Hemis right ,or you can take a break.

I'd suggest you get a full-time job, get married and have a few kids.

Any gaming time you get will be a rare treat. Trust me. ;)

Is this just with some particular games, or games in general?

I sometimes get fed up with new games (new = I am playing it for the first time) already when I am merely trying to learn to play the game, especially if it is genre I am not that familiar with. I started playing e.g. Horizon Zero Dawn, and while I think it is a good idea the early parts of the game teach you how to play the game (where you daddy figure is demonstrating to you how to hunt those machine beasts and you have to do what he says), I kinda grew tired of just following him around and doing the exact things he wanted me to do.

I've yet to finish that tutorial part, maybe later... Well, I guess I want to also save HZD to play it on a faster PC that I don't yet have, instead of playing it now on low-mid settings on my non-gaming laptop. Playing something I am familiar with, like Team Fortress 2, Starcraft or Age of Empires 2.

Then again I've "decided" to stop playing Team Fortress 2 several times already, usually when I get fed up with the cheater bots rampant in the game... yet I always go back to the game after awhile. For such an online game, it is easy just to jump in and out of the game whenever you want. EDIT: Well, usually I want to finish a round in the game, before I leave it...

Maybe, but when you have very little time for playing, new problems arise: You are forced to play in chunks of time, you have very rare ocassions when you can play longer than 1 hour. Two feels like luxury. Then you need games that are easy to pick up and leave for another day. Then, it might happen that you cannot touch a game in weeks (because of life). There are games where your play experience suffers a lot from that.

I guess that game makers are adapting to that in different ways, but still, not all games are that friendly for playing in discontinued chunks of time :-/

Just be aware that getting married and having kids, especially the kids part, is not for everyone. Kids can get expensive, and they can also take a significant amount of your time.

I know this because both my parents and my sister have had kids. (Anyone here whose parents have no children?)


This is one issue in game accessibility; if a game requires playing sessions that are too long, the game can become inaccessible to many. In particular, it becomes important for the game to have a player-friendly save feature (unless the game is extremely short, like Super Hexagon or maybe Downwell).

Except that, during this global pandemic, it can be hard to find something else to do.

Happens to me quite often at the end of a game. Despitew loving Yakuza 7 and to a degree Wasteland 3 I stopped playing at the last stretch.

The more I enjoy a game the more likely it is this happens. :P


I just give it a week or a month or two and get back into the game.

Too many games push too long nowadays. "Big world, number of quests, hours of play" sells, sadly. Add to that a ton of them keep adding content [paid or not] well after release to draw you back in (or keep you longer), rather than playing nicely. Gamers ask, "What end-game content is there?" rather than "Is the ending fulfilling?" and developers sadly oblige. Add on top of that 'achievements' to ruin the experience more. And NG+ (an often begged-for feature) to do it again? Sure, for shorter games. For longer games, that's probably not so good. (And then sadly games reserve features available only in NG+ or higher difficulties as a "reward", making it worse.) Oh, and let's not forget when you have to pray to RNGesus for hours to get that one thing left you need at this moment...

Games need to finish, have an ending, AND BE DONE. Respect the player. If someone wants to engage with the game longer, they'll usually find ways to do so.

Of course, this can vary from game to game and player to player, but the general trend is too big nowadays. It's fine to add content, but temper it -- make it dense and fun, not a sprawling mess.*

And yes, I'll repeat again: achievements are a bad feature. A game is better when it does not include them. Achievements almost always encourage bad design and/or degenerate player interaction with the game.

*Sprawling mess: Each DLC for the Nioh/Nioh2 games added another difficulty level and even further contrived an already contrived loot system... I watch my husband "play", literally spending hours in the menus managing loot upgrades and merges and tinkers, and it reminds me that, yeah, I liked the base game, but I don't want to play up when that's what it entails.

NOW BACK TO YOUR QUESTION of how do I cope?

* I try not to start games until they're feature complete, or really advanced. I bought Children of Morta and know I want to play it, but I know they have a giant roadmap of new features (at last check they're half-way through). This prevents me from having to re-learn the game a bunch, or feeling, "Well, I have to pick it up again" when I'm already pressed for time.

* Now, sadly, I'm replaying Stardew Valley 1.5 (and did for 1.4 and 1.3...). I've enjoyed it and it didn't pass through into feeling like a chore (though 1.5 is slightly starting too -- a bit too "end gamey" so I can't move on; I'll probably not start over from scratch with a future update). Each play's been unique though, different farm layouts, and I adjusted the way to play it. I also went long periods -- years -- in between each.

* Also sadly, I love building and strategy games (Civilization, Rimworld, Megaquarium, etc...). These games often tend to go quite long per play session, and that adds up even worse over a campaign mode in games that have them. They're great, fun games (and I often find free-play/sandbox/skirmish mode often feels empty to me), but one session can eat up many, many hours at once. I've found good games in the genres that can scratch that itch (such as Stars in Shadow, a 4x game that you can complete a play in one day/weekend, rather than... well, can you ever complete a GalCiv3 game before they patch it and completely change the mechanics and break your game?) ADDENDUM: This may be what "killed" RTS more than MOBAs themselves. Their campaign stages took hours each, and had dozens or more levels. It made them too long.

* Teach yourself: It's OK not to finish a game. Play it as long as you're still enjoying it. Maybe you'll come back later. Some games have great starts and even good middles, but have long, dragging ends that get unfun. Drop them! Maybe later you'll be in the mood for whatever pushed you away. Learning to recognize good vs bad game design elements (as I discussed in my previous post) is a good way for you to stop yourself. When I noticed later game Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered was adding layers upon layers of RNG, I decided, "I'm just going to accelerate doing the main quest".

* Which sometimes that helps: Progress the game main game, and loop back for side quests. Even if they're easier at that time, it's sometimes a better experience. Sometimes "I'm plowing through this content!" feels good. And fuck designers who make content miss-able.

* One I'm bad at, but works great for some people: Don't buy something until you're going to play it. Even if it's not on sale when it hits you. You may even save money by not buying dozens of games on sale you don't get to. This will trim your collection and make you not feel overwhelming pressure when deciding what to do next.

And one last mention, which I see others have already mentioned:

* Mix it up. Play some shorter games, even in other genres. "Palate cleansers" are good to do when you're coming off a long one, and wait a while before committing to another big game. I love shooters (as in games like Tesla vs Lovecraft), schmups (like Raiden) for this role, or I'll play a bit of Grim Dawn in between other games (rather than obsessing over it constantly).

Let me give you examples of where I cut content myself, or pace myself, and some examples of good games in terms of actually respecting the player:

* God of War: I did one of the valkyries and it wasn't fun. I tried a second and saw it was different enough and said, "Nope, not for me". The same also is true of the volcano-arena. I also didn't bother with NG+.

* Ghost of Tsushima: I 100%ed this great game... but then I stopped. I didn't stick around for when they added NG+ a few weeks later, or supposedly multiplayer.

* Ni No Kuni: I didn't bother trying the "complete the bestiary" (AKA, get 1 of every capturable monster) and gave up on the ability for the "craft all the weapons" because of RNG. Especially since I'd already completed all of the hardest content, including the "extra chapter" bosses! [Too many games put their megaweapons past the rest of the content they'd have been helpuf or. Why?]

* Final Fantasy 12 Remaster. (I never played the original because I'd heard of how abusive it was, with things like, "don't open certain chests or you'll break your ability to get things later!) I didn't even *try* to get any of the end-game mega-weapons. Screw "fishing quests" or "mega boss that's not hard, you can set AI to do most of it, but it's just going to take you literally many hours. But you have to stay ready to pick up and interrupt the AI for a couple bits" kind of content. I took a LONG break in this one before coming back just to speed through the last dungeon to get the ending.

* Monster Train. I love this game, but I limit myself to 1-2 plays per day so it doesn't burn out and also limit ability to play other games.

* I mentioned Stars in Shadow above. When I feel like playing a 4x game, I'll pull that one up that's done in a day instead of Civilization that's done in a week of evenings, or GalCiv that's never actually completed....

* Book of Demons lets you set -- before you start -- how long you want the session to go, and scales its dungeon creation accordingly. This lets you plan for a play session, and it's pretty good about learning how long it takes you to complete content.

* Per Aspera is a RTS-style game with strong story that doesn't overstay its welcome.

* Offworld Trading Company is a 4x game (that focuses on the base building and not the "unit fighting" side of it) where each map/play is of tempered length instead of hours.

* Fell Seal, an sRPG ("Final Fantasy Tactics") feels like it's of good length, even with the DLC, and no one battle takes forever. It also doesn't push you to grind levels much if at all unless you pump up the difficulty. Most of the side content even is findable in-game, and updates have made the miss-able content either having clear markers, or no-longer-missable. The DLC also adds rewards for you to STOP a play session and come back later and take a break (in the form of side-missions-with-rewards that just happen in real time).

* Stardew Valley lets you do things at your own pace. Only two small cutscenes are really missable (with one particular character, for story reasons). Warning, some people really stress out about this game though! It's meant to take it at your own pace and just RELAX and chill. Find what you can do on any given in-game day and do it. You can't possibly do it all every day.

+1.

@OP: I enjoy open-world action games and metroidvanias more than any other genre, but sometimes I am too physically tired to pick an action genre so I grab another that relies more on brains, like adventures. Or the opposite can happen too: if your brain feels like mush just pick a simple shooter and let your reflexes take over.

Casual games are another good way to shake up the fatigue. In my experience Tower Defenses like Kingdom Rush and Defender's Quest are very good ways to quickly get you off the slump. And when every game starts feeling like a chore you can still switch to binge watching some interesting series/cartoons or reading good books, mangas or comics.

However, if even those are not feeling like fun you'd better look for medical assistance because you could be suffering from depression.

There was a research study I saw once, and several other pieces of writing not related to it confirming this... play the opposite type of game for what your day was. If you had a hectic, mentally exhausting game, try a relaxing-but-twitchy video game. If you had a calm, but strenuous day, get into a frantic cerebral strategy game. And so on.

Other activities: It's important to have different hobbies. Sadly some people in the world are stuck with zero (!!!), so gaming is at least one. But switch between them, even if they're casual. You don't have to commit hard to something, but to change the scenery. Find what works for you, again with the previous note.

As for that last bit, gaming is quite strongly correlated as an escape or self-medication method for a variety of disorders, including depression. It also attracts certain people prone to certain things (like obsession over something, or FOMO), so it's important to educate yourself on those, and, if you feel they're applicable to you, seek support or help from something or someone else if you can.

Personal note: My husband can get a bit "obsessy" over things. I'm glad I'm able to remind him about that sometimes so he can pull away before something envelopes him so deeply he gets burned out by it and thrown into a pit of despair after.

I find that doing this helps as well, except that, for me, the "brains" games are RPGs.

(This also explains, in part, why my RPG definition is the way it is; action games with RPG elements, like your typical Ys game, do not fill the RPG slot for me.)

It may well be sometimes. Like Bastion or Everspace instead of deep strategy or RPG, for example.

Still, raising up from that chair and just walking should be something to consider, if there has been a lot of gaming happening.