Losing interest in gaming!

[Gabbyjay]

I wonder if anyone here has made similar experiences as I have.
Sorry if this gets a little longer and if my English sucks (I'm not a native speaker)... but here we go.

Has anyone else here lost interest in gaming completely?

I have to admit I'm not a gamer for a long time now. Maybe it's a paradox, but I just like to talk about the technical aspects of it from time to time, so I'm here.
Maybe even when I was still playing video games, yeah I enjoyed gaming a lot, but maybe I was even more interested in the technical side and hardware than into the games themselves.

But oh boy, was I into games at that time, nonetheless!
We were playing on anything we could get our hands on (which was not easy at that time, especially if you lived in a small mountain village in my country). We read all the magazines, we traded games between each other, there was almost nothing else on my mind.
I built up quite a hard- and software collection, I was especially proud of the many special things like rare import hardware, special editions of games, many exclusive items and stuff. (At least my collection surely was quite cool at that time... today not so impressive for sure, but then again, if I had continued like that, it may be a different story now lol.)

Due to my interest in the technical side, my attention shifted towards the PC eventually, where I could play around with tons of hardware, water cooling, software-configurations like different anti-aliasing-patterns and stuff.
Eventually, my appartement was basically one huge PC (copper pipes for the water everywhere, it was connected to two aquariums, huge radiators and stuff) and it was all connected to a huge home theater setup with mighty 7.1 receiver/speaker system, beamer with 4.50 meters wide image, the walls were coated black... gaming was really jaw-dropping like this!
It was crazy and I never knew if the women I led into my appartement were admiring it and having fun, or if they thought it was silly. : D
I have to admit, today I merely think the latter myself, even about other grown-up people who are still into gaming, sitting in their game-chairs with their headsets on, with all the anime in the background and stuff... sorry, I can't help it, but that's kinda how I feel, even if I know the other side myself.

Well... I still remember one day, I was playing Garou - Mark of the Wolves on the Neo Geo AES.
I spent a FORTUNE on that game and it was great! The fierce animations, the sound effects... it was quite a treat, but all of a sudden I realized: I just don't have any fun with this anymore. Nor with any other game.
And I was asking myself: What am I doing here?

From that moment on, I rarely played any games (if at all), I just did not feel I wanted to, it seemed more like wasted time, and I just did not feel I wanted to turn on a game system anymore.

Dreamcast was the last console I bought (I LOVED it when I was still playing games, perhaps my favorite system next to the Saturn and the Neo Geo)... I ignored the systems from the PS2 and on completely, and today, I could not care less about PS5 or the new Xbox and the like.

So I sold all that stuff one after the other whenever I needed money, and I can't say I really miss it.
It's more like I don't feel like possessing many things or collecting items and all that crap really makes me happy, it merely felt like a burden sometimes. It was just lying in the drawer and collecting dust.

The only games I played from time to time were Super Mario Bros 3 (only on cold winter evenings) and Open Red Alert (where I was among the top players at one time and was contributing a lot of coding and graphical work for the project, which you can still find in it), but even those I haven't touched in years now. I might climb into a Ridge Racer arcade-cabinet, if I ever found one again...
And one day, I might get back to Chrono Trigger, which was my favorite game of all time.


I can't really explain why I stopped caring about games all of a sudden.
Perhaps it's got something to do with some of the reasons I was into gaming in the first place.
Maybe as a gamer, you won't really admit it, but gaming can be something like an escape-fantasy or at least it kinda represents some of your dreams and desires. But if you are lucky to fulfill some of those dreams in real life, maybe gaming will lose some of it's appeal.

I'll give one example.
I very much enjoyed arcade racing games back then, since it can give you some of that holiday-kind of-feeling: Driving in a car, listening to cool music, sun is shining and you drive by the coast and look at the sea (maybe some of you know what I mean). Kinda what I wanted from life!
Today, I am glad to literally look at the sea right now, living at the coast and building up my own company little by little, as you perhaps would in an economy simulation video-game.
It's as fun as it would be in a game (only no safe-points) and maybe one can transfer some of the way of thinking as would you do in a game into real life as well... it sure worked for me.
So maybe not all of it was wasted time.

And of course, I am glad to have experienced Chrono Trigger.



So... what's your story?
Anyone else had similar experiences, can you relate to what I'm writing here?

[Spleet]

This follows a very common trope, wherein, typically, as one ages their interest and drive towards novel experience dwindles or is focused more on survival and familial duties. You may look no further than the aging and elderly whom, despite having all the time in the world choose to spend most of it watching the same channel on their TV, despite most of them having vast wealth accumulated when the economy was at its peak. This isn't the case for everyone, of course. Seeking and finding novelty is difficult when the path of least resistance is just that, investing little and passing time. Simply consider how popular it has become to WATCH others play video games. The more you invest personally the greater the payout, generally speaking. I won't criticize those who while away the hours watching content, as I myself am certainly guilty to some extent. But to those who put in the time to seek the adventure and conquer it, through video games or otherwise.. That's where my respect lies.

You have to condition yourself just like everything else. You may not like cycling or running, but if you tried it and accomplished a marathon or certain goal, you'll feel the pride from doing so. Perhaps completing video games, after a while, no longer provides a lasting or desirable feeling. There's nothing wrong with not enjoying video games. Tastes change and interests shift. It's when you find nothing enjoyable that it becomes a problem. See depression, etc.

Perhaps what you need is a truly novel gaming experience. Have you tried virtual reality? Or perhaps your company and the goals you set within may be a substitute for the sensations you sought in games. That's an admirable thing.

[OlivusPrime]

I comes in ebbs and flows - as your life progresses, your situation changes, your perspective shifts and your interests change.

I used to love contemporary video games as a kid, but as I grew through my teens, I collected action figures and Lego more, became more interested in retro games, and left modern gaming pretty much entirely. My focus shifted completely to collectibles during university, and I spent fairly little time on games.

Now as a young man, I've collected most of the collectibles I wanted and realised the end product just isn't satisfying, so now I'm gradually selling all of that off... And this, plus the locked-down social time I had with my flatmates during COVID, has brought me full circle back to enjoying my resident retro video game collection.

I don't think I was ever obsessed with games as a hobby, and certainly that's not the case nowadays. I think everyone should be as invested in their hobby as is healthy and they're comfortable with - I enjoy games mostly as quick entertainment between projects and work, and as something to learn about whenever I'm curious.

[mazonemayu]

Since you’re clearly interested in the technical part of things, why not start a pet project to get you going again?
Maybe something older that is very versatile, easy to work on and you can mod the hell out of with very littel effort, like say an original xbox. They hardly cost anything nowadays and play (almost) anything that came before, I use it for all my emulation of older consoles, home computers like the amiga, final burn & mame for my arcade fix and so on… You can download a front end of your choice or write/mod one if you know what you’re doing, the sky is the limit when you start working on one of those things, the only thing that would hold you back is your imagination…maybe something like that is the boost you need to get back into it. I know I didn’t care much for gaming when my kid was born all those years ago, but once she grew up and I discovered the modding scene, a whole new world opened up for me and I still got to play my old games and enjoy em.

[Gabbyjay]

Seeking and finding novelty is difficult when the path of least resistance is just that, investing little and passing time. Simply consider how popular it has become to WATCH others play video games.

Interesting point... Just watching others is even less investment. I mean, playing video games already is not requiring very much effort, considering you usually sit on a couch and move only your thumbs. : D Maybe this is the point, investing little but activating the rewarding-areas in your brain.
This might sound a bit negative as it bears some similarities to drugs for sure;
but I also feel all that gaming may be contributing for building your personality, on the other hand.
Young animals play around to prepare for the real thing; young girls play with dolls and stuff.
I think it's no coincidence that the most addictive games are the ones where you constantly are improving your assets or your character, learning, collecting stuff and such. Course life ain't no game, but the drive to constantly progress further, to improve your life, your situation and things like that can be quite rewarding (and certainly has helped me a lot).
Perhaps since many day-jobs offer quite limited possibilities for improving or even self-realization, maybe that's why many people can find this in games.

You have to condition yourself just like everything else. You may not like cycling or running, but if you tried it and accomplished a marathon or certain goal, you'll feel the pride from doing so.

Yes, lifting weights does that for me... kind of.
Problem with this is, it is not as immediately rewarding as reaching a mountain peak, not even in a medium term... only in the long run (meaning years) you can see and feel the results. But you can at least feel the pride of doing it every day, while other people don't.

It's when you find nothing enjoyable that it becomes a problem. See depression, etc.

That may actually have been the case... I remember it was an enormously hard time for me back then and thinking about it, there was nothing enjoyable anymore, indeed.
Only, the desire to play a game never came back, not even years after.

Perhaps what you need is a truly novel gaming experience. Have you tried virtual reality?

I admit it has some appeal and I was following the development of the scene for some years now.
Only I never got around to try it myself. Also, it always seemed that the first generations of VR-Hardware still had some problems, so it may not be a bad thing to wait a bit... but some day, I might indeed!
I especially would find it interesting to play some games I knew as a kid in a virtual reality 3D-environment, if possible. You know, when you dreamed of "being in the game" instead of watching it from an outside 2D-perspective.

perhaps your company and the goals you set within may be a substitute for the sensations you sought in games. That's an admirable thing.

Yes, in a way it does.
Of course, the opposite is also true. It can be quite frustrating to put so much work in it, and then have a situation like the present years with a pandemic, container shipping problems, inflation, rising costs for energy and fuel, rising purchase costs, a war going on here in Europe... you put so much time and effort into it, only to see external circumstances nullifying most of it.

I've collected most of the collectibles I wanted and realised the end product just isn't satisfying, so now I'm gradually selling all of that off...

It was similar for me when I sold my collection, bit by bit.
What bothers me about this is that I had to sell it at a much lower price than when I bought it, since I had to sell it when such items became much more available due to the success of eBay and the like. That was a game-changer.
If I had at least made some money with it, fine... but this way, I feel like I wasted many opportunities I was fortunate to have, and if I had made some wiser decisions, it would be easier today. I mean collecting games is such a first-world-problem, I almost feel bad about it.
And it's not only the money, but also the effort. In the end, I put years and years of enthusiasm into something that went out of the window, if you know what I mean.
Nevertheless, it's still a part of who you are and forms your character. Appreciation for art, music, languages, travelling and (as described above) also a certain way of thinking, of dealing with problems, of using the resources you got can help in your profession, there are many influences coming from those years.

Since you’re clearly interested in the technical part of things, why not start a pet project to get you going again?

I was thinking of restoring an old Ridge Racer arcade-cabinet if I can get my hands onto one of those. Then I would place it on the terrace and people would have to throw some coins in to play and spill their ice-cream on the seat and wonder why such an anachronistic fossil of a game even still exists and how it ended up here. : D

[SMiTH]

i'm in the same boat.
but, i'm losing interest in the internet more.
i find the internet to be completely boring.
also gaming is not as much fun either.

[Spleet]

I especially would find it interesting to play some games I knew as a kid in a virtual reality 3D-environment, if possible. You know, when you dreamed of "being in the game" instead of watching it from an outside 2D-perspective.

This is where I've found the most joy in my VR excursions.

[Ian Micheal]

I lost interest in all gaming in 2002 that's why I'm a dev heh! Cant beat the game of creation of something that's never been done but by you and seeing it run on the Dreamcast for the first time..

It's the dc's best game development and C coding..

Create and not play and you will never lose interest..

[dark]

I've also lost interest in gaming. But every now and then I still like to play things a bit just for nostalgia... compared to 20 years ago, I'm not doing stuff like playing a specific game for an hour, rather, I'll just play 5 games for about 10 minutes each to get a sample of things, such as remember what soul calibur was like, and then that's enough for me.

For me personally, at least with respect to the games I own across systems, including dreamcast, I feel like I've maxed out the enjoyment I can get from them from playing the games. Like, I've literally put hundreds of hours into the games I own over the last 30 years and the vast majority of games I own on old systems are ones that I beat or put significant time into over the years, so playing Tony Hawk or Sonic Adventure 2 for the 1000th time just doesn't seem like fun anymore. I've already long since dived into the various game libraries and imports for the old systems I own to try and extend the experience by playing some new-to-me old games. I bought and played many of those extensively from 2012-2017, so I feel like I've maxed out the libraries (at least in terms of stuff that seems interesting to me) for systems like dreamcast, gamecube, sega genesis, atari jaguar, snes, etc.

Another thing that limits my interest in gaming is the availability of youtube. If I want a quick nostalgia fix, or to refresh my memory of what a certain game looked like, I'll just load up a playthrough of that game, or the soundtrack to that game on a youtube video and check that out for a couple minutes instead of loading up the game. I also don't have a lot of time I could spend gaming these days anyway, so stuff that requires a huge time investment like RPGs are kinda automatically out. Lately I just like playing arcade games, like literally, arcade games emulated on mame, because its quick to get into the action on those, and many can readily be beaten (if you're good enough, or if you credit feed) in 30 minutes or so.

I periodically think about selling my physical games, but for some reason, I'm really attracted to how certain consoles or game box arts look, and as a result, simply owning a good example of some of these consoles or games still gives me a bit of enjoyment. I also have a son now, he's too young to game right now, and I imagine he won't be that interested in some of this old stuff... but I figure why not keep this stuff for another 5+ or so years to see if it is fun to introduce him to some artifacts of my youth, many of which I actually owned as a kid Lastly, when thinking of the dreamcast in particular, I think I'd keep that forever simply because the system and my games have been a significant part of my life for so long. There was a period of time during 2009 when I was extremely depressed and what helped me deal with and beat back my depression was digging out my dreamcast and playing it... so I'm very attached to it emotionally.

[Gabbyjay]

I lost interest in all gaming in 2002 that's why I'm a dev heh! Cant beat the game of creation of something that's never been done but by you and seeing it run on the Dreamcast for the first time..

It's the dc's best game development and C coding..

Create and not play and you will never lose interest..

Ha. : D Great point.
Totally agree, graphical work, sound editing and especially coding are extremely fun.
Actually, too much fun in my case.
I once had a phase where I did that extensively, but one day I realized it was eating up almost all of my time.
(This was not the only problem, the other problem was to keep up with the community, as I worked on open source projects. It was almost impossible to stop for some time and then going back to, since the code was almost constantly updated and changed and only a few months later, you'd have to adjust everything or even start from scratch with you commits. So even taking a longer break was outta the question.)
So I made the decision that, as humans unfortunately won't get 2.000 years old, I would not pursue this hobby any longer, as it was just too addictive for me.

It's a shame really that we got such a limited life-span... so many interests, so many talents you find you got, but there's just not enough time to realize it all.