Post-game depression and pre-game release obsession.

I'm not sure if the title is the correct way to describe it. Do you guys ever get that feeling after you beat a game you really enjoyed and you just can't enjoy other games because they just feel flat in comparison. Or on the other hand, you're so excited for a game to come out that you become obsessed with watching trailers and every other game pales in comparison or feels like a waste of time. This didn't really happen to me last year with any releases (a sad thing), but it happened with The Last of Us in 2013 and I think it's happening right now with The Witcher 3. I remember pretty distinctly running into the same issue with Skyrim and Fallout 3.

I'm curious to know, what games have given you these types of feelings - or what games are currently giving you these types of feelings? What are some memorable game releases that you were super-hyped about and/or played an unhealthy amount of?

I get definite lulls when I've finished a game. I struggle to find something else to focus on and go through the motions a bit. I've not had serious game hype since Metal Gear Solid 2.

I don't usually have this with games, but I have the same feeling when I finish a really good, long novel. It takes me a while after that to be able to jump into another story, so I usually read a non-fiction or two in the interim.

I've sorta been in the post-game doldrums for a few years now. In 2011/12, I went on a streak of finding games that appealed directly to me and were a ton of fun, and since then I have struggled to find anything that has impacted me similarly. As for hype, the last time I got excited for a game was Dark Souls 2. I wasn't obsessed though; just excited. I watched some gameplay videos, and said "That looks cool, and similar to Dark Souls". I bought the game day one and had a good time with it. The end.

Side note: Every response I make on this forum makes me wonder if I like video games anymore.

The title of this thread brings to mind a million different cheesy quotations about journeys being more important than destinations and anticipation being the sweetest thing. There's truth in the cheese apparently.

It's interesting to hear your guys' perspective on this because I don't know if I've ever felt this (at least not in a long time). I find that most games feel so long nowadays that I'm typically getting quite tired of them by the time the end. I think it's because of cheap Steam prices making it easy to get great games for cheap so I don't have to worry about getting my money's worth - it's almost guaranteed.

What really adds to this is the false endings a lot of games do. I'm feeling really good about finishing it up and then bam, jk, I'm only halfway done. This typically kills any excitement I have for the game and the rest feels like a chore. Recent games that I've play that I felt have done this are Deus Ex: HR, Far Cry 3, and the first Witcher game. It's okay to have a false climax, but doing that about halfway through the story feels really bad to me.

I get the 'depression' but not the pre-release 'obsession' - I try to avoid finding too much out about games before I play them, even if I'm really excited for them. But once I start playing a game I love I can get a tad obsessed with it.

When I beat an awesome game I get a similar feeling as when I finish an awesome book/TV series, it's a kind of melodramatic 'ehhh well what do I do with my life now??!' thing where I'll keep randomly thinking back to the game/book/show. It usually passes in a few days but can take much longer depending how much I got into the game. I typically can't really get into any new games in this period of 'mourning'.

The last game to make me 'depressed' after finishing was Dragon Age Inquisition, I love the series and I started playing it right after handing in my dissertation so I had a bit of free time - I was playing it pretty much every single free hour I had & ended up finishing it at ~100 hours in less than 2 weeks. I think playing a lot in a short space of time massively contributes to the strength of the post-game 'depression'

I tend to get that after a binge of a particularly good TV show, or after discovering a new band/musician. Rarely does it happen with games for me, for some reason.

I'm loathe to call it "depression", though. It's certainly nothing that intense or serious. It's more like that malaise feeling when you realize that you have to go home at the end of a vacation.

After finishing a big game that manages to grab my attention and just not let go, I experience a feeling of astoundment. It's like after breaking out of a dream and going through a retrospective of what you just experienced. The game Fallout 3 did this to me and the feeling was multiplied in the way it ended: corrupt save not long after finishing just about everything(including DLC). I discovered I couldn't recover the save and the others were too far back and the realization that fallout 3 had ended left a great "after-taste," with me which saw me put the controller down, lean back, and have a big smile on my face.

Right now I'm deep diving into Divinity: Original Sin and I don't want to say it's quite on the level of Fallout 3 yet, but let's just say I'm more invested into inventory and gear management than I should be. So much so that I want to power through and just beat it already so that I can break the inventory management grip it has on me lol I know that when I do finish it that I'm going to feel content but also relieved lol

So the point being, I don't feel down after finishing a game that I deep dive into, I feel enjoyment, contentment while sometime feeling relief.

I haven't been obsessed about any game pre-release in a really long time. But I definitely feel down after completing a particularly good game. The effect is more pronounced with RPGs for me, since they usually require a larger time investment and more often then not I'm playing them for the story and characters.

This most recently happened to me with two games last year, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Earthbound. Both of which I was playing for the first time. I'm about to start playing another JRPG while I wait for The Witcher 3, but I hope I can move on to it after finishing the JRPG and not fall into a sea of despair in the interim.

I tend to not obssess a lot about anything until I get my hands on it. Though I definitely get the post-media depression. Turns out if you consume a shitload of entertainment in all forms, you will eventually have a ridiculously high bar for quality and extremely niche taste.... I spend a lot of time in kind of a haze between the next big thing which shows up like, twice a year if I'm lucky at this point.

Might be time to start reading more again... But my reading habits are miles ahead of games on being unhealthy, novels are goddamn consumers of life.