I play video games all the time, but I've been really disappointed with what's been coming out lately. I can't tell if it changed or I did.

I also have absolutely no desire to identify with anything that could be called 'gamer culture'. LAN parties seem like too much effort when I have a 100/20 net connection. I went to (central Canada) Comic-Con once and left out of boredom. I have never, and will never, post in the forums of any game or game-related social media.

Most of the games I play are grand strategy, puzzle, or platformers. I will very occasionally play a shooter, but I'm usually not interested in them; the ones I like are the hyper realistic (read: super hard, unpopular) ones like ArmA. I strongly prefer curated single player experiences, and have been really disappointed that the industry seems to have fetishized Open World Sandboxes lately.

I like indie games in general, but I'm really starting to not like them anymore. I liked them when they were high quality artistic passion projects, but it seems like they've become politicized lately (see: Gamergate) and I just want to play fun things.

In terms of what I've played, I have sunk waaaay too much time into Civilization IV and V, and Europa Universalis 3 and 4 on the strategy front. I've also played a ton of Starcraft 1 and 2, but I'm not good at it competitively. I enjoy story-driven puzzley games like Braid, Portal, and lately The Talos Principle. I've probably dropped over a thousand hours into Minecraft. And my Kingdom of Loathing account turned 9 years old last December. I've ascended Nethack 8 times.

I also used to really enjoy RPGs, usually of the Japanese variety but I've found a few western ones I've liked (Mass Effect for instance). Lately I've found I have much less patience for grindey gameplay, and the only new JRPGs I'll play are ones with novel mechanics (Radiant Historia and Bravely Default were two recent ones that were novel enough for me to enjoy).

Finally, my absolute favourite types of games are games that are less game and more interactive movie (or interactive experience). I found Dear Esther to be really, really touching. Everything people criticized about Heavy Rain were exactly the things I loved. Despite how pretentious they are, everything Tale of Tales touches turns to gold.

I keep a list of my favourite games here, though I'm really bad about updating it