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comment by insomniasexx
insomniasexx  ·  3851 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: To Game or Not to Game: Losing Passion for Something You Love

I think this is a problem that everyone encounters in this digital era - it's not just with games. It is less about passion or lack of passion and more about the thinking there might be something else, something better, you could be doing. Since buying games, books, movies, or music is so much easier these days you don't dedicate the time or energy or research first. Then, once you start to play/read/watch you are unsure if it is worth your time.

These days your time can be spent doing so many different things. You have access to a multitude of games, a multitude of movies, a multitude of online sites, etc. No more getting out of bed, getting dressed, and going to blockbuster if you aren't satisfied. You just click a button and entertain yourself with something else. That uncertainty is enough to make you unable to play or watch or listen in the same ways we used to.





Zygar  ·  3851 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've been slowly pulling back from video-games lately for this very reason. There were grind-y games I used to be able to play for hours (Minecraft, WoW, DayZ, etc) that now leave me with nothing but an overwhelming sense of pointlessness and futility. And I've not been able to play most new AAA games for a long time—the gameplay feeling formulaic and dragged out; even if the writing is outstanding.

I think it comes down to time scarcity. When you value your time more, you raise your standards and have less patience for padding. Also, my line of work requires knowing how things are put together—design patterns/tropes/formulae—and the bugger of it is that once you're able to apply this type of thinking to one area of your life, it seeps into others as well. Once you've played one cover shooter or open-world game, you've played them all. :-(

On the bright side, it gives you a lot more appreciation for the games that buck these trends. I'm hugely optimistic about the future of indie gaming—where padding is non-existent and the storytelling is rich. And there are still some pretty awesome sandbox and AAA games out there (Kerbal Space Program and Civ V can suck up a Saturday for me)—even if some of the best names have gone down the junk-food-gaming toilet (RIP Simcity)