At what point do you give up on a game?

[The Prof]

I've often wondered if I am too prone to giving up on games too early because I've got a backlog staring me in the face. Case in point - recently I was playing Blazing Angels on the Wii which I was really enjoying. The I got to a mission called Top Secret which, too put it mildly, was a real pain in the ass. Suffice to say after dying approximately 100 times I gave up and moved on to the next game.

Here's the thing though... I didn't put it down and go back to it the next day, or keep on trying because I was enjoying the game. I just gave up. I'm sure part of the that was frustration but I also knew I had a ton of other games in my collection I wanted to get through. So ultimately I probably gave up a little too easily. I know back in my younger days I would have kept on playing until I ailed that SOB.

And that leads me to the question, at what point do you give up on a game? As soon as the difficulty gets too hard? As soon as you decide you don't like the mechanics? As soon as another game on the shelf catches your eye? And do you ever feel guilty for giving up too easily?

[bryan_65]

Most of the games I play now you always have to start from the beginning. So I just start playing and after about 30 minutes or an hour I am done. I played Castlevania Adventure Rebirth yesterday, got to stage 4 and just got tired so I turned it off. I almost never play any thing that ''saves'' anymore. I just wish I could sit for a longer time and beat some games.

[Erik_Twice]

The main reason I abandon a game is because I no longer feel the game holds anything of interest for me. That is, I see the game, I play a little and think "you know, I don't care about this stuff" and after a couple tries give up on it.

The other is that I fail to involve myself enough to play it. Many games like shmups or classic shmups require you to put a lot of effort and play them regularly to hone your skills. Often I don't have the energy for that so I don't get very far.

[Thierry Henry]

I can relate to checking out with regard to the difficulty level. If I feel a game is becoming too unforgiving, that's me calling time on it.
I'll definitely give it a fair shake especially if I'm relatively far in the game, but on the whole, my idea of fun is not endless repetition of a particular stage/level/boss.
I couldn't give a toss about "but you'll feel so rewarded for finally mastering it".

Time is another factor. I would imagine, though, not as much as some other folks since I tend to stay away from most of the lengthy RPG types.
But if I feel the game is becoming a bit of a chore and if I'm kinda pressed for time, I'll most likely check out.

[Fragems]

When a game becomes work and the payoff is nowhere to be seen I give up on it.

For instance I gave up on the Evil Within the other day. It just didn't feel right to me they just made the game to much of a chore and without a solid story or sense of purpose for my actions I just walked away. Maybe if I had stuck with it for a few more hours I might have became a little more interested, but in my opinion the most important parts of a game are the first and last levels. I feel they really flubbed the first section of The Evil Within having a bare bones setup for the story, a lot of very slow corridor walking, and a heavily staged pursuit/stealth segment.

[Pulsar_t]

At point break, natch.

[Gunstar Green]

If I'm not having fun, I stop playing.

It's not always difficulty of frustration because for certain games that's part of the appeal. It's more a matter of, "do I still care?"

[The Prof]

If I'm not having fun, I stop playing.

It's not always difficulty of frustration because for certain games that's part of the appeal. It's more a matter of, "do I still care?"

Here's the problem I have though. Often I find myself enjoying a game for a while. Then I lose interest and start not enjoying it too much. At that point often I will give up and play something else. BUT if I do keep on playing I usually get to a point when I'm really enjoying the game again!

[Tanooki]

If you really did play it 100~ times and just kept failing, I would not qualify that as giving up too soon. I'm not sure this will make you feel better or not, but the game is a buggy hot mess, and I know it as I bought it when I had the Wii and as a new game too. I found there were missions where you had objectives and each time you could just up and randomly fail them with no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes I found a couple of missions before I quit on it too (may have been yours) where you had to drop all these bombers I believe in a time limit, and sometimes it would generate them faster than others leaving no time to actually clear them before losing. A huge issue I found, and this was using more than one wii controller to confirm it, using motion controls it was broken because the airplane wouldn't even turn as hard to one side(I think it was left) than the other forcing you in dogfights or tight situations to have to bank the fast way or just get shot up as an easy target.


That all said though, when I give it in depends. I find if the game is un-fun, depending how bad it is, I'll give it as little as an hour before ditching it. The latest and it has been quite awhile since bailing that fast is FF Type 0, it's just awful. It doesn't play smoothly, it's semi-confusing what to do even in the training area, it's not fluid targeting stuff, you always seem to just dodge roll and hope to not get hit while always throwing the same little cards or whatever out despite gearing up supposedly better spells. The story yapped on way too much and it went too slowly to continue caring. I had it up on ebay as a one time use, never touched the special edition extras stuff once so far, but didn't sell.

My problem with games anymore these days is that if it's more than a few hours (maybe 10~?) I give up, not willingly, but I just stop caring or I allow myself to get distracted and do something else. The longest I've gone before bailing lately was like 30+ hours into Xenoblade 3DS but just one day stopped going, yet I was enjoying it, but I let my Kindle get in the way, and now the motivation is gone. I let stuff get in the way or I just for no good reason other than no reason at all that legitimate in the least bit I just stop regardless if it's enjoyable or not. Maybe I mentally feel it's draining, or maybe it's too long to bother, or I want to do something else. Whatever it is, I just stop.

[Cronozilla]

I feel like if I have to force myself to finish a game, then I probably shouldn't be playing further, at least not yet.

I find that if I just let it sit there for a couple days, I'll go back and try again and get past whatever mental wall I was hitting before.

This happens to me quite often if I've been dumping hours and hours into a game, I'll get to a section where all of a sudden I just can't play the game. It's really frustrating. But if I give it a break and go back, suddenly it's cake.