I know I’ve mentioned this, but I’m going to restate it for the purpose of the discussion: I don’t have a great deal of “free” time. Between two little ones, a busy job, projects around the house, etc, my game time these days is a carefully measured, delicate and precious commodity.
Sure, sometimes I miss the way it used to be, and I know in a few years things will loosen up a bit. Its not all bad; on the bright side, I find that the decrease in available time actually forces me to be a little pickier in how that time gets spent, and it makes me appreciate the games I do play even more.
I’m always impressed when I read about people who just sank their 15,000th hour into the Skyrim save that they’ve been playing for the last decade straight or whatever, that’s not me. I can’t do that, I’ve got to play as many games as I can (which is, clearly, at odds with my free time situation). Yet when I sit down to play a game like God of War, I still lie to myself. “I’m going to 100% this magnificent specimen,” I’ll think. “This game is special. This time I mean it.”
But there’s always an artifical expiration date on it, which is the release date of my next must-play. In this specific case, May 22nd, State of Decay 2. It’s not that I’m going to stop liking God of War on that date. But I also can’t not play State of Decay, and due to my aforementioned time issue, both games cannot coexist. It’s simple math.
Therefore I always end up on this gradual, curved trajectory from an overconfident “I will conquer all this game has to offer!” to a frantic “I need to complete the bare minimum required to roll credits before this becomes another brick in my Momument To Games I Never Finished.”
I’m on something like 770 days /played with my WoW account, that’s minus a couple hundred days from my previous main and something like another 175 from various alts etc.
I’ve been playing the same game almost 15 years straight and i’ve probably not logged into WoW about 30 days or so in those 15 years.
I once owned a completionist cape in Runescape (technically I still have it but can’t wear it) from before Evolution of Combat happened, and held it for over a year. While I remember the time I spent killing bosses fondly, I just can’t spend the time required to keep up with the game’s updates anymore, at least not while also playing other things. Not to mention while EoC wasn’t all bad, it felt like the game lost a lot of its soul. I know that ’07scape is a thing, but I definitely don’t have the time to recreate a maxed… Read more »
I think you need to explore more fulfilling things in your life.
Who are you to decide what is fulfilling for another person? If someone has enjoyed something for almost a decade and a half, i’d say its pretty fulfilling for them
lol, right… Trust me it’s not fulfilling to spend a decade and a half playing the same game. No matter how fun it is. It’s a massive waste of time and life. A game is at best a great hobby, but it’s not a fulfilling activity by any means.
What if it’s community is good? I know several games that have great communities and most people on them have played for ages… They DEFINITELY think it was worth it.
Ah, yes, time and money on a new game vs time and money spent on life stuff. To really drive home the point, you could have had the first Kratos and Atreus be in the most expensive gear EVAH, and then the bottom pair is borderline resurrection stone time
In youth, I would care greatly about 100%. To squeeze every drop of joy out. The thing that changed is not really my joy, or time… I don’t care about playing a thing day 1 (possibly excepting the next thing From Software makes) but there are things I am just… not willing to put up with. For God of War, it’s the optional bosses and challenge arenas. I’m not having that. If the game had built up the combat the way Dark Souls does, I’d look at the valkyries with relish. That’d be interesting to tackle. But… I got through… Read more »
I wonder: is the new GoW that much bigger compared to GoW 1 and GoW 2?
That are the games I played myself, GoW 3 and the PSP games I watched a friend play and enjoyed it immensly. But I don’t really remember if these games where that massive in regards to content and stuff….
It is literally eight hours long, and I think that’s just the main quest.
Thanks for the info. 8h for the Main Quest seems reasonably short. I don’t play many RPGs (I know GoW is not one) because they are soooo massive.
And me going all OCD on collectibles and shit doesn’t really help 😀
Yeah, if you do all the side quests and collectibles and cinematics and everything too, I think you’re probably looking at at least double that…say 23 hours minimum
“But there’s always an artifical expiration date on it, which is the release date of my next must-play. In this specific case, May 22nd, State of Decay 2. It’s not that I’m going to stop liking God of War on that date. But I also can’t not play State of Decay, and due to my aforementioned time issue, both games cannot coexist. It’s simple math.”
Is it bad that I read this entirely as Ethan in my head?
Ethan said something to the same effect so yeah that works
Well, I can be short about this…
Ultima Online. Played it from 1998 to 2010. Then there was Skyrim, then there was a kid. Now I am happy if I can sink an evening into Starbound but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Right there with you.
Dad of 2 young sons, house, wife, work. Gaming time is like being Indiana Jones trying to get that idol off the pedestal.
Agreed; got a 2 year old and about to have another boy. I play a couple hours a week at best, but it’s fine. In ten years the kids will want to have nothing to do with me, and the games will still be there.
See my master plan is to get them to play with me. Then I can have father son time and game at the same time.
wife – “What are y’all doing?”
me and the boys – “Not now honey/mom, we’re raiding!”
I have so many board games, but my wife is like “We never have time to play all of these!”
I tell her that’s not the point. I’m stockpiling for our eventual family board game nights XD
This. It’s all preparation for when they are old enough to have as much fun with this stuff as much as I do. I can’t wait for family game nights. Console, PC, tabletop. Bring it on.
I did the same. And you know what? It is as awesome as you think it will be. It starts slow, but man. I always joke to my friends that I had kids because I wanted more players… and sometimes its not far from the truth 😉
Yep, it pays off. My son is in high school, and just the other day he asked me if we could play some Dungeons and Dragons. I couldn’t grab the dice and books fast enough! LOL
Also we’ve played Unreal Tournament (the original one) together since he was in grade school. Sure, he still spends a lot of time with his friends and his girlfriend, but that time we spent together playing games when he was younger makes a difference now that he’s a teenager.
I think that’s the most beautiful father-son relationship I’ve ever heard of.
I’m a little bit jealous 😉
Yeah, ‘eventual’ is the key word here. My wife and I play board games all the time, but our little one isn’t old enough for Hi Ho Cherry-O yet.
I was thinking you were going to train them as your own personal gold farmers for a mmorpg…
Sounds familiar. I’m already worried about how much I’ll be missing on my FFXIV account after Pillars of Eternity 2 launches tomorrow. X3
I’ve got similar life circumstances. At this point, I buy games I like in order to support the developer, play a few hours to get a feel for the mechanics, and then just watch playthroughs on YouTube while getting stuff done. 😛
“I’ve got to play as many games as I can”. Why? Is this an obsessive personality thing, or a contractual thing, or something else?
Now that my kids are older and mostly grown, I’m finding myself with more time to game. Nevertheless, I still focus on playing the games that really appeal to me (and sometimes replay them), and ignore most of the others. My son has a fair bit of Gamer OCD, but neither my daughter nor I do.
You mean aside from the fact that its my job and nobody wants to read six months of God of War-related comics while I focus on a single game to the exclusion of all others? 😉
Cue the GoW fanboy who wants nothing but the adventures of Kratos and Atreus 24/7
24/7? I want Tim to bend the laws of spacetime itself and make god of war comics 96 hours a day, 21 days a week!
If he had that much time in a week he could play more games!
my list of games yet to finish is several miles long at this point spanning back to the days of the snes and before
I have a good amount of free time, but less so free capital to purchase games. So, instead of feeling the need to play the next big thing, I just play whatever I got for cheap, or for a birthday. I don’t care about playing it when it came out. Maybe I’m missing out by not playing a few dozen “must play games”, but I’ll probably survive
I never really stay hyped on a game/series for long, so it’s better not to worry about playing them right away.
Yeah I laugh at/want to hit people who complain about having no money for anything actually important (food, health care, etc) but always have the latest video games on launch day and a top of the line PC/the latest system. No you just poorly prioritize your money.
true for every game… but TW3.
That is the downside of playing all the games as they come out. You could finish God of War and then play State of Decay 2 afterwards, be that a month or two after it is released. Honestly, I like playing games that been out a little longer, since they usually fix all the major bugs and stuff and the game is more enjoyable. If you really wait long enough, you can even get a bunch of free DLC and stuff too.
And then if you wait even longer you can save the costs entirely and watch quality YouTube’s of better people playing, explaining the story, and doing it all with better skills/capacity.
I’ve played 30 hours of Darksoul 3 to beat it, and then watched the DLC through youtubes for a far more immersive experience. Although once you go the Youtube route, there’s no closing that Pandoras box and playing the game again.
Don’t forget to leave a Murray time buffer before purchase, you don’t want to fall for any scams.
No offense Tim, but if you think you’ll have “more time” any time soon, you’re joking yourself. Once school, sports, extra curricular stuff starts stacking up you’ll wonder when you ever DID have time! I love being involved with my kid’s activities (Soccer Coach, Cub Scout Leader, Music, Girls who Code) but don’t expect it to “slow down” within the next decade my friend. I’m sure I’ll look back in a few more years and miss it (my kids are 11 & 13), but until then expect it to be balls to the wall.
Oh I’m not suggesting that I’ll somehow have more time or that things will necessarily slow down. But my specific schedule will become a lot more structured and manageable once both of my kids are in school. As it stands right now, I take two days off each week: the two days a week that my wife works. Because she works third shift, and sleeps all day inbetween, for those 48 hours, its just me on kid duty. And then I work the other five days a week. Once both my kids are in school, I can switch over to… Read more »
I guess I feel that way with Final Fantasy XV.
Except I don’t see anything really enjoyable in it so far.
I’d a rather work on getting my next Frame in Warframe, or doing literally anything else other than playing this ten-years-in-the-making meandering, mundane, mechanically boring, systemically flawed, bland disappointment
I’d to introduce you to Ethan’s look on one of the AC games:
“Every time…[Ethan’s character] takes a step, I’m like ‘…didn’t I just take a step’? Be more original Ubisoft”
Now if games started with the end boss and ended with the tutorial this wouldn’t be an issue.
You can just rush through the easy stuff at the end!
Whaddaya mean, “that makes it less enjoyable”?
What is this “fu-ree tyme” you speak of?