Am I Tired of Video Games?

I have save games for about 30 different games sitting on my computer at this present point in time, but I have absolutely no ambition to play any of them.

Do you ever have that feeling? What contributes to it? In looking at why this has occurred, I can point to obvious things:

• I'm now in a relationship that has lasted a full year (longest one ever, and she's a hell of a keeper)
• My work schedule doesn't allow for a lot of free time, and when I do have free time, I want to spend it doing things that don't involve video games
• I have too many hobbies vying for my time: video games, Heroclix, Magic The Gathering, movie watching, writing

When it comes down to it, my other hobbies take up much of the time I could use to play video games, but even when I DO play games, I find myself only focusing on two of them: Warframe and League of Legends. The former is really due to the cooperative nature with the fantastic Giant Bomb community as well as just generally enjoying loot grind games. The latter is a bit more personal: I'm a very competitive person, and League fuels that competitive nature for me. There's also the bonus that most of my friends play the game, so it also fuels my cooperative needs.

Nonetheless, I've recently fallen into this place where I want to not just be competitive, but I would like to EXCEL at that competition. I'm playing in Friday Night Magic and trying to ramp up towards going to Pro Tour Qualifiers, big events, and plus I just genuinely like deck-building. With Heroclix, I have a goal of going to the World Championships at Gen Con next year. I can't do that without focus and making sure that I'm pushing myself to be better and wittier.

So these games...they sit...and they wait. This gaming PC that I built and filled with games, it sits alone in the computer room, rarely being turned on. When it is, I just stare at the list of games...digging for something to bide my time and captivate me, but nothing does. Little five minute spurts of gaming take place, yet not a single one can pull my attention from these other things.

Is it because of my work environment? Is it because I literally see video games every day, all day, until my eyes are ready to bleed? I started playing Call of Duty: Ghosts, mainly just to check it out. I like the multiplayer, as it feels like they brought it back to that COD4/MW2/Black Ops 1 vibe that I loved. However, will I continue with it? Is it just something to kill the time? Hell, the only time I really even get to play video games anymore is when I'm waiting for my girlfriend to get off work so I can go pick her up. Beyond that, it's deck-building, team-building, and just doing whatever I can to keep myself busy.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I'm trying to find things to keep myself busy rather than finding things that I genuinely want to do. Maybe there isn't a game right now that can grasp my interests by the balls, carry me along for the ride, and then somehow magically make my balls not feel like they were stretched for a million miles.

So I sit here...shuffling my green devo deck...test running my hands...and I just keep thinking the same question every single time:

Am I just tired of video games? Did I finally outgrow them?

Thanks for reading my selfish and egocentric thoughts. I just needed to actually write something to see it all in print.

Until next time, piece.

Workouts do it for me. Beats videogame fatigue everytime.

I started working out about six months ago. That has just been another thing to take up my time at this point.

Ever since I stumbled onto this site last summer, I've played WAY more games than I had most of this generation (thanks in no small part to Playstation Plus, but I'd have skipped Bioshock Infinite, Arkham City, XCOM, Civ IV, I had never played any Uncharted outside of the demo for the original when all I had for my PS3 was demos, etc.), but I'm also WATCHING people play games (well, Giant Bomb people) way more than I'm actually playing them. And I'm also watching these dudes play games way more than I'm doing my actual job, music reviews.

I'm in a different kind of weird position where I'm more invested in video games than perhaps I've ever been. As a kid I read IGN daily and posted on their forums, but now I'm checking Jeff's various platforms every hour or more frequently, going through old videos following along with the old podcasts, reading Polygon and Kotaku daily even articles talking about the same thing just because they overload on content (and occasionally have great articles in between). It's a weird place to be where I know more about games than anyone I know but at the end of the day I'm still really only playing GTA V and NBA 2K.

I'm also way less patient with some games than I was in previous generations. I started up Dragon's Dogma today and got up to the first boss fight, maybe 45 minutes into the game, died once and thought to myself, "I can see how this loot system is going to work, I see that this world seems a little bland yet overwhelming to me, and I just got my ass kicked on the very first boss," and deleted the game without hesitation.

I've had this for about 4 months now. I just don't give 2 fucks about anything and find myself playing mostly just Dota. And even then, I am watching more Dota than I am playing.

Sometimes you just gotta take a break, do something else for a while, you can get burned out of anything you like when you do it all the time..

I learned that during the donutfest of '09

@jakob187: You might just need to take some time off from it; that can happen to all of us at times in our lives. In just the last few years, I had a while of less gaming, and then came back to it with renewed interest. Nothing to get too worried about.

So...

I've definitely been in a gaming slump lately, too. It doesn't really bother me, my time has been occupied elsewhere, but it's strange that my desire to consume gaming media hasn't decreased at all. I still listen to a few gaming podcasts every week, spend a borderline stupid amount of time on this site in the forums and watching videos ABOUT games, and am more hyped for ever for... say, late spring 2014? Like, I know I WANT to buy a PS4 and play Metal Gear, Destiny, InFamous etc, and all of those new SMT games have caught my eye, but right now? Man, just don't feel like playing games.

Yeah dude I'm right there myself. My gaming time is few and far between these past couple of years.

I took a break from video games completely for over five years when I was in my mid to late twenties, and eventually came back to the hobby. It's always ups and downs just like anything else in life.

Well said.

We've hit a real stagnation point in the industry when it comes to AAA titles. The past year has been really disappointing for me too, so I've just played a hell of a lot of Skyrim and Dark Souls.

Hopefully with the new consoles out to give the developers a bit more power to play with, we can start to get some new ideas for franchises rather than, here's another shooter but now its slightly prettier.

It happens, earlier this year I sort of stopped. And an 8 hour game can still take me a month to beat.

But the PS4 kind of rekindled the fire recently.

I have no answers for you, because I'm in a pretty similar situation. More or less the only gaming I do is with the GB Racing League. I have hundreds of games on Steam, and I fairly recently bought a PS3 and all of the best exclusives (first PS3 I've owned). I've hardly touched any of them.

I assume it will just be one of those phases.

I can't stand playing most games anymore because most do nothing more than rehash extremely old ideas. And when I play a game that specifically tries something new, there's a pretty good chance it's just one new layer on a ton of old ones. And even then, there's of course a chance I won't like the new mechanic anyway.

I still like watching Let's Play's though, can't really explain why.

Sounds about right. I spend 12 hours a day staring at screens for my CS degree so I kinda don't want to look at them any more than I have to now. Most of my non-school time is taken up by music now. After a 5 year hiatus I am taking up bass seriously again and am having more fun with it than I have with most games in a long time.

I simply don't care at all about most games anymore. The a lot of thelarger companies have burned a lot of good will with me so I don't have much of a desire to play anything they put out anymore. I might play a couple of games of SC2 here and there but now that they have broken the ladder system (again) I am not really wanting to play that either. Now it is just mostly indie games for me if anything at all. Mostly playing guitar or bass or listening to music with my eyes closed now. Or reading.

I do think it is an environmental thing. You deal with games all day, I am on the computer all day for school. Both of us are burning out for different yet similar reasons, mainly having to deal with similar things for our primary work.

I'll tell you the same thing I always do when I'm feeling the way you described. "Take a break from games". They'll always be there. I've gone through this same thing several times and it always did me good to walk a way for an extended period of time. If you have no interest in it, that doesn't necessarily mean you've outgrown it, but rather burnt out. The traction of your interest will inevitably slow down eventually.

This doesn't even just apply to games, it applies to all hobbies. And that word "hobby" is an important distinction when your talking about spending your free time on something. Hobbies are side interests we partake in because we enjoy them. If you don't have a compulsion or drive to play games out of enjoyment or excited fulfillment, then let them sit on the side for a while, because I guarantee you'll eventually have a renewed interest in it (Speaking from experience here). Now whether or not it will be to the same extent is one thing, but regardless walking away and coming back to something later on will always give you a renewed perspective, and that doesn't just apply to games, but on anything in life really.

Finally, if you find you never want to play a game again, then that's perfectly normal too. People constantly change, as do their interests.

Pretty much the same boat I'm in, even down to the Dota (though it was more casting than watching for a while).

You go through phases. I've lost the 'drive' to play video games. I am married (have been in a long term relationship for 8 years), 6 years into my current employment, own a house etc. I play basketball two nights a week and cricket one weekend day. The schedule is pretty full but I find that games fall into a part of my schedule. Most weeknights are spent (depending on which nights I have sports or other unexpected events - extra work, going out etc) involve time with my wife, watching TV etc til about 8:30. From there I split my time with about an hour at the gym (a new thing this year which has worked quit well), an hour of TV/show I have ready to watch, an hour gaming. That gives me til about 1130 or midnight at which point I'll read for about half an hour before sleep. Get up at 6, do the day again.

Before it would have been games the whole time, but I find there needs to be a balance which keeps me interested. The only other thing I find now is that if I do have a spare day/weekend where my wife is out and I can get in a lot of gaming, I don't. I find really long marathon sessions impossible to do now even when I can.

Despite that I still want an Xbox One, PS4 and to upgrade my PC because gaming is my one real 'hobby' or luxury and I still find them entertaining and enjoyable.

I ask this question to myself a lot, especially recently. The thing I found is that it isn't me so much as it is the games that are coming out lately. I just can't get into them. However, when a game does come out that I'm into, I'm still able to marathon it and enjoy it. Every once in a while a game will come out to remind me why I love video games. It seems as though it's just taking longer for those games to come out these days.

Still, if nothing is doing it for you, maybe take a break from games for a while, like everybody said. You have plenty of other things going on to occupy your time. By the time you come out, the new consoles might actually have something you want to play on them.

@jakob187: I find that you simply need to stumble into a fun game to get back in it - and that sometimes requires a bit of force. This weekend Rage was free to play over Steam. This is a game I was only tangentially interested in and heard middling to negative things about. I was kind of burnt on gaming having sunk a ton of pointless hours into GTA Online and feeling like every game is shallow and repetitive. So when I loaded up Rage I honestly wasn't expecting much. Although it wasn't a sudden conversion back to gaming faith, the game crept up on me and I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. When I beat it I'll probably write a Blog here encouraging people to give it an honest chance.

So now I'm kinda back in it. Strange how an Id game actually surprised me and made me think that hey, games are alright.

This only happens to me when I don't have any game to play because I've played all the ones I'm interested in, and the ones I was interested in I'm no longer interested in playing at the time since I've done all that I've wanted to do. After a while of not playing games, it can get kind of depressing. I would say it happens slightly more than rarely, but with that being said, it's not very often that it happens.

I know a girl can certainly do it, but I always tried to balance it with one of my favorite hobbies. The most depressing is when I am not gaming, and yet, since I still love games, I'll be on the internet waiting, hoping for some interesting news to read and discuss, and that sometimes in those moments don't happen, so it gets boring. Doesn't happen much though. A few times a year perhaps.

@jakob187: There's nothing wrong with not wanting to play video games. If you would rather be doing other things in your spare time you should do them. from your post It almost sounds like you feel some sort obligation to play more games.

A big thing that helps is not feeling like you HAVE to play games consistantly. When games become a chore because you for whatever reason think you have to play them, you are in a bad place. I've taken months off from gaming. Not to get away or try and quit or something, but I just didn't feel like playing.

The great thing about gaming, is when you do decide to play, if you have missed good games, you can most likely get then heavily discounted.

Don't play because you "need" to, just play when you want to.

Only play what really interests you. For me, that means I only end up playing 2-3 games per year. At this point, I enjoy listening to the bomb cast and keeping up with industry talk more than I actually play games.

Remove 27 of those games, keep 3 that you've NEVER played before, make believe that you still live in a world where a game is expensive and buying it is an event of itself that must be enjoyed and celebrated the way you ride a new bike. Not just another stack of Gigabytes that you download and neatly stack into your existing pile of games, "to be played" someday.

Now you have 3 different games, they're the only games you currently own, and they are your only portal into the amazing world you love, the world of video games.

There is no such thing as backlog, the other thousand games you have are fake files, all you have right now is these 3. They are important, expensive, and you're dying to cherish them individually like they deserve.

You can't wait to launch one of those three titans and dive deep into it so deep you drown and come out to tell a story. The beauty of it is that the three games are few and they're there for you to enjoy them when you feel like it and when you have a chance. You don't have a backlog that you must climb several hours a day, you have a few titles that you'll play a couple hours a day when you feel like it. It's like you bought 3 new blu-rays, you don't shove them in your video player because you HAVE to, you savor them and watch one every few days or whenever it is fitting. Whenever you FEEL like it, this is entertainment, you turn to it after a long day of studying/work to be entertained. There are no commitments!

Begin your journey!

Isn't watching/listening/reading the duders play video games already better than playing them yourself?

Considering two of the major things that you focus on and vie for your time with videogames are MtG and Heroclix I doubt you've "outgrown" videogames. Sounds more like you've just found other things that interest you more for the time being. Is there really any difference between finding a new videogame that interests you again, or finding a card game that does ? Or are they both just different kinds of entertainment ? As long as you keep your mind open you'll eventually stumble into a videogame that excites you again.

Sounds more like you don't have enough free time, and enough other hobbies to keep you happy, but for some reason feel obligated to play videogames because it's what you know. Do your other nerdy shit, play games when one comes out that you like. You don't need to play games, just because you feel like you should.

Simple "not playing video games" is kind of a hard thing in my line of work. Working at a LAN gaming center, you kind of HAVE to play video games. Like I said, though, a lot of that is focused into only two games right now.

Someone mentioned the lack of AAA titles, and I can agree to some extent. The majority of AAA titles are just sequels, and frankly, I'm sick of the franchises at this point. Assassin's Creed IV came out...and yet I haven't even finished the third one. If anything, I haven't bothered touching anything besides the multiplayer on AC3! Arkham Origins came out, and I really want to play it...but I haven't even finished Arkham City (mainly because that game became too boring eventually).

I've been more invested in indie games as of late, namely because they are cheap and offer way more value to me. Rogue Legacy was probably the last game that I seriously dumped insane amounts of time in...and I still haven't beaten it yet. I COULD beat it, but I don't want to. I've never necessarily been the type of person that LIKES beating video games. If something will let me level up and get gear, then I just CAN'T beat it unless I've gotten everything. Part of that is because I know there is a 95% chance that I'm not going to play the game again after I've beaten it.

Case in point: Skyrim. I played it at launch for about two weeks. I was getting beefy, full Daedric armor, all kinds of crazy powerful shit, doing everything I could to avoid the main storyline and just doing side quest shit, exploring. I finally said "okay, I'm just going to get that main story out of the way so I can go back to focusing on all this other shit." I finished the main story...and then I didn't touch the game again.

Why? That game has hundreds of hours to sink into it. Was it solely because there was a sense of completion for me? That all this work I had done was for a rather lame main storyline that lasted a total of maybe two hours?

If anything, the most fun I've had with a game as of late was with 99 Levels to Hell, but that's really only because I don't own Spelunky yet. I know, that's heresy and I should be shot on sight, but just saying... That game is awesome.

Nonetheless, I just can't be bothered to play the games. I think some of it honestly had to do with my overall work schedule. That schedule has recently changed to where I now have three days off in a row every week. Maybe I can finally find the drive to get some of those games knocked out. I would say "I could start a blog series and talk about these games," but in all honesty, I always start stuff and never finish it. Seriously, go through my past blogs. The history of Dead Space? Didn't finish it. My script-writing? Not finished. Frankly, I start shit and never finish it. I'm THAT guy.

Now that I look at it in that light, maybe that's a deeper psychological problem than just video games that I should address.

In brighter news, my green devo deck for MTG is almost complete! I just need my Nylea God of the Hunt cards to come in!

What I've found is that competitiveness is generally what fuels my urge to play games, and it seems that you're channeling that through a TCG instead. You've got a happy medium for that competitiveness so you don't have an urge to play games because you've subconciously set your competitive priorities.

You might be tired of games because you got all the points in Doritos crash course.

I feel like I've just come out of a similar kind of phase, and its to do with having more time I'm sure, change of job has given me evenings back, but also to do with realizing I don't have to play all of everything. I have found myself really enjoying gaming again, but only with LoL and a bunch of indie games really, Rogue Legacy, Don't starve and a few others, I've not even finished GTA5 or ME2 yet, they're good but I just cant be arsed. Stick to what you like and its all good.

Sometimes you need a break, I take a month off here or there, but I always come back.

Video games are dead you guys.

If you're valuing Magic The Gathering over Video Games you may need to see a counselor

For me it comes in waves, it might have to do with what games are coming out.

But right now I'm kind of in the same boat, playing warframe for my PvE and planetside 2 for my PvP, and link between worlds for my nintendo.

It doesnt help that this generation went on for way too long. There just hasnt been much excitement in this industry prior these launches. Just more sequels and stuff. But i dont know, maybe you just need a break. Or maybe you did outgrow it. Just do what you enjoy most, you should be having fun if you do that ;-)

Also. Good for you, finding a keeper :-)

No no no. I don't have all the achievements in Doritos Crash Course. Only Dash of Destruction and Harm's Way. Crash Course would happen if the Japan stuff wasn't so fucking balls hard.

1. I work next to our local game shop.

2. I enjoy MTG and Heroclix. They offer me a different way to look at strategy, keep my mind fresh.

3. I can actually sell back MTG cards at a profit but not video games.

ReTarDedFisHy took a break from vidyagaems for about a year and it did him some good. Not just some good but a significant amount of good. When he got back into it a year later everything was fresh, new and exciting. Playing catch up on the ins and outs of the hips and haps of the video game world was very entertaining. A year is a long time, and maybe you don't need that much time, but a break would do ya good, the fish thinks. Whatever you decide to do, good luck duder!

As God is my witness, I can never understand why this is such a worry. I work about 55 to 60 hours a week these days which leaves little free time for other pursuits. Add in my family responsibilities, those chores an adult needs to get done, and I find myself with precious few hours weekly for entertainment. I tend to binge hobbies. I'll skip gaming for weeks or even a couple of months to focus on watching TV shows, movies or reading books. Then, when I've had my fill of that, I'll play games for a while. A few weeks or more later, I'll switch to something else again. I don't understand why gaming needs to be a "latest, greatest, and everyday" focus. Why can't people just play when they feel like it even if that is as little as every few months? I'm older than most here, but I've been playing video games since I was a kid in the 70's. There have been several multi-year video game gaps over the course of my life. That's okay. Hobbies are meant to be fun and when they cease being fun, they should be shelved. Perhaps, 5 or more years from now something will catch your eye and you'll rediscover what you once loved about gaming. Don't waste your time playing for the sake of playing and, more importantly, don't waste your time worrying about it.

For me it's just time. I work 60-80 hours a week so while I buy games at the same rate I used to, I never get to play them. Plus when I get free time I'd rather fucking sleep these days! So goood...

The problem is most games coming out now are derivative and or riff on other games you have probably already played. Some of my friends were all about me getting BF4 last night since you could get the deluxe for one day only for 35 dollars.... but the thing is... I knew I would only be getting it because they wanted me to and I wasn't going to play it unless they were online forcing me to play it. So I backed out and didn't get it. Thanks to steam sales and tons of other crap there is just a mountain of games out there for cheap now but the truth is getting a game you really don't have any interest in for 1 dollar isn't really a deal is it? That and yeah... hour 15 minute drive to work total every day, 11 hour shift, at least I normally get three days off. But on those work days I get maybe an hour of gaming in tops.

I've felt the same way over the past few years, Skyrim was the last major release I truly enjoyed. I couldn't really play more than a few minutes of most games, maybe a couple hours at best.

I thought maybe it had something to do with me? Then I started playing indie games, playing games like Rogue Legacy, Mark of the Ninja, Volgarr the Viking, and Hotline Miami. Games that you really PLAY, not just watch and experience. And I really enjoyed them. I want games that I have to actively be a part of, with mechanics that I have to master and understand, not a passive viewer of a developers "grand vision". I want games that expect and demand more of me than to simply be present to follow the handholding indicators, follow the giant flashing arrows, and to press A when requested of me.

Then Dark Souls happened to me.

I put 70 hours into Dark Souls over the past 2+ weeks, and started playing Demon's Souls again, and I can't get enough. Turns out I'm just sick of boring, derivative, unoriginal, passive, movie-like, machismo gun-fantasy murder simulators; games that are so afraid to loosen your leash even a little bit, games that are so afraid that you won't play their games in the precise way they intended that they leave you nothing to think for youself about. Everything is provided for you, the instructions, the how-to, the direction, everything is predetermined, you just have to be there to press go. There was a time where I valued story and characters enough to deal with gameplay that wasn't really up to snuff, but nowadays I have zero patience. I'm not saying that these games are always terrible, I've just grown tired of watching games play themselves.

Dark Souls is such a VIDEO GAME, and that's what I feel has been missing in most of the big releases over the past few years. I was bored to tears by Bioshock Infinite, made it maybe halfway through GTA V and stopped, and the Last of Us doesn't appeal to me; every single major release this year hasn't really interested me.

Dark Souls reminded me that I'm not sick of games, I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Don't think about it, you'll come back to it when the interest is there again. You don't have to be all in on video games 100% of the time.

I feel the same way as you the only game I have bought in the last 6 month was Assassins Creed 4 and that was with my PS4 so I would have a game to play. I think a lot it is the fact that I am tired of all the micro transaction bull shit we see in games now days. With Assassins Creed 4 I bought the Buccaneer edition due to the fact I wanted the most complete version of the game I could get (And also that statue is awesome).

But then I was bummed out to find that if I want the complete game I still have to drop $30 NZ on a season pass after spending NZ$150 on the best edition out there. And don't even get me started on the fact that they are selling what are basically cheat codes which let you level up your ship faster. I guess I am just tired of being nickle and dimmed to death there is a reason why I do not play free to play games or IOS games they feel to much like a scam to me.

But if you need to take a break do. I myself thanks to the folks over on Comic Vine am currently going down the rabbit hole that is comics which is a lot of fun and not as much of a commitment as a $110 game each week which is basically what I was doing for most of last year .

@time_lord: I thought that Assassin's Creed IV didn't require the season pass stuff anymore, that they had dumped all of that.

You do not need an online pass to access the multilayer they scraped that. They are still selling a season pass though.

Go through your backlog of old old games you really love.

I'm getting tired of new video games, I tend to look at them and say "Oh, this same shit again again." So I went back and started playing Eye of the Beholder and remember why I like games so much.

I would suggest a healthy dose of Dark Souls. Perfect remedy for gaming fatigue.

@jakob187:

I've been through something similar what you are going through. I think it's part of aging and having played a ton of games.

For me at least after I've played several hundred different games, they lost their newness. There isn't much I feel like I haven't seen and games didn't excite me like they used to. And then that backlog I had and still have, somehow when you have all the choice in the world it makes harder to choose anything.

And then there is the time thing, as I've gotten older time itself feels like it goes by faster and faster, I'm much more conscious of how much time I'm spending in game. At times it makes me feel a pressure to hurry up and accomplish something, and that takes the fun out of it. When it starts to feel like work, that stinks.

I ended up taking a several year hiatus from the hobby before coming back really in 2011. And that really helped. Games felt fresh and new again, I basically rebooted my backlog just not caring about games I didn't get to.

I also feel like as I've aged my tastes have narrowed a bit and I also have less tolerance for huge epic games. The way I used to play them I'd basically plow 4-6 hours a day into one until I beat it. I can't do that anymore. I just don't have the time and frankly the drive to do that. So I game differently now and I'm ok with that.

Since games are related to your work environment I doubt you can go cold turkey like I did. But yeah maybe just pursuing Magic or Heroclix in your free time will give you enough time away to recharge your batteries. I don't think that would be enough for me, I had to really get away from them, but hopefully it will be for you.