Lately, I've lost any push to play any of my games. It seems that whenever I start up anything, I have to push myself to actually play this. I don't know what's wrong; It's like gaming is just a slog, without any of the fun. What do I need to get back into this?

sometimes it is good just to let an activity lie fallow for awhile, then get back into it.

Get back to basics. Play really old games like Sword of the Samurai, Space Dude, Dune 1, Eye of the Beholder,etc. Those were more about gameplay than today's games...

Don't buy shitty games.

I feel that the entire point of the sandbox genre is to turn gaming into an "activity" or "chore".

Disgusts me that it's becoming so prevalent and seeping into other genres like action games and platformers.

Most of my games are sandboxes... Good advice. It'd be a nice idea to catch up on some reading or movies.

Recently, I finished Dead Space and was trying to choose what to play next from my large backlog, particularly from the installed ones.

I ended up reinstalling Quake 3 and playing through its simple campaign again. Was fun. :)

Also, I picked up Diablo 3 and played through it right after. ^^

The point is, sometimes we just don't want to play what we "still have to" play.

Yeah. I know what you mean. I "have" to catch up on my massive backlog

Gaming only becomes a chore when you want it to

Play shorter games?

Stop gaming. At least for a while. Gaming should be a reward to a hard day's work. A tool to de-stress yourself, to feel like you're achieving stuff or saving the world. It should provide some challenge, demanding skill or smarts from you, showing you new cool things to do and it shouldn't be something you do all the time or it'll lose it's shine.

It's like being a porn actor, I guess. The first day at work, you'd probably be "Yaaay! I'm banging these fine looking women!" and you put all your effort into it, but as months go by and you keep doing the same thing over and over, repeating the scenes again and again... guess what? It's work and it'll feel like it as well.

What makes enjoyable things stay enjoyable is the small doses we take them in, otherwise you get bored with them. They stop providing chills and the illusion that you're good or a hero breaks into pieces. In the end, we're only tapping keys and buttons.

So do something else. Preferably something boring but worthwhile, like work for money, work around the house, charity work or something else that'll keep your mind busy in other ways. When that starts to get boring, you may end up feeling the itch to game again, and it'll feel like a reward for all your hard work.

Try to find games with new mechanics - recently I've been suffering a dose of "Been there, done that." Especially, i love my sandboxes/open world games - But I feel like i need to find and do everything. Try to find games that don't make you look at the objectives but just wonder around - Skyrim and Fallout 3 avoid this, Fallout new vegas wraps everything around the central plot so it becomes an objective-based game.

Also, Try Driver: San Francisco, the shift mechanic is actually pretty fun.

Different genres work for different people. I like sandbox games because they *don't* have to be a chore - I can do whatever I'm in the mood for. Adventure games are much more chore-like for me because there's only one or two (usually obscure) ways to move the game forward.

On-topic:
Don't worry about it. Let it go. People change, and sometimes everyone feels like doing something different. Don't worry about the backlog, don't worry about playing. For your leisure time, just do what you feel like doing. You'll get interested in games again.

If you're bored with playing games than you probably should stop buying games too, because when you start wanting to play again you might find that your tastes have shifted and the games you bought before don't appeal anymore. When you have the urge to play again you'll know what you want to get. :)

I think it is obvious that the games you are playing are not for you. Stop playing them and get some new games that are different from the ones you have been playing.