That’s definitely a large aspect for me. But, another large part is that the games just seem to be less fun. Online play has gotten so competitive that half the time people just rage quit, and single player games have just become grind machines with pay to skip options.
No, I’m not going to spend my limited free time getting a virtual job gathering wolf pelts. No, I’m not going to give you real money to avoid being virtually employed by an NPC.
I feel like game mechanics that were originally designed to immerse you into the game are now just being used to pad the game time. I won’t even buy a game anymore unless I can mod it. I refuse to spend extra hours of my time just because the only realistic aspect of the game is a limited inventory.
Those kind of games exist, but so does every other kind. And you aren’t forced to play only new games. Literally every game ever is available for you to play. Every person that says stuff like you seem like you think the only games available are the most known and most recent AAA games. It’s like only going to the most recently opened restaurants in your area, especially chain brand ones, and complaining about you not liking the food and then deciding that all food is like that.
This is why I started leaning into more productive hobbies. I design stuff in blender, 3D print it out, and prime and paint it for table top games, then I have friends over and we push the little dudes around a map and work together to kill monsters, or kill eachother. So much more satisfying than pouring hours into some screen game that just goes away when my digital subscription ends.
It’s fairly rare, usually just trying something from my steam account I impulse bought during a sale.
When I do find some time to game it typically is an older game, but they lose their luster after a while.
Then you should try indie games. The recommendations on r/patientgamers and the Lemmy equivalent are usually pretty considerate of your time, since most of them are dads. They’re a community of people who actually wait for the reviews to come out before they play a game, and make informed purchases.
