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Losing Interest In Games - A Natural Progression?
MotherInferior writes "I'm 27, soon to be 28. I used to fiend over the newest games and eagerly play whatever I could get my hands on. Team Fortress Classic, Civilization, WarCraft, these were all games that I could literally lose myself for days in. I still drool over the newest games at Best Buy, but now that I actually have the money to buy them, I find myself saying, 'Nah, I'll just play what I've got,' or 'Y'know, I'd rather design my own game then play someone else's.' Even still, I don't really play the games I have. What's up with that? I'm sure my mom would sagely say (with some satisfaction in her voice), 'Wellll, you're just growing up...' Am I not as capable of having fun as I once was, or what? Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy gaming, but I can tell there's some kind of trend happening. Will there be gaming Viagra in my future, I wonder?"
I feel like my gaming glory days are behind me. I see all the latest games that I *want* to play, but either I can't bring myself to play (let alone buy) or I find something else more important to do (like programming). I think it's just age. I've heard from others though that gamers that turn about 40ish seem to pickup gaming again (assuming their spouse, if they have one, let's them).
For me its mainly a lack of time.
When I was younger I had oodles of free time so I was able to lose days playing the latest games.
Now I dont have the time to spare what with working, running a house, girlfriend... All the things you tend to aquire as you get older.
I still love games, but find myself trying to spend time finishing th eones I have rather than buying new games.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
Congratulations! Sounds like you are moving up. This phenomenon happens in lots of areas of activity, not just gaming.
You have the urge to be proactive, not reactive. To produce rather than consume.
You don't have to totally give up $EARLIER_STUFF when you move on up to $NEW_STUFF. That's a common but erroneous belief. You're just adding some more activities that are way more satisfying to you as you are now, with your increased capacity for thinking, etc.
Do not fear that you are getting dull as you get older. Which is sharper, the mind that sees a game and says "Cool!" or the mind that conceptualizes it in the first place?
Any change like this generally requires some re-thinking of how you define yourself, but I think you'll like the new definition better.
"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing."
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
It's sad to see an old gamer quit the hobby. Maybe someday you'll have more free time and some interesting game will catch your eye. Until then, good luck and have fun with whatever you do!
It's tough isn't it? I remember when I was about 13 I started to get bored with my matchbox cars and racetrack. It used to be so much fun putting piles of books under the track so the cars would do little jumps, or seeing how big you could make the loop without the cars just falling onto their backs like little turtles.
Then it just started to get boring. I didn't want to play with my old toys any more. Oddly enough, this didn't cause me a huge friggin existential crisis. I didn't post to some Goddam website to find out if the other 13 year olds were suffering a similar confusing emotional trauma. Instead, I took the 'growing up' route, and simply grew up.
Why don't you try the same? Growing up isn't as hard as many people make out. Here are some key tips:
1. Don't idolise your lifestyle. Don't kid yourself that playing Quake II on the office LAN all night was actually some incredibly cool 'in the zone' moment of one-ness with the God of electronic entertainment. It was just being 24.
2. Realise that new things can be fun. If games no longer thrill you, try books, or maybe taking an art class. Perhaps gardening or cooking will be your new forms of relaxation in the daunting world of 'being older than you are right now'.
3. Don't make such a huge deal about it. That way, all the other people who don't give a shit, frankly, won't be disturbed. In time, you too will stop giving a shit, allowing you to simply do something new and different without worrying.
I too wish that computer games gave me as much fun as they did back when I played X-Com for 12 hours straight, or started dreaming about Baldur's Gate or Syndicate Wars.
But then, I wish getting that playing on the swings could keep me happy for 2 hours. I wish that colouring in a picture of a clown gave me a sense of achievement. I wish that I really did believe my lego men were still involved in a desperate war against my brother's lego men.
But, d00d, it ain't going to last, so stop asking where all the good times went, and find something new and fun to do. I mean, why do you think people end up having children?...
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This is a phase that everyone goes through. Either because of something in your life (often something subtle) or just a batch of mediocre games that temporarily sour your opinion of the entire medium, you stop playing games for awhile. I did the same thing when I was around 17. I stopped playing games for about a year or two straight and missed out on most of the interesting games that were released for the original PlayStation. But it wasn't a part of "growing up", "putting away childish things", or some other moronic platitude that non-gamers would give you. It's just a temporary change in the way you choose to entertain yourself.
This is something that we all do on a regular basis, but we don't really notice it until it strikes a medium that we actually care about. Personally, there was a time when I watched at least a couple of movies on DVD every week, burning through them at about the same rate as most regulars buyers/renters do. But now I haven't watched a movie on DVD in a good three months or so, but I haven't even noticed it. Why? Because I don't visit six or seven movie sites a day, but I do visit Insert Credit, GameSpot, Video Fenky, GAF, The Magic Box, Penny Arcade, and Slashdot Games just about every day. If you're actually posting on this site, then I'm guessing that you have a pretty similar set of sites that you visit.
I'm guessing that you'll pick up something really good in about a year or two and then you'll be addicted again just like the rest of us. But then again, if you really are of the mentality that "games are kids stuff", then maybe you'll deprive yourself of them forever. I really don't see how Metal Gear Solid or Knights of the Old Republic are any more childish than any of the TV shows or movies that I watch, but that's just me. Maybe that's why I really don't see myself abstaining from video games as I grow up any more than I see myself suddenly abstaining from television, movies, or music.
I shall now indulge in reckless and flagrant navel-gazing.
Isn't a game simply a set of arbitrary objectives made difficult by arbitrary obstacles?... but made "fun" by gradual progression and feedback?
I believe that people like to use their minds and actually create "things to do" when there isn't any. When I was younger, I didn't have many obstacles, so I got my "work" on by subjecting myself to the purchased goals and obstacles, IE, a complicated game.
Now that I'm older, I've made my own game: my life. I've created my own "arbitrary" goals and have to work against obstacles to reach those.
At the end of the day, I'm tired from playing a game that's more important to me. Myself.
Yes. That's right. I'm tired from playing with myself.
My quaint little theory works best on brain games. For example, if I have to manage 20 people 40 hours a week, it's not likely I'll enjoy Railroad Tycoon 3 on the weekend. (But that could just be me.) On the other hand, a alpha-state twitchy game might be a nice break from analytical stuff.
I think there's a concept of "control" as well: in one's teens and early twenties, many aspects of one's life is beyond their control. That changes with age, usually and hopefully.
Another thing that I have noticed now that I've "grown up" is that I simply have not enough time to play all the games I'm interested in. I'm 25 and work full-time and have a house and wife to attend to, family/friend obligations, etc., and I'm lucky if I get to game for 2 hours in as many weeks.
Sometimes I have wondered the same thing as you, "have I lost my interest in gaming," when I have several games I was excited about but I simply don't bother playing. Then I realized that the games I was interested in in the past have started to bore me.
It's the same as anything really. I'm also bored with stupid action flicks, pulp novels, and Star Trek. I'd much rather watch something with substance, action or no, read a long series of classic books(eg. The Foundation series), or non-fiction(eg. The Making of the Atomic Bomb - brilliant book BTW), and as for TV, I really don't care if I miss an episode of one of my favorite show(although I do enjoy 24 and haven't missed an episode, heh).
You get the point. Tastes vary over time. While you may always enjoy a good movie/book/game/etc., you won't want the same thing over and over. And then there's the time and social factors. Don't fret. Things change. Adapt.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I'm going on 30--I nearly fucked up my college education by spending aeons of time on Netrek and progressed from that to C&C, to Red Alert, to Tomb Raider (my girlfriend loves to watch me play for some reason) to Half Life to Homeworld to Deus Ex to Battlefield 1942 (which I play pretty often.)
I was never too interested in always trying out the latest and greatest, but I notice increasingly that, once I've found something I enjoy, I tend to stick with it for far long--it just holds my attention better.
I don't know how people have time to always finish the newest games right when they come out and move on to something new--the only times I do that is when I find something episode-based or story-based (like Half Life), play it through once, then move on, but I take my time with that, sort of like reading a good book a bit at a time before going to bed.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Fifty bucks?!?!
That's a week of groceries for cryin' out loud! I'll wait until next year when it hits the $10 bargain rack at Wal-Mart.
I seem to remember going through that with beer, too. At some point, everything just started looking expensive.
Sincerely,
An old fogey
P.S. Just you wait you young buX0rz, pretty soon THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, NIRVANA and PEARL JAM will be on the oldies stations. HAAAAA-HA-HA-HA!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Don't get me wrong, I understand perfectly well the gist of your post, but I think you are jumping the gun.
There are a lot of hobbies that people "grow out" of, such as playing with matchbox cars. However, there are some hobbies that can have more staying power, such as reading, movies, model trains, etc. People don't look at those things and say, "Grow up!" Gaming happens to be one of those new hobbies that people without prior exposure to don't understand and assume to be a hobby for young people, like comic books. But, apparently that isn't necessarily the case. Sure, there are a lot of *"losers" who still read comics and play games at 40, but with the advent of adult-oriented comics(ie. "graphic novels") and games, many older folk (ie. non-"loser" older folk) are continuing with those childish hobbies.
At 25, I don't read the same comics I did when I was 13(rather, I don't read any comics), but some new graphic novels (mentioned here on /.) have interested me.
YMMV, different strokes, etc. But please, don't be an old pompous scab telling us youthful folk how to live.
Paraphrasing:
- someone less of a dullard than you* - are they really "losers," I prefer not to label someone so harshly simply for continuing with something I consider to be somewhat childish. Perhaps they just didn't sell out and murder their inner child in order to be accepted as an adult. Or perhaps they are indeed losers and should be derided as such until their sad, lonely death.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Look at the half-life mods: Natural Selection, Counterstrike, et al - They're massively more innovative than half-life itself.
Yes and no. Half-Life (and Valve's attention to it and the community over its span) really is the one of the biggest innovations for gaming in recent history. HL was the first "best" FPS, integrating innovative level design with a compelling story that made you want to go forward in the game. There's a reason it won every award it was nominated for (excepting game of the year, which went to zelda). It pushed FPS into the future.
Then Valve did the amazing thing of releasing the SDK and actively supporting independent developers. CS, Natural Selection, none of those mods would have been possible without Valve actively supporting them. Yes there were mods for Quake, but Valve obviously did something differently than Id and their mod scene exploded. in a way no other game before (or after, yet) has done. The fact that games running on a 6 year old graphic engine are still the most popular online FPS out there shows that Valve really hit upon something.
HL2 won't be as innovative and valve will likely enter the ranks of id, blizzard, epic, etc., as they churn out incremental advances. but to call HL not innovative is to miss out on the community that Valve helped spawn around the game.
Your comment is pointlessly wrong on so many levels.
Games teach you skills, whether physical (hand eye coordination), emotional (confidence in ability to complete a task, or not), and mental (learn how to problem solve in ways others do not). You experience a wide variety of things you can never touch. The rewards are not immediate, but the fruit bear out in the long run.
I suppose you think reading is useless? After all, it's the same principle - reading a book does not affect THIS world. Not immediately, anyway. When you finished, there's no new car in the garage, no revolutions have been won or lost as a result, and the hungry are still hungry. But it has long term consequences, just like games. Games stimulate imagination, or they can stifle it. They have the power to improve or damage, just as much as anything else in this world.
In order to become Good, you have to play the games a LOT. When you don't have the time, you end up spending time on other things.
I think that's a big part of it. In the rare occaisons when I do have time to play games these days, I sure don't do it online. Back when I was an avid gamer, my game of choice was Tribes 2. I played that game for several hours, every day. I was pretty damn good, too. It was a rare game where I didn't end up at the top of the scoreboard at the end of the match. If you DIDN'T play that game for several hours a day, all the people like me who did would stomp you.
It's the same thing now. I wouldn't mind picking up UT2k4 or something for a bit, but I know that I don't have time to play more than an hour or two a week. So as soon as I set foot on a server, BLAM, some 14 year old with nothing else to do all day is going to blow me away, and then hurl some kind of unintelligible racial slur at me.
Now I find that when I do play just about anything, it's on my Xbox. Mod chips are great. Oh, and I also switched to the Mac, and already played the three games for it.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
*sigh* Yet another fool who equates video games with childishness.
Remember, video games were first introduced as bar/pub entertainment, as a replacement for pinball. Such establishments were where Pong was first introduced, and you can still find Merit kiosks on bar counters. And most of the surviving arcades in the States are "dating" destinations like GameWorks and Dave & Buster's which have things like Ladies Nights and ID check.
Video games ended up pigeon holed as "juvenile" like comic books and animation did. While I'm familar with the political history that doomed comics and cartoons to the children's ghetto, I'm not sure why video games shared this fate... Can any one offer any theories about this?
But I digress, besides the quote about "becoming old when you stop playing," there's another relevant quote. This one's by C. S. Lewis...
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be grown up.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
> can you call a game 'good' if nobody plays it?
Good != POPULAR.
If *you* had fun playing a game, it was good. PERIOD.
I had a co-worker who played Evercrack. I couldn't stand the game, due to the mechanics. After wasting a few years playing it, he finally realized it wasn't a "good" game, due to it's game mechanics. I told him, "If you had fun playing it, it was a GOOD game [for you], else why did you enjoy playing it for so long?!"
IAAGP&D (I Am A Game Programmer and Designer)