do you find yourself playing too many games you never beat any?

[dejiko]

as the title asks, do you?

i tend to not really beat many games as i love trying so many new things

i have beaten games before, but i have played way more than i have beaten w

if you were to ask me if i have beaten a random game, i would proabably say no, but i have played it!

how about you?!

 

[xxleandro12]

Same, except if it's really REALLY short that can be beaten in less than a hour or two.
Almost all the time I start a game either I let it undefinitely suspended for weeks, months or even years, or I fight out of boringness to beat some of the most accesible I have in my catalog.

 

[dejiko]

Same, except if it's really REALLY short that can be beaten in less than a hour or two.
Almost all the time I start a game either I let it undefinitely suspended for weeks, months or even years, or I fight out of boringness to beat some of the most accesible I have in my catalog.

so real

because of this i tend to play a lot of roguelikes lately for a little bit of the ol' in-and-out gameplay w

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

There's some games over the years that I've played that I haven't beat.

 

[metallitia]

Happens a lot to me lol

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Way ahead of you, I don't even start them. Don't have time as it is...

My girlfriend on the other hand, finishes anything I throw at her in like 2 days. It may not be Elden Ring but whatever thing Epic is giving away for free that she might remotely like I practically force her to install it and she finishes them in like 2 days. It's scary. Stuff like: TOEM, The Big Co, 20 Minutes Till Dawn, etc :s

 

[dejiko]

Way ahead of you, I don't even start them. Don't have time as it is...

My girlfriend on the other hand, finishes anything I throw at her in like 2 days. It may not be Elden Ring but whatever thing Epic is giving away for free that she might remotely like I practically force her to install it and she finishes them in like 2 days. It's scary. Stuff like: TOEM, The Big Co, 20 Minutes Till Dawn, etc :s

that makes me feel a little better, but also confused because i do have more free time than one would think, and i still dont have the will to plow through games like i should ; w;

that said, 20 minutes till dawn is really good!

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

I'd say spend your time doing things that make you happy, if you don't have fun playing games do something else.
Burnout is real.
There's no need to force you to play, I seen people do that it's painful to watch.
I see them grind as if "game = fun", "I am gaming I must be having fun", but they are totally miserable the whole time, maybe they are masochists. idk.

 

[dejiko]

I'd say spend your time doing things that make you happy, if you don't have fun playing games do something else.
Burnout is real.
There's no need to force you to play, I seen people do that it's painful to watch.
I see them grind as if "game = fun", "I am gaming I must be having fun", but they are totally miserable the whole time, maybe they are masochists. idk.

oh i love playing games, just for some reason i cant seem to concentrate on anything lately...

maybe its like you say, burn out!

i tried playing some xenosaga earlier and got annoyed at something and turned it off and played some dungeon lords instead lol

 

[TerquitelDes]

Yep, the problem of chaotic play habits i guess. Usually I just complete a game if i play it continuously; otherwise, i just forgot continue it and just start another one.

 

[Sayo]

I used to do that more frequently but I've been cutting down on it and clearing more games by simply focusing on one game until I at least clear it once. It's certainly harder to pull off when you are playing something challenging like a classic platformer or similar.
I have been playing RPGs somewhat less because they tend to take up too much time too.

 

[Deleted-1]

I've dropped loads of games before finishing them, either because of the difficulty or because I got bored.
I gave up on Lunar Legend on the GBA after 39 hours of play, when I could have finished it with just 45 minutes more!
I gave up on Arc the Lad 2 after 39 hours too. It seemed endless.
Hexen, Doom 64, Turok on N64, Quake 2 on PS1 and many others.

Aside from that, I play a lot of games on different platforms, and in general 30 minutes is enough to know whether I want to give it my all and finish it or not.

Ideally, if you don't have the desire or motivation to spend several hours on a single game, you should choose very short games or try out 5/10 minutes of a bit of this and a bit of that.

Arcade games that aren't too old are perfect for this, especially shmups, beat'm all games (some of which can be finished in around 30 minutes), brick-breakers and puzzle games.

 

[Kannibal]

That's a problem I have when I'm in the mood for something. Let's say RPGs for example. I'll start playing Baldur's Gate, and out of nowhere I feel like playing a different game in the same genre circle. I'll bounce around games like Pillars of Eternity, Neverwinter Nights 2, Divinity Original Sin, or countless others until I'm too fatigued to finish just one. I'm glad that with arcade style games where you have a limited amount of tries, I can play a game until I get a game over and change game without feeling guilty of not beating it.

 

[Kyyo]

Yeah. This year I've been beating more games. I decided to play one game at a time and my gaming experience has improved a lot. I also decided not to rush to finish games and just enjoy them the best way for me.

 

[BinaryMessiah]

I've been gravitating towards 2-4 hour indie titles over the last couple of years. Open-world games just take way too damn long and feel bloated most of the time. I still haven't even finished half of The Witcher 3 despite how much I like that game. It's been installed on my PC since launch. As I grew out of my teens and early 20's and life got more complicated I have less energy for games. It's not so much time. Life demands more and more out of you and I'd rather rest or have to do other things. It sucks. I used to stay up for two days straight, even work through that, and still play games. Can't do it anymore. That wasn't that long ago either.

 

[Knighthart]

This is an issue that you end up hearing more and more lately. It does make you curious at the cause of this, I initially thought it's because of the sheer output of games nowadays compared to before; but while that probably still has some effect, I don't think it's the direct cause. I'd have to give that to the fact that people's attention spans have immensely decreased over the years.

Now I'm not going to go on some boomer rant about Tiktok or anything, because it's more generalized than that, I feel. Social media as a whole being prevalent, streamlined media, growing accustomed to instant gratification- Hell, even the fact of just an increased download speed has got people in a position where they no longer have to wait days for their next game to download.

This issue just doesn't pertain to gaming, I'm imagining this lack of focus being an obstacle in many things with life. The solution of sticking with one game is good and all, but if you find that you're going through this issue, then I'd say try to grapple with the problem directly and learn to be more content with just a bunch of nothing happening throughout your days. Stare at the ceiling for hours or something as a habit until you get more comfortable with a lack of external stimulation.

Before, the issue was only just a lack of time. It's sad to see how primarily nowadays despite generally having the time, the issue now seems to be some form of self sabotage. Must especially suck for the JRPG players out there.

 

[NocturneKnight]

as the title asks, do you?

i tend to not really beat many games as i love trying so many new things

i have beaten games before, but i have played way more than i have beaten w

if you were to ask me if i have beaten a random game, i would proabably say no, but i have played it!

how about you?!

Absolutely. Right now I am playing: Anthem, Raiderz (MMO) and Ao Oni 2.

I always get distracted by either Titanfall 2 multiplayer or books (right now I am reading Dune). Ao Oni 2 has been dragged on by me for liek a few months.

 

[Note]

When I was younger, I used to get distracted with a variety of games and play through chunks of them but not finish many.

Around 2019, I started to focus more on actually finishing games, keeping track of the games I beat, and writing reviews for each game I finished. I've been able to beat somewhere between 20 and 40 games a year since then. Would love to play through more, but work and other responsibilities get in the way.

More recently, I signed up for a Backloggery account, which lets you keep track of your gaming collection and the status of your games. I feel like this has helped keep me accountable too.

 

[stealthRUSH stealthRUSH]

No. I decided to finally complete my favorite games over the past few years. Documenting my progress over at HowLongToBeat. When I was younger I seldom finished games, since I rented them back in the 90s /early 2000s.

 

[dejiko]

Absolutely. Right now I am playing: Anthem, Raiderz (MMO) and Ao Oni 2.

I always get distracted by either Titanfall 2 multiplayer or books (right now I am reading Dune). Ao Oni 2 has been dragged on by me for liek a few months.

woah I didn't know there was an ao oni 2! i need to look into that : o

 

[MintLuck]

When I was younger Middle school to High school, I used to play a lot of League of Legends, TF2, and CS:GO so I missed out on finishing a lot of games. I DID start games but I always found myself going back to them,
And during about 2018, I dropped those games all together and focused on playing Story games more, I even created Excell sheets to write down when I started a game, How long it took me to beat it, When I beat it and so on.
My old Laptop got busted so i lost my 2018 and 2019 files, but i do have my 2020 files and so one.
I also enjoyed taking a screenshots of the "Thank you for Playing screens" at the very end but lost those as well with my laptop.
Now with my friends I'm known as the guy who Beats games regularly.

Here is my current 2024 List of games so on

 

[Yankee]

Definitely. I think, obviously, the fact that we now have the choice of every game ever made all available at our fingertips leads to not only choice-paralysis but also like an embarrassment of riches kind of situation. Every one of these games is just text on the screen now. Combine that with our growing knowledge across the decades of what's good and what's not and deeper understanding of how video games work really takes the romance away.

For a lot of people there was a time in our lives where we really just had to play what we had access to physically. We nostalgically recall the feeling of getting the one or two new games a year and playing just those, and we were exposed to new stuff slowly through renting or borrowing. It just is not the same feeling to scroll through the entire library of a console and pass over hundreds of .abc files until you recognize something.

I have a method to try to recapture the feeling.

First up, I only 'have' a certain number of systems. I started with just NES and SMS for example. I don't add a new one until I've beat at least a few games on each of the earlier ones plus a couple of classics everyone should play and hidden gems I never knew about before.
Second, I only 'rent' a game for a week at a time. I'll take 20-40 or so random boxarts from my folder for the systems I have and shuffle them into a viewer and pick something from that list. I'll play it for a week then decide if I'd rent it again to try to beat it or if I'm done with it. This happens a lot because I'm playing a lot of stuff I've never heard of and there's usually a reason for that.

Using this basic setup I've played a lot of games I never would have before. I've also finished more because I don't have the choice of getting bored and clicking to load something else to play until I die then loading something else and so on.

 

[kokonatsu17234]

This have definitely happened to me a lot.
i have played a lot of games that i have never or unable to finished,
majority of it is due to the game completely turning me off because of stupid gameplay mechanics or subpar story line.
But there are some i never got to finish because my console/handheld is broken, the physical copy of it broke or disappeared/stolen or the game is completely full of game breaking bugs that it became unbearable to play it.

 

[NocturneKnight]

woah I didn't know there was an ao oni 2! i need to look into that : o

Yeah, it's a mobile game, unavailable in the west. You gotta look on more shady sites for it unfotunately

 

[dejiko]

Yeah, it's a mobile game, unavailable in the west. You gotta look on more shady sites for it unfotunately

very cool, i shall try and find it sometime :3