Do You Play Games You Actively Dislike?

I know this sounds like a weird question, but I've found myself in a situation where I've put a dozen+ hours into GTAV Online and found myself absolutely hating it 95% of the time.

From my start, the online portion of the game has been complete dog shit. I hate it so much. The balancing of missions is so fucked up. Car insurance and constantly buying ammo is a total bummer. Bad matchmaking is a pain in the ass. (Sorry, GTAV rant over. I'm just super bummed out it sucks this badly)

And for some reason I keep coming back to play more. I find myself wanting it to be so much better, and it is actually really good that 5% of the time, usually during a heist. I know my time is worth so much more than this 5% of fun, but for some reason I find myself grinding these stupid-ass missions when I know I have other games in my library I would enjoy more.

Does anybody else find themselves in this sort of rut where they force physical and emotional pain upon themselves by playing a bad game when they have other options? Am I just a masochist?

Never. Sounds like a complete waste of time to me. I have far too many games in my backlog, and beyond that, far too many games I actually like to even entertain the idea of continuing to play games I don't like.

Sometimes. I mean I buy a lot of games, many at pretty low prices just to see what they are like.

So I'll try to give it a fair shake, and sometimes I just have to see how the game ends. I don't like not finishing games.

GTA Online sucks ass. I've made the mistake of going back to it every once in awhile hoping things have gotten better knowing very well that they have not. The money and ranking system is a joke and almost every one that plays the game are fucking assholes. Really unfortunate because I probably spent hundreds of hours on GTA IV's Free Mode with friends. (Don't get me wrong people were assholes in that game too but at least I didn't have to be rank 200 just to defend myself.)

Borderlands bores me to tears and yet I probably completed the first game like 3 or 4 times. Mostly because I had nothing else to do and a friend would want to just play the game with me. (It was a pretty good game to just talk and mindlessly play to be honest)

Sometimes, but only if I get through a significant portion of the game before I start to dislike it, and the end is within sight. Then I finish it in order to say "fuck you game I beat you and now I will never look at or think about you again".

A funny thing is how in my experience some of the games hit a little sweet spot of fun gameplay in the last 1/4 before devolving back into the shit that made me start to dislike it in the first place - just enough to start to forgive it just a little bit before heading straight back into "fuck this noise" territory.

But really, as @mb posted, life is too short. Save yourself.

For single player games, I tend to give everything the benefit of the doubt and play them to completion even if I'm not enjoying the experience thus far.

Because, maybe it gets better. I wouldn't know, I haven't finished the game yet. Maybe there's a twist or the ending is awesome. Maybe I'm just not very good at the game yet and it'll be more fun if I keep going and get better at it. There are a lot of things that could happen, and I don't want to judge too much before I've seen it all.

Sometimes that's not the case though and I end up finishing what was truly a terrible game, but I'm okay with that. I don't regret the time spent. Other times I'm just so baffled at how bad a game is, that I have to keep going.

I also tend to skew more towards shorter indie games and such. So if I end up playing one I don't like, I've usually arrived at the end of the game by the time I've made that assessment.

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As for your GTA situation. Stop it.

I do when I feel like the game will win if I quit.

I can't stand when everyone is in love with a game that I dislike, so sometimes I'll force myself to play a game like that, hoping that I'll see why other people love it so much, and maybe come to appreciate it myself. It worked for Dark Souls. It did not work for Skyrim.

I also might replay a game I really disliked hoping to find some redeeming qualities in it. I did that with Dragon Age 2, Final Fantasy 12, Final Fantasy 13, and lately I've been thinking about doing it for 10-2 as well. This has never worked.

Also there was that time I played Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days, hated every minute of it, but kept playing because I was holding out hope that maybe it would get better (it actually got worse). Also I played Lightning Returns even though fuck that game, cause I needed to see the trilogy through. Lightning Returns was like a gross thing I forced myself to swallow, because I knew it would make me vomit out all of the bad stuff the other games left inside me. Feel free to put that quote on the back of the box Square.

I don't have time to play enough of games I *do* like. :D

Used to know a guy who 100%'d every game he started. Once I found this out I told him that the achievements/trophies were more important to him than having a good time actually playing the thing because he'd finish stuff he hated too.

He agreed.

Jesus, no. I bought Dark Souls about 6 months after it came out based on this forums relentless pimping of it and it didn't take long to work out this was a thing that was not for me. So I just put it back in the box, and took the box to the shop and traded it in because life is indeed too short. I could be playing Crusader Kings so why on earth would I play something lousy?

Of course I've played Final Fantasy 13 :P

I don't like Mario 64, but I want to beat it just so I can say I did.

Not 100% it, though. God no.

Edit: Oh yeah, I beat Sonic 06 lately. It's fucking bad.

Not if I actively dislike a game, no.

Not lately. I used to slog through some games just to justify some internal completionist list, but eventually I got over that mentality.

Based on my experience playing World of Warcraft, there are a ton of people out there playing a game they actively dislike. Nothing but complaints and moaning from everyone about everything. I guess familiarity breeds contempt, and you get pretty fucking familiar with any MMO if you play it long enough.

Hmmm, I'm gonna have to say no. Well, I mean I try...believe me, I fucking try, but there comes a point where I just can't fucking put up with it anymore.

I think the last game that I went through this with was Drakengard 3. Hooooooooooly shit. What a load of unbearable fuckery that turned out to be. It's like someone fused a bad Dynasty Warriors clone with an equally terrible wannabe Bayonetta clone. I eventually just went to youtube to see the "incredible" story people were blowing their loads over and all I can say that I'm glad I quit. I'm sorry, just because you tell your story in an abstract way doesn't excuse all the bullshit...like the fact that the characters suck and that there arguably is no fucking story for the first loop (or route or whatever it's fucking called) of the game.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT LOOK HOW ANGRY THIS THREAD IS MAKING ME. SHIT.

uh, no. well, sometimes i do, if friends want to try out some shitty multiplayer game.

Nope never, if I don't think the game is fun then it gets put back on the shelf or given away. There could be certain games with a segment I don't like but once I get passed it then it doesn't bother me again. I dislike the idea of a Cod shooter with jetpacks, it might be a good game and deliver fun to other but right away it sounds like I'd hate it so I just don't go near it. Generally I just know what to avoid.

I'll force myself to finish a game unless it's truly abysmal just out of principle. I spent the money so I should at least see it to the end so I can actually know what I'm talking about when I make a negative comment about it in the future. That said I would not continue playing a game I actively disliked past completion. The moment I finished Skyrim's joke of a main quest I put it away forever.

No.

Sometimes games turn out to be longer than I anticipated and I enjoy it less as I go, meaning by the end I just want it to be over with and tell myself I might as well finish it. Not always, sometimes I even stop playing games I enjoy, there's no rule either way. It's happened, the last time was with that Eskimo fox game. It sucked but I kept going.

Hmmm... I'll play games that I know aren't that good, or have annoying mechanics if there is at least something redeeming about them. It'd have to be charming, or have an interesting story or characters, or even just the kind of game that is ridiculous or "good-bad" in it's own way. For instance, I'm trying to play Akiba's Trip based solely on how hilarious/insane the thing is even though I find the actual gameplay to be aggravating.

Sometimes it takes me time to see that I'm disliking the game. That happened with Skyrim. I was angry about how busted the game was right away, but I had enjoyed Oblivion. So starting out I was trying to see the good in Skyrim, but as time went on I could just see that the game was busted philosophically too. At this point I really dislike Skyrim, but I did play 30 or 40 hours. On the other hand, that is like playing 1/4 of the game and realizing you hate it.

In certain cases yes. I have kept playing a game that I don't like because it is something really highly regarded by others. For example I kept playing Shadow of Mordor to see if it would click for me because of all of the hype it received.

Not typically, but I've been playing Mario & Luigi: Dream Team over the last year and I'm surprised I haven't broken my 3ds in half yet, the game has ridiculous difficulty spikes, long boring boss battles where any single mistake completely screws you; and by far the worst thing is that the game is insanely long, I've seriously felt like I'm on the cusp of finishing the game for the last 6 months.

Yeah, im one of the 3 people in the whole universe that actively hates Halo but sometimes i go play a "Halo night" with friends because i enjoy their company and the game somehow becomes tolerable with them around.

This was very much the case with me and Assassins Creed 4. I found the last couple of hours of that game a slog, but I kept going out of principle.

I just now play games like Bloodborne that hate me instead.

I don't play games, but I have relationships with people I actively dislike, so I probably would, yeah.

no. when i was younger i used to watch films i wasn't enjoying all the way to the end, out of some sense of obligation, same with books, and then i realized what a complete waste of time that was.

@error52: same here . I keep going back to it even though I kinda hate it , and I love the Galaxy games and Sunshine : /

Did it click? I still haven't finished it, I went after all of the orc's and a few war chiefs but the story did nothing for me so I just stopped playing.

No It didn't. I did the same, ran through abut half of the story and put it back on the shelf.

Counter Strike.

It's at least tolerable with my friends who seem to enjoy it.

I used to be like this with MMORPGs. I think the only reason I continued to play them was because of the people I was playing with, but ultimately I just end up waking up one morning and go straight to cancelling the subscription out of some sort of frustration. It's great to play with friends, but I just can't stand MMOs anymore.

If a game has a lot of positive buzz around it and good review scores I will push myself to play it. I try to find the part of the game all these people like that seems to be eluding me. Most recent one I can think of was Hotline Miami, loved the sound track but I really did not care for the gameplay.

I forced myself through Limbo because I knew it was short and finishing it lets me say it's complete shit.

I used to when I was younger. I guess I had more patience and less games back then.

Not anymore, but I used to.

First time I did stop was with Darksiders, it was liberating.

not on the computer... but i have played some games i hated on my phone! for example, that cube game from molyneux that had no sense... :D

I played a lot more hours of borderlands 2 than I'd like to think about, because my friends were really into the coop.

That game wasn't very good.

Never for long. I do give games I dislike a few extra hours usually though. Unless it's obviously not for me.

Only when more people and some alcohol is involved, it's funny suffering through a terrible game with some friends.

Similar feeling to watching the Duders® playing bad games on streams.

If I'm not really enjoying a game, I'll still endeavour to at least finish it (if it's a game that can be "finished"), as long as there's at least something there to compel me to keep playing - Shadow of Mordor being a recent example of a game that I have zero investment in anything that's happening while acknowledging that it's a really well-made game.

But sticking with a game that I actively don't like sounds like a total waste of time. There's always another game that I could be playing, so I don't feel like I have to keep playing a game that I actively hate.

I continue to regularly play Destiny with friends despite loathing the game. I cannot tell you why I continue to play Destiny. I find the combat fun but every other aspect of it monotonous and without purpose, yet here I am still playing the game long after it came out.

Depends on if I'm doing it for an audience or not. I streamed all of Thief despite actively hating it, but dropped Puppeteer after a world and a half, because I wasn't having fun, and I wasn't playing it on a stream.

And I'm not even someone who does monetization or anything, so it's not like I can even say I made money doing it or anything. It's just fun to play not-great games in front of people, I guess.

Nope. I mean, not on purpose.

Metal Gear Solid

I played through Bound by Flame this year, so yes. Yes I have engaged in poor life choices.