I've quit more games than I've finished this year

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matoya

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Hey gang,

When I looked at my big stack of PS4 games this morning, I realised that, this year more than any, I've just given up on a LOT more games than I've finished. I think it might be a symptom of becoming older, and having less free time on my hands, When I look at what I've successfully finished this year, it's only a handful:

Persona 5

Abzu

Uncharted 4

Horizon ZD

Yakuza Zero

That's not a lot of games. Compare to the ones I've tried and given up on this year:

InFAMOUS Second Son

The Last of Us Remastered

Destiny

Final Fantasy XV

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Dragon Quest Buildeers

Odin Sphere Remastered

World of Final Fantasy

I think I'm just becoming much more selective as to how I want to spend my free time. I have 2 jobs now. I work during the day as a teaching assistant at a primary school, and in the evenings/weekends i work with severely disabled children doing play days and stuff.

Because of this, when I get home, something's gotta REALLY capture my imagination or I just don't want to bother. And when I'm honest, there isn't THAT MUCH that I'm eager to play coming up either. I kinda wanna play Sonic Mania, because the aesthetics look superb, and I'm DESPERATE to play Ni No Kuni 2, but that's been delayed AGAIN till January, and likely again before it actually comes out.

Is anyone else having the same problem that I'm having? Where they just can't bring themselves to actually finish games? I'd love to hear from you if you have!

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ivdamke

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Lots of people encounter this it's a part of life and the choices you make. I will say you've also finished 3 games that take a significant amount of time to finish this year. I play games a lot but I don't see any point in starting 20 of them with cursory interest rather than 3 that I'm really interested in. Being selective is a good thing you'll save money and you'll be more content with the games that you do buy.

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briggs713

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I've got kind of a long work day (9 hours and a 1 hr 20 min commute each way) and have become a lot more prone to drop stuff not grabbing me. I dropped Yakuza 0 earlier this year and found I've become a lot less tolerant of open world games overall (I similarly dropped Watch Dogs 2 and Just Cause 3 mid way through). With my somewhat limited time during weekdays, I've moved over to a lot more multiplayer gaming. There's been a lot of great choice there lately with Overwatch, Rocket League and Heroes of the Storm for me. I've also circled back to replaying stuff I know I'll love on weekends. I've recently restarted Witcher 3 (never played the DLC) and Divinity: Original Sin (playing with a friend and we want to finish it in time for 2). But yeah I agree, I bounced off Wasteland 2 and Neir Automata very quickly before settling on going back to Witcher 3.

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matoya

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@ivdamke said:

Lots of people encounter this it's a part of life and the choices you make. I will say you've also finished 3 games that take a significant amount of time to finish this year. I play games a lot but I don't see any point in starting 20 of them with cursory interest rather than 3 that I'm really interested in. Being selective is a good thing you'll save money and you'll be more content with the games that you do buy.

I intentionally buy everything on disc, so that if I don't like it, I can sell it on eBay for a good amount of money. I've got a stack of 15 games here to sell on, and I know at least 5 of them have retained their original price, so I can be happy I'm gonna get good money for them. But when they're all sold, likely by next week, I'll have about £300 to spend on gaming. I kinda want a Switch, but I'm still a little underwhelmed by the lineup. But that's another thread for another time!

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deactivated-5b85a38d6c493

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I have almost the opposite problem, which is that I have a hard time quitting a game even though I'm really not enjoying it. I just have this need to see any game I've started through to the end. And because I mostly play one game at a time this has led me to get stuck with some real below average games for a long period of time. I remember Patrick Klepek talking about having that same issue when he worked here.

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RosesAreDan

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Honestly what I've done is just stop buying games until I have nothing else to play, and try to only buy one game at a time. Now of course I don't always stick to that but It really helps me take a hard look at the games I've already got and give them second and third chances.

Another thing is don't play games if you don't feel like it! I used to feel bad if I wasn't playing games because of my backlog. Now I just do whatever I feel like in the moment: games, movies, books, eating, whatever! When I really feel like playing a game then I know it.

Lastly, playing some multiplayer games then switching to single player seems to work pretty well.

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Teddie

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I've been finishing more games than I usually do this year. I picked up most of the big releases for the first half of the year and I've been steadily making my way through them all, mostly during my vacations. Part of it is because I have to work even during my time off the past couple years, so actually getting a solid week or two every few months to sink into a game is great. Another part is probably just personal taste, a lot of great JRPGs were out early this year and they all lived up to my expectations (which was a nice change of pace).

2014-2016 was me dragging myself through disappointing sequels and samey open-world games. 2017 has been a godsend.

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bigsocrates

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I used to almost never finish anything I play. Now I finish most games, but generally because I force myself not to get distracted by the shiny things (not when I'm not having fun, though.)

Honestly, having done it both ways, I'd say that finishing games is overrated. Most games don't have stories that are particularly worth seeing through, and they also generally don't have great mechanics on the back end that make them more fun to play. Playing half of a game usually shows you the best of what it has to offer. I wouldn't call not finishing games a "problem" because in all honesty most games are probably too long. Especially open world games, which often have padding and cut and paste mission design.

By the time I get to the end of most games I'm bored of them and just wanting to push through. In many cases I feel like I should have bailed earlier.

I'd also recommend being more careful about what you choose to play. That's something I could definitely benefit from myself. It's easy (and not bad) to bounce off a mediocre game. The best games have a way of compelling you to finish them just by being engaging enough that you want to keep playing.

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liquiddragon

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Those are almost all what I'd consider main course games. You gotta mix in appetizers, desserts, and drinks to your meal, at least that's the way I am. Helps if you hit up different cuisines too, which I see you're doing.

Though maybe you're just full. Might help to just pull back, take a break, stop looking at food, I mean games.

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matoya

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@teddie said:

I've been finishing more games than I usually do this year. I picked up most of the big releases for the first half of the year and I've been steadily making my way through them all, mostly during my vacations. Part of it is because I have to work even during my time off the past couple years, so actually getting a solid week or two every few months to sink into a game is great. Another part is probably just personal taste, a lot of great JRPGs were out early this year and they all lived up to my expectations (which was a nice change of pace).

2014-2016 was me dragging myself through disappointing sequels and samey open-world games. 2017 has been a godsend.

I had that same sorta feeling too. 2014-2016 I was JUST playing DOTA ,so I missed out on a lot, and anytime I was playing something other than DOTA, I was just thinking "Man I could be playing DOTA"

Which inevitably lead to me quitting playing games altogether in 2016. I had about a year where I just couldn't play anything at all. Then I bought a PS4 and it's been kind of a renassaince for me. Albeit, like I mentioned, I'm still only finishing a handful of games a year, but I'm actually enjoying them again

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bigsocrates

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Those are almost all what I'd consider main course games. You gotta mix in appetizers, desserts, and drinks to your meal, at least that's the way I am. Helps if you hit up different cuisines too, which I see you're doing.

Though maybe you're just full. Might help to just pull back, take a break, stop looking at food, I mean games.

I don't think it's fair to make this comment without spelling out what "appetizers, desserts, and drink" games are. Appetizers I guess would be small self-contained experiences, like a walking simulator like Firewatch or a short campaign like Headlander. And maybe drinks are games without simple linear progressions like Roguelikes or sports or puzzle games.

But what's a dessert game?

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m4r71n2012

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I end up playing a lot of games that you don't need to be too invested in, and in fact mostly games with no story at all so I've hardly "finished" anything this year.

The top games I have played this year are, Beam NG Drive, Dirt Rally, GTA 5, Kerbal Space program, Football manager, Car mechanic simulator 2018, PUBG and spintires

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GuitarGod

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#14  Edited By GuitarGod

TLOU is an amazing game. I don't understand how somebody can pick it up and put it down halfway!

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matoya

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TLOU is an amazing game. I don't understand how somebody can pick it up and put it down halfway!

I got up to some level where its at night time and you have to stealth through everything and just got sick of it. I know it's meant to be a generation defining game, but the actual gameplay was fucking boring

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csl316

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Interesting how you seem to have committed to some pretty huge games, besides Abzu.

I tend to gravitate towards shorter games these days (3 to 10 hours, at most). As I got older, it became harder to just spend a weekend playing a game. Not that I don't have time, but because I want to do other stuff, too. Sometimes a game that would take two weeks can take two years now. And I generally get antsy about a long game towards the end, just wanting to see the credits at some point. And beating games 2 or 3 times has become a rarity.

Nothing wrong with leaving games unfinished or playing less. As long as you're balancing life and feeling good about your choices.

If anything, the games you finished probably took between 100 and 200 hours total. So just seems like this year you committed to big stuff that's the equivalent of 10 or 20 shorter games.

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Casepb

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#17  Edited By Casepb

I still never finished FF15. Figured I stop and wait for all those patches. Then I ended up just buying more games and never went back to it. Maybe when I'm done with Horizon I will try.

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liquiddragon

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@bigsocrates said:

@liquiddragon said:

Those are almost all what I'd consider main course games. You gotta mix in appetizers, desserts, and drinks to your meal, at least that's the way I am. Helps if you hit up different cuisines too, which I see you're doing.

Though maybe you're just full. Might help to just pull back, take a break, stop looking at food, I mean games.

I don't think it's fair to make this comment without spelling out what "appetizers, desserts, and drink" games are. Appetizers I guess would be small self-contained experiences, like a walking simulator like Firewatch or a short campaign like Headlander. And maybe drinks are games without simple linear progressions like Roguelikes or sports or puzzle games.

But what's a dessert game?

It definitely could mean different things to different people. I mainly think in terms of portion. A rough math might be: desserts - 1-4 hours, appetizers - 5-11 hours, and main course - 12 & up. Desserts, I think of as games that might get called out for it's size to price ratio, games that are short and sweet. The Insides, Journeys, and Superhots of the world I think of as desserts. Appetizers, to me, are games that some people could be happy as there main meal, stuff like Bastion or Outland. Drinks are something a lot of people might need with their meal, pick up and play games easy or complimentary to consume with the meal. I think drinks as sports games, multiplayer games, fighters, top down joystick shooters, maybe Hotline Miami. Some people really like to put down some drinks. Main course I think of games you feel done afterwards.

Then there are fast food, good once in a while but has almost zero nutritional value, I'm looking at you Call of Duty campaigns.

But it's something I know when I'm finished with a game. I just beat Wolfenstein: Old Blood, that felt like an appetizer game.

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BabyChooChoo

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Yup. This has been a big problem for me this year. Sometimes I just get distracted by something else and and never go back. Sometimes I get to a part of the game I just don't find fun and stop playing.

I genuinely loved part A of Nier, but I cannot stress how much part B sucked the fun out of that game for me. I hated it. So, already sour on the game, I think there's a sequence in part C that has you limping halfway across the map (I think that happens in C) where I fell down a cliff and had to circle back around which sucked because...ya know...limping, but after that is this one boss fight I didn't enjoy. By that point, the combat has started to lose a lot of it's luster for me, so I sat the game down and just never came back to it. Also, maybe this is just me, but when people keep trying to tell me how it's objectively one of the best games ever made and it's so important to video game history and blahblahblah, it has the opposite effect on me. It's...intimidating I guess? I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's like at a certain point the game that people have built up my head can only possibly exist in my head so I'd rather just not touch the real thing out of fear of disappointment.

That was my problem with BotW too. I was genuinely looking forward to that but was playing through Horizon and some other stuff at the time. And before I could get around to it, every podcast and Youtube video turned into the Zelda hour for about two straight months. I still have a copy of Zelda sitting in my WiiU, but I just can't bring myself to play it.

I don't force myself to play anything these days. If I'm not having fun or just not in the mood, I'll sit it down and come back to it. That's what happened with Nioh. I just didn't want to play one day so I set it aside. Then one day turned into two, two into three, etc. I recently came back to it and I'm having a blast again. Sometimes you just gotta step away for a while and see if the desire to play pulls you back in. I want to finish Nier. I want to finish Zelda. I want to finish a whole bunch of other games, but I'm not going to force myself to do it. Video games are about fun and if you're not having fun, why bother?

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monkeyking1969

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I find I have to play in bursts. I play a single game for about four weeks then I don't play anything for six weeks. I don't worry about keeping up, ist just when I do play a game I play it

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bendz

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I don't worry about finishing games nearly as much as I used to. I have a family now, so it's more important that I enjoy my precious time with a game rather than complete it.

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SubwayD

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#22  Edited By SubwayD

I've been playing less games this year, but putting more time and devotion into what I do play. Been pretty smart about picking what I want to commit to.

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deactivated-5a00c029ab7c1

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I don't have this issue with games but I have it with TV series and movies.

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afabs515

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Ever since I graduated college 2 years ago, I find myself buying "important" games, playing them for 2 or 3 hours, going "Huh, that's cool," and then putting them down forever. The only exceptions are visual novels. I should probably just start reading books.

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ALavaPenguin

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I don't finish many games these days. The last game I finished was Doom 2016 which actually reignited my video gaming enthusiasm.

I dunno though it just feels like they don't make games for me anymore lol. I tend to just play games where I can just play quick matches here and there like League of Legends and stuff.

I think think at some point you just have to force yourself to finish games you buy. Even if you like the game in our busy lives it can be easy to move on from games... even though you are enjoying the game. You just have to determine "am I stopping playing this game because it is bad and I am not having fun.... or am I just moving onto the next new thing" Make sure you finish your game before you play other ones.

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jeremyf

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This year I made it a point to finish as many games as possible. I even made a list on this site to help me keep track of what I've done. I don't know where this compulsion came from exactly, but I think I subconsciously want to be in the gaming zeitgeist while getting closure on my games. That, and I've had copious free time lately (though that's set to change, like, immediately). I put my gaming time almost entirely into single player experiences, so where someone might be dumping hundreds of hours into Overwatch or DOTA 2, I'm spreading that time over a lot more games.

You know what else it is? I have this compulsion to multitask, and gaming is my preferred way of doing that. I have a steady supply of podcasts but can't seem to listen to them without something else to accompany it. So recently I put more hours into Just Cause 3 than I really wanted to because it was mindless junk to do while listening to something actually engaging. The other day I forced myself to delete it because I actually didn't want to waste my time playing it. I don't know, it's a different balance for each person, and I'm sure my preferences for this stuff will change.

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Fezrock

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I have a huge amount of trouble with this as well; so many games outstay their welcome, or I fall away from them for too long (either not being home, or getting caught up in another game; thanks MMOs!) and I just can't bring myself to get back to them.

I am making an effort now, though we'll see how long it lasts. I recently reorganized my Steam library (previously it was by genre) to 'Beaten,' 'Not Beaten, but Satisfied,' and 'Not Beaten, Not Satisfied.' The difference between the not beaten categories being whether I feel like I got my money's worth from the game; I've been going through both, trying to beat satisfied games and at least become satisfied with the rest (unless it's a game I just didn't like). Also, I actually did beat the last three games I bought (Dishonored 2, Children of Zodiarcs, and Pyre).

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deactivated-630479c20dfaa

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I find that I play mostly open ended games that you don't finish per say, but yeah. I started quite a lot of games this summer vacation that I didn't end up finishing, so it's probably normal.

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deactivated-63b0572095437

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I don't finish most games. I'm done before it's done, even if they're great. I've completed maybe 5 games in the past 3 years.

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Puddingbrummsel

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Hm, that is an interesting question.

I've definitely played and finished Prey (stopped short of 100%ing it, getting "I & It" seems to be a pain), the Full Throttle remake...I'm sure there are others

What I started and almost immediately stopped playing: FF13. I finally have a pc that can run it (that port is so shitty), but after about an hour I can't stand looking at it anymore. I hate the way the game looks, Lightning's face and hair aside. Well the afro dude with the baby chocobo's alright too I guess, but I can't stand how the enemies look, the messy surroundings, most of the characters...blegh.

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Jones24

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Finished:
Fallout 4
Witcher 1
Grown Home
Chaos on Deponia
Might also be one or two PS4 games i can't remember from winter or early spring

I've played alot of FIFA and NHL 17 and racing games that are harder to count as being finished. And basically multiplayer only games that can't really be listed here. Entire first half of the year was so busy for me that I played a lot less single player games than most of the time.

But now i'm currently going through Zelda Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Borderlands the Pre-Sequel (with a friend) and Sherlock Holmes: The Devils Daughter. I've gotten the spark to play all of these plus some more single player stuff that I've gathered through the times from Steam sales and with the PS+ and Xbox One Gold memberships.

It's normal to get a phase in which you just don't finish any games for a while. But you can also bounce back from that.

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glots

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It's okay, no one will judge you for not finishing Destiny.

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Viggo

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#33  Edited By Viggo

I never quit games although I do rarely finish them. In fact I can't actually remember the last game I finished (main story-wise). It could possibly have been Uncharted 4 on PS4. No idea what the last game I completed was on Xbox One. Might have been HALO 5. Hell, as of this moment I have the following games still not completed and still playing some of them...

On PS4 Pro:

Sniper Elite 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, Watch Dogs 2, Yakuza Zero, Dragon Quest Builders, Pyre, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, Black Ops 3 (lol), Prey, Just Cause 3, Final Fantasy XV, Last of us Remastered, Ratchet and Clank, No Man's Sky, Gravity Rush 2, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, The Witcher 3, The Last Guardian, and a boat load of others I bought from PSN sales.

On Xbox One:

Ghost Recon Wildlands, Skyrim remaster, Fallout 4, Bioshock Collection, Forza 6, Forza Horizon 3, Rime, Aven Colony, Dishonored Ultimate Edition, Dishonored 2, Dirt 4, Far Cry 4, Far Cry Primal, Assassins Creed Black Flag, Unity, and Syndicate, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mad Max, XCOM 2, and another boat load of games I bought in MS digital sales.

And then there are the games I just play for the sake of playing

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deactivated-599ed53252b4c

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Don't worry about it. As life goes on, it becomes harder and harder to reconnect with video games.

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shivermetimbers

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The games you finished are LOOOOOOONG and time consuming. Be proud you got through that many of them considering you have somewhat of a tight schedule. Some games just aren't for everyone.