Anyone else burned out on games?

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:17 pm

Jared wrote:I think that some of the sports games lately have been excellent (e.g. The Show). I think it'd be great to be in this gaming environment as a 20-year old. However, from my experience, having a one-year old really just kills gaming, especially one that likes to stay up until midnight. I'd love to get a few hours of The Show in, or play some soccer games online, but that time isn't there anymore.

Midnight? Damn bro. My kid is on a schedule like clockwork. In bed from 7-8:30 every night, and she sleeps until 6 or 7am. How old are you Jared?

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:20 pm

fletcher21 wrote:Midnight? Damn bro. My kid is on a schedule like clockwork. In bed from 7-8:30 every night, and she sleeps until 6 or 7am. How old are you Jared?

Well apparently your kid is just bored watching the Fast and the Furious every night.

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:23 pm

dbdynsty25 wrote:
fletcher21 wrote:Midnight? Damn bro. My kid is on a schedule like clockwork. In bed from 7-8:30 every night, and she sleeps until 6 or 7am. How old are you Jared?
Well apparently your kid is just bored watching the Fast and the Furious every night.

hi-larious.

johnvon314 · Post by **johnvon314** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:24 pm

No kids here, but otherwise similar as far as ebb and flow in interest depending on schedule and time of the year. I keep a fairly large backlog of PC games going back 14 years when Win95 "started up." If I'm bored with the current crop, I'll always find something that I know I couldn't put away back in the day.

John

Post by **Jared** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:38 pm

I'm 34, the kid is 14 months. He just really likes to stay up late and often won't go to sleep until 10pm at the very earliest. But if he goes to bed at midnight, he'll sleep until 10am straight. His parents have night-owl tendencies, so he may just be similar.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:56 pm

Jared wrote:I'm 34, the kid is 14 months. He just really likes to stay up late and often won't go to sleep until 10pm at the very earliest. But if he goes to bed at midnight, he'll sleep until 10am straight. His parents have night-owl tendencies, so he may just be similar.

Well, that's nice on the weeekends, but that would kill me on on the weekdays. My 7 and 5 year old go to bed between 7:45 and 8:15. I need that two hours of quite time either watching tv, playing video games, or doing other stuff around the house.

I'm burned out on most video games except baseball, soccer, and hockey. My son has gotten in to video games, especially Kirby Super Star Ultra on the DS. We bought him that game months ago, and he still plays it daily. I don't know how his attention span can be that long for just one game.

He and I also play Rock Band 2 ocassionally along with Indiana Jones or Star Wars lego games. I have found playing with him is more often enjoyable than playing alone. Splitting time between the PS3, the Wii, and DS helps break up the burn out. There are so many games nowadays that I actually feel overwhelmed. Perhaps that has a little to do with why I don't feel like gaming that much anymore.

I'll never game like I did before I had kids, but it's still a nice diversion from the everyday stresses of life. Also, as we get older, I don't think it's uncommon for our priorities to change.

ansonlee · Post by **ansonlee** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 3:58 pm

burnt out on consoles. But not handheldS like ds & iPhone

ddtrane · Post by **ddtrane** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:12 pm

pk500 wrote:It's all about priorities, but not just overall life priorities.

Family and work always have come before hobbies for me. That order hasn't changed.

What has changed are my priorities within the very limited amount of "me time" that I have. Gaming always was at he summit; Six years ago I never thought of doing anything other than gaming once my wife and kids went to bed.

But over the last few years, gaming has moved toward the bottom of that list. I'm putting an increasing focus on fitness, so I'm spending more free time running and shadow boxing. (Can't wait until I can hit the bag again!) Plus I enjoy watching sports on TV, reading on the Web and finding and listening to new music. I also have a much more active social life outside of the home than I did six years ago, as we have met a lot of new people through our kids and their school and sports activities.

Another deterrent to gaming for me is the "arms race" nature of the hobby, especially with consoles. It's so much like the U.S. vs. the Soviets in the nuclear missile race of the 60s and 70s.

A new system comes out; most guys get that system. So others end up getting it even if they're not 100 percent sure because they don't want to miss out.

A new game comes out that everyone raves about for Xbox Live play. So hell, everyone at DSP gets it because they don't want to miss out. And that game usually has a shelf life of four weeks or less before it's discarded for the next big thing.

I just got sick and tired of the churn. It was more than just being tight with money, too. It was time. Time to scope the new games. Time to find the best price. Time to go buy that game. Time to sell it on eBay or trade it in toward another game when it no longer was the game du jour.

Time. Time. Time. The cliche fits: I just don't have time for that sh*t any more. More clearly, I don't WANT to make the time for that sh*t any more.

To me, the halcyon days of video gaming were during the early days of Xbox Live.

It was so simple then. Most of us had Xboxes. Most of us had XBL. Both were reliable. There were only four or five true quality XBL games at the time, and we all gravitated to them and had vibrant, active Poker Nights five nights per week. And those games had legs, mainly because there wasn't a long list of Grade-A titles waiting in the wings to replace them.

"F*ck you, Carl." Dick Fain. Mowing down the North Koreans across the river in Ghost Recon 2. "Ooohla-boolah" with Close Combat: First to Fight. GRIT. BBReBozo and I pumping lead into Neckthai's dead carcass in Rainbow Six 3. GREAT nights of racing with the original MotoGP. "PASS THE F*CKING PUCK, JACK!" and DDTrane yelling "CHOO, CHOO!" when he scored in NHL Rivals.

There's also no question that the novelty of reliable online gaming with voice communication and ease of matchmaking was a huge spur to more gaming for me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing those first few months with XBL. Now all of us take that completely for granted. The "new car smell" has disappeared.

Those early days of XBL were good times. Those were my best times in video gaming.

Is the hobby better now than in 2003? Absolutely. More powerful hardware, better choices of hardware, a cornucopia of great games. So I don't want this to read like, "It was better because I was there, ripped out of my brains and having a great time."

Hardly. But I think anyone who shared in the DSP magic of those times must have at least some fond memories of that period when we all fired up our big, black bricks and had 10- to 12-men Poker Nights four nights per week.

That loving feeling started to fade for me probably around 2005, and I was out of consoles within a year.

I still enjoy my PC racing sims. But I only race one or two nights per week now. That's good enough for me, satisfies my gaming and racing jones. I only play three older titles -- Live for Speed, rFactor and NR 2003 -- so it's nice and simple.

The Wii also is fun with the kids on the weekends and for simple stress relief through a game of bowling. But that's about it. We only have three Wii games and aren't looking to build a massive library. Keep it nice and simple.

Take care,
PK

Great post pk, especially this part:

DDTrane yelling "CHOO, CHOO!" when he scored in NHL Rivals.

It was hard for me to score, so I had to let everyone know it was me with the goal. NHL Rivals broke my online cherry and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Rivals and the original xbrick. Man, those truly were the days.

The technology has gotten better and still enjoy gaming when I can. I only get to game at most 3 days a week so it never gets old.

GB_Simo · Post by **GB_Simo** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:36 pm

Jared wrote:I think that some of the sports games lately have been excellent (e.g. The Show). I think it'd be great to be in this gaming environment as a 20-year old.

I'm 23, so close enough to say that it is indeed great. It really, really is. If anything, there are more great games around at the minute than I can concentrate on - I've had NHL 09 on rental for months now, for example, and despite all the praise it gets here and the fun people are having on Live with it I've not even opened the envelope yet. I've been too busy with FIFA, and Rock Band, and Flatout: UC, and Skate 2, and Saints Row 2, and at some point I really must go back and put some proper time into The Club and Crackdown, and I should really break the seal on Midnight Club LA and The Orange Box, and...

If I had any commitment at all to keeping up with the XBL trends around here (and the time difference is the only reason that I don't follow them slavishly), I'd never find any time at all to play all the things that interest me in single player. Because I don't, and because I don't have a wife and kids and the associated commitments, I've got more opportunity to game than most here and still it isn't enough. Add in the PC racing sims and there's even more to be getting on with, but far from burning out, I'm loving every minute.

toonarmy · Post by **toonarmy** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:06 pm

Gaming is amazing right now. There is incredible software on the handheld systems. The 360 is simply awesome in terms of the games, sports and non-sports, and XBL. The Wii offers a lot of really neat stuff as well, including fun fitness options. I spend a lot of my leisure time reading and doing things outside, but it's nice to have so many quality gaming options when the urge hits. It's also nice to be able to spend time with friends on XBL who no longer live in the same town as me. The number of quality gaming options currently compared to, say, ten years ago is truly astounding. My dilemma is far from being burnt out on gaming, but instead trying to select which games to play when there are so many top-notch games on the market.