I’m in my late 30s now and over the past 6ish months, I have been gaming a lot less or I find myself gaming but not enjoying it.
I used to always have a game I wanted to play or revisit, but it seems that nothing is really catching my interest.
I’m mostly a retro gamer so I was always happy to revisit old titles. But now I get bored of them quickly.
Boredom is your brain urging you too change your behavior. The magic of gaming will return if you take a nice break and focus on yourself and other things. At least it works that way for me.
Yeah, I find I need to read a book or find some other way to engage my brain - woodworking, painting, gardening, etc… The enjoyment comes back.
This can be a depression indicator, for me at least.
I don’t have any good advice for what to do with that info, but I hope it’s not that for you.
If you’re mega stressed and you lose your primary stress relief that can be rough.
Absolutely a depression indicator.
Post-election, my wife and I are going hard on co-op games again. We are not feeling so great.
But prior to that, we were casually gaming, maybe 1-2 hours a day at most.
If I’m not mistaken, the depression indicator is gaming less, not more, when gaming regularly is your hobby.
❤️
My wife and go on kicks of playing a bunch of Minecraft together which is amazing
50s here. I’ve had that too. Sometimes due to low mental health, but often just a change in interests. Gaming is one hobby I’ve kept coming back to since the early 1980s, and overall it’s pretty constant. Other hobbies have come and gone - I think it helps to have a variety of things to spend your time doing, rather than one big one.
What isn’t constant is the type of games. FPS used to be amazing, but now I get motion sickness with many, including some third person games. Also my reactions are slower with age, so online is often frustrating. I adapt by playing more cosy and strategy games. Factorio Space Age currently taking a lot of my time, but I’ve a few that I keep going back to.
I’m 10 years younger and I feel the same, granted, I still game a lot, but I find myself more excited about the ideas and potential of a game, than actually playing it.
I think it’s a normal thing, you gotta get tired of a hobby after so many years, and it’s a healthy thing to cycle it out and pick up something else, and maybe come back to it some time later
As others have said loss of interest can happen and the interest can of course come back with a vengeance. I’d recommend picking up another hobby until gaming suddenly grasps your interest again.
Two types of hobbies that have lasting positive impacts on people are creative hobbies and physical hobbies. Your brain is wired to invent and create and your body is wired to move, so being able to do each for fun is brilliant for your mental and physical health. Hop on a bicycle, go for a walk and enjoy the crisp fall air, stop off at that gym you forgot to cancel your membership for, and start doing it regularly.
For creative hobbies you can get a pack of printer paper for a couple of bucks and a pack of Crayola crayons or colored pencils and just start doodling. If you suck at drawing make wierd geometric shapes to rebuild the fine motor skills that computers have killed. Or if you want something more in-depth model making is always great because it has elements of fantasy while having entry points at any skill level. Personally I’ve been getting back into model railroading which if that seems boring to watch a train go around in circles, consider it has its own table top roleplay scene in the form of operations
I have natural cycles on my hobbies. I just do other things when I don’t want to play games. E.g. work on my to-read book list
The Steam Deck fixed this for me, the ability to just turn it on and start playing makes a huge difference!
Late 20s and I have the same. When I work I am often looking forward to play something after work or when I have time. But when I finally have time and want to start, I look at my library, can’t decide for something and lose interest.
I have exactly the same feeling. Work life and kids. When finally I had two hours of free time at 21pm when everyone was sleeping the other day, I spent one hour looking at my huge steam library of games that I bought on previous sales and still never played. I really wanted to spend those 2 hours on a good quality game but could not figure out which one. In the end I figured out it was not worth starting a new game for only one hour and wasted the remaining time watching useless stuff on YouTube…
You might just need to reduce choice anxiety.
Once my library got really big, I would find time to game, but then waste it on figuring how exactly I want to spend the time. End up on youtube or something and not actually get into a game at all.
The solution was to keep just a few games favorited, and forget the rest existed.
When I’m done with a game, it gets unfavorited. When I buy a new game it gets favorited.
If the list gets too short, I might do some spelunking in my library to favorite something from my backlog.
This way, each time I sit down to game, I have a very short list of stuff to start or continue that I might actually manage to pick from.
It depends on why you’re in the games and what is going on with your life.
It can be an escape
It can be a break
It can be an outlet
It can just be for fun
It can be an exercise for the brain
But if it’s not providing any of that maybe that’s not what you need right now. It can also be a thing you need the escape/break from.
It’s just a thing for spending time without productivity so walking away from it isn’t a big drama. It’s going to be there later when you want it.
There’s other things that can provide a break or be fun for a while until you find the joy of the game again.
Try changing your dynamic. The human brain thrives on novelty.
Play genres you normally wouldn’t – e.g: Hate horror games? Good - try out Silent Hill or some classics you skipped over.
Get a VR headset, go from 2D screen to proper full body 3D - fly a plane over the Andes, feel like you’re actually flying. Pilot a huge mech. Build a colony on Mars with your own two hands.
Burnout happens and it’s worth examining other areas in your life, but gaming’s always been the wondrous thing it always has.
Welcome. This is normal. It will be worst later (worst vision, worst reflex, laziness, etc). Just enjoy that your are alive and you will see new iterations (maybe HL3, someday) and new good games. You can not go back to your twenties or beyond, with all your over-the-top reflex, stress-free, free-time, and un-experienced view to be easy surprised. Just enjoy other things, other game types. Never play by obligation.
Yes, but indie games helped fix that. Dunno how deep you’ve gotten into indie games, but here’s a list of them to try:
Cruelty Squad (it is unironically one of the best games I’ve ever played. Give it a chance, it’ll grow on you)
Balatro
Buckshot Roulette
WEBFISHING
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (++if you enjoyed Jet Set Radio (Future))
Abiotic Factor
Lethal Company (I personally wasn’t a fan, but I can see the appeal; I would be more into it if there was more random junk to pick up)
Hypnospace Outlaw
Factorio (just released an expansion! Also don’t wait for sales, you’ll be waiting forever)
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (edit: forgot to mention that this is basically “be gay, do crimes: the game”. It’s short so I highly recommend 100% it, but it’s also good).
Hylics 1 & 2
The Long Drive (looks like YouTube bait, and it kinda is, but it’s also the best driving game I’ve ever seen. Literally you, a car and 5000km of road. Any engine can go into any vehicle, so yes, you can put a bus engine on a moped. I love it. There haven’t been any big updates lately though because the dev is rewriting the game to fix spaghetti code).
QT (cutesy PT parody that’s all about secret hunting. Also has two extra levels with more secrets. It’s kinda like i-spy but in first-person 3d)
Voices of the Void (I adore this game, it’s a sci-fi pseudo-horror game styled after some weird mix of gmod and Half-Life. The premise is that you’re a researcher who’s been shipped off to a radio telescope array, alone. Your goal is to search the sky for signals and learn more about the cosmos. It takes itself just seriously enough and has lots of secrets and surprises to find.)
Lockdown Protocol looks fun from what I’ve seen of it. Social deduction game, first person with knives and guns (with limited ammo)
Goose Goose Duck (Amogus but better, all roles are unique)
Snufkin undoing the cops’ expansionism on natives’ land is rad. Game is short, has it’s downsides as per forum threads about difficult run sequence and being kinda lost on the remote island, but it’s good for everyone who doesn’t even know about moomins, ages 5-99. It’s highlight are watercolor-stylized graphics making the picture look very pretty and good writing, albeit about simple things.
Oh yeah, the game is short so I highly recommend 100% it. I think I took 6ish hours to play the entire thing, and I think I missed a side quest. But yeah, the game is basically “be gay, do crimes: the game”.
What the others said.
Maybe you need to take a break from games and indulge in some other, or new, hobby.
I like audiobooks, electric skateboards, cycling, manga… And more.
You could also expand the kinds of games you play. I keep trying new genres and if one gets boring I try something else.
Don’t force yourself if you aren’t having fun. That’s a quick way to really ruin something you like.
I’ve gone through several episodes of feeling like there’s nothing I want to play… But, if I keep giving things a chance, and make sure not to burn myself out by trying to find something too hard, or forcing myself to play something because it “supposed” to be fun, even when right then it isnt, something eventually gets me hooked right back in.
Most recently that has been Deadlock. I can’t get enough of it and the feeling is the best.
I do, as most things the passion comes and go.
I think growing your taste evolves as well, we are not used to consider that in gaming but simply stuff I found exciting back in the days now would bore me to death.
Personally ive almost never enjoyed gaming alone. I can count the singleplayer games ive finished on one hand. I almost exclusively enjoy playing games with friends. CO-OP, PVE, PVP, you name it. As long as i can play with friends and we can progress together im happy. Long term progression is my favorite, really seeing something grow that youve all done together is great. I enjoy MMO RPGs but also games like Minecraft, Factorio or Satisfactory.
As others have already mentioned breaking the pattern is the cure to boredom. Maybe try something new? Look for a genre youve nerver played or bringa some friends onto a Minecraft server. Maybe join a community and find some people to play with if no friends are interested. Or just take a break. Sometimes we ned to leave the cycle for a bit to be able to enjoy it.
