To the OP: You're not alone. I'm finding that newer games don't tend to hold my attention. In fact I often end up playing older games that I really like over and over again. The only recent exception to this is Mass Effect 3, which I have played through three times now (awful ending and all!). Currently, I'm having a blast playing X3 Terran Conflict. I may go back to X3 Reunion (with Xtended mod) after I complete the plot missions as it was a much longer, drawn out game, making it very rewarding to move to a better ship. I'm looking VERY forward to X Rebirth and Star Citizen though.
I think i has to do with commitments. When i used to have time, I played a massive amount of elder scrolls or STALKER. Mind you, I'm a rather odd gamer in that I prefer single player games if only because its peaceful. Still, multiplayer wise, BF3 CS:Go, LoL, and DOTA2 get me satisied. Sometimes its just life. Other times, its just hard to find something that caputres the imagination and fun.
im 23 and find myself playing games less and less because of lack on enjoyment and games are becoming to easy and if there not there are shortcuts, cheats, and mods that take the fun out of it and when most games have a large online part even if you play legit you sometimes fine your self playing with someone running a trainer and it has broken Borderlands 2 online for me. We need games to have lives more like the original Sonic games with 3 lives and 3 continues and once there gone start from scratch. We can still have saves but once you loose a life that changes all your saves to have 1 life less so there's no point in loading your last save. We need games without a way to undo our mistakes, that will give more life to our games and hopefully developers would value enjoyment over challenge to make a game last longer because challenge can be overcome by loading the last save you may not want to do it again but you feel like you have to get it right but enjoyment can keep you playing for much longer.
I'm 32 with commitments that sadly have to come first over gaming. I think the main issue is that games are best enjoyed when you get properly immersed into it and you get into a deep 2hrs+ session. So while I could possibly find 20mins here and there within a week I know that I can't get properly into a game in that time and so don't bother. And with the commitments I have of baby and constant DIY I can never justify the longer the sessions anyway. I'm sure if I lived alone (i.e. not with a partner who expects things...) and didn't have a list of DIY jobs as long as John Silver, that the games are available that would keep me occupied for a few hours each week at least. I haven't played any sort of RTS properly since the days of Populous and Megalomania. I'm sure this genre of gaming can be great fun, strategic etc. and that there's plenty of great examples of the genre evolving (eg. xcom) but I just have to ignore them cos I know I can't plough the time in to build the required understanding. Same with online FPS - few times I've tried I just get pwned and can't commit to practising to improve. Gaming is gaming, and by definition (at least by mine) is always fun, whatever the current crop of releases, it's just whether or not I can give them a fair chance to hook me, and I just can't right now. When I'm 70+ I'm going to game like a demon!
I'd argue that it's not the case that people are becoming too old for games, more that games are becoming too immature for most people. We've had so many games recently that have effectively caused controversy for no other reason than for the sake of publicity. I'd much rather have the older games back, Populous 3, Dungeon Keeper II, Homeworld, Legend of Kyrandia, so on and so forth. (I think I've still got the disks to all of those somewhere, or the floppy disks, at least.) I think the oversimplification of some games really hasn't helped the matter. We've lost Lean from FPS (Along with Rocket Jumping, although that's an old death), half the strategy from most RTS, so on and so forth, when was the last time you had to sit down and really think about a gameplay decision that would impact things for the rest of the game? Skyrim had a couple of those moments, but that's about the only game I know of that included such a thing in recent times. Even I, at the age of 18, am starting to get tired of some games, the latest Post War Gritty Corridor Shoot with new guns and features has gone unpurchased, and I'm going back and replaying so many older games simply because so much of them were so much more fun. Not to mention the fact that I miss a time when a Game was released and it just worked. Day 0 patches have become something of a culture now, along with the stigma of "Get it out the door then fix it later"
As probably one of the older bt members I don't think I'm getting to old for games at all I do think that games now days are getting tedious and boring though, Theres a few games I've only played a couple of hours and not played anymore and gone back to an older game like one of the Fallout series.
My guess is, it's a mixture of the current staleness, console ports and dumbing down (more cut scenes) press 'x' to kill feel. The next gen consoles should bring improved visuals - to all platforms. VR - like the Oculus Rift looks promising too. But they need to remember 'fun' has to be the overriding priority, games shouldn't feel like a depressing slog. As said above, some of the older games may look like crap , but are much more fun than anything around today.
41 and still going strong with the games - although I tend to enjoy more of the slow paced games now such as assassins creed. However as I learnt the hard way.. dont let the gaming get in the way of life! Nearly devorced at one point.. throttled back, realised the wife and kids were'nt getting the attention they needed.. but now they are older.. and the wife has discovered the devil that is 'hidden object games' - I get a fair amount of 'Man-Time'.. Friday nights is BF3 night with some of the work guys, and luckly the fam respect it. (sort of a reward and chance to unwind from the weeks work) I blame my dad for my habit.. got into gaming once I found his bright orange 'binatone' system one day in the loft. (sort of a strange turning dial thingy for a joypad) - from there.. Phillips G7000 - Spectrum - Vic20 - Amiga - PC! Many hundreds of games.. some of which I still havent played! (bit of a collector).. think that makes me the oldest gamer on here so far!??
Hmm interesting thread. There's a podcast for gaming dads who are time short (a few hours a week to game) that's interesting. Agree that there are fewer and fewer games that allow for quick bursts of game play (assuming you don't count mobile gaming, and even they seem intent on keeping you engaged for hours) I find that even if there are no games about that I particularly want to play I'm still engrossed in the culture and like to follow the trends and what's going on in gaming world. That's a real long term hook. Worth trying to find a game to keep the missus and kids happy sometimes - just got Tomb Raider for the missus (thank you Lithareal) and that allowed me 12 hours solid to play FIFA
I'm in my mid-twenties, work/RL commitments growing all the time, but I'm probably at a better gaming place than in my teens. Since I'm not able to waste entire weekends trying to play through Baldur's Gate II, I've got a much healthier balance of gaming to the rest of my life. I still really enjoy it, and appreciate being able to scratch together an hour of solid play. I certainly savour it a whole lot more than I did 5 - 10 years ago. As to whether current releases are less enticing, I don't yet know - since leaving uni I've not had a console, and I haven't tested my current computer with anything more recent/taxing than Half Life 2. Just enjoying catching-up on some oldies, or trying things that passed me by at release: Morrowind, Deus Ex, Portal, HL2, KotOR.
OP: As mentioned earlier, give x3:terran conflict and albion prelude a go, it can ve as relaxinf or combative as you want throughout and as economically involved as you want or not. I'm older than you btw Fwiw i saw on tv the other day an 80 odd year old who plays gta iv amongst other things and has kept her mentally active. If anything, as we get older we should make more time for gaming and make more time to find games that will keep our intrest.
Bought into the 'elite' kickstarter.. cant wait to see how that pans out considering the last time I played it was on a BBC B computer. realllyyy showing my age now.
I used to love gaming in the eighties on my speccy and C64. Liked creating sprites and getting them to move with joysticks until winter games and summer games destroyed them. Didn't bother with computers in the nineties until 2002. Last year finally got round to upgrading to a Z77 and i5 2500K and had a few games last year. Far Cry 3 and Black ops 2 are the latest but since I've upgraded to windows 8 I haven't been that interested I go from 1 game to another, 5 minutes or 10 minutes. So at 40 I've downgraded back to an AMD phenom II 955BE on a budget AM3+ motherboard and an AMD 7770 1GB and it does casual gaming fine. I have 2 games installed at the moment Day of Defeat Source and BO2. My Z77 is going to be used has my 2nd pc with intel G620 and Nvidia 610 1GB for media and basic gaming.
Same here.. you haven't lived till you've run up some z80 code.. might only have put a sprite on the screen under keyboard control - but its was MY SPRITE! These days I enjoy looking at the attention to detail to playing the things.. is that shadow correct? why does the shader look soo bad on that water?? - I get more enjoyment from working out HOW they did something. (bit of an amateur games coder) - personally I think all gamers should at some point take a good look at the coding and processes that goes on behind the scenes to appreciate the game as a whole. (although of course it doesn't improve a naff game.. and we've all bought them over the years!)
As a 45 year old who began programming PET computers at school by typing in BASIC programs from Computer & Video Games magazine, through to owning every personal computer or games console ever released (including a customised Amiga CD32!) I too have found less time and motivation to spend hours upon hours farming the same old content wrapped in different coloured pixels. The Intel roadmap has a whiff of ending support for socketed CPU's by 2014 with focus shifting away from PC desktops and high end gaming. I don't hold out much hope that AMD can or will want to fill that ever shrinking niche market. I'm seriously considering switching to Apple MAC's and trying my hand at music, video and photography production - three things I really enjoyed doing on my Amiga 1200 all those years ago. Hell, I may even have another go at programming or designing apps - anything to keep the grey matter from becoming redundant. Each to their own - just enjoy what you do!
