I'm getting older and responsibilities are piling on with each passing month. My free time is limited. The satisfaction I got out of beating a game is completely non-existent now. I have no patience for getting stuck, whether it be from a difficult enemy encounter or a puzzle I have to look up the solution for. But I still have an appreciation for the worlds, stories, and characters that the video game medium has given to me over the years. Ever since I started going through "game movies" on YouTube, where the entire narrative of any given game is laid out intricately completely hassle-free for the viewer to sit back and experience with a cold beverage...yeah, no way I'm going back. I'll hop on to play a multiplayer game every now and again if a few of my old buds are up for it, but being able to just experience a video game while someone else does all the work is just infinitely better than having to play it myself. There's a reason people clamor for shorter games nowadays. No one has the time to bother with these bloated experiences anymore. Just give me the cutscenes, buddy. That's all I need. Thank god for game movies on YouTube.
Watching video games like movies or shows is better than playing them.
I don't know if you felt like this, but a couple of years ago I got severe burnout from games (the era of franchises pumping out trash continually). I hardly played any for a while and when I got back into it, I was a lot more selective with what I chose to play.
If I have "free" free time, then I absolutely love to have an hour or two playing games.
I think hobby burnout is very real
In the past I watched a few “game movies” where they just link up the cut scenes and include absolutely minimal gameplay, only showing immediate before/after some cut scenes for context.
I enjoyed it. Haven’t done it since like 2017. But I don’t play many games, been playing the same few for years now
I'm in my mid 30s with 2 young kids. I think having a variety in games is important in enjoying them. Story driven I get a lot of satisfaction from. Or games where I'm constantly working on something. Like Stardew Valley or RimWorld. Stardew is simple enough or rimworld can be set to how you want to play. I still play FPS from time to time, I'm playing Fallout 4 just now but mixing it with Rimworld.
As much as I love gaming, and I do watch some gaming stuff, but why solely do that and not watch something better like Netflix or something? Better flow, better construction etc.
I kind of agree, to an extent. And it depends on the person and the game they're playing. The only instance of this that I can tolerate was an individual playing Kerbal Space Program. I'm in my mid-40s and would rather play when I have time. Watching someone play and listening to their commentary can be nice, but for the most part, it's not.
At the most, I might watch a clip of a segment to help me through an area of a game I'm playing, or to understand what I'm supposed to to at some point.
But overall, playing is still better than watching someone else play. My kids do this and I just don't understand it, probably their version of our Saturday morning cartoons from when I was a kid.
I'm with you
Short games is another option.
I mean it’s fine you enjoy it but it’s absolutely not better. The best games have gameplay at the heart of the experience. The story should be aided by the gameplay and that’s completely lost in a viewing.
It sounds like video games just aren't your thing and you should move to reading books or watching more TV shows or movies.
Yeah, video games are a slog.
When I was little, my first experiences with video games was watching them and that was what I preferred until I was maybe 6. So yeah, I still have some affinity for watching them
This is basically incorrect unless the game has a garbage story, or the gameplay is so disconnected from the story that you don't lose anything by doing it.
Tons of games have meaningful character interactions and plot developments that occur within the gameplay itself that you would miss by just watching the story scene breaks.
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