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)