I can’t bring myself to finish dragon age inquisition.
Which sucks, it was a fantastic game I enjoyed nearly every minute of, and I wish I had gotten into the series when I had more free time than a hibernating bear.
No idea what it is, I just stopped playing one day and never started it back up, and now I just don’t have any interest in it.
Right. Some games are so good you like them. But it’s “uphill” to start them again… so it’s either don’t or just push through.
That’s why I’m such cases I’ll watch a let’s play. Something I can have in the background to get the lore or story. Or a video that explains the story for Death Stranding.
But for others, such as tears of the kingdom, that I had to stop halfway through because of a crazy work project and a lot of overtime I just went back and did side quests until the gist of what I was doing kind of came back to me.
In my experience, it’s a threefold problem for large-scale games like RPGs or AAA titles.
Playing the game in short bursts isn’t meaningful enough to be enjoyable. While you could do it, it would either be under pressure, or you would have so little time to do anything that it feels like you’ve accomplished nothing.
To get around that, you have to schedule playing the game into your day or carve time around it. It’s often difficult to do so, and games are usually the lowest priority activity for working adults.
When you can’t schedule the game in, you take a break to play a different game with less commitment requirements. Then, after a couple of months have passed, you realize that you have forgotten where you were in the story and what goals you were trying to achieve. That’s super demotivating, and it’s usually just easier to play a new game than try to figure out where you left off.
When you consider that, it kind of makes sense why small games like Vampire Survivors or handheld gaming (where quick suspend is a thing) have taken off in recent years.
And to add on to #3, you might not even remember how the game works. Like obviously movement is easy but you might forget some other important mechanics.
Though sometimes this can be a good thing because you might learn the game better the second time. Like I got stuck on one encounter in Doom Eternal and dropped the game for a while. I came back and loaded my old save but had no idea what I was doing because the gameplay loop is more complicated than “shoot everything and pick up drops”. So I started a new save to relearn it and didn’t even notice when I passed the point I was stuck on because it wasn’t hard at all the second time through.
I might end up doing this with persona 5 royal, too, though I put a lot more hours in to get where I’m stuck at.
Games that I’ve played a bit but didn’t finish because I just don’t feel like it but have a story I’m really interested in? I’ll watch a let’s play or summary.
Other games that I got because I thought, maybe, I wait until I’ve finished a game and want something as a palate cleanser. These I’ll give a go and either really enjoy it and finish or do what I mentioned above.
Some I’ve saved because I really want to give them a try and, if it doesn’t work out, that’s ok.
It’s ok to have games you’ll never play. You bought them, or got them via some giveaway, and in both cases supported the devs and studios in the bargain and that’s good enough.
I loved bioshock. But just couldn’t get into bio shock 2. I have infinite and I may or may not get to it.
Sometimes I know a game is special before I start it and so I save it instead of giving it a quick run. Sometimes I end up not liking them, and that’s ok. Other times they’re perfect such as Outer Wilds. A game that is now my favorite game of all time and has held that spot for a few years.
I find that I’m leaning more and more into new experiences and unique stories lately (firewatch, outer wilds) or puzzles (baba is you) or a mix of both (Talos Principle 1&2) but other times I’ll spend hours and hours on something like satisfactory. Get super into it… and then feel like “this was fun, I’ve had a great time, what new experience should I go for now”
Play the ones you want, be ok with not finishing the ones you just aren’t feeling after giving them a decent try
Same advice for books.
Average enjoyment across multiple games and books ftw!
I can’t bring myself to finish dragon age inquisition.
Which sucks, it was a fantastic game I enjoyed nearly every minute of, and I wish I had gotten into the series when I had more free time than a hibernating bear.
No idea what it is, I just stopped playing one day and never started it back up, and now I just don’t have any interest in it.
Right. Some games are so good you like them. But it’s “uphill” to start them again… so it’s either don’t or just push through.
That’s why I’m such cases I’ll watch a let’s play. Something I can have in the background to get the lore or story. Or a video that explains the story for Death Stranding.
But for others, such as tears of the kingdom, that I had to stop halfway through because of a crazy work project and a lot of overtime I just went back and did side quests until the gist of what I was doing kind of came back to me.
In my experience, it’s a threefold problem for large-scale games like RPGs or AAA titles.
Playing the game in short bursts isn’t meaningful enough to be enjoyable. While you could do it, it would either be under pressure, or you would have so little time to do anything that it feels like you’ve accomplished nothing.
To get around that, you have to schedule playing the game into your day or carve time around it. It’s often difficult to do so, and games are usually the lowest priority activity for working adults.
When you can’t schedule the game in, you take a break to play a different game with less commitment requirements. Then, after a couple of months have passed, you realize that you have forgotten where you were in the story and what goals you were trying to achieve. That’s super demotivating, and it’s usually just easier to play a new game than try to figure out where you left off.
When you consider that, it kind of makes sense why small games like Vampire Survivors or handheld gaming (where quick suspend is a thing) have taken off in recent years.
Exactly right. And yet I love that there are deep and long immersive games even if I can’t always play them.
I do like how some games summarize the gist of what you’re doing.
And to add on to #3, you might not even remember how the game works. Like obviously movement is easy but you might forget some other important mechanics.
Though sometimes this can be a good thing because you might learn the game better the second time. Like I got stuck on one encounter in Doom Eternal and dropped the game for a while. I came back and loaded my old save but had no idea what I was doing because the gameplay loop is more complicated than “shoot everything and pick up drops”. So I started a new save to relearn it and didn’t even notice when I passed the point I was stuck on because it wasn’t hard at all the second time through.
I might end up doing this with persona 5 royal, too, though I put a lot more hours in to get where I’m stuck at.
How I do it. Huge game library tons of games I bought played and just felt meh after awhile with them. Now they are just part of my collection.
Here’s what I’ve started doing.
Games that I’ve played a bit but didn’t finish because I just don’t feel like it but have a story I’m really interested in? I’ll watch a let’s play or summary.
Other games that I got because I thought, maybe, I wait until I’ve finished a game and want something as a palate cleanser. These I’ll give a go and either really enjoy it and finish or do what I mentioned above.
Some I’ve saved because I really want to give them a try and, if it doesn’t work out, that’s ok.
It’s ok to have games you’ll never play. You bought them, or got them via some giveaway, and in both cases supported the devs and studios in the bargain and that’s good enough.
I loved bioshock. But just couldn’t get into bio shock 2. I have infinite and I may or may not get to it.
Sometimes I know a game is special before I start it and so I save it instead of giving it a quick run. Sometimes I end up not liking them, and that’s ok. Other times they’re perfect such as Outer Wilds. A game that is now my favorite game of all time and has held that spot for a few years.
I find that I’m leaning more and more into new experiences and unique stories lately (firewatch, outer wilds) or puzzles (baba is you) or a mix of both (Talos Principle 1&2) but other times I’ll spend hours and hours on something like satisfactory. Get super into it… and then feel like “this was fun, I’ve had a great time, what new experience should I go for now”