do you find it difficult to get into games? I’ve got Epic Games and Steam Games libraries chock-full of classic top-tier games along with many other newer games like Stray or 2077, and a bunch of indie titles. I just can’t be bothered to download and install them, much less try to get into the characters and storylines. Used to be I couldn’t wait to see what happened in the story, what new items you could collect, what new worlds the developers had created. Not anymore. I return to playing the same franchise for a quick FPS match or three and then I’m done.

  • houseofkeb@lemm.eeEnglish
    182·
    1 year ago

    I think there are a lot of reasons for this, but I’m in the same boat.

    • Most games tutotialize you like you have never played a game before
    • “Cinematic storytelling” is everywhere. I turned off the dialogue in Need for Speed Unbound, and the game is wayyyy more enjoyable without it. And its…a racing game.
    • There just are more games. Used to be I’d bring a physical copy of a game hope, and that’d be my game for a bit. Now I have thousands of games accessible at any moment. It’s hard to wait for a game to “get good” when I know that.

    I’d also say that I feel no need to complete games or get further into them at this point. Especially seeing how people said Starfield is best in new game plus or whatever, that game barely has legs to stand on in a first playthrough. It’s not worth it for me to play a game for 60 hours for it to maybe get better, and I tend to know when I’m done with a game early now.

    • Wolf Link 🐺@lemmy.world
      9·
      1 year ago

      100% agreed with all of these, but I would add one more factor: Limited spare time.

      When I was a kid, it was a lot easier to spend a few hours in front of a console undisturbed, immersed and focused on the game. When you’re an adult and come home from soul-crushing work, hungry and exhausted, then your last bit of energy goes into household, pets, chores, family and the like and then it’s late at night already and if you don’t go to sleep soon then the next day will be worse. Where and how do you cram a couple of consecutive, undisturbend hours of playtime into such a schedule?

      If a game isn’t immediatly interesting, fun or otherwise a good reality escape, it is not worth sacrificing time on it when you have to strictly ration your limited amount of spare time already.

      • houseofkeb@lemm.eeEnglish
        31·
        1 year ago

        Yeah totally. I’ve noticed everyone’s bandwidth dropping as capitalism worsens. It’s even more apparent when every live service game wants you to treat it like a job.

        Agreed with your last point. I’m at the point where I can call how much is enough for me for any given title, and it makes me a lot happier than feeling obligated to finish games I don’t enjoy.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
      4·
      1 year ago

      Yeah for me it’s the sheer number of games, plus the increasing enshittification of games and just being older and having less free time. I literally have like 200 games I’ve got for free across various platforms, so if I fire one up and it’s clearly not finished, or it’s immediately trying to sell me stuff or even if it’s just a bit boring and annoying I’ll dump it immediately and move onto the next one.

      Whereas when I was a kid I had a SNES with about 10 cartridges and that was it, so I played the shit out of those even when they sucked lol

      • houseofkeb@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I know right! Every time I come back to a game and they’ve changed every thing about it again I wonder why I bother. I think that’s part of the reason Melee has survived for so long, the community establishes the meta more than someone whose incentive is to keep selling you things.