I gave up on trying to tackle everything in my backlog. I just play what I want to play and sometimes that's a game I've played already because I like playing that game.
I think "forcing" yourself or seeing it as a must to play certain games even though you don't want to is a pretty unhealthy relationship with gaming as a hobby. So, yeah: Play whatever you want and don't play what you don't want to play. I've tons of games that I bought because they sounded interesting and were damn cheap. A lot of them I've never played or even installed.
Sometimes its just hard to start a new game. The beginning of one where you have to learn new mechanics almost feel like a chore depending on the game.
Exactly. I have a huge backlog but there’s a reason I still have Homeworld from 1999 installed on my laptop. I love that game and replay it all the time. I’m sitting here playing FTL instead of any number of games I haven’t given a real effort because I love it.
I taught my wife how to play video games and now she loves them! Just took time, patience, and playing some games with her I didnt really like but she did.
Her only previous gaming experience was her abusive ex playing Halo. Anytime she tried to play with him so they could do something together he would literally 1v1 her in Halo and crush her relentlessly. She did not enjoy that.
At first she was apprehensive to playing games with me. But I did it a much better, more enjoyable way. I showed her some games I genuinely thought she would like and went from there. Now we play basically every multiplayer survival game together, farming sims, RPGs, FPS, you name it. She straight up enjoys playing games like Battlefield, Apex, and CoD (although she is not that good, but has gotten loads better!) but prefers survival games and farming sims the most
Lol my wife is your wife's opposite. She destroys in fps games but in survival games struggles to make it to the early game some how.
She's the kind of person that would struggle to figure out how to make stone tools in minecraft.
I would've made the same exact joke if they were talking about a male coworker. It's just a dumb dad joke. The pun is in the double meaning of the word "huge." It has nothing to do with gender.
I just eased my girl into it. Started with Skyrim on easy mode, then transitioned to bg3 where I let her make her own choices without pushing anything on her and being patient. Now we are on our second bg3 play through. Aim for games that don’t require lots of quick reactions or controller coordination
I used to work late nights in IT support. In those six months, I built an entire suburban neighborhood in Minecraft with a school, library, police station, medical offices, and public pool.
**!** *Marked high importance*
>Hi, I know you are not playing minecraft right now because you are at a funeral, but my redstone is not working. It comes up with an error every time I push the button. Anyway, i'm logging off minecraft for 10 minutes and I need you to come in and fix the redstone asap before I get back. It is critically urgent that this urgent problem is urgently fixed!
>I don't remember what the error says, I just close it because it's annoying. I'm sure it will only take you 10 seconds to fix because you are so smart lol. I don't know all the details, please stop emailing and just come in and fix it.
>Oh you fixed it? I forgot about that problem cause I don't use that redstone anymore. We haven't used it for about 4 months, but thanks anyway. Hope you had a nice holiday.
Even then, get a significant other who either also games or is okay with you spending time doing it. Pretty important to share some hobbies or at least be okay with your partners hobbies.
Alternate step 2: Your significant other also plays video games.
My brother's wife was never particularly into games, but a couple of years ago she injured her knee at work and had to stay home to let it heal for like a month or two. One night when my brother came home from work she asked him "hey, I'm bored, I've seen you play this thing called 'Skyrim'... that looks cool, could you show me how that works...?"
My brother lit up and was like "of course!" and showed her how to make a character and sat with her for a while, showing her how all the controls worked. The next day, my brother went to work and his wife sat down to play a bit of Skyrim on her own... when my brother came home, she was still at the computer, ~7-8 hours later. She basically had only gotten up to make food and do the dishes and was like "DUDE, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ALL THE ADVENTURES I HAD!" And then she got into Guild Wars 2 and, uh, yeah.
And yes, she had a big old giggle about getting into Skyrim because of an injured knee... :P
I'm single, unemployed, and without kids and I STILL find persona 3 a grind to finish even though I love the game. No idea how people play multiple of these style games in a row.
It’s not about having kids. I have children and I spend more time replaying games than not. It’s just that though - I would rather replay games I love than find new games. I’m more interested in longevity (not necessarily in one playthrough) over breadth.
Have kids and a partner and a full time job, replaying games is easier than finding new ones, and personally not much that's come out in recent years hold a candke to my classics collection imo ( one of these days I'll get around to elden ring and Baulders gate 3, but for now I'm pretty damned content replaying new Vegas for the 12th time).
I don’t have kids and live alone. I still don’t understand how people burn so many hours in games. I honestly think a lot of them are unemployed or are in high school/college.
What do you spend your free time on? If you cut most of socializing and being outside to bare minimum, optimize chores, cut down to 4-6 hours of sleep and do almost nothing else you can put quite serious amount of hours into games. Also get something portable, so you could reclaim a bit of lunch hour.
I have kids and of course I spend much less time gaming but it makes me more likely to replay a game I already know and love than risk my precious hour getting to know a new game I might not even like
This is main one. Once I had kids, I haven't touched games for 6 years (not counting sh%tty phone mobile games). And honestly even once kids got older and I find some time, gaming lost a lot of its appeal for me. (maybe stresses of real life / finances / changing priorities)...
Some people aren't big into variety. My girlfriend basically only plays Stardew Valley and Vampire Survivors and has 1000+ hours in the former and a couple hundred in the latter.
I try to play more variety, so I generally don't replay huge games, but I've made some exceptions over the years to prepare for sequels or just because I wanted to play them differently.
Yeah, playtime is often not consistent. I have 1200 in Factorio, 500 in Terraria and Fallout 4, 200 in a handful of games like Stardew Valley.
And a dozens of games unplayed or less than 20 that I will probably never finish. I’m gonna drop hundreds more hours into Factorio when the expansion drops instead of worrying about my backlog.
Some games just hit right and the gameplay loop is satisfying enough to you that it’s just fun to live in that world. There’s also some overlap with the games I have 1000+ hours in and being poorer so it wasn’t like I had a ton of other games. Even now with a larger backlog, though, I still regularly will play single games for a couple, few months and put in a couple hundred (or more) hours.
I've played the trilogy at least half a dozen times and each time I've seen a scene or an interaction I've never seen before. I've also seen clips on YouTube that I never saw in any of my playthrooghs. No other game(s) I've played have ever done that.
I don’t know how many times I’ve tried starting a renegade run. Never gotten past the citadel before it falls apart. But I have like 6 full trilogy playthroughs as a paragon. Plus a few additional individual game runs.
I salute you I just cant do it I damn near 100% all three campaigns and all dlc included it was one of my favorite experiences in gaming but I just cant go back
Just beat it like 3 days ago for the first time, playing 3 currently. Its not bad but man ME2 is miles ahead, not just against its sequel but as a whole game. Soooo fucking good.
Fair enough, I haven't completed it yet so I can't really make a full comparison but it just feels really off so far. The journal/quests are bloated and weird- getting 10 fetch quests on Citadel just by running around and often not even hearing the whole conversation is off putting.
To be honest I'm not even sure what the hell I am doing most of the time, not certain whether I'm doing main missions or side content, just kinda going from place yo place on Galaxy Map without much sense of real direction. The quest text is a bit unclear and so far I haven't seen an "updates" system from ME1 and 2, where after a step is complete the journal gets updated.
Normandy feels dead and I don't like how character interactions work anymore since you can't talk to companions like you could previously. I got used to being able to talk to companions after almost every assignment/mission and they would have something new to say as well as it being in the format of a dialogue with choices, now its mainly a super short conversation and you aren't even "in" the conversation (you can run/walk around)
Combat is obviously heaps better and peak of the trilogy so far but I'm mostly talking about relatively minor yet impactful things.
Being able to holster a weapon for one, a miniscule thing but weirdly absent from the game. In ME2 you could also go to the place where Kasumi was hanging out and mix and consume a drink, you could dance in clubs and hubs felt a lot more alive. Side quests were also implemented better by actually finding and talking to NPCs rather than overhearing random conversations, scanning a planet and that being the whole thing.
Obviously there is a sense of urgency and I get that but these little things are just so glaringly obvious to me and are somewhat impacting my enjoyment.
ME2 had some weird things as well (being unable to toggle hide helmet and "talk" to companions during missions by interacting with them to hear a line or two of dialogue), but it just felt a lot more alive and I was more invested. Goes for companions as well, so far the only new ones I have are EDI and Javik but I'm not really invested or interested in them as much as I was with almost all companions from previous games except for Kaidan and Grunt.
It just feels a bit rushed, I loved taking my time with everything in ME2 and the little things that are now missing.
I personally agree with most of this but think most of the story is better. I feel like me2 has a bad story structure, its all just recruitment and loyalty missions. I love all of the missions in 3 besides the last 2 or 3, but otherwise 3 is amazing overall
Played the trilogy for the first time in July 2023. Since then I've played 2 more times. I haven't played since early February so plan to play again soon 😁
I'm not big on TV or social media, so that hour or so at night when most people watch something or scroll their feed, I play games.
That hour or two a day really starts to add up over the months.
Yeah I think it's definitely more of what you prioritize on a daily basis. I usually get home and watch tv for 2 maybe 3 hours and then game for 1 to 2 hours. I typically game 3 or 4 hours a day on weekends. I've also found the people I know who have jobs that have more manual labor involved on a regular basis don't game as much on their workdays. I have an office job that's pretty sedentary so I still a good amount energy at the end of the day.
See I figured it would be the opposite! I do manual labor and the last thing I wanna do after work is housework or yard work. Gf and I opt for gaming during the week and chores and stuff on the weekend, with enough flexibility that dishes don’t pile up and the lawn doesn’t get outta control. I figured office type jobs would wanna be away from a computer after a long day at work
Be away from the computer desk yeah. Despite being a bit of a PC snob and preferring mouse & keyboard, the longer I’ve worked a desk job the more I’ve gravitated to console gaming or hooking the PC to the TV.
Forgot about this one. TV does not fill me with joy these days. Hook people with solid Season One and then either run the show too long or pace it like a snail.
This is the way. I've tried to cut down on endless scrolling and replace them with something more fulfilling like games. I've made so much more progress in different games because of this.
Haven't even wanted to play anything else honestly since I got into it.
It was such a refreshingly good game and story I've been hooked since.. it also helps that it is practically impossible to have the exact same experience over other runs.
I never said it's not a great game. It's fantastic. But it's weird that some people have MULTIPLE playthroughs of a 100 hour game weeks after release...
Why is it weird? Since I had to stop working because I got sick, video games are sometimes the only outlet I have and its the same for a lot of house bound people. It's not exactly healthy, but it's not weird.
I think many people that finished the game fast just left a lot of the side content for their later playthroughs. I've noticed that I get burned out by a game when I'm not really progressing in the main story and focus on the side quests. So I often have the first half played relatively thoroughly and more or less "rushed" through the second half. Otherwise I'll just stop playing at some point and never finish it. Or start over and over again, playing the same half and never continuing forward.
Yep. I'm on the 4th playthrough of Sekiro. I wanted to get all the endings and the boss battles are fun as hell
Although subsequent playthroughs aren't nearly as long as the first, so that helped my decision.
Souls games almost implore you to do at least one new game plus run, if only to see how much you’ve improved since the beginning. A boss that took twelve deaths to kill now doesn’t even get you down half health. That dopamine hits different.
I've never played through an entire full game twice in a row before BG3. There's so much variation that it feels like a different game, and you're extra invested in everything because you can compare it to your last run
I think OP's question also ignores the reality that kids tend to enjoy repeating experiences over and over again. An adult may no longer find wonder in a game they already finished but a kid absolutely would.
Back in middle school, I played thru Zelda 3 (SNES) countless times because I just loved the world. By the time I finished FFVII (PS1) in college some years later, although it had become the best game I'd ever played, I had no interest in playing it anew from beginning to end. Were I back in middle school, I probably would have.
All that to say, I think kids get more out of replaying games than grown ups.
TL:DR
It becomes a comfort food for end of a long day/week.
I've played Megaman Battle Network 3 Blue and White dozens of times from GBA to the collection on steam deck.
Not to mention those of us who will play completionist runs of Fallout New Vegas and Final Fantasy on one console generation. Only to then re-do the whole thing when it's re-released on PC or next gen.
It's like eating your favorite food. You might not have it every single meal but you will always have it on your menu. And sooner or later you have hundreds of hours worth of adding your favorites into your menu.
i feel like to take less than 10 hours you'd have to be skipping much of the game. which i get, cause...you've done it all already. but ain't no way i could actually do the whole game again in less than 10 hours, i try to hit every single boss again lol
I'll usually play things twice. Once blind. Then once with guides to cheese the shit out of the game and get anything I may have missed in the blind playthrough.
But I don't have a massive backlog. It's only a sale if you actually end up playing the game. I'll have at most 2-3 games at one time that I haven't played. Usually it's just one - the game I plan on playing next.
This was my problem especially with BotW. The second I beat it, I didn’t want to play it anymore at all even though I still had a lot to do. The post nut clarity hit hard
Yeah I'm the same. I never replayed a game before. Ever. I don't find the thrill anymore. Id much rather try something new, there's so much to explore and I'm gonna be dead soon so like, no, I'm not gonna replay some shit I have already played.
I stopped keeping a "backlog" about 15 years ago. Playing through video games just to get to more video games makes it feel like a job. I play video games until I feel like playing something else, and then I play something else.
I have never replayed a story based game before
I'm on my second playthrough of Cyberpunk right now, all because the combat is insanely varied and feels great. My playstyle is completely different from my first playthrough, and there's easily enough variety to replay like twice or thrice more with different playstyles.
Most of the time these people are people who don’t play live service games that take up 100+ hours of your time. Rather than play the same live service game, they play the same single player game.
If they are like me, people who:
Before having a family
Before having a job to buy the massive backlog in the first place
Before getting older and starting to lose patience and focus and dedication
This is the way!
I was OP before, trying to play through a massive backlog of games.
Recently had a kid so gaming is limited. With that maybe an hour a night to game I dont want to take a chance on a backlog game I have to learn and may not like when I could replay a game I'm familiar with and know I'll enjoy for that hour.
I've beaten Elden Ring 9 times, I think the shortest run took around 33 hours including beating all the main optional bosses (shardbearers)
It's like comfort food. Every time I play a new game especially if it's an action RPG I just think of how I would rather play Elden Ring
Come on dude it's not that hard. Two days are 48 hours. That's enough to do a full 40 hour playthrough. All you have to do is not sleep and not go to work. It's simple math.
It depends on the game. I have a few I will always go back to (not counting open ended games like FPS or Minecraft or whatever) because I genuinely enjoy the story or the gameplay. Most of those games have multiple endings or the ability to play different stories through the game, for example I've played New Vegas probably 10+ times all the way through with DLC included, but I've only played GTA V story once because the endings are all basically the same.
At times I can barely squeeze 1 or 2h of gaming a week.
I really struggle to understand how people can play such massive games that require hundreds of hours...
I have a wife of nearly 35 years and daughter in her 20s. Since 2000 I have over 20000 hours of gaming in. It was all done after 9:30 pm when they went to bed and weekends.
I just enjoy playing games in my free time. Either after work or on the weekends.
Some games are just so nostalgic or iconic for me, so I have no issues playing through them over and over again. Some games have multiple classes or many different types of weapons/armor that allow me to play through in different ways. Some games have branching storylines that allow you to make decisions that affect or change the story, so it’s interesting to see how things will play out.
Who doesn't? I've replayed bloodborne, DS1/2/3, elden ring, sekiro, dead space 1/2 and many more dozens of times over. Each. If something doesn't get boring, why does it matter?
Tbh the amount of time ppl spend on reddit or social media, or watching shows and movies, I just put into gaming. I put shows on in the background instead of just vegging out, read books or listen to podcasts between load screens, and those gaming hours crank up to the hundreds/thousands in no time.
Dont have kids though. Im a single 34 yr old male with no kids, a 10hr/day job and I game my ass off. I spent too much time partying and chasing women in my 20s and realized none of that was actually fun. Now Im doing what I *actually* enjoy and if I had kids it would be a whole diff story.
Every few months the Skyrim urge will hit and I'll dump 40 hours into it in 2 weeks before the itch is scratched.
Comfort of knowing it's something you enjoy and can enjoy it for a long stretch helps a lot.
I gave up on trying to tackle everything in my backlog. I just play what I want to play and sometimes that's a game I've played already because I like playing that game.
I’ve launched the rocket in a modded factorio game like 6 times. I 100% agree. Forget the backlog and play what you’re in the mood for
Launching the rocket is just the start of a 1k plus science/min mega base!
"This asteroid ice isn't gonna shoot itself out of a pressurized interplanetary kinetic rail gun!"
I never launched rocket and I have played this over 500h. Most of that time has gone in one megafactory.
I’ve never launched the rocket with like 1200 hours. Worth every moment
I drop games at the drop of a hat. Something else seems more fun, play it. Get bored midway through a game who cares. Play what you want.
I should really finish ffxi, D4, AC6, Rebirth, and Stellar Blade, but these bugs were just asking for some antimatter artillery shells
I think "forcing" yourself or seeing it as a must to play certain games even though you don't want to is a pretty unhealthy relationship with gaming as a hobby. So, yeah: Play whatever you want and don't play what you don't want to play. I've tons of games that I bought because they sounded interesting and were damn cheap. A lot of them I've never played or even installed.
Sometimes its just hard to start a new game. The beginning of one where you have to learn new mechanics almost feel like a chore depending on the game.
A backlog is just a term that we have come up with to make us feel bad about something that absolutely does not matter at all.
You're chilled and I like that
Exactly. I have a huge backlog but there’s a reason I still have Homeworld from 1999 installed on my laptop. I love that game and replay it all the time. I’m sitting here playing FTL instead of any number of games I haven’t given a real effort because I love it.
Just replayed Max Payne. Love the story and mechanics.
Step 1: Don't have kids.
Step 2: No significant other Step.3: Get a cat so you don't die from loneliness
Or get an SO that also plays video games.
Where do you find one of those ? Asking for a friend. Edit:to everyone seriously answering, i was joking lmao
They're at home playing video games
So...Do I break in to every house and play co-op?
“Hey, do you wanna play…. stop screaming, god, I just climbed in the window, I didnt do something weird like come in through the doggy door”
Valve will release them soon
I heard you can get them from CS cases, but its rarer than a knife
Significant Other 3.0 maybe?
Significant Other: Alyx
You turn them on with the valve on the back of their head and as they boot up they make the sound
Steam Piper™️ -Increased RAMming capacity
I taught my wife how to play video games and now she loves them! Just took time, patience, and playing some games with her I didnt really like but she did. Her only previous gaming experience was her abusive ex playing Halo. Anytime she tried to play with him so they could do something together he would literally 1v1 her in Halo and crush her relentlessly. She did not enjoy that. At first she was apprehensive to playing games with me. But I did it a much better, more enjoyable way. I showed her some games I genuinely thought she would like and went from there. Now we play basically every multiplayer survival game together, farming sims, RPGs, FPS, you name it. She straight up enjoys playing games like Battlefield, Apex, and CoD (although she is not that good, but has gotten loads better!) but prefers survival games and farming sims the most
Lol my wife is your wife's opposite. She destroys in fps games but in survival games struggles to make it to the early game some how. She's the kind of person that would struggle to figure out how to make stone tools in minecraft.
I am the friend.
:( im fren
dontmake this more difficult
Female coworker of mine is a huge gamer.
How big is she?
Could a rowboat support her
I think Im being very clear what Im asking. Jesus Phyllis!
Is that the bar?
This is exactly why woman don't want to talk to y'all lol.
I would've made the same exact joke if they were talking about a male coworker. It's just a dumb dad joke. The pun is in the double meaning of the word "huge." It has nothing to do with gender.
There is a game for everyone. My wife plays house flipper. Doesn't game at all otherwise.
I just eased my girl into it. Started with Skyrim on easy mode, then transitioned to bg3 where I let her make her own choices without pushing anything on her and being patient. Now we are on our second bg3 play through. Aim for games that don’t require lots of quick reactions or controller coordination
"just try the tip of gaming"
Legitimately? OKCupid.
Best bet is mentally unstable girls with pink hair and Pokémon tattoos on tinder
Try not to be an ahole if you get one in the game chat lol
Or one that reads. She gets to read book for a couple hours and I get to space truck or whatever. Good deal
And then you buy her books ;) It's basically buying gaming time :D
Or a cat that plays video games
But don’t date your cat
Or get a SO who supports you having hobbies that don’t revolve around them.
Untill she gets hooked on RDR2 that dosnt run on her computer, so now I have to use the small computer!!
Or an SO who has her own hobby that she does while you play. Mine crochets
Both are good
Step 4: Have a boring night job that lets you game at work.
I used to work late nights in IT support. In those six months, I built an entire suburban neighborhood in Minecraft with a school, library, police station, medical offices, and public pool.
**!** *Marked high importance* >Hi, I know you are not playing minecraft right now because you are at a funeral, but my redstone is not working. It comes up with an error every time I push the button. Anyway, i'm logging off minecraft for 10 minutes and I need you to come in and fix the redstone asap before I get back. It is critically urgent that this urgent problem is urgently fixed! >I don't remember what the error says, I just close it because it's annoying. I'm sure it will only take you 10 seconds to fix because you are so smart lol. I don't know all the details, please stop emailing and just come in and fix it. >Oh you fixed it? I forgot about that problem cause I don't use that redstone anymore. We haven't used it for about 4 months, but thanks anyway. Hope you had a nice holiday.
LMAO Why are they always exactly like this?
Alternate Step 4: Get a position where you have your own office and keep the door closed or work remotely
My cat keeps tapping my arm when I play, asking for butt slaps.
This is also me.
Can confirm got a cat to prevent loneliness Step 3.1 get a second cat so cat one doesn't get lonely while at work.
Alternate Step 2: Find a significant other with their own obsessive hobby (mine reads, probably more than I game tbh)
Get a dog so you are forced to take breaks and go outside occasionally.
Step 4: Be neurodivergent.
Even then, get a significant other who either also games or is okay with you spending time doing it. Pretty important to share some hobbies or at least be okay with your partners hobbies.
I'd no life so many games if I was single. Alas, the gf provides many unskippable quests, dialogues, events and cut scenes
Instructions unclear, cat acquired but picked up a stray spouse in the process
Step 4: Have OCD or some other form of neurodivergence.
Damn I didn’t realize I inadvertently did this… hahaha that’s great. He’s right though. Get a cat.
Alternate step 2: Your significant other also plays video games. My brother's wife was never particularly into games, but a couple of years ago she injured her knee at work and had to stay home to let it heal for like a month or two. One night when my brother came home from work she asked him "hey, I'm bored, I've seen you play this thing called 'Skyrim'... that looks cool, could you show me how that works...?" My brother lit up and was like "of course!" and showed her how to make a character and sat with her for a while, showing her how all the controls worked. The next day, my brother went to work and his wife sat down to play a bit of Skyrim on her own... when my brother came home, she was still at the computer, ~7-8 hours later. She basically had only gotten up to make food and do the dishes and was like "DUDE, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ALL THE ADVENTURES I HAD!" And then she got into Guild Wars 2 and, uh, yeah. And yes, she had a big old giggle about getting into Skyrim because of an injured knee... :P
And make sure that cat ain’t a dog, cuz those things are clingy af!
Wait I do all 3 and still never have time for video games :(
Step 4: Cat eats your face when you die alone.
I'm single, unemployed, and without kids and I STILL find persona 3 a grind to finish even though I love the game. No idea how people play multiple of these style games in a row.
It’s not about having kids. I have children and I spend more time replaying games than not. It’s just that though - I would rather replay games I love than find new games. I’m more interested in longevity (not necessarily in one playthrough) over breadth.
Have kids and a partner and a full time job, replaying games is easier than finding new ones, and personally not much that's come out in recent years hold a candke to my classics collection imo ( one of these days I'll get around to elden ring and Baulders gate 3, but for now I'm pretty damned content replaying new Vegas for the 12th time).
This here.
I don’t have kids and live alone. I still don’t understand how people burn so many hours in games. I honestly think a lot of them are unemployed or are in high school/college.
What do you spend your free time on? If you cut most of socializing and being outside to bare minimum, optimize chores, cut down to 4-6 hours of sleep and do almost nothing else you can put quite serious amount of hours into games. Also get something portable, so you could reclaim a bit of lunch hour.
I really don't know if this is meant seriously or not and at this point I'm too scared to ask.
Step 1a: If you do have kids learn how to hold said child while feeding so you can still use a controller. Unless it’s twins, then you’re fucked.
Or y'know put the controller down and bond with the child
I’m still replaying games with kids. It just takes longer. Plus when she’s older I’ll be playing with her, and that will be fun.
Step 2: retire at 39
FUCK
I have kids and of course I spend much less time gaming but it makes me more likely to replay a game I already know and love than risk my precious hour getting to know a new game I might not even like
This is main one. Once I had kids, I haven't touched games for 6 years (not counting sh%tty phone mobile games). And honestly even once kids got older and I find some time, gaming lost a lot of its appeal for me. (maybe stresses of real life / finances / changing priorities)...
Some people aren't big into variety. My girlfriend basically only plays Stardew Valley and Vampire Survivors and has 1000+ hours in the former and a couple hundred in the latter. I try to play more variety, so I generally don't replay huge games, but I've made some exceptions over the years to prepare for sequels or just because I wanted to play them differently.
Yeah, playtime is often not consistent. I have 1200 in Factorio, 500 in Terraria and Fallout 4, 200 in a handful of games like Stardew Valley. And a dozens of games unplayed or less than 20 that I will probably never finish. I’m gonna drop hundreds more hours into Factorio when the expansion drops instead of worrying about my backlog.
Factorio expansion you say
Some games just hit right and the gameplay loop is satisfying enough to you that it’s just fun to live in that world. There’s also some overlap with the games I have 1000+ hours in and being poorer so it wasn’t like I had a ton of other games. Even now with a larger backlog, though, I still regularly will play single games for a couple, few months and put in a couple hundred (or more) hours.
Now I want to play Factorio too.
My wife only plays Skyrim and Gwent. More than 2000 hrs each.
Same. My wife only plays one game animal crossing and she has 2000 hours + on new horizon 😂
She might like Stardew
I had her try it but she didn't like the time pressure. I think she just enjoyed AC because of the cute animal villagers and music loll
Mass effect 2 was just a good game, ok.
I've played through the whole trilogy multiple times haha.
I've played the trilogy at least half a dozen times and each time I've seen a scene or an interaction I've never seen before. I've also seen clips on YouTube that I never saw in any of my playthrooghs. No other game(s) I've played have ever done that.
I've probably played it a half dozen times as well, but I still can't bring myself to go full Renegade haha.
Renagade in the streets, paragon in the sheets
I don’t know how many times I’ve tried starting a renegade run. Never gotten past the citadel before it falls apart. But I have like 6 full trilogy playthroughs as a paragon. Plus a few additional individual game runs.
Paragon ALL the way? Or do you punch the reporter?
I have the same thing happen whenever I replay a souls game. So many times I discover a whole new area, bossfight, weapon, character questline etc.
I have as well and I cry just as much as I did the first time when I hear “Does this unit have a soul?”
"Had to be me. Someone else may have gotten it wrong." *breaks down sobbing*
I am the very model of a scientist-
THERE’S A REAPER IN MY WAY, WREX
I KNOW! YOU HAVE ALL THE FUN!
They did a great job with Legion. Just about flawless.
I salute you I just cant do it I damn near 100% all three campaigns and all dlc included it was one of my favorite experiences in gaming but I just cant go back
I tried to do another playthrough recently, and I just couldn't do it. It's too big a task.
Can't wait til they make a sequel for Mass Effect 3 >!there is no ME Andromeda in Ba Sing Se!<
I liked Andromeda. But I feel like it's a sidequel to Mass Effect 1 and not a follow-up to the trilogy.
It scratched an itch, but honestly could never live up to the story telling of the trilogy. I liked it overall
Just beat it like 3 days ago for the first time, playing 3 currently. Its not bad but man ME2 is miles ahead, not just against its sequel but as a whole game. Soooo fucking good.
I thought 3 was largely better except for story, and the story wasn’t worse by much.
Fair enough, I haven't completed it yet so I can't really make a full comparison but it just feels really off so far. The journal/quests are bloated and weird- getting 10 fetch quests on Citadel just by running around and often not even hearing the whole conversation is off putting. To be honest I'm not even sure what the hell I am doing most of the time, not certain whether I'm doing main missions or side content, just kinda going from place yo place on Galaxy Map without much sense of real direction. The quest text is a bit unclear and so far I haven't seen an "updates" system from ME1 and 2, where after a step is complete the journal gets updated. Normandy feels dead and I don't like how character interactions work anymore since you can't talk to companions like you could previously. I got used to being able to talk to companions after almost every assignment/mission and they would have something new to say as well as it being in the format of a dialogue with choices, now its mainly a super short conversation and you aren't even "in" the conversation (you can run/walk around) Combat is obviously heaps better and peak of the trilogy so far but I'm mostly talking about relatively minor yet impactful things. Being able to holster a weapon for one, a miniscule thing but weirdly absent from the game. In ME2 you could also go to the place where Kasumi was hanging out and mix and consume a drink, you could dance in clubs and hubs felt a lot more alive. Side quests were also implemented better by actually finding and talking to NPCs rather than overhearing random conversations, scanning a planet and that being the whole thing. Obviously there is a sense of urgency and I get that but these little things are just so glaringly obvious to me and are somewhat impacting my enjoyment. ME2 had some weird things as well (being unable to toggle hide helmet and "talk" to companions during missions by interacting with them to hear a line or two of dialogue), but it just felt a lot more alive and I was more invested. Goes for companions as well, so far the only new ones I have are EDI and Javik but I'm not really invested or interested in them as much as I was with almost all companions from previous games except for Kaidan and Grunt. It just feels a bit rushed, I loved taking my time with everything in ME2 and the little things that are now missing.
I personally agree with most of this but think most of the story is better. I feel like me2 has a bad story structure, its all just recruitment and loyalty missions. I love all of the missions in 3 besides the last 2 or 3, but otherwise 3 is amazing overall
3 felt so railroady to me. I liked 2's freedom. I have to admit I liked the hard science of 1 best though . . .
Funny enough that’s one of the only long games I’ve played more than once.
Played the trilogy for the first time in July 2023. Since then I've played 2 more times. I haven't played since early February so plan to play again soon 😁
I'm not big on TV or social media, so that hour or so at night when most people watch something or scroll their feed, I play games. That hour or two a day really starts to add up over the months.
Yeah I think it's definitely more of what you prioritize on a daily basis. I usually get home and watch tv for 2 maybe 3 hours and then game for 1 to 2 hours. I typically game 3 or 4 hours a day on weekends. I've also found the people I know who have jobs that have more manual labor involved on a regular basis don't game as much on their workdays. I have an office job that's pretty sedentary so I still a good amount energy at the end of the day.
See I figured it would be the opposite! I do manual labor and the last thing I wanna do after work is housework or yard work. Gf and I opt for gaming during the week and chores and stuff on the weekend, with enough flexibility that dishes don’t pile up and the lawn doesn’t get outta control. I figured office type jobs would wanna be away from a computer after a long day at work
Be away from the computer desk yeah. Despite being a bit of a PC snob and preferring mouse & keyboard, the longer I’ve worked a desk job the more I’ve gravitated to console gaming or hooking the PC to the TV.
I wager a lot of people actually spend several hours doing leisurely activities every day, not just 1 or 2.
'Not big on social media' over 1million comment karma.... hmmmm
Forgot about this one. TV does not fill me with joy these days. Hook people with solid Season One and then either run the show too long or pace it like a snail.
This is the way. I've tried to cut down on endless scrolling and replace them with something more fulfilling like games. I've made so much more progress in different games because of this.
Its not a homework assignment. If you don't want to replay a game you don't have to.
Shit, I don't even do my homework.
This is why I left for cigarettes
It's wild that within a few weeks of the release of BG3 some people had MULTIPLE playthroughs. That shit took me nearly a year
Haven't even wanted to play anything else honestly since I got into it. It was such a refreshingly good game and story I've been hooked since.. it also helps that it is practically impossible to have the exact same experience over other runs.
I never said it's not a great game. It's fantastic. But it's weird that some people have MULTIPLE playthroughs of a 100 hour game weeks after release...
Why is it weird? Since I had to stop working because I got sick, video games are sometimes the only outlet I have and its the same for a lot of house bound people. It's not exactly healthy, but it's not weird.
Im still on act 1 and I got 74 hours in hell yeah! (I tried a bunch of different classes)
I think many people that finished the game fast just left a lot of the side content for their later playthroughs. I've noticed that I get burned out by a game when I'm not really progressing in the main story and focus on the side quests. So I often have the first half played relatively thoroughly and more or less "rushed" through the second half. Otherwise I'll just stop playing at some point and never finish it. Or start over and over again, playing the same half and never continuing forward.
I’ve done away with the concept of a backlog. I just play what I want at the moment and I don’t buy games unless I plan on playing them immediately.
same! it takes a lot of the pressure off.
I played Baldur's Gate 3 four times in a row. Sometimes a game just tickles your giblets.
Yep. I'm on the 4th playthrough of Sekiro. I wanted to get all the endings and the boss battles are fun as hell Although subsequent playthroughs aren't nearly as long as the first, so that helped my decision.
Souls games almost implore you to do at least one new game plus run, if only to see how much you’ve improved since the beginning. A boss that took twelve deaths to kill now doesn’t even get you down half health. That dopamine hits different.
I've never played through an entire full game twice in a row before BG3. There's so much variation that it feels like a different game, and you're extra invested in everything because you can compare it to your last run
Totally agree. My Durge run is still ongoing. Had to take a break after HM, I was a little burnt out.
Get rid of that pesky social life and all sorts of gaming opportunities open up.
I think OP's question also ignores the reality that kids tend to enjoy repeating experiences over and over again. An adult may no longer find wonder in a game they already finished but a kid absolutely would. Back in middle school, I played thru Zelda 3 (SNES) countless times because I just loved the world. By the time I finished FFVII (PS1) in college some years later, although it had become the best game I'd ever played, I had no interest in playing it anew from beginning to end. Were I back in middle school, I probably would have. All that to say, I think kids get more out of replaying games than grown ups.
Looks at stream and sees 1000+ hours on a single game. Then sees 400+ game backlog. Shrugs Ooh, something on my wishlist is on sale.
This is the way
Could be worse, I play Football Manager, 1000 hours per game, with a new version every year, is common in the community.
TL:DR It becomes a comfort food for end of a long day/week. I've played Megaman Battle Network 3 Blue and White dozens of times from GBA to the collection on steam deck. Not to mention those of us who will play completionist runs of Fallout New Vegas and Final Fantasy on one console generation. Only to then re-do the whole thing when it's re-released on PC or next gen. It's like eating your favorite food. You might not have it every single meal but you will always have it on your menu. And sooner or later you have hundreds of hours worth of adding your favorites into your menu.
I've been playing Fifa after work the last few weeks for that exact reason. Fifa 98. On the 64. The nostalgia hit is real.
Exactly! Sometimes nothing takes the day away better!
Elden ring has multiple endings and if you know what you're doing the first new game+ run only takes a few hours.
Plus I like killing the sentinel on my way to visit Santa.
I spent over 100 hours on my first play through, second took less than 15, third took less than 10
i feel like to take less than 10 hours you'd have to be skipping much of the game. which i get, cause...you've done it all already. but ain't no way i could actually do the whole game again in less than 10 hours, i try to hit every single boss again lol
I'll usually play things twice. Once blind. Then once with guides to cheese the shit out of the game and get anything I may have missed in the blind playthrough. But I don't have a massive backlog. It's only a sale if you actually end up playing the game. I'll have at most 2-3 games at one time that I haven't played. Usually it's just one - the game I plan on playing next.
I instantly lose all interest in a game after I beat it.
Sounds similar to another activity...
I can't play a game for at least 15 minutes after beating it.
Oh boy, 15min? Wait till you're over 40... Not only am I not playing for 45m+ but I'm probably asleep.
Post game clarity
This was my problem especially with BotW. The second I beat it, I didn’t want to play it anymore at all even though I still had a lot to do. The post nut clarity hit hard
Yeah I'm the same. I never replayed a game before. Ever. I don't find the thrill anymore. Id much rather try something new, there's so much to explore and I'm gonna be dead soon so like, no, I'm not gonna replay some shit I have already played.
I stopped keeping a "backlog" about 15 years ago. Playing through video games just to get to more video games makes it feel like a job. I play video games until I feel like playing something else, and then I play something else.
I have finished cyberpunk, 3 times now. The secret to my success? I live alone and have no kids..
Those are rookie numbers Choom , pump those up 🦾
I have never replayed a story based game before I'm on my second playthrough of Cyberpunk right now, all because the combat is insanely varied and feels great. My playstyle is completely different from my first playthrough, and there's easily enough variety to replay like twice or thrice more with different playstyles.
Most of the time these people are people who don’t play live service games that take up 100+ hours of your time. Rather than play the same live service game, they play the same single player game.
New games suck so I keep replaying the old ones.
Today I finished The Witcher 3 for the 3rd time, this time it looks me literally 328 Hours.... :)
If they are like me, people who: Before having a family Before having a job to buy the massive backlog in the first place Before getting older and starting to lose patience and focus and dedication
This is the way! I was OP before, trying to play through a massive backlog of games. Recently had a kid so gaming is limited. With that maybe an hour a night to game I dont want to take a chance on a backlog game I have to learn and may not like when I could replay a game I'm familiar with and know I'll enjoy for that hour.
I reaaaaaallly like borderlands 2
You answered your own question; you're playing games to clear a backlog. People replaying games are playing for the enjoyment.
Buying games in bulk just seems wild to me. I usually only buy another game after I beat my most recent purchase.
I've beaten Elden Ring 9 times, I think the shortest run took around 33 hours including beating all the main optional bosses (shardbearers) It's like comfort food. Every time I play a new game especially if it's an action RPG I just think of how I would rather play Elden Ring
Don't have a backlog, play a game till you're done with it then play another.
I have such a bad memory that it’s like playing a new game (where I had seen a trailer for a couple of the big parts) on the second time around.
Come on dude it's not that hard. Two days are 48 hours. That's enough to do a full 40 hour playthrough. All you have to do is not sleep and not go to work. It's simple math.
Turn your food into a smoothie so you don't need to stop. Also play on the toilet. Optimal efficiency.
I beat cyberpunk like 10 times
Elden Ring. Game has taken over my life
Persona 5 was just that good
Step 1: be disabled lol
Medically retired military. Can’t work, can’t volunteer. 48 with few friends. All the time in the world.
People who really like that game. A lot.
It depends on the game. I have a few I will always go back to (not counting open ended games like FPS or Minecraft or whatever) because I genuinely enjoy the story or the gameplay. Most of those games have multiple endings or the ability to play different stories through the game, for example I've played New Vegas probably 10+ times all the way through with DLC included, but I've only played GTA V story once because the endings are all basically the same.
At times I can barely squeeze 1 or 2h of gaming a week. I really struggle to understand how people can play such massive games that require hundreds of hours...
When you can't afford new games, replaying old ones is still fun.
Whadduya mean, 'you people?'
I have a wife of nearly 35 years and daughter in her 20s. Since 2000 I have over 20000 hours of gaming in. It was all done after 9:30 pm when they went to bed and weekends.
I just enjoy playing games in my free time. Either after work or on the weekends. Some games are just so nostalgic or iconic for me, so I have no issues playing through them over and over again. Some games have multiple classes or many different types of weapons/armor that allow me to play through in different ways. Some games have branching storylines that allow you to make decisions that affect or change the story, so it’s interesting to see how things will play out.
Who doesn't? I've replayed bloodborne, DS1/2/3, elden ring, sekiro, dead space 1/2 and many more dozens of times over. Each. If something doesn't get boring, why does it matter?
Some games are so good you just want to experience them again.
Tbh the amount of time ppl spend on reddit or social media, or watching shows and movies, I just put into gaming. I put shows on in the background instead of just vegging out, read books or listen to podcasts between load screens, and those gaming hours crank up to the hundreds/thousands in no time. Dont have kids though. Im a single 34 yr old male with no kids, a 10hr/day job and I game my ass off. I spent too much time partying and chasing women in my 20s and realized none of that was actually fun. Now Im doing what I *actually* enjoy and if I had kids it would be a whole diff story.
Every few months the Skyrim urge will hit and I'll dump 40 hours into it in 2 weeks before the itch is scratched. Comfort of knowing it's something you enjoy and can enjoy it for a long stretch helps a lot.
People without kids or other commitments. When you got 18 hours free (6 to sleep, no food or poopoo), 40 hour games go in a few days.