Does gaming still bring you joy?

Yes or i would not play games...

I cant stop playing Madden 15 Ultimate team. Im not sure if thats a good or bad thing.

I find that there are a lot more games that I strongly dislike than there used to be. The rare game that I do like is usually just amazing, though. It makes slogging through all of the mindless crap worthwhile.

Yeah, getting old really changes how things are. I can't play for hours on end any more. I'm picky and tired of certain genres. I buy less and careless.

The only time I can do 2+ hour sessions is when I play with younger friends. Even then I'm squirming in my seat... lol.

OP has finally admitted how empty his gaming life is without a PC...

Seriously, I can never get bored of gaming on my PC and enjoy every game more than the last and this with a lot of free time going towards gaming. It's easy to get burned out but if you manage your time well and lead a balanced life there's no excuse not to thoroughly enjoy every second of your gaming time regardless of age.

I do tend to get frustrated these days by difficult games that have you repeatedly tackling challenges (latest example being Dead Space 3 which was fun but really frustrating in certain sections.) I play on normal and like to go through a game without dying for immersion purposes.

I'm in the same boat. But the point of this isn't how much time you can put towards gaming. It's how good (or not if that's how one feels about it) the time is when you're playing. It's the experience when you're in the moment.

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep :o

Not as much as it used to. I mean look at the commercials from then to now:

then:

Now:

I get much much more joy and excitement from the old games than I do from these new games. I mean those games were hype!!!

If you base your game purchases on sony/microsoft hype.... if you actually think the scoring systems are accurate... and you buy accordingly... then no wonder you are bored.

The console scene is losing all its identity... when it lost Japans interest. now its a watered down PC with less games, less everything. even though its getting more indies ect... it still cannot replicate the experience.

Only nintendo still feels like a games console that I can pick up and play with friends.... outside of shitty cod games and fighters.

There are so many deep experiences, and due to mods how much deeper you can make your experience again, its a shame you INSIST in trolling PC Gamers.... while we argue as "elitist" what we say is the damn truth of the matter.... all your going to get on your PS4 is the same old s*it with one rare exception each year.... no custimisation, probably less content but better graphics.. and it will continue because of costs of developement.

So swallow your stupid pride and get on board... discover there is more to gaming than "plug and play" and move on.... any hobby that takes little effort is a joke of a hobby.

@AdobeArtist

I love the internet... It allows me to be more brazen... :p

i played pikmin 3 today. of course games still bring me joy. if pikmin cant bring joy to a player then there is no hope.

well joy and frustration. lost 40 pikmin in a day. repeated the day though and only lost 4 the second time round.

.....and sorrow. games can also bring great sorrow. 4 pikmin.....yea bad day :(.

Yeah, also...

"Don't forget to buy our expensive DLC or else the game won't be as good!"

Whats funny is the older I get the more RPG's I play. So far this fall the only thing I'm actually excited about is Dragon Age Inquisition and next year Witcher 3, Persona 5, Tales, the new YS and such. I just don't get very excited for other genres anymore. I still enjoy them, I will stick pick up Destiny, just picked up Metro Redux and will always get the next Nintendo game. But I find my new game excitement anymore only exists for RPG's. Other games are just, looks cool, i might buy that reactions.

I hear you TC. What I do is just want to be entertained. Now I can be entertained by watching a video of cats on YouTube so......

I just gave up expectations for the most part. I haven't bought new in a while and will buy destiny next week because I had a great time with friends on beta. But getting older steals enjoyment. Wait until you're in 40s and sex is good, but I would love to be 20 again!!!

No, not in the same boat as you....in fact we are not even in the same ocean.

I am like you, and I'll tell you why. Quality has plummeted on games, there are very few actually good games these days. Devs of old had only so much technology to work with and thus the developers had to work with what they had so we got game mechanics that were well fleshed out that made for enjoyable experiences. Only the big studios can afford to put something together that is AAA quality and smaller studios don't really innovate. For example from Demon's souls through Dark Souls 2 the quality of gameplay dropped due to the developers trying to tweak the original concept in a more technologically advanced instead of a more gameplay advanced experience. Crysis 1 was an industry changer and Crysis 3 was a tech demo that I couldn't get through.

EA also has a monopoly on a ton of franchises and pump out poorly optimized remakes that have poor functionality (sometimes gamebreaking glitches). These gamebkreaing glitches are increasing in todays gaming industry, not decreasing.

MMO's have been at a standpoint of mediocrity for half a decade, there are little to no innovations. Archeage is the most highly refined WoW that ever existed, even with open worlds and player house crafting it's a themepark with restrictions and no innovations. Lineage 2 manages to be one of the most popular mmo's, telling you exactly how much that entire aspect of the industry sucks.

I'm telling you, it's not that your tastes are changing, it's that games are getting worse. Path of Exile is less fun than Diablo 2. Divinity Original Sin has a ridiculously bad first town with awful quest tracking and Baldur's Gate 2 is a more worthwhile experience. Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen aren't ready. Lichdom: Battlemage is a repetitive chore to get through. Unless Dragon Age knocks it out of the park there may not be a single actually good game this year, by good I mean enjoyable throughout the entire experience with no glitches, deep but well presented gameplay, easily accessible (and easy to read) menus and good optimization. You don't get that very often and it's how games used to be.

in these past few months video games have been my only friend. Can't complain about them.

Games are fine I think. The industry is shit though.

Same here. I'm 26 as well, and I still enjoy gaming. True, I have a **** ton of more responsibilities, but part of being an adult is finding the proper balance between everything. It's also true that mainstream gaming has changed over the years, but you shouldn't only limit yourself to the AAA titles. There are a plethora of good games out there, try something new.

I myself have been thoroughly enjoying Dota 2, Divinity: Original Sin, Killing Floor, and Nosgoth lately for the most part. Can't wait to play Shadow of Mordor, Dead Rising 3, and Wasteland 2 this month.

Not as much as it used to, naturally. I miss getting enthralled in the game world. The last game I remember that really got to me, was FFIX.

yes but current gen is slacking in that department

@nini200: So true, those new trailers looked boring as hell. It's like they were advertising a movie rather than a game.

I dont see how. Its still like the old days. Your not going to like everything. I can safely say back in my kid-teen days there were games I would call crap or just meh. The only thing iv seen really change and seen companies really botch up is how they handle DLC. Some do it right while others do just an awful job.

pc is so meh

The prospect of exploring the Persistent Universe in Star Citizen is the first joyous thing I've felt about gaming in years.

To be honest if i wasn't a PC gamer this generation would have driven me insane.

Yeah, it still brings me joy.

Hell yeah it does, i especially appreciate the extraordinary games

rarely. out of last gen, Skyrim, Dark Souls., MGS4, Fallout 3/nv , and the Tales of games, aside from those, everything seems mediocre, dull. and dumbed down.

So people who played Quake 2, Duke 3D and Unreal bitd cared about the story?

I say those games because if you were a kid 10 years ago then CoD was already one of the most popular sp shooters.

Absolutely! That's why I still play games... They make me happy. But I probably appreciated a game more when I was younger because I had less money, so I enjoyed it a lot more.

i'd agree with this but it feels like 'this generation' isn't even out yet and is coming out in 2015. Never seen a year as empty for the new sexy gen as the one we're currently in. People say that ps3 first year was rough but that's not very true because you had multiplats to keep you busy. In 2014 we don't even get multiplats until the end of the year WTF?!?!?!

great list, I myself couldn't get much into skyrim even though I agree it was a good game just not for me.....but fallout, mgs4, gears of war, rdr, alan wake were probably my most memorable games of last gen. gta 5 was a total let down.

Thank goodness for Nintendo. If it was just MS and Sony, gaming would be dead.

@Sonicplys

No, Gaming would be more of a fad but it won't die.

Nintendo is not keeping this industry alive... Its just keeping it from being complete trash.

Landing that 90 damage open space devil jin combo brings me joy

i can imagine this being the case for console games. Switch to strategic pc games..Like hearthstone ,dota 2 or cs go. Hell i've been enjoying titanfall again lately.. The games i mentioned here suck up all my time.Every other month or so i try to squeeze in a single player experience. If you keep playing $60 a pop 6-7 hrs console games it will suck.

I have consoles and play a selection of very well designed games over the endless stream of qte-packed simple 'interactive entertainment' that gets pushed into your face every day on gaming "journalism" sites. So no, it's not a PC vs console issue.

When I was younger gaming gave me the most amount of joy but the older I get my other hobbies seem to be more and more prominent... Photography and listening to music are far more enjoyable than gaming right now in my life. I just feel that right now gaming is in dire need of something new, I hope VR is that thing that brings me back in. I play a moderate 3-5 hours a week... some weeks less and my care for upcoming games has hit a all time low.

I don't know why this is and most sadly and importantly I don't care enough to ask why.

I enjoy games now as I did when I was a kid growing up in the 80's I still get that feeling before a game is about to be released.

Sure. I just tend to play quite a bit less, what with other responsibilities. If I stopped enjoying video games, I'd stop buying them.

Same here. I can go weeks, even months, without playing...but something like, say, Evil Within, I can't wait.

Not as much as before that's for sure. I feel like most games feel a lot more like a job than being fun.

Maybe it's just me, but I hate grinding and doing the same thing over and over and over again to get something. That's why I can't get into most online multiplayer and that's a grip I have with most jrpg. A lot of games are all flash, but no subtances. Some of the best games I played have crappy graphics, while some of the most boring ones had state of the art visuals. I also hate fetch quests or kill x amount of ennemies missions, that's just plain lazy and not fun at all. Like gta iv or red dead redemption; most missions were you killing people and that's it, not very fun in my opinion.

so what games do you enjoy? specifically

Yes, it still does but very few games keep me engaged for a long time . The reason is , dumbed down games . Such games get old , boring and repetitive very fast , and there is nothing new to explore or see further into the game .

I see games like Dragon Age : Origins and Witcher as big achievements of last gen (same goes for Deus Ex as well) . Both games proved that you can make AAA old school games in today's era without dumbing them down much . Both games made lot of RPG fans happy and also brought new comers as well . Dragon Age 2 on other hand was a big example of everything wrong with the game industry these days .

this 110%

A little.

I had a raging boner for video games that started in 86 and finally subsided about mid way through last gen. Can't even blame it all on responsibilities. I just stopped giving a ****. It's very rare that I find a game that pulls me in. On one hand I just have other interests that I find more important/entertaining. On the other, I think in a lot of ways the industry is heading in a direction I'm not too fond of. Not saying that most gaming sucks now, just that a lot of it has lost its appeal to me. Doesn't help that most of my favorite franchises I grew up with have either gone to shit, stagnated or disappeared.

Also, it's depressing to see what's become of the "AAA" market. Was about to go into rant mode, but I'll cut myself off here.

Yeah there is still joy in it for me, but not even a shadow of what it used to be.

Not in the same way. I know that also has something to do with getting older and getting into long term relationships, but the games these day just doesn't get me excited.

To be honest, ever since I stopped smoking the weed, a bit over a year ago, my passion for gaming has dropped precipitously. I just don't have the same tunnel-vision I used to.

I remember 12 hour Civ marathons and now I can barely muster an hour or two straight.

me too