Do you feel compelled to finish every game you buy?

I was recently going through my backlog and decided to finally give Always Sometimes Monsters a shot. About 4 hours (and 11 in game days) into the game I finally decided I had enough. I just wasn't having a good time and it seemed like I had already seen the loop enough to know it wasn't for me. There was however a moment of me wondering if I needed to finish the game to "get my money's worth" since I did purchase it (although it was during a Steam sale I believe).

This has happened in the past as well. I played through all of The Force Unleashed because I, as a huge Star Wars fan, spent $60 on it. I disliked that game for so many reasons but felt like I had to play it because at that time my financial situation meant it may be awhile before another new game comes my way. I didn't enjoy my time with it and played it out of obligation. Now that my financial situation has improved, and I have become smarter about finding deals on new games, I feel a lot less of that urge to play everything if it isn't grabbing me.

How do you duders/dudettes feel about finishing games you buy, especially if you aren't enjoying them? Of course some games can't be "finished" but the question is still the same, do you feel compelled to invest significant time in those games? Does the price affect that decision, so a game bought on a Steam sale might be easier to stop than one bought at full price?

I finish maybe 1 in 5 I intentionally buy, and like very very few of the ones I get in silly bundles which I should stop buying.

I used to, but not anymore. Like I've said time and time again, at some point I just made peace with the fact I'm never going to finish every game I buy (even if I bought it at full price) and that's okay. If I'm not enjoying it, I'll drop it in a heartbeat. I'll go play something I like even if I've beaten it numerous times before.

I used to, and it sometimes benefited, because it'd turn out that I loved the game, but now, no. That said, the games that I am not finishing, are games that I just don't find good enough to complete, and others have felt the same way (as opposed to critically acclaimed games), even if I wanted to see it through to give it a chance. This-gen, it was Thief. That's when I realized 'hey, I didn't actually finish a game I bought', the next would be Mad Max, and now, it's Mafia 3. Thief was just mediocre to me. Both Mad Max and Mafia have the same issue as one another. They're beautiful games, and the gameplay is fine, but they're so repetitive, and the story and world isn't interesting enough to me to keep going. Another thing has happened starting just this year: there haven't really been any big title games that I went through again on hard. All I've been trying to do is look for new games that look interesting to me instead of focus on one game and go through it more than once; I've tried, and I fail to stay motivated to keep going.

I try to at least get to the credits in every game I own. It doesn't always happen. I certainly don't chase achievements. Out of something like 100 PS3 games "finished", I only ever got platinum in three or four and those were easy plats.

Now that I do almost all my gaming on PC and Steam, I've got plenty of games I don't even intend to play at all because they either came bundled with games I did want, or were part of the ubiquitous, irresistible Steam key giveaway. Who can resist free games?

@meteora3255: 100% yes ( except Steam games, because I have wAAAY too many)

I have Gamefly for games I want to try but am unsure if I will like them and most of the time I dont finish those.

I am not concerned about finishing every game I buy, but I do try to make a good faith effort at finishing the games I start. The reason for this is that for the first couple decades of my life I finished almost zero games. I can't actually think of an NES game I beat, for example, and even on the SNES the number was low. I would just give up when things got too hard or frustrating.

So now I try to get to the end of most of my games, understanding that certain games I probably don't have the time or patience to actually finish. I've been playing a lot of Enter the Gungeon recently, for example, and I doubt I'll beat any of the final bosses in that. Honestly I probably finished fewer games this year than in previous years, specifically because I've found that finishing games is often kind of a waste of time. Many games have overly difficult and uninteresting/repetitive back halves, with many of them having bad stories that don't end in interesting ways.

Most gamers seem to agree. For example in DOOM, a game that is generally considered to be excellent (and which I do intend to finish eventually) on Xbox only 21% of gamers who played it actually completed it. It's not even that long a campaign.

Only 50% of players finished Gears of War 2.

Abzu on PS4? 58.1%, for a game that is short with virtually no challenge. Joujrney on PS4 is at 38.5%, which just seems insane to me. Firewatch has a comparatively robust %67.8 completion rate, but I don't think it gets much better than that.

Uncharted 4, which has one of the most compelling stories ever? %42.8 finish even in explorer mode, which I believe is super duper easy.

You can blame gamers for not following through, but eventually you have to come to the conclusion that most games just aren't worth it for their audiences to complete. I think this is generally true. Most games are too long and many are too difficult (at least at points.) So while I try to finish games, if I just can't bring myself to slog through the end of a game (even a game that I may enjoy that just gets tiresome after awhile) I remind myself that it's not always me. It's often the designers, who feel compelled to add filler and annoying, unfun, difficulty spikes because that's just the way games have always done it.

Lately, there's been alot of games I haven't finished. I just lose interests and end up watching vids. Though when RE7 drops I'll probably see that to the end.

Yes I finish every game if I don't I feel like it's a waste of money most of the time I enjoy the games I play and it's easy to finish others times it's a grind but I will finish.

I use to be that way, but not anymore. Once I had my first, second, and finally third child I have come to respect my free time in a way I never did. If I am not enjoying something to its fullest (there are exceptions for flaws/glitches/etc) I simply put it down and walk away. Some are harder than others, but I can count on one hand how many games I've "completed" in the past decade.

I used to finish every game within a few weeks. Now I just have dozens of in-progress games I'll have to finish. Some day.

No. Time is money. Sometimes you need to recognize a sunk cost and stop investing more time into it.

It depends, if I buy something new for $60 I usually try to finish it. If I buy something on Steam sale, humble bundle, used at Gamestop etc. there's a good chance I won't finish it, or not for a while at least.

Apparently I don't, since over the years I've left a pile of shame that is ridiculous. I think I like to fool myself into thinking I do, though. Which leads me to making weird purchases like Lost Planet 3 just last week because "I heard somewhere once that the writing's good in that".

That said, when I stop a game, it will usually be for a few reasons: not liking it, sure, but that's not the only one. More often than I'd like to admit, I'll stop a game even if I like it quite a bit. I've never been able to accurately pinpoint why I do this, but I think it might come from the feeling of wanting to be "in the now" when it comes to games, or maybe simply because I get excited about another interesting game too easily and can't practice good delayed gratification.

I finished Hitman, so that's something. That game rules. I also continue to go back to it regularly. On the other hand, Root Letter, a cool looking visual novel, continues to sit on my PS4 dashboard, as I keep telling myself I'll "get to it". Final Fantasy XV is in the middle; I'm currently playing it and enjoying it, but I worry that my particular nature will kick in and I'll decide to start playing the next game I may or may not finish.

Wow, that was depressing. I didn't mean for it to sound like a mid-life crisis, really. Anyway, this gave me a kick in the ass to start Root Letter, if nothing else.

When I was younger I would play everything I bought or rented to completion. As I get older (almost 25) and gain more responsibilities, I start to go from game to game more quickly without finishing them. The game I do finish at this point are probably in the minority.

I almost never start games much less finish. When I do start them though? Probably 2 hours on average and if I don't care after that I never play it again.

More than half of my Steam library is filled w/ random games that got bundled with couple games I wanted so besides those, I'm determined to finish my games. I think it's nuts to play couple hours of a game and just toss it off. I don't think games show themselves unless you spend time with them. People are missing out on a lot if they're just quick looking their purchases. But @meteora3255, sounds like you gave the game an honest shot and it's probably ok to move on. It happens to me a lot with rhythm games. I fucking suck at them and it's a shame and a waste of money but I just have to move on.

Yes, if I get the game through PS plus or Xbox live games with gold, I can put it down.

Not really. I mean, I try, I feel compelled to at least play every game I buy, but if I don't dig a game, I drop it with a quickness.

I finish 9/10 games I buy, at a minimum.

I used to, but my time is so much more limited now; I can't afford to waste time on a game that isn't doing it for me. It's kind of great, honestly. I wasted a lot of time in my youth playing through all of a game I didn't like because I needed to get my "moneys worth".

Yeah, but some games I fall of pretty hard like Dragon Age: Inquisition.

No and I think its just a product of getting older and having less free time. While I'd love to be able to finish every game I get, with my limited time to play I'll quickly drop a game that just isn't grabbing me. I think part of it is also that as I've gotten older I've found it less and less necessary to buy a game I want as soon as it come out and usually don't mind waiting till I can pick it up cheaper. So I don't feel like I'm wasting as much money. To me my free time is much more valuable then the 30 or so I may have spent on a game I'm not enjoying. If thats the case I'm definitely going to put it down and play something else.

I do make an honest try to finish every game I buy, even though I buy pretty much everything at least a year after release and at a pretty low price. It's also why my backlog just always keeps growing (not at a thousand games, yet... but getting there).

It can be for several reasons:

• to not let the game "beat" me - I sometimes kinda need to feel that I've bested a bad game and all it threw at me. It also allows me to feel like I have more of a leg to stand on if I happen to slag the game off, since I have seen everything it had to offer and am making a statement based on a full experience with it.
• sometimes even mediocre-to-bad games throw a very interesting 3rd act or specific sequence at you and it's worth experiencing those parts.
• I sometimes just want to see where the story goes.
• I often find mediocre games with lofty ambitions to be very interesting (I'm the same way with movies - ones others consider colossal failures often turn out to be incredibly intriguing to me), so even a very flawed game can be very meaningful to me.
• I'm often able to meet a game half-way and at least immerse myself in its world, even if it doesn't knock my socks off.

I am able, though, to look at certain games and be satisfied to walk away. It just depends on the game.

I find it's been easier to complete games in the last couple of years because I now play 1-2 games at a time rather than bouncing around and risking forgetting what is happening and how to play. I also have been trying to select games that are only 5-15 hours long in-between the 30+ hour ones in order to avoid burning out on multiple long games in a row (though I will sometimes play an entire series of games almost like a Netflix TV show binge, even if all the games are quite long - I played all of the Saints Row games like this and while it was not completely back-to-back it was pretty close).

@meteora3255 I thought Sometimes Always Monsters was an incredibly bad game - I thought at first the clueless writing, characters, and dialog was done as tongue-in-cheek, before realizing they were dead-serious and thought they were creating high art. I saw that game to the end; mainly so that I could continue to feed the ball of white-hot disdain I held for that game. Not the best motivation to finish a game, but an effective one.

Depends on how long it takes to 'spend time with them'. When I was younger I used to spend hours playing a game regardless of quality, but I find that as I have less time to play games, a game needs to 'show itself' early on, as they don't deserve the slack considering there are games like Journey or Firewatch that can condense great experiences in small packages. Even large-scale games can do a good job of hooking you early on, such as GTA V or the Witcher 3. There's no reason to drag out a negative, sluggish, or boring experience, especially when there are so many good games out there available on both consoles and PC.

Not really but if it's a game that someone recommended to me i will probably finish it.

When I was younger I was a little better about that stuff, but I've bought too much junk on Steam and GOG to ever be able to get through (or want to get through) all of it. That said, I've gotten better about not impulse-buying junk that I'm probably never going to play, and also finishing the stuff that I've started this year.

thread reminds me goty edition of dragon age inquisition may still be on sale on ps4. wish the dlc was on sale for pc but meh.

no more games in 2017! (hah...)

e: most likely getting a switch so i already blew it.

related to the thread last game i honestly remember beating is (two) brothers.

Games where I live (Canada) at full price are about $90 with tax so if I buy a game I play it all the way through, even if I don't like it that much. That said I very rarely buy a game at full price that I don't like because the prices here demand I be a lot pickier. On the other hand I have 200+ steam games mostly bought on sale, there are games in that pile I will definitely never beat, and may never even play. So if the price is low enough I don't feel as pressured to beat them.

nah son. I splurge on games like I splurge on dickies jorts.

Not at all. If I just can't take it anymore, then I cut and move on. I believe in Wolpaw's Law for a reason.

I try to finish every game I buy if I'm buying it while it is still "new" but mostly because I buy very few games. When I buy old games I am happy to let them age and play them whenever or maybe never. For example I recently bought Tyranny which I will play before the end of the year. I also recently bought Arx Fatalis which I want to play but won't prioritise it over other newer stuff.

Same exact situation for me my Canadian brother lol. I've added at least 20 games to my steam library this year I will NEVER play.

My library is constantly growing, so completing every game I buy seems an impossibility, but I do try to finish every game I start.

I finish very few games that I start. I like to graze. Most games don't remain engaging for too long, and I'm certainly not going to spend time playing something I'm not enjoying. That is something only a crazy person would do.

I used to have a compulsion to platinum every game I bought, which was a huge mistake. I was starting to hate my hobby because I was trying to grind out really frustrating trophies on games I didn't even like.

Bloodborne helped me with this, as it is one of the first games in years I bought and just didn't want to play after an hour anymore. I no longer feel bad about shelfing a title if it isn't grabbing me, and I reserve platinum attempts for games I really love. I just have too limited time to play games to be wasting it playing something I don't really enjoy. Even games I sorta like, like I Am Setsuna, I dropped off on and don't feel too bad about anymore.

Any game that I get in to I'll finish. But some games I just don't get in to.

Depends on how much I like the game. Price never really factors into it. I'm aware of my tastes and how to pick out games that will suit me, so I tend to finish most (70%~ at least) games that I attempt to play. Unfortunately, as I've gotten older, I've found my mood affects my time gaming more. I may be completely disinterested in a game or gaming in general and then come back to it enamored. It kinda sucks that my ability to engage has become less consistent, but I just go with it. Same thing happens with music and really anything else in my life, lol.

At one point I was of the mindset that I needed to finish every game I started. Now though once I get a feel for the gameplay I make the decision on whether or not I'll bother finishing it.

I purchased way too many games this year and finished only one, Abzû.

Like a lot of people here, I used to (at least try), but not anymore. I would rather not start a game if I wasn't sure I was going to complete it. Now, I am not like that anymore. Now I can try a game for a few hours, and if it is not grabbing me, I will just quit.

i used to really stress about finishing every game i played, but the witcher 3 broke that for me. well i guess the game didnt ruin it for me but more like my computer did. my motherboard died after like 60 hours in that game, when i was in the middle of some big story stuff. i didnt have the money to replace it for moths almost a year even, but now when i have tried to go back to it i dont really remember what was going on and i dont want to re-do 60+ hours of game. since then i have started several games with out finishing. but i guess it didnt help that the next game i started after the witcher 3 was fallout 4 and i just wasnt into that game after almost 40 hours so i turned it off and havent looked back.

Yes, I do, for the most part.

I don't like buying games that I don't have the intention of playing. And like to research my purchases pretty thoroughly. Thus, it's rare that I start a game that I don't like anymore. The real problem is getting to all of them. I have to stop buying so many games if I'm gonna spend 100+ hours on them like with Dark Souls 3 currently.

@dudeglove: The premise seemed really interesting. The writing was bad but the gameplay was worse. A game like Papers Please can take what should be a dull repetitive task into something compelling so that isn't an excuse.

More on topic I try to finish everything I start but I definitely have games where I bought them without intending to play them, Contradiction is a recent example.

I try to finish every game I buy these days. But if it just isn't for me, I still put it on my list and set it aside.

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/tekzero/lists/2016-games-played/355278/

It doesn't happen too often as I tend to hoard my money for games that I very carefully research before buying. This actually made me buy less games that I would enjoy rather than to just buy it because it was on sale. I used to buy like 10-20 games during the holidays and now I don't even have that many games on my steam wishlist.

My track record for finishing games has had been pretty poor for the most part. I think a big reason for that was in the past I picked up and played a lot of RPG's and I would get to a certain point (usually around 35 hours) and then would get tired of playing. In rare cases, I even started over and played for an even longer time on my second time, and still quit. This happened with Xenoblade Chronicles X when I reached the 70 hour mark and stopped on my second time through. It seems I can't be a person who writes, "I'm at 100 hours now and I'm still going strong." That's just not me.

Which is fine. Instead, 2016 has been the 'Year of Shooters' for me, but not because of all the new releases. I've been in a money crunch situation this year, and because of this reality, I went diving into my backlog and started on a lot of shooters that I already owned. I wrote a few forum posts earlier this year about my decision to put a spending freeze on new/used games for close to 6 months and instead played Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, and Metro 2033. Those 3 games I did finish, and they are all awesome in their own way. I especially like the settings in each game, and how the settings add to the gameplay in different ways.

I bought 2 new games this year during the summer months: Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE and Monster Hunter Generations. I had a lot of fun with each title, but I didn't finish the story in Tokyo and MHG is not a game that I can keep playing for a long time. I wanted to when I started playing the games, but that didn't happen.

The conclusion that I've made is that I really enjoy shooters more now than I've had before. I've played 7 shooters recently and completed the campaigns in each: COD: Blops II, GOW3, MOH: Airborne, Dead Space, Stranglehold, Halo 3, and Red Dead Redemption. This basically means that when I start a new shooter, I try to finish the campaign, even if a level gives me a hard time 10-15 times in a row. I used to stop playing after a certain point, but now I plow through and want to see the story completed.

This answer is a tad long, but I wanted to answer the question by saying that I do feel compelled to finish every game I start, and the reason is because I found a genre that interests me and I want to keep playing different kinds of shooters. I don't mind playing first or third person, but the environments have to change in some way. After I played Dead Space, for example, I didn't want to play another space shooter right after. So I spread them out so I can enjoy the gunplay and the environments together, and that makes the experience pretty rad. Also, playing on a sound system that has dolby digital as an option really made Dead Space quite an amazing experience for me. I recommend playing games with dolby digital if you have the option.

As long as I got my money's worth, I'm ok.

I think this sums up how I feel about it too. Though deep down I wish I had the time to play every game and beat every game that I have bought (but to be honest all games). I wish my job was to beat games.