Gaming Variety vs. Gaming Devotion

[J T]

There is a big difference in how I played games as a kid and how I play games as an adult, which basically boils down to the fact that as a kid I had lots of time, but very little money, while as an adult I have more money, but very little time. The result is that as a kid, I was fully devoted to my games. They were long term relationships, and I loved my few games unconditionally, even accepting their flaws, because they were all I had. I was always frustrated that I was missing out on the many games I couldn't afford, but there's nothing like a good bit of deprivation to make you focus all your love and attention into what little you have. Sometimes a lack of choice is kind of a good thing.

Now as an adult with a reasonable amount of discretionary income, I've managed to cull together a monstrously sized videogame library that would have made my nine-year old me bounce of the walls with happy. Unfortunately though, I don't have as much time, and couple that fact with the fact that I have more games than I can actually play now, and the result is that I really only sample the vast majority of my games for maybe an hour or two of gameplay, and then never play them again. Nine-year-old-me is offended by adult-me's opulence. Nine-year-old-me would play the shit out of those games.

I think I appreciated video games more as a kid, but I appreciate videogaming (as a medium) more as an adult. It's a depth vs. breadth kind of dilemma. I used to fully dive into the games I played and identified with them personally. I knew every corner of the game world as if it were my own neighborhood. I knew every trick and secret. I unlocked all bonuses. Now I have some big picture understanding about videogames and how they work and what their history is over generations, but I don't feel like I "live" in a game in the way that I used to. Part of me misses that, but apparently not enough to ignore all other games I could be playing in order to stick with one game for weeks on end. I don't really know if I prefer the breadth or the depth any more. I'm sure you guys have some similar thoughts on the matter. What do you think?

[BoneSnapDeez]

I'm the same way. The games I played as a kid - Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, etc - I have memorized. I think I received two games as gifts per year (X-Mas and b-day) and I absolutely played the hell out of them. I never felt like I didn't have enough games either.

Today if I actually to get around to finishing a game (which is rare), it's generally a superficial playthrough and then it's shelved again immediately. It's simply an issue of time. I maybe have an hour a day free to play games. Actually scratch that. With an infant daughter I now have zero hours a day free.

I do wish I could go back in time and tell the ten year old Bone that he'd one day own about 1000 video games.

[Ack]

I agree with you to an extent, though I find one transition that I prefer is that now I no longer have the urge to get that which is new immediately. I've become more patient in certain respects with my gaming, so I don't need the latest game on the day it comes out. I will play it when I get the chance and then move on to play something else. As for time, I admit that I have less of it, but gaming has always been a vital portion of my life, so I still make time when I can. I suppose I could be considered lucky to have such extra time, though I admit it comes from not having a family, a spouse, pets, or a house of my own!

I also find I am more forgiving of flaws, but that is because I'm more willing to abuse them now than I was in the past, and my critical reasoning skills have improved, so I'm better able to adapt how I play. And I also make it a point to only play one game at a time and to beat it before moving on.

[Menegrothx]

I thought this thread was about playing a lot of short and or unchallenging games superficially versus devoting a lot of time to mastering individual games with a high learning curve&level of depth/playing a lot of lengthy games from start to finish.

As a currently unemployed person, I have more time than I did as school kid. Yet I rarely dedicate a lot of time to a one single game. As a game collector and retro gamer, I play a lot of (to me) new games but I very rarely play long games from start to finish. And I'm very reluctant to try out new games with a lot of depth, because usually in those kind of games (grand strategy etc) you first need to read a lot of instructions and memorize all kind of stuff for 10-20 hours before you can even start playing the game, and even then it will take over a hundred hours to really become good at the game. Not to mention competitive and online games that you can play for thousands of hours and still be far from being considered a good player. I just want to play a lot of games from all different generations so I have a very broad view on gaming and different genres. I play games that really grab my attention from start to finish, but quite rarely. Even when playing good games like Killer 7, Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, Metal Gear Solid 2 etc I some times just quit mid game and move on to other things. I doubt I will ever go back to playing online games, those can be such huge time sinks.

[J T]

I thought this thread was about playing a lot of short and or unchallenging games superficially versus devoting a lot of time to mastering individual games with a high learning curve&level of depth/playing a lot of lengthy games from start to finish.

It could be about that too. I've also noticed that I prefer short games as an adult. I still like a challenge though, so I tend to like short games like VVVVVV, Geometry Wars, or Super Hexagon. Reading that a game offers 100+ hours of gameplay is a total turn-off nowadays, but sounded awesome in the days when I had more time.

[Blu]

I'm with most of the posters to a certain extent.
1. I don't have nearly the time to invest in games that I used to.
2. That being said, when I commit to a game I always finish the main story, at the very least. Unless it's a game where I feel compelled to be a completionist, which is rare, I rarely invest more than 20 hours past the main story of a game.
3. I turned off achievements and notifications on my current consoles--it's distracting during high points of the plot to have the notification and sound pop up. Plus, it keeps me focused on the game rather than some mundane element that bears little significance to the experience as a whole.
4. I am much more patient with games that are coming out, and holding off on purchasing them new. I justify expensive purchases of older games by falling back on the current retail price of video games ($60) and what you receive now, compared to then. $40-60 on a game that originally retailed for 40-50 seems reasonable, especially if it's a defining title for the system.

[J T]

3. I turned off achievements and notifications on my current consoles--it's distracting during high points of the plot to have the notification and sound pop up. Plus, it keeps me focused on the game rather than some mundane element that bears little significance to the experience as a whole.

Hell yeah! I hate "achievements" for this very reason.

They often have some jokey title too that can ruin the mood of the game. If we had achievements in the Playstation days and Aeris' death in Final Fantasy VII was followed by a "Damn, these are strong onions" achievement pop-up, that would have totally colored that experience differently.

[isiolia]

I think it's often less a function of free time, and more that we tend to get bored with games more easily.

Not necessarily due to the size of our libraries either. I mean, as kids, we probably had the option to just not play video games if we were bored of what we had. As adults, plenty of us play MMOs, or competitive games like FPS, RTS, or fighters that usually remain fun for reasons other than the core gameplay.
It's not the lack of time to play a 100 hour RPG, it's that the likelihood of it remaining compelling to me for that entire time is slim.

[CFFJR]

I'm in pretty much the same boat, and to be honest it kind of makes me sad and miss the old days.

Relevant example, I love the Sonic franchise (yes, even its warts). I know the original Genesis games like the back of my hand, and I fly through them effortlessly whenever I play them, purely because I played them so much as a kid.

Now, modern Sonic games? I still love them. And when I get them, I play them constantly, obsessively, to the point of "mastering" the game and doing every last thing there is to do. And then some.

And then I put it down, move on to something else, and almost forget how to play the game. I lose the details and the timing. As much as I absolutely adored Sonic Generations and played it into the ground, if I popped it in right now I'd have to relearn a lot of it to get back to where I was skill wise when I stopped.

That kinda breaks my heart, but I have so many other things to play, it goes into the depth vs. breadth thing you mentioned JT, and I ultimately just leave it be.

[Nemoide]

This is something I think about a lot in relation to shmups. It seems like a lot of genre-fans know the styles of gameplay inside and out, what various developers are known for, etc. But at the same time, most shmups tend to be on the costly side and are so difficult that they take a while before you can even appreciate how different scoring systems work. I consider my shmup collection to be pretty modest, but I still feel like I don't have enough experience with any single game to claim any type of mastery. Why would I buy a stack of super-expensive games with the same style if I haven't even appreciated the few I have?

Fighting games are similar. I've sunk over 50 hours into Street Fighter IV and still have trouble playing single player on tough difficulties, nor do I think I've leveled up a single character to "A" in multiplayer. But there are so many interesting fighting games out there! How the heck to folks get a handle on them? I DON'T KNOW!

Maybe because I genre-hop so much, it prevents me from having deep understandings of any one in particular.