they used to?"

I find I go on these hot / cold spells for games, where maybe 5 years ago I played everything; now I'm more selective; and I find the cold spells in which I don't find the energy or will to even start up a game, to last longer than they used to. The types of games that come out certainly plays a part, but you also change as a person, and when you've played games for 20+ years you've played a lot of games and start to see a lot of every past game in new games coming out. I think its just something I've got to accept, as a gamer it makes me a bit confused though because I do love video games. What's nice is to check out Let's Plays and Streamers when I lack the will to play the games myself.

Hoping for a lot more games that spark the enthusiasm in me for games, but yeah so far there's a ton of early access / indie stuff that while its nice to see the bar for releasing games lowered, they usually don't hold my attention at all.

Thanks for the great advice everyone! I'm gonna check out that Backlogger thing and see if that helps, and just stop buying new games until I finish the ones that I feel are worth completing. Taking a break to do some other hobbies like making a website or hiking might help as well.

I think another contributing factor to this is the "open world side quest" effect. I can jump into The Witcher 3 and complete a quest or two, and spend a few hours doing so, but not feel like I've actually accomplished anything. Sure, I've got a few more quests in the "Completed" section of my quest log, but I am no closer to finishing the actual storyline and I feel like I've wasted my time. This makes it very difficult to return to the game when I only have an hour or 2 to play. I have experienced this with Infamous, Dragon Age, Far Cry 4, Dying Light... am I just getting sick of open world games? Perhaps I just get too caught up in trying to complete everything when I need to just focus on the main quest?

Being sick of repetitive content or repetitive styles of play is definitely normal and very common. Sticking to the main quest works in some games, where in others you'll struggle because the game just assumes you've leveled up your character(s) and gotten good weapons/gear to tackle the later stages of the main quests. Some games make side-missions a requirement before allowing you to progress in the main story.

I usually don't start a game nowadays unless I know I will finish it. Meaning I have nearly 100 PS4 games I own but haven't started because I'm afraid to quit mid way. If I lose motivation to finish something, its usually because of a game breaking bug or lack of time. I'm the kinda of person who enjoys repetitive tasks in video games so that doesn't bother me :)

I play probably 50 games in a year. I finish... maybe 3? As I earn more money to buy games easily, I have less time to play said games. I just stopped thinking of completion as my goal. Most games don't need to be finished to be enjoyed, and the payoff is rarely worth it. I just look to entertain myself for an hour or two each day and I'm good. I'm just after fun.

Too many of the big high-production games that I enjoy are simply too long for me. If completion were my goal, I would lose my mind. I've only played 1 game for more than 10 hours this year.

@thatonedudenick: Thats a very good point, I might have the wrong mindset. I've always thought of the story in a game to be a driving factor for playing it but game stories are oftentimes kinda bad. I think I need to start playing games for FUN instead of to see everything the game has to offer. Completion isn't the goal, having fun is.

So the way I solved this for myself, and this may or may not work for you, is I stopped making myself care about finishing games. I play them until I lose interest and that's the end of it! I come back to them if I get a hankerin', but otherwise I just play what feels good. As a part of that, I'm buying more games than ever, just older PS2/GCN/Xbox games. I play them for a few hours, move on to the next one, come back to the ones I care about.

Maybe that sounds like heresy! I know some people care a lot about finishing games. But liberating myself of that obsession has been really positive for me, because I was bad at forcing myself to finish stuff anyway. I'm happier, my hobby feels less like a chore, and I'm actually excited about playing stuff in a way I haven't been in years. Hope you feel better!

Most games are way too long these days. Very, very few games keep things interesting longer than 5 hours yet the majority of them pad things out to 10-15.

Yeah not finishing isn't something worth feeling guilty about. Time is valuable and you don't need to see everything in a game to know what it's doing. If you've had your measure of enjoyment then that's all that matters. Sometimes I can't even finish games that I think are great, I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over not finishing something that's "only" average or even good.

That said, if you have a bunch of games you haven't even started you might want to cut back on purchases to stuff you're actually excited for. I'm sure you'll run into something sooner or later.

I've started to force myself to buy less games. There really isn't a need for a huge library when I'm only going to have a few I'll actually love.

But I'm a fool and didn't figure this until a month or two ago, so my Steam backlog is massive.

I don't feel guilty, and neither should anyone, but it will be fun to go through and take a few minutes with each game.

Lump me in with @thatonedudenick, @thebrainninja and @thewildcard.

You just can't care about finishing every game you play in this life. If I get the itch to play a game, I ride it out until the feeling's gone. When I truly fall for a game, I'm probably going to do a lot more than finish it (YEAH YOU HEARD ME GAME). But, sometimes that's just not required.

Honestly, "game endings" ain't much to write home about most of the time. The majority of games imo do not end on a high note, or even provide the most challenge or fun in the late game. More often than not by the end the mechanics have run dry, and the challenge has evaporated. Unlike other mediums it is entirely possible to get the most out of a game without seeing the supposed "whole thing". Outside short, more experimental games, I don't feel there are a huge number of exceptions to this rule.

As someone who plays 25-40 games a year I probably finish 5. I'd never, ever have time to complete them all and live any sort of life. At the same time, I definitely have no interest in giving up my generalist life style. That said, so far SFV is looking to suck up way more time than usual, so maybe this year I'll try things a little differently..

All that said, I do have to admit there is a nice satisfaction to derive from finishing something. That shit just feels good I guess.

I definitely have gotten to the point where I get 75% of the way through a game and have a hard time getting over the hump to finish it. Both of my last two GOTY lists were about exactly that!

Nope, I am right there with you. However, mine stems from having three kids all between ages 1-4. I don't like to play games during the day (I am a stay at home Dad) because I feel like I neglect my kids. By the time I'm ready to put them to bed, though, I'm so exhausted I don't have the energy to engage in a video game very often. Often times I just start up a YouTube playthrough of the game and watch it on the couch before I fall asleep.

I have, however, been doing my best to play Stardew Valley & Enter the Gungeon as much as possible.

I can echo what others have said about game length. Finishing The Witcher 3 made me not like The Witcher 3 very much by the end. At some point it just felt like a slog despite being so incredible in the early hours. Fast forward to now and I've barely made a dent in Fallout 4. I'm honestly becoming sick of the entire notion of a 60+ hours long open world experience. They're the videogame equivalent of a tub of ice cream. Polishing off too many makes you sick. Playing too many leaves you awash in checklists.

Contrast that with the Souls games which I play endless and rarely tire of (well except recently, I want to be fresh for dark souls 3), and I think there's a case to be made for shorter, handcrafted content.

The feeling you are experiencing is called apathy. You have a lack of interest or concern. If you recall how you felt when you played games for fun, I suggest you compare that feeling to the feeling of apathy. I think you will find that games that you play today are not 'fun' in the traditional sense. You can make several changes that will help you. First, decide not to buy any games, new or used, for 6 months. This saves you money and gets you to focus on the games you already own. It also will stop you from always looking at release calendars and thinking about what you don't own. Second, play a game to completion (completion = seeing end credits, not necessarily all of the side quests) one at a time. I have found that playing FPS games is perfect for this. The commitment level is average (somewhere between 6-10 hours). If your collection has many FPS games, this too adds to the bonus of only playing games that you own. When I decided to try this for myself here at the beginning of 2016, I played Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Metro 2033.

The third thing that I recommend is to stagger your gameplay. Play a game, then read a book. Seriously, this helps a lot. During the evening, I realize you have limited time, but if you concentrate on a short game for awhile, finish the game, start a book, finish the book, start another game....neither reading nor playing games ever become boring. I've read more books about American history so far this year than I think I've completed over the last 20 years. It's been a journey of learning, and I recommend you give that a try. If reading doesn't work, then try the hiking thing you talked about. Give yourself something do in between playing games, and I bet you that you'll have fun playing games all over again.

The fourth thing that I wanted to mention is watching movies and/or sports is also really enjoyable when balanced with reading (in my case) and playing games. Turning on a baseball game to just watch the game is also fun (if you like baseball, that is). Sometimes your mind just needs a new avenue in which to think, so going back and forth between games, reading, movies, sports...there is less of a chance of that feeling of being uninterested.

I hope any or all of these suggestions can help you like they've helped me. It took me over 10 years to change my habits, so keep at it, and find a way that works for you.

While I use a pretty strict monthly budget to keep myself in check, my issues are mostly that unless a game is really dragging me in I tend to always have one eye on the horizon ready to jump ship to experience something new. But I also think that is rooted in something else in my brain because it's not limited to games. Some constant dread that there might be something more interesting somewhere else that I'm missing out on. But in reality all it is doing is making me less invested in the games I'm actually playing. That all being said though, I don't sweat too much over not finishing games. In fact, I've tried to teach myself to turn off movies that are garbage. So putting things down when you're "done" even though it's not over is probably not too bad of a thing all the time.

I pretty much finish all my games I know what games I will enjoy and what ones I will not. I have this problem though finishing TV series or movies it's harder for me to sit through them then it is for me to finish a game. I think when it just comes down to it I never really lost my passion for gaming but I get tested alot with shitty greed and lies that these gaming companies pull.

I'm one step beyond where you are, I don't even start games anymore. It's a dark road to be on. I suggest cutting back on video games for a bit and pursuing other interests.

Yup rarely would i finish a game unless im hooked on it. Which got me more into indie title since they cost less and i don't feel ripped off if i don't finish it.

Happens from time to time. I'm usually super invested in a game for 5 or 6 hours, then ready for it to end. Never used to be this way so I can't really explain it. Even games I really like, I'll put them down and not finish them for months and months.

I've only 'played' Dishonored for three minutes; in the menus adjusting graphics settings. Then moved on to do almost the same thing with other games that I bought last year just to not actually play them.

...Yeah.

I'm a completionist, so at least half of the games I play I try to 100%; but I only play about three to five new games a year.

Large libraries create the mentality that there is potential for every unplayed game to be better than the one you're currently playing through. I think this is what causes us to lose interest in games typically when we have large libraries. Just play what you want. I bought the Metro Redux bundle because my friends kept telling me how amazing it is and I just lost so much interest in it. I tried to keep trudging because I am a completionist but then i realized that I was really just wasting my own time. Just play whatever tickles your fancy at the time. Whatever totes your goat. Whatever... well yeah.

Back when you were young you had most likely less games to play for long periods of time and thats a reason you stuck with it and finished them. With more option to choose from you naturally feel less compelled. If you decide more carefully what games you get I think you'll start seeing the end credit roll of them aswell. Also its a personal quirk of mine to finish what I start so before even starting know what your getting yourself into ^^.

Motivation to finish, or even play, games comes and goes for me. I don't have a problem with a big library, though. But sometimes there's too many other things calling your attention that it's impossible to focus on a game. I still love games but I'm glad I don't work as a reviewer. Forcing myself through a game is literally torture (by which I mean figuratively)

Do something other than play video games for a week or so.

Also, buy fewer games. I'm pretty much over that period where I finally realized that I had enough money to just go buy a game whenever I want to. These days, the big question isn't "do I have enough money to buy a new game". It's "do I want to put my time into this game?" Turns out there aren't that many games being released that I really want to put my time into. Dark Souls III is coming out, Deus Ex Mankind Divided is coming out, Persona 5 is coming out, and we're ostensibly getting Dragon Quest VIII on 3DS this year. Otherwise... yeah, I'm just going to play stuff I already have. I'll probably buy Stardew Valley at some point. I don't really have time for anything else.

When I'm not playing something new, I find myself just going back to old favorites or just poking around. Played some Mega Man Legends recently. I finished Super Metroid a few weeks ago. I still pick up Dark Souls I or II sometimes, even though they're not that old. Doom is always fun. A round of Counter Strike here and there.

You're right about exploration, though. For all the open world games we have, none of them really have that mystery or intrigue about the location you're in that permeates Dark Souls and Castlevania and Metroid and Megaman Legends. The AAA, retail industry just doesn't seem all that interested in games where you, say, unlock a new area or discover a hidden dungeon or come across a weird sidequest that you may not have ever seen. Open world games of the Ubisoft variety or even like GTA V don't really scratch that itch, opening up a map, setting down a marker, and running to that marker to see or do something isn't the same at all.

This is my approach as well. Self employed so I can get real busy at times during the year...but I still enjoy my hobby a lot. It's great to be able to turn off the real world problems and dive into a good game. But I might not have enough time to devote to finishing the actual game. Sometime i come back to it or I might not...but I don't care, I enjoy the time i spend gaming when I can.

I own hundreds of games....but I actually only play about 3 on any sort of regular basis. That's because it is what my friends play. At the end of the day it is more fun to chat with siblings/friends online after work then sit by yourself.

I've found this happens when you are able to buy more games than you used to. I own 340 games on Steam, and I've probably only finished 20% of them (of the single player games).

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's usually still works out in the end cost-wise when you compare it to the price of a movie ticket or a Blu-ray etc. Even if you buy a $50 game and "only" put 6 hours into it, you still arguably got your money's worth.

I've been going through this same thing lately. I'm not quite sure how to put it into words. I still enjoy the hobby, but I guess it's just that they are so many games and so many ways to spend my time that I just don't feel the need to force myself to play something when I'm not having fun. And like I said in another thread a while back: at some point, I just made peace with the fact I'm never going to be able to play/finish everything I want to. A lot of the time, it's not that I think the game in question is bad/boring or anything like that, but rather sometimes I'm just not in the mood.

I own FE Fates and it's a game I really wanna get around to playing, but I just haven't been in the mood. I've been playing Paragon for maybe 3-4 days and I've already put just as much if not more time into that than I have Fates. Hell, I recently started playing FF4 and and I've probably put more time into that than Fire Emblem at this point.

The solution to this problem is different for everyone. Sometimes taking a break from games in general might help. Sometimes you just need to find a game that grabs you.

You're probably just growing up. It happens to everyone.

For me the problem is that most (almost all) of it just isn't that interesting anymore. I've played nearly all of it under different titles. I yearn for some good new ideas.

I finish every single game I bought. The only games I didn't finish are games that I thought are too boring.

I have the same approach to games. I buy a lot of them. I think I buy them almost out of habit. Initially, I'll really like something about one or another, but my interest in moving forward takes a nose dive a majority of the time. Most games will outright lose me after an hour. They really have to connect with me for me to keep going. I will spend more time reading about games, looking at videos about games, and listening to podcast, and I find that to be weirdly relaxing, but actually sitting down to play one can seem like a chore.