I'm losing interest in gaming.

[Jave]

Maybe this is just spiritual bargaining, but for myself, the whole thing was a lot easier to justify when I found meaning elsewhere in my life. Specifically, the work I do in the pharmacy.

I know that it's absolutely lame, because for all intents and purposes I still work in big box retail, just in a more exclusive department, but I do believe in the value of modern medicine, and I feel like, in some very small way, I'm doing my part. I may not be the doctor who diagnoses the sick child, nor the pharmacist who dispenses the antibiotics, but I am part of the process that gets the medicine into the hands of the people. A small cog in a huge machine.

This is probably the most inapplicable-to-anyone advice I could possibly give, since most people are lucky to find work at all, let alone are they unable just up and walk away from their jobs in order to pursue one that lines up with some ideal they have, but it did make a difference for me. When I come home, I feel like I did my part to help, I got things done that I could be proud of.

When I then come home and space out in front of Minecraft, I feel okay about it.

Also, congratulations on getting off the SSRIs. I just started taking Celexa for my anxiety around the beginning of the year, and good God, I had no absolutely idea just how far gone I was.

[Sac (a.k.a Icaras)]

Sad stuff to hear in this thread. I consider myself a collector, but i've never really been hardcore about it, and outside the odd trip to pawn shops (Which I stopped when they switched from carrying SNES and Megadrive and PS1, games to old PS2 and beyhond generation games.) I've never gone out of my way to get super rare stuff.

I've never lost my interest in games, but I have noticed i'm losing my passion when it comes to more recent releases.

I tehnd to put it down to just getting old, which is a bit sad. But I guess like an old man that only likes the music from his youth, games are a bit that way for us.

We like 'em like they were when we were young and now that tastes of younger gamers and developers are changing, but us "oldies" aren't, its easy to get jaded.

[llj]

I'm currently in a down period of gaming, but that's tied to finance. Really, it always is about money. When my social life is really active, my gaming also goes down, but sometimes I need periods of solitude so I do come back to gaming.

A lot of the business practices today by game companies are irksome, but if anything, history has shown us that there's always a way around them. That's what makes life interesting, seeing what shortcuts and back alleys people come up with.

Gaming should be a hobby, a short break from the world. It shouldn't be a lifestyle. If it dominates a significant part of your life, you'll eventually burn out. As with anything, a full life should have a bit of everything.

[steven]

BTW, I'm a little shocked this thread has turned out the way it has. I expected more replies along the lines of "No wai! Gaming still rocks! You're crazy to feel this way," but I'm seeing a lot of "I can relate" replies. This wasn't the case for other threads of this nature over the years at other boards I've been a part of. Maybe most of us have hit a certain point where there was a shift in our thinking?

Maybe it's the culture of HG101 though. Somehow, I don't think a thread like this would go over "as well" as say, on NintendoAge. There are some serious collectors there everyday posting about what they gotta have and what they just bought (at often insane $$$).

I think a small part of it too though is that it's coming from someone as respected as Ike. It's almost like if a "big dog" speaks about a topic a certain way, others tend to speak similarly rather than take the opposite viewpoint. You've definitely stirred up a good discussion and each post in this thread from everybody has been a "must-read" for me. Good stuff. Candid stuff, too. Love the honesty in here.

[llj]

Well, HG101's general attitude has always been a balancing act of obsessiveness and guilt over that obsessiveness. We'd spend 10 pages talking about the latest Final Fantasy but at the same time talk about how burned out we are over said series, LOL. So I don't think it's unusual to see this on HG101.

It's that self-awareness, I think, that makes this board interesting.

[Wildcat]

Okay, I'm able to chip in a greater contribution now.

I've been gaming since I was 2 or so. It's been a massive part of my life. My safety net, my escape from reality, my passion of passions (until I met my wife, and she's made gaming my second passion of passions). I have a personal collection of 266 games right now, and I'm happy to hang on to most of them for the time being. I plan to study gaming anthropologically as a career. I found the niche I've always wanted to be, and I plan of pursuing it to the fullest.

That being said, I find the current development of gaming to be troublesome. I have to admit, I don't really like digital distribution, or DLC, or DRM, motion controls, or mandatory system updates. I love my Wii and my PS3, don't get me wrong, but I am not huge on the concepts they've helped foster. I would like to get a Vita for Gravity Rush, but I am really not enthused to buy any further hardware. I think I'm going to leap off of the console train until much deeper into their release cycles, and even then I'm not sure if I want to jump back on. I've been pissed off more at my favorite companies (Nintendo/Capcom) this gen, and I am not keen on supporting practices that seem unethical towards their fanbase. I want to continue to collect games for my older consoles used. I don't intend on dumping what I've built up, and I will keep my cherished games and accessories for as long as I can. I just may not be a "contemporary" gamer once the next gen shows up.

[muteKi]

For me the question is sometimes, "Am I collecting this as a status symbol, or do I legitimately like this game?" The former ends up being more likely to drain my wallet without me ever playing the game. The latter is far more justified. Even then I haven't touched, say, Ristar or Rocket Knight Adventures in a while.

In any case I just got Sonic Chaos (SMS) on eBay the other day, so which side my purchases are coming from these days is probably pretty clear.

[Allie]

The odd thing is, My PS3 library built up with no intentions of ever collecting (hence why I wasn't devastated over having to lose the packaging in a move and stick everything in massive CD wallets).

Just once it got to the point where I could find almost any damned PS2 game I wanted for $5-10 (though admittedly they weren't always in the greatest condition), I just kind of went off the deep end with it.

I briefly went through a period of amazon-ing some PS1 games I was curious about (Dragon Valor, Xevious 3D, Toshinden 2, Granstream Saga), though.

[dooz]

Ike, I know that my comment is in reference to something that you said all the way back on page 2 of this thread, but out of the many people that I have talked to on this site you are among my favorite and I would love to hang out with you some day. You seem like a very intelligent, witty, person, so even though you are "the guy who owns a thousand games and only a few friends" you seem to be really interesting to talk to about subjects both inside and outside of gaming.

I can only assume that you pick your friends and people to talk to very carefully, because you seem to be one of the most interesting people that I've seen on this site.

[Ike]

I can say quite honestly I wasn't expecting even anything slightly close to this sort of reaction. When I first posted the thread, I went to bed right after and woke up expecting perhaps three or four replies, but it was already up to nearly 3 pages.

Thanks for all the kind words, guys. I had no idea that I was (apparently) appreciated so much here. gets me all choked up dawg (snort)

[Wildcat]

While I'm thinking about it, Ike, I wanted to compliment you on this post from a few months back. You presented such a well-thought counterargument to the original post that I meant to PM you a "thanks" about it, but it slipped my mind. I wanted to shake your hand for such a brilliant post, I really did. I was annoyed at the topic and was having difficulty overcoming it, but you said everything I would have loved to have been able to say in response to that horrific topic. So, again, thanks. You are an awesome guy from what I can tell, and I wouldn't mind hanging out with you in real life either.

[kyouki]

Apr 12, 2012 6:45:52 GMT -5 Ike said:

I'm not giving up gaming in its entirety, I am just rapidly ceasing to give a shit about games in the way that I used to. It kind of hit me last week when I got a ROM of Super Mario World and played through it. That game is fucking amazing on a really core level and I don't see that same amount of love put into things anymore. SMW is a game about showing off new technology and finding creative ways to work within its expanded but still restrictive limits. All kinds of little things are in the game that nobody notices, like how Mode 7 is used to rotate the sprites of Goombas and Bob-ombs that are floating in the bubbles of later stages.

I still (rarely) see that kind of cool design come through in games like Dark Souls, games that can simultaneously focus on spectacle while providing a tight gameplay experience. It's becoming rarer and less impressive, though, as game developers are no longer forced to work in a really limited scope.

I'm kind of partial to the virtual caveman thing, but I would prefer to consolidate the games into ROM format and play them that way, as well as cutting back on my time spent gaming in general. I think that perhaps I've come to appreciate the physical copy of the game a bit too much and not the game itself.

I say take a break from modern games. I 100% went through the same thing you did about 5 years ago. I ended up selling all my systems and games, all I had left was a PC filled with emulators and ROMs. It was necessary. I replayed a bunch of games I played as a kid, and played a bunch of games I never played before, gaining a new appreciate for the tight designs of the 8- and 16 bit games.

It made me a lot more selective about what games I play, that's for sure. It made me less tolerant of bullshit in games, but I don't see that as a bad thing. When a game comes along that meets all my (admittedly high) standards, I can really appreciate it. It's why something like Demon's Souls completely blew me away.

I think there is nothing wrong with reevaluating your hobbies. I did so a while ago and it was worth it 100%. You can still play games and do other stuff, and I think you will find that the more selective you become, the more valuable your gaming time will be.

[xerxes]

I used to be a musician. All I did was play and listen to music, all I thought about was music. I went to concerts, I had a band, we did shows sometimes... Then something just snapped and it was all over. And yeah, it did coincide with some other self-revelatory events. So I understand completely.

The thing about video games as a hobby is that so few of us seem treat it as a hobby. If it's a hobby, you'd only spend an hour or so a day playing games. It's really more of a drooling time-cash vampire.

But not me. I'm better than that. Now let's talk prices!

[munchy]

I'm in total agreement with the OP. I'd use quoting and stuff, but I've somehow managed to adblock only the button functions on this forum so I can't use them.

Recently my game-playing time has gone down a lot. The only game I've really touched recently is Streets of Rage Remake. (Not counting Life of D Duck 2, which I beat a short while ago, and Silent Hill Downpour, which is quickly becoming aggravating and stupid.) New games have just stopped interesting me with very few exceptions and I'm similarly reevaluating what I do with my time.

[Ike]

I'm loving Downpour. It's easily the best of the western SHes.