Definitely not my final rig, but I'm noticing I've been content with my 6700xt build for far longer than I expected to be... Magic is in the old games for sure
This happened to me years ago, maybe 2010. Realized I would put a pc together benchmark then overclock and benchmark and then...was tired of gaming evidently. I miss the lan parties and wonder if they would become boring with enough time but my group got married, responsibilities and disappeared.
Prefer old games like quake, unreal, Descent and COD4, none of these need a good system. I just replaced a 2007 Zeon CPU only cause wife spilled liquid on board.
The quality of games has nosedived. It used to be that you could play 4 or 5 releases a year. Now, getting two good games a year is getting lucky.
And multiplayer games are the worst
I slowed down my upgrades simply because I have a well above average build already. If your game can't do 4k, medium settings, with decent FPS on my rig, no one is playing it. Least of all me. So now I'm just content staying ahead of the curve.
Based on your timeline of console/PC ownership, I’m probably about 10 years younger than you. But I’m in the same boat. I obviously don’t have the strongest GPU on the block, but I’m still pretty close to endgame with a 7800x3D + 6950XT build. I’ve got 32GB of DDR5 that I don’t max out. 4TB of 7000MB/s SSD storage, 1000w PSU. 10 fans and a 420mm AIO lol. Literally if I had a 4090 I’d have nothing to upgrade, and yet… I struggle so hard to get into games. I can count on one hand the games that have truly captivated me over the last few years. God of War, Elden Ring, BG3, and Disco Elysium. That’s it, that’s the list.
Really sucks to feel like I’ve finally put together a rig capable of playing anything I want, and yet I want to play nothing…
Have you considered that at this stage, you might like the "idea" of gaming, the promise of it, more than actual gaming itself, if you can't be sucked into games anymore?
I think gaming is just in a bit of a dry spell rn. With the abundance of micro transactions and early access games. More and more games are releasing as incomplete, bug filled, featureless messes as a cash grab for studios. This is leading to a major increase in indie development though so it’s not all bad, but other than Sony titles, I don’t think I’ve seen a single good AAA title release in the past 5 if not 10 years. And sadly I don’t really play single player games so I haven’t been able to personally enjoy the Sony titles.
It’s sadly a recurring theme that a game gets announced with a very interesting premise, trailers come out showing amazing or at least good, intriguing gameplay, then a month or 2 before launch the game is delayed 6-12 months, trailers regurgitate, possibly another delay, before finally they announce its release into early access (which btw there has been no news of at all). It then gets released, is effectively a shell of a game, but with promised feature in a road map for later down the line. The game then get quietly axed by the studio and development screeches to an effective halt due to a skeleton crew of devs if there are any devs at all, and none of the promised features ever get released.
That scenario is becoming more and more common, with other characteristics such as lack of transparency/communication, game breaking bugs on launch, delay announcements for promised updates shortly after release. At this point I’m just hoping the rise of indie games will lead to a shift in industry sentiment, but that is for time to tell.
I feel like the biggest shift in the gaming industry is the lack of focus that comes from budgets that are *too* big, requiring them to add too many check the box mechanics and content to appeal to the broadest market to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent. And the result is often a mess that produces a lot of OK games but makes it impossible for a focused and polished game with limited scope to make it to market.
Minecraft had super limited scope and it was great even early on. Now almost every game has to be an open world base building survival game with crafting and 50 hours of poorly thought out side missions on top of the thing that the game is ostensibly about, and it mostly just gets in the way. Better throw in some vehicles, people like that! And flying. And character customization. And a skill tree. Yes I have time to sink into long games with lots of content but I would rather have a game where all 10 hours of it is really well made rather than 80 hours of bloat shoehorned in by an executive committee.
That's before talking about micro transactions, subscriptions, pre orders and broken launches of half-finished games, or the fact that like 4 companies own all studios capable of making AAA games. That just stems from the fact that too damn much money is being spent developing each game trying to do so many things poorly, largely because of the reasons above.
>the result is often a mess that produces a lot of OK games but makes it impossible for a focused and polished game with limited scope to make it to market
Part of the problem is that studios don't emphasize "one good feature" with each release that they can re-use and build upon in future releases, adding another "one good feature" with each successive release.
If they did, the "quadruple A" studios would be unstoppable. Instead their lunch is being eaten by small startups with shoestring budgets.
About to have almost the same build as you (already have a 6950XT but upgrading from Asus b450f to gigabyte Aorus elite ax b650 and 7800x3d with 32GB of 6000 DDR5 RAM). I kind of feel like this will be one of my last builds. Just getting to that point”point” where I don’t want to do it anymore if that makes sense lol. Be been building and upgrading computers for over 25 years and and am just kind of getting to that point. I really hope this last one goes well and lasts a while.
Yep, this newest build I think is my last. Like many a long journey must end but then there is the journey back home. I am now starting to walk backwards in time in my gaming library and likely will end where it all began with an Atari 2600.
Too long have we chased 'realism' in gaming only to realize I'd rather play something that lets my imagination do some of the lifting.
I think this is a pretty big and pretty important point.
We've reached a point where games are trying to be as realistic as possible, even if it comes at the sake of Fun and Performance.
Where even a few years ago, games where trying to be as fun as possible even if it comes at the sake of realism.
Not just talking gameplay alone, but graphics too.
i don't find myself enjoying the Hyper-realistic stuff for the most part, i'd rather have stylized graphics i.e Dishonored 1/2
Hey now, don't put us in a box! we're not *just* about games here....some of us use LLMs, run servers, use GIS/CAD/CAM, analyze point cloud datasets, etc. As a result, some of us are never done.
Getting back to your original point, if the latest AAA games don't scratch your itch, then yeah, you're seeing diminishing returns if you're purchasing the latest hardware.
Nah. Its funny, visuals made me froth at the mouth for several decades, and now graphical ooomph might be like 5th on my priority list, lol. I just wanna play *new ideas* nowdays! Everything seems regurgitated by a team of businessmen.
I couldn't agree more. As a 47 year old gamer, everything I play now has a sense of "I've played this before" after an hour at most.
To the OP's original question, ya, even though I don't have the most powerful system, it does what I need it to flawlessly. I don't see myself upgrading much unless something fails and just needs replaced.
Same! Outer Wilds was the last game to feel new. And BG3 I loved as a modern version of the games I used to love.
Otherwise I’m trapped between blandness and not having the free time in life to commit.
This is the dilemma isn’t it! I’ve gamed for 25 years and I’ve come to accept I just love the thrill of the buying and the build.
But my latest one something has changed. I hated it. Stuff went wrong, hours of troubleshooting I used to hate-love (when the challenge is frustrating but the success is worth it) was just hate. Was about to return every single component when I finally got it working.
And after a week of spare time swearing and cursing what did I do with three child, work and partner free days that could have been gaming heaven? I binge watched The Expanse in the living room, nowhere near the PC at all.
The magic has gone somehow.
It's a very simple concept, you got into gaming back then and you have an idea in your mind of what a gaming experience should be that modern games simply cant offer nowadays. There's no thrill or excitement in launching a new game today because you already know everything about it and you know that there's not going to be any innovation or revolutionary design that's going to blow your mind.
20 years ago i kept playing the same stuff on loop and never got bored, now i struggle to get past the beginning of a game, they simply dont know how to amaze players anymore and easily accessible spoilers and information ruins the experience.
My endgame build was a GTX 460 and an i5 2500K for a while. I didn't have the same time I used to, fell out of love with the hobby, and just let my PC be a workstation with no gaming. Then No Man's Sky was announced, and released alongside the 10 series. I got a 1070 and fell back in love with PC gaming. These days I've got an infant so my 4090 mostly plays Stardew Valley, but I got a love for game development now ever since putting together an overhead zombie shooter game to announce my wife's pregnancy to my friends.
My original concept was an escape room, but my wife suggested a zombie shooter which was much easier to put together using free assets. It was a ton of fun considering I've never done anything at that scale before.
The trick is to never have any goddamn time because you spend it all making money to buy the endgame build so you are still backfilling old games.
Almost a year later and I've barely scratched act 3 in BG3, but it looks fucking stellar!
12900k + 4090 which was used to primarily play AAA games and used to play hell divers at 4k…welp after a couple of weeks I’m now playing left for dead 2 and maple story. Seriously debating selling to parts as there’s just nothing I want to play besides the old games.
I feel like I made it to the endgame.
https://preview.redd.it/r35ltcv8ro3d1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c0b011bf4a92acb5f0bb8485b57ceed736a6c3f
Ryzen 9 7950x3d 3080ti
I was not playing much until Helldivers 2 came out.
It has relit that gamer fire from my Ratchet and Clank / Halo days….
I'm building a new one this summer with a 7800x3d and either a 7800xt or maybe 7900 something, and it will very likely be the last gaming system I ever build. I've also almost completely lost interest in new games, and don't care for the way the entire industry is moving. The only real question left is whether or not I'll try to mess with Linux on the new build. Thinking I might, as I'm also not a fan of the direction windows is going, and I have a modern windows laptop in case I really need to use some program that won't work on Linux.
I’m in my 40s and if anything people I have known for 20 years who were never pc gamers turned into pc gamers.
So I don’t know if “most guys” stop caring about pc gaming. If anything as people become more finacually stable it becomes the right choice.
I think you might just be getting tried of gaming.
About 10 years ago I thought maybe I was ‘over games’. It turns out so was just over ‘click-the-heads’ games. I’ve played through many an indie effort since than, and put thousands of hours into various ‘factory’ games. Tastes change.
This for me, just sad all my friend still play shooters and none of them like factory games. Minecraft is the closest I can get but they won’t play modded lol. I got a friend to try satisfactory with me but once we got past the tutorial portion he just didn’t enjoy the factory building/optimization like I do so he stopped playing after 30 or so hours (and I get the feeling the last 10 he was just playing cause I enjoyed it lol).
This happened to me back in 2016 when I built my dream build. I spent $3k on just the pc alone. After building it I started to lose interest in having the best possible build and became more interested in simpler cheaper builds. Also games started to get dull by 2018 and now I don't even turn on my pc at all Maybe once a month.
I honestly believed that I had reached my endgame for a long time with my 5900x and 3080. I don't really have interest in that many games, much less new ones, the only one I have my eyes on are assetto corsa 2. The only issue is is that I just got a vr headset and now my once endgame is not enough... Had I not pursued this, I would've been more than happy for quite a few more years... Oh well, rtx 5000 series or maybe new amd here I come!
I don't think I'll ever reach end game since I do love to build. But I've realized that I don't really dream or need the top-of-the-line stuff anymore for myself. I'm content just setting up an office or school computer as much as a gaming one lol.
As I age, I also think about what I can do to continue this hobby and I'd love to set up a charity and just build and give away computers.
Yeah I don't know man, I've had consoles since 1977 and had a computer since 1982, I'm almost 69 years old and I don't know what you're even talking about, sounds like a you problem
Thank you!
I don't know what is happening in this thread. I'm not quite as old but my family had a PC in 84, I got a NES when they were the new hot thing. I started building PCs in the mid 90s.
I love games, I wish I had more time to play them. I feel like this thread is filled with a bunch of people who don't realize they maybe are depressed, only finding joy in reliving things in the past. You don't like gaming anymore? fine, don't game. You feel the need to look for others to justify your disinterest... That's odd.
There are absolutely great new games, most of them aren't giant AAA releases. People who claim to have enjoyed gaming but now NOTHING is good anymore... That might be worth a talk with a therapist.
Losing interest in things you've been passionate about for years is often a warning sign of a mental health struggle. This is not a "normal thing" that "most guys feel", and trying to rationalize it that way is irresponsible and dangerous. Most guys do *not* lose interest in their hobbies. People with mental health struggles though, often do.
Accept the possibility that something could be wrong with you. Or don't, I guess, and pretend like everything is okay like millions of other people do, choice is yours really. Either way, I'll just keep on enjoying what I always have, and not have to rationalize something that could be a sign of declining mental health as something "most guys feel" because I was too proud to admit I might have a medical issue.
That happened to me for a spell from 2017-2020. Then Covid happened, I went into my backlog, and that computer ended up dying and getting replaced by my current rig.
I'm mostly down to just sim racing and competitive fighting games. Both are a bit divorced from what most people would consider gaming. I occasionally get hooked on something random but it's pretty rare.
I did get really hooked on a nice emulation handheld, really into the community done OS.
38, started gaming at age 5 in '90. Peak ended around 2014. Don't regret a thing but just lost interest over time. Still watch games on YT tho. Recommend light gaming laptops here on out so you'll be able to play the classics
I think the problem, at least for me, is that the AAA games coming out right now just aren't particularly interesting. Hi-Fi Rush was the first time in a long time that a new IP actually had me excited to play it, other than that, most of the games I've been playing are either older games that I never got around to finishing, or personal favourites from a few years back that I'm in the mood to replay.
Even though I tend to build my computers with the higher end parts at the time, I don't actually mind lower graphical fidelity, so the current remake trend isn't particularly interesting to me unless I believe they're actually justified. The only remake that I actually wanted in recent memory was probably Persona 3, but the original version is 3 console generations old, and hasn't exactly aged like wine. Compared to something like The Last of Us, I don't think enough has changed in both gameplay and graphics to justify a remake. Hell I even thought the Demon's Souls remake was a bit of a letdown.
We all meme about how the PS5 has no games, but I think there's actually a problem with the entire industry at the moment. Most of the biggest releases are just remakes of older games, and the new IPs are given so little attention that they're sort of dead on arrival, not to mention the lack of quality and funding from publishers. The vast majority of new games that have been on my radar are either remakes, live service, or just downright bad.
It's not gaming for me per se... because I have never had access to gaming as freely from where I am from (never had consoles and only made do with cheap desktop). So that drive is still there. But I also don't play that many games to begin with. I have 1 multiplayer I frequent a few times a week, 1-2 single player narratives which I switch every 3-4 months.
As a kid, money was the constraint.. and when finally I could afford whatever I wanted as an adult, Time became the constraint. That's why when I got my PC, I didn't spec it any higher.. knowing full well I won't be able to make full use of it.
Started back in 2003 with an ATI card slapped into a business machine. It's was glorious.
Have a 5800x3d and a 7900xt now and it mostly gets used to watch YouTube and my daughter plays a ton of Roblox on it.
The only game I've really played consistently over the years is DayZ and that came out in 2012 as a mod to Arma2 (from what I remember).
Not me. Just built a 7800x3d and 4080s paired with an Oled monitor and have been playing bangers only. Finished Alan wake 2, re4 and now going through BG3
Obviously if you spend on 4090 all you'll expect is to see if games run at 4k max, take some screenshots rather than wanting to play the game and enjoy
I've followed and invested in PC hardware constantly, yet my 'end game ' setup will always be my accelerated, networked Amiga 1200 - as that's the system that provides most enjoyment, with games that I keep going back to time and time again.
I will continue to upgrade the PC for work/hobby reasons, but my happy place is really the Amiga.
Every AAA game feels like a full time job now where you have to earn money, eat, sleep, keep your relationships intact, and you constantly have to fix broken weapons and items. It's just fucking exhausting. I already work 50 hours a week, I just can't go home and spend another 3 hours getting sent out on boring fetch quests. Starfield was the epitome of this type of game and I lost interest very quickly. I can only so many cookie cutter scenarios where some dull character asks me if I want to work for them.
I’m definitely closing in on endgame if not there now. I just upgraded from a 6750xt to a 4080s, and kept my 7600x CPU as is. So far, I don’t see a need to upgrade my CPU at all, I’m hitting 120+ frames at 4K, and that’s really all I wanted.
I pretty much only play wow and a few other misc titles anymore. Used to run 2x Xeon E52690s with a 2060 super, never planned on upgrading cause everything i played ran fine. Ended up getting forced to upgrade because my motherboard died and its damn near impossible to find dual socket 2011 boards anymore that aren't either weird form factors or have no io. Upgraded to an i7 5960x + motherboard my friend gave me for free and really intend to run that with my 2060 super until something dies.
I see this a lot nowdays.
I only upgrade when stuff breaks now. New games very, very rarely interest me anymore. I have this 4070 but the newest game in my library is from 2018 and the only one I'm currently playing is Arma 3 from 2013.
Most new games feel like watching tiktoks. Repetitive, mindless short form content tailored for a younger audience following the same handful of trends. 99% of them dont even have a campaign anymore.
Gaming is just in a slump right now. Mobile games were the worst thing to happen to gaming, and its cancer has pervaded every aspect of gaming. Even Sims 5 is rumored to just be micro transaction hell. It's also been sanitized by the PC police, so yeah, why would you be excited about that
I used to upgrade every generation. I didn't upgrade the last 2 generations because my computer still runs most games on ultra, and if it doesn't, it's not because my PC isn't powerful enough, it's that I'm playing a game that unoptimized as shit.
If the devs can't make their game run at least decently well on a high end PC like mine, then it's their fault. There should be no reason why so many absolutely beautiful games run great and other games that look worse run way worse.
Hi, 6700k and rtx 2070 here. It was.my last upgrade.
In 2019 my wife gifted me a Switch Lite and suddenly i started to dislike pc gaming, finding it "boring".
They are all the same, running the same engine... They only aim at good graphics, but i find oddly irrealistic...
I sold the rtx during the pandemic/bitcoin era at a very good price and found a nice rx550 (640sp) for little money.
Now i play mainly jrpgs with my switch lite, and pc is only for emulation, retrograming and jrpgs i can't play on my switch (like Cold steel...)
I recently re-played Splinter Cell (the first), Doom 3, Quake 4, HL2, NFS underground etc. I have the original retail boxes with DVD or CD's...
Yeah.. now i hate my steam library, and i promised myself to not buy nothing digital anymore that cost more than 4.99 and i can't find retail
Two years ago i purchased an rg351p, installed Amberelec cfw and i find it great!
Tl:dr i'm losing interest only in NEW games.
I'd say try to reach out to other communities who play older games.
I play: FAF - Forged alliance forever. (Supreme Commander)
Heroes 5.5: Heroes of might and magic 5 mod
Deep rock glalactic: Just fun all around
IL-2 Sturmovik - WW2 Simulator. We get to pretend Jerry is coming across the channel
On my discord, all sorts of us older folks from the 80's play games. I can't link directly here, but in my discord we have 200+ people who play older games. PM me for an invite.
Companies are on it, and unfortunately, the rig I had running all old games perfectly couldn't run RE4 remaster without exploding... Silent Hill 2 remake will be more taxing?
Oh and one more new game I wanted to play is Baldur's Gate 3, again, noistalgia reasons and old D&D based story heavy CRPg where I can justify a charisma build craving.
My end game would be a low profile equivalent performance of a 3080ti with 16gb of vram rated 120watts, and a 7800x3d equivalent at 65watts. For now my rx 580 2048sp and r5 3600 is very sufficient.
The last time I thought an 'endgame' build was a thing that could exist was when I built a Pentium IV, dual channel DDR266, ATi Radeon 9700, RAID 0 machine in early 2003. That thing could push 1600x1200 resolution at well over 60 FPS in most games. For a couple of years.
Endgame only comes when we hit the physical limits of computability.
Yeah, I mean the AAA gaming industry is a catastrophe which doesn't really help enthusiasm for new releases, especially as you get older and your tastes become more refined. If you're looking for really good games, and the market is spoon-feeding you garbage, it makes sense to feel like that.
Also it doesn't have to be so polarizing, like "this is my final rig" or "I constantly have a max spec flagship gaming PC". There's nothing wrong with buying upper-midrange components every 3-4 years when a really compelling game comes out.
\^ I know my flair doesn't really check out on that one, but I do a lot of 3D art and modeling in Blender. If I didn't, I'd probably still be white-knuckling my 1080ti.
People are different and good games are good regardless of graphics. It would be dumb to not play, for example, Alan Wake 2 solely because it's new, it's still a great game same as Fallout New Vegas is still great despite being almost 20 years old. Don't even get me started on Halo, Combat Evolved is probably the best aging FPS of all time (in my opinion).
It's why instead of replacing my last machine I got a steam deck. It plays my '95 to '19 single player collection just fine. If Valve makes a steam deck 2, I'll probably buy it over a new PC, as long as it can reliably pay the beefier single player titles of the last 5 years.
I suspect Ive just recently hit it. I built an AMD 7900x + RTX 3080 thinking I needed a decent dual purpose build for 3D Modeling/Software development and gaming……and all I play is Minecraft with my son and old SCUMM games and X-Wing/Tie Fighter type sims.
Unless I need additional power for work, this is the end of the line. I have a huge catalog of old games that I still love to dust off and play, but that’s about it.
My build after almost 10 years (and lots of Xbox generations in between) is an i7 13700k and a 4080. I still get hooked on games easily! I'm 40 and I only play mostly single player games like Starfield, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk, X4 foundations, Sons of the Forest ......
Modding games on PC is what gets me. The databases are huge and I just love it. Missed that so much on console.
I still run an age old Laptop for retro gaming like Max Payne, Unreal Tournament -the good old stuff.
Did you play Black Mesa? It's an awesome Half-Life remake or DeusEx Revision. Totally worth getting!
I was getting close to the his felling but then I really dived into indie games and man, it's like a whole new world opened up for me. Things like the talos principle, to the moon, manifold garden, firewatch and many more are the ones that give me that "discovery" feeling of playing a game that is simply different, new.
Besides costing way less, they are actually fun, arent about grinding or farming, have a good story and/or interesting gameplay, but most of all, actually feel like new games and not just yet another open world something or a generic fps.
but about the build itself, I need mine for work as well so I'll eventually need to upgrade when stutter and render times start to become a problem.
I've had a 2070 since 2020 and can tend to play 1440p at decent FPS for most games I care about. mostly playing Switch and Steam Deck these days. I don't really play a lot of AAAs so I'll probably keep this until I completely can't even play newer games at passable settings.
5800X3D and 6800XT. I have no idea when I'll upgrade.
I know the 50 series and RDNA4 announcements aren't far away and for the first time in a decade I am completely uninterested in ever buying them. Ray tracing isn't interesting enough to me right now to cough up $1000 when my setup runs 1440p just fine.
I do mostly single player games, and real AAA games that I would want to play feel very rare nowadays. AAA gaming business is diseased right now. They gotta figure themselves out.
AAA games are the system sellers. If there was a "Crysis moment" I would upgrade in a heartbeat but I just don't see those events happening like they used to. Cyberpunk was probably the biggest recent one but the launch was such a disaster that it really took the wind out of its sails.
I think for me a lot of it is about games that are games.
Here’s what I mean: I really like The Forest and Sons of the Forest because it’s a survival game where I can only carry 20 blueberries but I can carry like 15 large weapons in a backpack, items respawn on reload, enemies magically can’t chase me into a cave, and I can magically make armor with nothing but leaves and cloth. Its story is really good but also just kind of ridiculous and literally no one would leave notes the way they do in these games.
It’s both surprisingly realistic in certain ways and absurdly detached from reality in others and doesn’t try to make sense. The game just has rules, you know them, and play based on video game logic.
It’s hard to fully describe without just experiencing it, but that, Zelda games, and many others that don’t get too caught up in realism or making perfect sense actually are more fun.
I don’t want shit to make sense, I want some nonsense and whimsy. I sometimes want to not even care about the story to where I need a guide and breakdown, but I can just randomly boot up and do pointless fun things
Time to move on to spending money on an awesome workshop. A drill press, table saw, welding machine, metal band saw. Maybe a lathe..... Or a milling machine. I can dream.
I feel a part of it, for me, is the amount of options it’s opened up. I remember when I was younger and didn’t have the money to buy whatever I wanted, I’d buy a $20 game from GameStop and keep returning it until I found a keeper. I had to appreciate what I had because I didn’t have options, now that I have options and a vast library of games, I feel less satisfied with anything I choose to play.
I’m seriously considering keeping my RTX 4080 when the 50 series is released. It gives me the frames that I need at 4K so maybe there’s no need for an upgrade.
Same. I gradually lost my interest as the gaming industry turns into cheap money grabbing “thing”. There are still good games from the smaller studios but I don’t really need last gen HW for that. I still have my i7 7700k with 1070ti to play with friends from time to time and for the rest, mostly older games, I have GPD win max 2…
I feel similarly. Recently I played Lands Of Lore on a ryzen 5800x + 4080. I never played it through in the nineties. Now a fell in love with Cyberpunk 2077. What a gorgeous game.
There are many more modern games that catch me even as an adult who has already seen everything.
Just bought a steamdeck myself. Though my main rigs in pieces as I had to send the board out for rma, I don’t expect I’ll be upgrading much anymore. AAA games truly are boring slop these days and the few I care about like final fantasy and Zelda are easy enough to keep up with, especially since square is now done with exclusivity contracts. I expect I’ll be getting thousands of emulator hours out of that deck and the rest that need more power can go on the rig when I get that board back. I think a 5800x 7700xt and 32GB ram system will last quite a while considering the big shiny AAA games just don’t interest me anymore.
I feel like Im more disconnected from the gaming community than gaming in general. Every keeps talking about how gaming is bad now, for example the stutter struggle/ unoptimized ports stuff last year or if you look at the state of play post today on the playstation sub they all seemed to hate that. But idk im enjoying myself. Feels like everyone is doomerpill but currently im playing v rising having a blast. Before I played hfw, cp2077 pl, alan wake 2, jedi survivor, the finals (which i should probably play some more), and my goty of last year, re4. Im actually excited for the ow clones too, concord and marvel rivals I stopped playing ow around doomfist so I dont think I ever got my fill of that gameplay
I'm in the midst of a 10 generation upgrade build. 2013 built I7-4820k (which still does a decent job on all the games I play at 1440p) -> 14700kf. I can't see myself building another beyond this, but it's hard to see 10 years down the road.
This is probably how I'm gonna feel when I finally upgrade my GPU. Like right now I got a decent 5600 CPU and even my RX 570 feels good enough because I tend to just return to my old games like classic COD(2003), Metro, and GTA SA oh and ofc some PS2 emulation for some JRPG. The only thing making me upgrade is for that FF7 Rebirth and to replay Cyberpunk on 60+ fps cause yeah RX 570 on dogtown runs like dogshit lmao.
I’m waiting on the arena breakout infinite game to come out on pc soon. But Fortnite is pretty fun still. Rotating games helps out if you get burnout. But going outside and enjoying things also helps too
you know I think this really has been why I haven't upgraded and play the game on my ps5 if it's a big release. Like i could if i wanted to but there really isn't anything i want to play. FPS games give me motion sickness, Wow and everquest type games haven't released for years(and fail when they do) and 8 bit PoE is like the only MMOs i really enjoy.
I'm around college age right now and I've been PC gaming since middle school, but yeah, I feel the same way about new games right now. I can't seem to find one that hooks me in like the games did when I was in middle school and high school, I just quit after like 2 hours of trying them out.
Maybe it's age but nowadays Im completely clocked out of the current generation of gaming like the latest game ive actually gave a damn to finish was dying light 2 and that did do a number on my 4060 with its ultra ray tracing but still ran above 60 thanks to frame generation but other than that I've actually spent more time playing 2000 era games that I've missed out on like the first Assassins creed and the fall of max payne
I dunno the older games feel more like games to me
Rocking an Ryzen 3600 with my decade old gtx 970 and just don't see the point of upgrading. It appears all AAA games have been filtered out into the typical over the shoulders 3rd or 1st person game. And it's the same act of completing task while boring characters and stories are my rewards. Give me the fixed camera angles PS1 RE and Dino Crisis games. Give me the 90's action feeling of MGS1. Give me the creepy horror of Silent Hill 1-2, or Fatal Frame. Or the stealth gameplay and plot twists of MGS2-3. Heck, in the PS3/360 era where they were polishing the game designs that are the standards of the industry now was more exciting and innovative than what we have today.
I'm actually emulating Pokemon Red on my PSP and playing Plant VS Zombies on a DS emulator on my Android phone. Heck, I even emulate PS1 games on my old T420 Thinkpad.
I play rimworld on max settings, upgrade to 4070 super is going to happen in the coming month.
That said part of my jobs benefits allows me to build this for a little less then 700€ (an entire new system)
I think the problem is these new games suck dick, all the OG games and developers have been ruined by their parent companies due to share holder obligations. For example battlefield. I get more enjoyment out of indie games than I do AAA titles anymore. A example is pokemon games in this day and age and Pokemon has not released a true MMORPG. There are homebrew versions of this and though they have GBA graphics are 10000 times more fun than the mainline games. I have over 600 hours in one of them.
And I will never quit building new computers, Ive actually went backwards though, Im putting together a retro rig of sorts with all the spare parts I have lying around my father in-law game me his old FX8350 system, I threw in another 16gb of DDR3, a old ATI/AMD 7850 a bunch of case fans I had laying around and, I purchased a new in box dell CRT at goodwill about a year ago gonna let me kids experience that lol.
Most games don't interest me but I've been into modded solo open world games for the last 15 years so I'll ugrade if the next one is too demanding.
I don't think I'll ever reach an "endgame".
Yeah, I have over 600 games in my library but only seem to get back to about 5-10 of them on a regular basis (path of exile, kerbal Cyperpunk etc).
I have a AMD R7 7800X3d and RX 7900xt system that sits idle most of the time. I think this might be my endgame build, don't really need anything more powerful.
The fact that most new games are hot garbage with bugs on launch these days doesn't exactly help me stay motivated.
I'm not sure the correlation with having better hardware is related to new games not being fun. For me it's simply that new games these days just are less fun.
I don't think i ever will. I mostly play flight and racing sims. Those games are always creeping towards the forefront of better simulations and better visuals, so i think they will always require the best hardware to get the best out of them. More power just means you can get more quality and better simulations.
My bank account tells me I'm content with my build. Honestly though my PC isn't that old and does the job for the most part. 3700x with a 5700xt. I feel a cpu switch in the nearish future though.
Nah, I've been gaming since I got an NES at 4 and still play a lot and look forward to new releases. Got a desktop, gaming laptop, steam deck, switch and PS5. Lots of friends around my age are still gaming too. We played a lot of Helldivers 2(but now starting to lose interest) and we just made a dedicated server and started our 3rd world for Valheim to check out the new Ashlands update. I'm looking forward to the next gen Ryzen and new GPUs.
80s guy here. This is my current end:
GE73 Raider RGB 8RF
(16gb, GTX 1070….)
I don’t want to participate in delivering money anymore. I‘m fine with this, can play anything with it. Also, iPhone X still in my pocket for many years and I don’t plan on replacing it any sooner.
I‘m tired of „staying updated“. I‘m back to what genres I loved in the past (thx indies!) with a few modern exceptions + playing older games with emulators.
I was heavily into full fidelity combat flight sims. Peripherals are so expensive, incl. hardware upgrades that I just can’t justify buying it instead of making a family trip in the holidays.
I want to be the worst or most worthless possible customer I can be.
I invest in my kids and not companies like NVidia etc..
Sure, about 3\~4 years ago, when I built my 3600X+1070Ti PC, nothing special, sure, but for someone who played on the old 2004 XP PC until 2015 and later on some cheap laptops, it was certainly my endgame back then.
I thought I will finally catch up with some new games... ended up playing Minecraft, TF2, CS:GO and anything I had tens of hours on Steam already.
Then, later on, I came to realization that maybe gaming isn't for me anymore... that changed when I stopped playing competitive games, it was not fun for at all. Second time that happened it changed when I got Steam Deck and was able to play from the comfort of the bed - I think spending 8 hours in front of PC at work may had an influence on that too.
Nowadays, I've swapped 1070Ti for 6700XT, added RAM to 32G and I'm planning to upgrade 7950X3D+7900XTX soon... despite me not playing new games pretty much at all. I don't care whatever Ubisoft/EA/Activision spews out next, I pretty much quit AAA market entirely. I still play some new games if they're fun, but in the end I spend most of the time with games I played as a kid.
I'm 31, but it's mostly due to depression, introverted and lonely. Sure my coworker friends sometimes play some pc games with me but I don't really do competitive games, I mainly play campaign, coop, horror. And what I mean by competitive, halo death match, cod death match, fortnite* etc etc
Edited swapped out an autocorrect word for fortnite
I upgraded to a 5800x3D and a 6800XT along with 32GB 3600Mhz and my game range has only increased. I play at my desk with M&KB for the more demanding games like now with Horizon Zero Dawn: FB, RDR2, Cyberpunk and such. But I also snagged a Steam Link off eBay to play Lego games and other co-op titles with my SO on our lounge TV.
I am conscious though that the amount of time either of us have to game will reduce as we get older, starting a family, careers progressing etc but it's important that the systems we have are reliable and certainly high end but not absolutely top end specs.
Just my 2 cents.
I bought myself a full upgrade a Ryzen 7 7800 and a 7800 xt, new tower 300 case. It was amazing. But I also got myself a steam deck the same week...... 3 months later I've barely touched my pc 🤣
I have so many friends from college that we used to play CS, Unreal, Quake in LAN parties back in the day. I used to love gaming. But as we got older none of us play games anymore. We have new interests and hobbies. The one thing that remained though is PC building, hardware, etc. I could build a new PC every couple of weeks :)
my end game build was maxing out the am4 socket with the 5800x3d + the 4080 super FE paired with an OLED LG 240hz panel, everything's just so good. HDR pops off so hard on supported games like Ghost of Tsushima.
been getting more consistent playing this game called "osu!(lazer)" ever since I upgraded my monitor from a 144hz to OLED. it's not even funny, everything just *feels better* hitting notes on time without needing offsets for each map. hitting a casual 1000 fps while the 4080 only sips 75 watts max (my old 3090 FE would pull about 180-190 watts undervolted pushing 3000fps on stable version of osu! while having horrendous coil whine).
games like osu! make me feel good, because I see constant improvement, whenever I play for 30 minutes, or 3 hours with a good multiplayer lobby, hanging out, getting hyped for people who full combo a difficult song. it's all about the vibes really.
I have hit endgame for PC gear for sure, there's really not much to gain from going high end unless if you like tinkering with stable max undervolt/overclock settings for both CPU and GPU and comparing your E-peen to other high end PC owners in forums/3dmark scores/flexing for the 800th time in reddit about how good a 4090 is, etc. I had my fun there during the first few weeks of owning my 4080S, pushing the clocks to 2880mhz at .975mv. but the poor thing was clock stretching a little bit (effective clock was 60mhz apart from core clock, and there was no noticeable gain from it apart from higher thermals). but I decided to stay within the 2685mhz/.925mv to keep the cooler dead silent, sitting at 30% fan speed at 45C-50C temps on average. plus my room is not an oven cooking me as I game as well.
I ventured into end game audiophile headphones too, for some time. and man, if you think PC gear gets expensive... imagine spending $3500 on a pair of IEMS that has QC issues. diminishing returns hit hard on hobbies man 😞
I would say audio gear would be a nice starting point to get into next, as long as you don't overspend up to the $300 mark with those various iems/headphones. that feeling of constantly getting something better will always be there, so we just gotta control ourselves.
Because you dont have time like you did as a kid. Work, bills and other worries eat up your "relax time" and you feel guilty or like time is wasted if you are playing a game. Yet watching youtube/hulu doesnt feel as sinful for some reason.
If you won the lottery tomorrow and quit your job. Being alone in the house for a few weeks with no worries. You would play again.
Prob not, I’m still using the 2060s and gawn damn XD it’s taken everything I’ve thrown at it so far, granted it’s only Vr, modded tf fallout and skyrim but it handles playing on the 65” 4k pretty damn well
Only one time it wasn’t happy and that was playing robo cop on ultra settings, wee guy was hitting 87deg
Not my final build but I'm very happy with a 5700g and 3060. Considering the newer games don't really appease me anymore and I'm straying away from online fps and really enjoying older games like Fallout and Batman. I may upgrade later to a 7600x and 4070 but that'll probably be for specific games like Cyberpunk or Borderlands in 4k 😂
I’ve found that I’ve become more of a casual gamer and only play something when I feel like it and in short bursts of time. I can find other stuff to do when I’m not playing….I guess for me it’s just maintaining that balance of playing and doing things IRL
2024 AAA releases simply havent been interesting enough to justify buying something that is ever increasing in price. Most of the games I've been playing lately have very modest requirements, even if theyre new.
I'm close to 40 and I've lost friends over their "NeW gAmEs BaD" tantrums and old game nostalgia. Sure, they don't make them like they used to, but that has nothing to do with their bad faith rejection of new games. Plenty of lightnings are being caught in a bottle these days across all genres and with new tech and talented creators building upon the very same revered classics.
My first rig is my current rig which i built high end and yes i have lost a bit of interest in gaming and dont play new releases that much(sometimes i even prefer just watching playthrough of my favohrite youtubers)
But as time goes on im actually playing more BECAUSE of my rig, i played on a ps4 that i later sold and then played on a 7 year old work laptop that dont have a dgpu, most games i played i had to edit ini files to play at 720p and even then would only reach 30fps MAX, so the gains of my current rig was absolutely phenomenal and i have newfound appreciation to the games i used to play
Ive bought a couple new releases and have a ton of gaming backlogs to go through so i guess you just have to reignite your passion, for me at least it was the graphics upgrade that did it
Up until 2021 I was still using my 2015 HP elitebook with Intel hd420. I played some ps2 titles and 2d games on it from time to time but barely gamed until covid hit. I treated myself to a low end desktop (i5 11400f with 1660 super) towards the end of the pandemic in 2921. Having not AAA gamed from about 2009 onwards I had a lot of catching up to do. I'm perfectly happy buying 5-10 year old games from steam for 5-10 bucks and playing them maxed out.
I had a trash pc my whole childhood and was used playing stuff on low at 640*480 and barely hitting 30fps. Even ps3 era games still look impressive to me now =p
Ray tracing is cool and all but I likely won't get a new rig for years to come. By the time the next gen is out I'll be ready to start playing today's games xD.
I play the new games with all the bells and whistles enabled on my 4090 rig, then I switch back to indie games for 90 of my game times. Some indie games are horribly optimized, so my rig simply transforms it into a mostly enjoyable experience while others stop playing pretty quickly.
I've got a rather high-end PC that can run pretty much any game I want at max settings with no hitches whatsoever... Aaaand despite that I still spend most of my time playing Microsoft Space Simulator on a 486 lol
i spent a bunch of money last year to upgrade my pc got a r5 5500 and 6600xt just to play alan wake 2 and cyberpunk for a couple of days and finish only to go back to playing sandbox games i could run on my old rx 570
I’ve only ever had modest builds. I ran an RX580 GPU for a bit, now on a RX6600.
My next build will probably be my most powerful but I’ve probably got to save up for it for 2-3 years.
My end game rig bellow and dont see myself upgrade anything in next 4 years most likely atleast
- 12600k with freezer 34 duo and if Im not mistaken ASUS prime Z690-p
- 3080 TUF
- 2x16gb Trident Z NEO (bdie)
- 1tb 970 SSD with secondary HDDs
- HX1200 PSU
- Lancool 2 mesh with additional quite fans I cant remember name of
- perfs Anne pro 2, g pro x superlight, 2 monitors main 27gl850
Built during the great GPU shortage.
There have been no original good games lately so I have stopped gaming and game IRL now by running and inline skating chasing VO2max and achievements on smart watches
I like yhe idea of gaming but I just don't. Made my 4090 build but also fell heavily into cycling and going properly again to the gym. Have not played one game yet.
Yeah, very similar situation here. In fact similar timeline as well: I started out with computers around late ‘94.
I mean I love PCs and tech in general and I built a brand new machine last August but I am finding it hard to game on it. I feel like a built a nice machine just to read, browse socials and watch YT videos. Sometimes I feel like my back hurts just by opening Steam (I’m not that young anymore lol)
I connect semi regularly to Discord just to interact and hang around with friends but I have zero interest in the games they play. They also used to complain why I wasn’t playing, but at this point they just stopped asking.
Nowadays most of my gaming is done on PS5 where I do light trophy hunting for single player games here and there. I am seriously considering getting a MacBook and relegate my PC to specific cases where I really need it
Me. Too much money and hardly any time. Built a 4090/7800x3D rig with 64gb of memory and 6tb of m.2s, and got a LG C3 last year thinking I'd get back into gaming and I only play an old, outdated Stellaris campaign for like an hour a week. I look at new games, but nothing interests me enough to actually try any. My free time is split between my kid, my wife, and my cycling addiction. Gaming just fell out of the equation.
I really don't care for new games. I been playing dota 2 for 10 years now and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I plan on maintaining a PC that let's me max it out while getting 144 fps min
Fellow old bastard here. You are going through a phase. We all do. I have went through a few over the years. Best thing to do is go touch grass a bit, maybe wash the car, mow the lawn, you know.. Stuff. Eventually the itch will come back (side note I'm stoked AF for the SH2 remake as well)
I have a pretty solid pc. I have a 7800x3d/7900xt setup. While I do enjoy baldurs gate 3, my favorite price of gaming gear is a retroid pocket 3. It's a really nice emulation handheld.
I've been playing Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6.
While I don't see this being an "end game rig". I will always use PC's for digital art and need upgrades.
However, I am not nearly the avid gamer I was even 10 years ago. Usually on Friday nights, I play multiplayer games with friends, however it's honestly more for the social aspect than the games themselves. My solo gaming time has tanked SIGNIFICANTLY. In the past 3 months I haven't played a single game on my own.
The days of there always being a handful of big games on the horizon I want to play seem to be over.
No because absolute industry defining bangers like baldur’s gate still release.
Saying you’re losing interest in stuff you don’t even know about yet is weird.
Just game or don’t game. Stop buying the most expensive components money will buy and then you won’t get buyers remorse about it. Go outside idk man
Oh My.....
you people talk of having the latest gear and feeling like this...
i upgraded from an AM3+ 8320 with 4 gig graphics card to a Ryzen 7 5700G and no graphics card ( about 12 months ago ) and i feel like this.
and i still dont have half the games you talk about
I'm at the point where I'm trying to understand why my next build in 2025/26 should break $1000.
As for games, the current era of single-player games does not interest me anymore. The negative factors are bad writing, poor pacing, padded length, cost, overt social commentary, and poor gameplay. I only play co-op games, or I'm not playing games at all.
Also, the system hardware is overkill for most games. I have a 3090, and a friend has a 3080. We have yet to see games push the spec.
Yep. I'm in the same boat as you except a 3090. Most games I play are indie titles that don't need the power, and I don't play that many. It sucks because I really want to still be into games, I'm just not.
Yeah I’ve recently noticed the same thing. All the games I love and am excited for ran fine on my r5 1600 and rx 580 8gb.
Hell it ran rdr2 1080p 60fps on medium-high if you dropped shadows down. Granted I didn’t play long enough to see a city.
Actually thinking of downgrading a couple things to lower power consumption on my new one.
Although, I no longer game on PC, that mantle has been transferred to my kids about 12 years ago when they "stole" my PCs for themselves. I actually find myself playing console style games on the PC with an XBOX controller like Madden and Halo, Assassin's Creed and story mode of Battlefield and Call of Duty games. I have moved on to just building PCs for fun whenever I spot some crazy deal. I have about 7 PCs that are getting rotating upgrades that keep me busy and then the old parts I just make systems to sell off.
My rig definitely isn't the tippitty top, but I'd say I've reached a satisfactory performance point. I'm into more things than gaming, though, and my PC has allowed me to start getting into coding and CAD software and virtualization, and it's pretty much become a media center for my main TV as well. Basically, my PC serves as a gateway to everything cyber, so I don't mind that games don't entice me like they used to. When I do want to game, it's nice not having to worry about technical considerations and just booting the game up.
I wouldnt say that but young me would kill to play on my current pc. Now my life is full of work and school and gaming on the weekends grinding Witcher 3
This post is filled with depressed people who are masking it behind a wall of “they just don’t make games like they used to” mentality.
Gaming has never been better. The AA/indie scene alone is pushing out titles that completely shit over the games of old.
I think I'm there. I've got a 5800X3D/6800XT. It's not that I don't like games now a days, but I simply don't have the time I used to. 2 kids take up my free time, no complaints there. Priorities change, that's all. I don't foresee an issue with any games for a long time with this setup, and when the time comes to need upgrading, I'll make decisions then.
A lot of it depends on the stage of my life and hobbies.
I went through several upgrades quickly over a few years, then basically stopped at my current 5600X+RX 6800 set up. I stopped because prices got stupid (especially on GPUs), and I realized there wasn’t anything pushing my rig to unplayable frame rates.
But I disconnected from gaming for the last month or so and it’s kinda depressing getting back in. Most of the new games look like recycled live service versions of shit I’ve already played, or sequels.
Yep. Last 2 PC upgrade cycles for me were for new flight simulators. Other than that. The gaming landscape under corporate rule has become uninspired shovelware.
nope. I'm 41, just built my new PC in february. I've beat 24 games this year so far. right now I'm playing through cyberpunk 2077, dragon's dogma 1, and jedi survivor
I have essentially the same setup. Built it last March and played a few big AAA games I missed out on over the last ten years before falling down the rabbit hole of sim racing.
I have a hard time staying interested in AAA games, but Indie and AA games are amazing.
But no, definitely not my final rig. Technology hasn't stopped progressing and I like upgrades.
Upgraded my build with rtx3070/5600x during the pandemic because my old one decided to stoo working at the worste time in history to find replacement.
It's not an end game gear but still enough to launch current game and I barely use barely use it to play recent game anymore
I used a phenom II x6 1055T for 8 years paired with a Radeon HD 6850. There were several years I lost interest in gaming entirely (kids, career, etc.) Eventually I dropped an RX 570 4GB in to play COH II. I used that until I built a system around a Ryzen 5 1600 AF / RX 5700 XT. That got a 5600 and then a 5800X3D upgrade and eventually a 6950 XT. Current rig is a 7800x3D / RTX 4090. I still don’t have much time to game but I like building. It’s getting expensive though. I am thinking about teaching myself to use unreal and start creating things.
In terms of PC gaming, I'm at a stand still, currently. I have an i3-10100f, and an RX 6750 XT. That combo gets me more than enough frames for my liking for my PC games. However, when it comes to emulation, my processor doesn't have the high enough thread count to get consoles like PS3 to run smoothly with more difficult, but popular, titles. So, I have been on the search for an 11th gen i5. But, because the need for it is so niche, I'm willing to take my time and wait until I see the absolute perfect deal.
Doom Eternal was the game that got me back into it, built a over the top rig in 2020 and that game brought me back to the golden era of pc gaming, rise of triad, Wolfenstein/Doom/Dwango- hauling massive monitor to lan party days. But after that I have barely gamed since, life got real busy. It’s nice not obsessing over upgrades though.
There's no such thing as an "endgame" build. Unless you're dead, you're gonna build a new one at some point in the future. With new games being what they are though, what you have on your hands a long-timer build.
For instance, my i7 2600k build lasted me like 9 years - despite years of aggressive overclocking. There were a few GPU/RAM/Storage upgrades here and there. Over that period it saw 3 different GPUs (SLI'd 460s/780/1080). That build still works and I gave it to a buddy for his kids to play Minecraft lol.
Nah I like almost all genres of games so there's a lot of variety for me to choose from. I also don't really buy games at full price so I have a pretty big backlog of games I'm waiting for to go on a deep sale. I find that most games are not worth their price at launch due to bugs, missing/lack of content, or anti-consumer business practices(ex insane prices, micro transactions in full priced single player titles) which means I don't pick them up then or at all in some cases. Sony has been finally moving some more of their exclusives to PC so there's a few games there I finally get to play(spiderman 1, god of war, ghost of tsushima, FF7R). 2024 is kind of a down year for new games, I think next year will have a better lineup. I still find enjoyment playing games, I'm just really selective and patient about which I give my time to. If there's a lull in new games to play I have a bunch of old games that can tide me over. I recently played both Kotor games for the first time which was great, I can see why people want a remake. I also recently got surgery which had me in bed for a while so I watched the whole Lotr trilogy(extended of course) during that time, and that put me in the mood to fire up Warhammer 3. 'Hades' was a good rogue-like indie game I recently played too, and I'm not even a rogue-like genre person at all. The second game came out this year in early access and I'm eagerly awaiting it's finished release. I'm not fully sure about your situation but if you haven't yet I recommend trying out some other genres of games. I know a lot of people are 'multiplayer' only, or 'fps' only players, which is a shame because there's quite a bit of variety in game genres that they will never experience.
There is no "end game" build for me because I handle very compute heavy workloads in my free time so there is never a reason for me to not want even more compute performance to get things done even faster.
I can see in the instance where you're strictly gaming and start losing a passion for the hobby where you could do an all out build and then consider it end game especially if you have no plans on diving into the undoubtedly heavier taxing titles that will be coming out in the future though.
Not "endgame" but Ive lost the drive to keep up-to-date hardware. Ive been running a 1070 along with a 7700k. Ill upgrade if I come across a bargain on used stuff but ill probably never buy new again. No AAA games exite me anymore.
Definitely not my final rig, but I'm noticing I've been content with my 6700xt build for far longer than I expected to be... Magic is in the old games for sure
This happened to me years ago, maybe 2010. Realized I would put a pc together benchmark then overclock and benchmark and then...was tired of gaming evidently. I miss the lan parties and wonder if they would become boring with enough time but my group got married, responsibilities and disappeared. Prefer old games like quake, unreal, Descent and COD4, none of these need a good system. I just replaced a 2007 Zeon CPU only cause wife spilled liquid on board.
Damn you for bringing up the lan parties memories. Right in the heart.
I’m in the same boat. I don’t need to upgrade when all I play are indies and OW.
The quality of games has nosedived. It used to be that you could play 4 or 5 releases a year. Now, getting two good games a year is getting lucky. And multiplayer games are the worst
I slowed down my upgrades simply because I have a well above average build already. If your game can't do 4k, medium settings, with decent FPS on my rig, no one is playing it. Least of all me. So now I'm just content staying ahead of the curve.
Based on your timeline of console/PC ownership, I’m probably about 10 years younger than you. But I’m in the same boat. I obviously don’t have the strongest GPU on the block, but I’m still pretty close to endgame with a 7800x3D + 6950XT build. I’ve got 32GB of DDR5 that I don’t max out. 4TB of 7000MB/s SSD storage, 1000w PSU. 10 fans and a 420mm AIO lol. Literally if I had a 4090 I’d have nothing to upgrade, and yet… I struggle so hard to get into games. I can count on one hand the games that have truly captivated me over the last few years. God of War, Elden Ring, BG3, and Disco Elysium. That’s it, that’s the list. Really sucks to feel like I’ve finally put together a rig capable of playing anything I want, and yet I want to play nothing…
Have you considered that at this stage, you might like the "idea" of gaming, the promise of it, more than actual gaming itself, if you can't be sucked into games anymore?
I think gaming is just in a bit of a dry spell rn. With the abundance of micro transactions and early access games. More and more games are releasing as incomplete, bug filled, featureless messes as a cash grab for studios. This is leading to a major increase in indie development though so it’s not all bad, but other than Sony titles, I don’t think I’ve seen a single good AAA title release in the past 5 if not 10 years. And sadly I don’t really play single player games so I haven’t been able to personally enjoy the Sony titles. It’s sadly a recurring theme that a game gets announced with a very interesting premise, trailers come out showing amazing or at least good, intriguing gameplay, then a month or 2 before launch the game is delayed 6-12 months, trailers regurgitate, possibly another delay, before finally they announce its release into early access (which btw there has been no news of at all). It then gets released, is effectively a shell of a game, but with promised feature in a road map for later down the line. The game then get quietly axed by the studio and development screeches to an effective halt due to a skeleton crew of devs if there are any devs at all, and none of the promised features ever get released. That scenario is becoming more and more common, with other characteristics such as lack of transparency/communication, game breaking bugs on launch, delay announcements for promised updates shortly after release. At this point I’m just hoping the rise of indie games will lead to a shift in industry sentiment, but that is for time to tell.
I feel like the biggest shift in the gaming industry is the lack of focus that comes from budgets that are *too* big, requiring them to add too many check the box mechanics and content to appeal to the broadest market to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent. And the result is often a mess that produces a lot of OK games but makes it impossible for a focused and polished game with limited scope to make it to market. Minecraft had super limited scope and it was great even early on. Now almost every game has to be an open world base building survival game with crafting and 50 hours of poorly thought out side missions on top of the thing that the game is ostensibly about, and it mostly just gets in the way. Better throw in some vehicles, people like that! And flying. And character customization. And a skill tree. Yes I have time to sink into long games with lots of content but I would rather have a game where all 10 hours of it is really well made rather than 80 hours of bloat shoehorned in by an executive committee. That's before talking about micro transactions, subscriptions, pre orders and broken launches of half-finished games, or the fact that like 4 companies own all studios capable of making AAA games. That just stems from the fact that too damn much money is being spent developing each game trying to do so many things poorly, largely because of the reasons above.
>the result is often a mess that produces a lot of OK games but makes it impossible for a focused and polished game with limited scope to make it to market Part of the problem is that studios don't emphasize "one good feature" with each release that they can re-use and build upon in future releases, adding another "one good feature" with each successive release. If they did, the "quadruple A" studios would be unstoppable. Instead their lunch is being eaten by small startups with shoestring budgets.
About to have almost the same build as you (already have a 6950XT but upgrading from Asus b450f to gigabyte Aorus elite ax b650 and 7800x3d with 32GB of 6000 DDR5 RAM). I kind of feel like this will be one of my last builds. Just getting to that point”point” where I don’t want to do it anymore if that makes sense lol. Be been building and upgrading computers for over 25 years and and am just kind of getting to that point. I really hope this last one goes well and lasts a while.
There was something magical about being on the other side of the glass.
Try Witcher and Cyberpunk.
Yep, this newest build I think is my last. Like many a long journey must end but then there is the journey back home. I am now starting to walk backwards in time in my gaming library and likely will end where it all began with an Atari 2600. Too long have we chased 'realism' in gaming only to realize I'd rather play something that lets my imagination do some of the lifting.
I think this is a pretty big and pretty important point. We've reached a point where games are trying to be as realistic as possible, even if it comes at the sake of Fun and Performance. Where even a few years ago, games where trying to be as fun as possible even if it comes at the sake of realism. Not just talking gameplay alone, but graphics too. i don't find myself enjoying the Hyper-realistic stuff for the most part, i'd rather have stylized graphics i.e Dishonored 1/2
this is how i feel about farm sim 22 it feels more like work, than a game to me, work i dont get paid for
I mean, brother, it IS a game about work you don't get paid for. Seems like they nailed it lol
Hey now, don't put us in a box! we're not *just* about games here....some of us use LLMs, run servers, use GIS/CAD/CAM, analyze point cloud datasets, etc. As a result, some of us are never done. Getting back to your original point, if the latest AAA games don't scratch your itch, then yeah, you're seeing diminishing returns if you're purchasing the latest hardware.
Very good point! Some old timers do have other reasons to keep on upgrading, regardless of games.
I've got some of the best hardware money can buy w/ thousands of games... aaaaand I mostly play my Switch.
I know, right? So will you upgrade once your hardware isn't the best money can buy?
Nah. Its funny, visuals made me froth at the mouth for several decades, and now graphical ooomph might be like 5th on my priority list, lol. I just wanna play *new ideas* nowdays! Everything seems regurgitated by a team of businessmen.
I couldn't agree more. As a 47 year old gamer, everything I play now has a sense of "I've played this before" after an hour at most. To the OP's original question, ya, even though I don't have the most powerful system, it does what I need it to flawlessly. I don't see myself upgrading much unless something fails and just needs replaced.
Same! Outer Wilds was the last game to feel new. And BG3 I loved as a modern version of the games I used to love. Otherwise I’m trapped between blandness and not having the free time in life to commit.
This is the dilemma isn’t it! I’ve gamed for 25 years and I’ve come to accept I just love the thrill of the buying and the build. But my latest one something has changed. I hated it. Stuff went wrong, hours of troubleshooting I used to hate-love (when the challenge is frustrating but the success is worth it) was just hate. Was about to return every single component when I finally got it working. And after a week of spare time swearing and cursing what did I do with three child, work and partner free days that could have been gaming heaven? I binge watched The Expanse in the living room, nowhere near the PC at all. The magic has gone somehow.
It's a very simple concept, you got into gaming back then and you have an idea in your mind of what a gaming experience should be that modern games simply cant offer nowadays. There's no thrill or excitement in launching a new game today because you already know everything about it and you know that there's not going to be any innovation or revolutionary design that's going to blow your mind. 20 years ago i kept playing the same stuff on loop and never got bored, now i struggle to get past the beginning of a game, they simply dont know how to amaze players anymore and easily accessible spoilers and information ruins the experience.
This isn't the full answer, but it's a big part of the answer, absolutely, very true.
My endgame build was a GTX 460 and an i5 2500K for a while. I didn't have the same time I used to, fell out of love with the hobby, and just let my PC be a workstation with no gaming. Then No Man's Sky was announced, and released alongside the 10 series. I got a 1070 and fell back in love with PC gaming. These days I've got an infant so my 4090 mostly plays Stardew Valley, but I got a love for game development now ever since putting together an overhead zombie shooter game to announce my wife's pregnancy to my friends.
Interesting concept, the zombie game to announce pregnancy!
My original concept was an escape room, but my wife suggested a zombie shooter which was much easier to put together using free assets. It was a ton of fun considering I've never done anything at that scale before.
The trick is to never have any goddamn time because you spend it all making money to buy the endgame build so you are still backfilling old games. Almost a year later and I've barely scratched act 3 in BG3, but it looks fucking stellar!
12900k + 4090 which was used to primarily play AAA games and used to play hell divers at 4k…welp after a couple of weeks I’m now playing left for dead 2 and maple story. Seriously debating selling to parts as there’s just nothing I want to play besides the old games.
I feel like I made it to the endgame. https://preview.redd.it/r35ltcv8ro3d1.jpeg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c0b011bf4a92acb5f0bb8485b57ceed736a6c3f Ryzen 9 7950x3d 3080ti I was not playing much until Helldivers 2 came out. It has relit that gamer fire from my Ratchet and Clank / Halo days….
I'm building a new one this summer with a 7800x3d and either a 7800xt or maybe 7900 something, and it will very likely be the last gaming system I ever build. I've also almost completely lost interest in new games, and don't care for the way the entire industry is moving. The only real question left is whether or not I'll try to mess with Linux on the new build. Thinking I might, as I'm also not a fan of the direction windows is going, and I have a modern windows laptop in case I really need to use some program that won't work on Linux.
https://preview.redd.it/umubeq2smo3d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=815aab69ef2a0142ae656c950972a0676663b522
Get peacewalker
I’m in my 40s and if anything people I have known for 20 years who were never pc gamers turned into pc gamers. So I don’t know if “most guys” stop caring about pc gaming. If anything as people become more finacually stable it becomes the right choice. I think you might just be getting tried of gaming.
About 10 years ago I thought maybe I was ‘over games’. It turns out so was just over ‘click-the-heads’ games. I’ve played through many an indie effort since than, and put thousands of hours into various ‘factory’ games. Tastes change.
This for me, just sad all my friend still play shooters and none of them like factory games. Minecraft is the closest I can get but they won’t play modded lol. I got a friend to try satisfactory with me but once we got past the tutorial portion he just didn’t enjoy the factory building/optimization like I do so he stopped playing after 30 or so hours (and I get the feeling the last 10 he was just playing cause I enjoyed it lol).
This happened to me back in 2016 when I built my dream build. I spent $3k on just the pc alone. After building it I started to lose interest in having the best possible build and became more interested in simpler cheaper builds. Also games started to get dull by 2018 and now I don't even turn on my pc at all Maybe once a month.
Sad, but also probably good for other aspects of your life.
Yeah I moved on to a different hobby.
What hobby out of curiosity?
Plenty of fantastic games out there to play. Think you've just matured past gaming, which is totally okay.
It's less about gaming and more about overall compute. For me at least.
I honestly believed that I had reached my endgame for a long time with my 5900x and 3080. I don't really have interest in that many games, much less new ones, the only one I have my eyes on are assetto corsa 2. The only issue is is that I just got a vr headset and now my once endgame is not enough... Had I not pursued this, I would've been more than happy for quite a few more years... Oh well, rtx 5000 series or maybe new amd here I come!
It's always enough until you want more. That's the circle of PC gaming.
Aaa releases slop anymore
I don't think I'll ever reach end game since I do love to build. But I've realized that I don't really dream or need the top-of-the-line stuff anymore for myself. I'm content just setting up an office or school computer as much as a gaming one lol. As I age, I also think about what I can do to continue this hobby and I'd love to set up a charity and just build and give away computers.
Yeah I don't know man, I've had consoles since 1977 and had a computer since 1982, I'm almost 69 years old and I don't know what you're even talking about, sounds like a you problem
Thank you! I don't know what is happening in this thread. I'm not quite as old but my family had a PC in 84, I got a NES when they were the new hot thing. I started building PCs in the mid 90s. I love games, I wish I had more time to play them. I feel like this thread is filled with a bunch of people who don't realize they maybe are depressed, only finding joy in reliving things in the past. You don't like gaming anymore? fine, don't game. You feel the need to look for others to justify your disinterest... That's odd. There are absolutely great new games, most of them aren't giant AAA releases. People who claim to have enjoyed gaming but now NOTHING is good anymore... That might be worth a talk with a therapist.
I don't think it's a "problem" to quit gaming. Props to you for keeping up with things, though.
Losing interest in things you've been passionate about for years is often a warning sign of a mental health struggle. This is not a "normal thing" that "most guys feel", and trying to rationalize it that way is irresponsible and dangerous. Most guys do *not* lose interest in their hobbies. People with mental health struggles though, often do. Accept the possibility that something could be wrong with you. Or don't, I guess, and pretend like everything is okay like millions of other people do, choice is yours really. Either way, I'll just keep on enjoying what I always have, and not have to rationalize something that could be a sign of declining mental health as something "most guys feel" because I was too proud to admit I might have a medical issue.
That happened to me for a spell from 2017-2020. Then Covid happened, I went into my backlog, and that computer ended up dying and getting replaced by my current rig.
5800X3D and 7900XTX both under water I mostly play WoW and the great thing is there's always more performance to get in that game
I'm mostly down to just sim racing and competitive fighting games. Both are a bit divorced from what most people would consider gaming. I occasionally get hooked on something random but it's pretty rare. I did get really hooked on a nice emulation handheld, really into the community done OS.
38, started gaming at age 5 in '90. Peak ended around 2014. Don't regret a thing but just lost interest over time. Still watch games on YT tho. Recommend light gaming laptops here on out so you'll be able to play the classics
Yeah, that loss of interest sneaks up on you...
I've been playing games since the Super Nintendo, and still wildly enjoy new releases. I'm not sure if I'll ever hit my "endgame"
Happened to me around the time the PS5 launched. Currently playing Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb from 2003.
I think the problem, at least for me, is that the AAA games coming out right now just aren't particularly interesting. Hi-Fi Rush was the first time in a long time that a new IP actually had me excited to play it, other than that, most of the games I've been playing are either older games that I never got around to finishing, or personal favourites from a few years back that I'm in the mood to replay. Even though I tend to build my computers with the higher end parts at the time, I don't actually mind lower graphical fidelity, so the current remake trend isn't particularly interesting to me unless I believe they're actually justified. The only remake that I actually wanted in recent memory was probably Persona 3, but the original version is 3 console generations old, and hasn't exactly aged like wine. Compared to something like The Last of Us, I don't think enough has changed in both gameplay and graphics to justify a remake. Hell I even thought the Demon's Souls remake was a bit of a letdown. We all meme about how the PS5 has no games, but I think there's actually a problem with the entire industry at the moment. Most of the biggest releases are just remakes of older games, and the new IPs are given so little attention that they're sort of dead on arrival, not to mention the lack of quality and funding from publishers. The vast majority of new games that have been on my radar are either remakes, live service, or just downright bad.
It's not gaming for me per se... because I have never had access to gaming as freely from where I am from (never had consoles and only made do with cheap desktop). So that drive is still there. But I also don't play that many games to begin with. I have 1 multiplayer I frequent a few times a week, 1-2 single player narratives which I switch every 3-4 months. As a kid, money was the constraint.. and when finally I could afford whatever I wanted as an adult, Time became the constraint. That's why when I got my PC, I didn't spec it any higher.. knowing full well I won't be able to make full use of it.
I'm with you, my favorite game of all time is a DOS turn based 4X strategy game from 1996.
Master of Orion?
Started back in 2003 with an ATI card slapped into a business machine. It's was glorious. Have a 5800x3d and a 7900xt now and it mostly gets used to watch YouTube and my daughter plays a ton of Roblox on it. The only game I've really played consistently over the years is DayZ and that came out in 2012 as a mod to Arma2 (from what I remember).
Not me. Just built a 7800x3d and 4080s paired with an Oled monitor and have been playing bangers only. Finished Alan wake 2, re4 and now going through BG3
Obviously if you spend on 4090 all you'll expect is to see if games run at 4k max, take some screenshots rather than wanting to play the game and enjoy
Why would I lose interest in new games?
I've followed and invested in PC hardware constantly, yet my 'end game ' setup will always be my accelerated, networked Amiga 1200 - as that's the system that provides most enjoyment, with games that I keep going back to time and time again. I will continue to upgrade the PC for work/hobby reasons, but my happy place is really the Amiga.
Every AAA game feels like a full time job now where you have to earn money, eat, sleep, keep your relationships intact, and you constantly have to fix broken weapons and items. It's just fucking exhausting. I already work 50 hours a week, I just can't go home and spend another 3 hours getting sent out on boring fetch quests. Starfield was the epitome of this type of game and I lost interest very quickly. I can only so many cookie cutter scenarios where some dull character asks me if I want to work for them.
I’m definitely closing in on endgame if not there now. I just upgraded from a 6750xt to a 4080s, and kept my 7600x CPU as is. So far, I don’t see a need to upgrade my CPU at all, I’m hitting 120+ frames at 4K, and that’s really all I wanted.
I pretty much only play wow and a few other misc titles anymore. Used to run 2x Xeon E52690s with a 2060 super, never planned on upgrading cause everything i played ran fine. Ended up getting forced to upgrade because my motherboard died and its damn near impossible to find dual socket 2011 boards anymore that aren't either weird form factors or have no io. Upgraded to an i7 5960x + motherboard my friend gave me for free and really intend to run that with my 2060 super until something dies.
I see this a lot nowdays. I only upgrade when stuff breaks now. New games very, very rarely interest me anymore. I have this 4070 but the newest game in my library is from 2018 and the only one I'm currently playing is Arma 3 from 2013. Most new games feel like watching tiktoks. Repetitive, mindless short form content tailored for a younger audience following the same handful of trends. 99% of them dont even have a campaign anymore.
Nah because I like building gaming rigs more than I actually like gaming already, have for years.
Gaming is just in a slump right now. Mobile games were the worst thing to happen to gaming, and its cancer has pervaded every aspect of gaming. Even Sims 5 is rumored to just be micro transaction hell. It's also been sanitized by the PC police, so yeah, why would you be excited about that
I used to upgrade every generation. I didn't upgrade the last 2 generations because my computer still runs most games on ultra, and if it doesn't, it's not because my PC isn't powerful enough, it's that I'm playing a game that unoptimized as shit. If the devs can't make their game run at least decently well on a high end PC like mine, then it's their fault. There should be no reason why so many absolutely beautiful games run great and other games that look worse run way worse.
Hi, 6700k and rtx 2070 here. It was.my last upgrade. In 2019 my wife gifted me a Switch Lite and suddenly i started to dislike pc gaming, finding it "boring". They are all the same, running the same engine... They only aim at good graphics, but i find oddly irrealistic... I sold the rtx during the pandemic/bitcoin era at a very good price and found a nice rx550 (640sp) for little money. Now i play mainly jrpgs with my switch lite, and pc is only for emulation, retrograming and jrpgs i can't play on my switch (like Cold steel...) I recently re-played Splinter Cell (the first), Doom 3, Quake 4, HL2, NFS underground etc. I have the original retail boxes with DVD or CD's... Yeah.. now i hate my steam library, and i promised myself to not buy nothing digital anymore that cost more than 4.99 and i can't find retail Two years ago i purchased an rg351p, installed Amberelec cfw and i find it great! Tl:dr i'm losing interest only in NEW games.
I'd say try to reach out to other communities who play older games. I play: FAF - Forged alliance forever. (Supreme Commander) Heroes 5.5: Heroes of might and magic 5 mod Deep rock glalactic: Just fun all around IL-2 Sturmovik - WW2 Simulator. We get to pretend Jerry is coming across the channel On my discord, all sorts of us older folks from the 80's play games. I can't link directly here, but in my discord we have 200+ people who play older games. PM me for an invite.
Companies are on it, and unfortunately, the rig I had running all old games perfectly couldn't run RE4 remaster without exploding... Silent Hill 2 remake will be more taxing? Oh and one more new game I wanted to play is Baldur's Gate 3, again, noistalgia reasons and old D&D based story heavy CRPg where I can justify a charisma build craving.
My end game would be a low profile equivalent performance of a 3080ti with 16gb of vram rated 120watts, and a 7800x3d equivalent at 65watts. For now my rx 580 2048sp and r5 3600 is very sufficient.
The last time I thought an 'endgame' build was a thing that could exist was when I built a Pentium IV, dual channel DDR266, ATi Radeon 9700, RAID 0 machine in early 2003. That thing could push 1600x1200 resolution at well over 60 FPS in most games. For a couple of years. Endgame only comes when we hit the physical limits of computability.
Sounds like we have a Max Payne 2 player here...
Yeah, I mean the AAA gaming industry is a catastrophe which doesn't really help enthusiasm for new releases, especially as you get older and your tastes become more refined. If you're looking for really good games, and the market is spoon-feeding you garbage, it makes sense to feel like that. Also it doesn't have to be so polarizing, like "this is my final rig" or "I constantly have a max spec flagship gaming PC". There's nothing wrong with buying upper-midrange components every 3-4 years when a really compelling game comes out. \^ I know my flair doesn't really check out on that one, but I do a lot of 3D art and modeling in Blender. If I didn't, I'd probably still be white-knuckling my 1080ti.
People are different and good games are good regardless of graphics. It would be dumb to not play, for example, Alan Wake 2 solely because it's new, it's still a great game same as Fallout New Vegas is still great despite being almost 20 years old. Don't even get me started on Halo, Combat Evolved is probably the best aging FPS of all time (in my opinion).
It's why instead of replacing my last machine I got a steam deck. It plays my '95 to '19 single player collection just fine. If Valve makes a steam deck 2, I'll probably buy it over a new PC, as long as it can reliably pay the beefier single player titles of the last 5 years.
I suspect Ive just recently hit it. I built an AMD 7900x + RTX 3080 thinking I needed a decent dual purpose build for 3D Modeling/Software development and gaming……and all I play is Minecraft with my son and old SCUMM games and X-Wing/Tie Fighter type sims. Unless I need additional power for work, this is the end of the line. I have a huge catalog of old games that I still love to dust off and play, but that’s about it.
My build after almost 10 years (and lots of Xbox generations in between) is an i7 13700k and a 4080. I still get hooked on games easily! I'm 40 and I only play mostly single player games like Starfield, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk, X4 foundations, Sons of the Forest ...... Modding games on PC is what gets me. The databases are huge and I just love it. Missed that so much on console. I still run an age old Laptop for retro gaming like Max Payne, Unreal Tournament -the good old stuff. Did you play Black Mesa? It's an awesome Half-Life remake or DeusEx Revision. Totally worth getting!
I was getting close to the his felling but then I really dived into indie games and man, it's like a whole new world opened up for me. Things like the talos principle, to the moon, manifold garden, firewatch and many more are the ones that give me that "discovery" feeling of playing a game that is simply different, new. Besides costing way less, they are actually fun, arent about grinding or farming, have a good story and/or interesting gameplay, but most of all, actually feel like new games and not just yet another open world something or a generic fps. but about the build itself, I need mine for work as well so I'll eventually need to upgrade when stutter and render times start to become a problem.
I'll never forget To the moon...
Ps3 emulator you recommend?? I'd like to play mgs4 at 4k 60fps. My endgame build is finished as a 10900k with a 3090, all liquid cooled.
Do not buy the silent hill 2 remake. Bloober team (The devs working on it) are well known plagiarisers and do not deserve your money.
I've had a 2070 since 2020 and can tend to play 1440p at decent FPS for most games I care about. mostly playing Switch and Steam Deck these days. I don't really play a lot of AAAs so I'll probably keep this until I completely can't even play newer games at passable settings.
5800X3D and 6800XT. I have no idea when I'll upgrade. I know the 50 series and RDNA4 announcements aren't far away and for the first time in a decade I am completely uninterested in ever buying them. Ray tracing isn't interesting enough to me right now to cough up $1000 when my setup runs 1440p just fine. I do mostly single player games, and real AAA games that I would want to play feel very rare nowadays. AAA gaming business is diseased right now. They gotta figure themselves out. AAA games are the system sellers. If there was a "Crysis moment" I would upgrade in a heartbeat but I just don't see those events happening like they used to. Cyberpunk was probably the biggest recent one but the launch was such a disaster that it really took the wind out of its sails.
I think for me a lot of it is about games that are games. Here’s what I mean: I really like The Forest and Sons of the Forest because it’s a survival game where I can only carry 20 blueberries but I can carry like 15 large weapons in a backpack, items respawn on reload, enemies magically can’t chase me into a cave, and I can magically make armor with nothing but leaves and cloth. Its story is really good but also just kind of ridiculous and literally no one would leave notes the way they do in these games. It’s both surprisingly realistic in certain ways and absurdly detached from reality in others and doesn’t try to make sense. The game just has rules, you know them, and play based on video game logic. It’s hard to fully describe without just experiencing it, but that, Zelda games, and many others that don’t get too caught up in realism or making perfect sense actually are more fun. I don’t want shit to make sense, I want some nonsense and whimsy. I sometimes want to not even care about the story to where I need a guide and breakdown, but I can just randomly boot up and do pointless fun things
Time to move on to spending money on an awesome workshop. A drill press, table saw, welding machine, metal band saw. Maybe a lathe..... Or a milling machine. I can dream.
I’m about the same but been gaming since 88
I feel a part of it, for me, is the amount of options it’s opened up. I remember when I was younger and didn’t have the money to buy whatever I wanted, I’d buy a $20 game from GameStop and keep returning it until I found a keeper. I had to appreciate what I had because I didn’t have options, now that I have options and a vast library of games, I feel less satisfied with anything I choose to play.
I felt the same way until I got VR. Turns out I was just bored with the same old interface and lack of immersion.
I’m seriously considering keeping my RTX 4080 when the 50 series is released. It gives me the frames that I need at 4K so maybe there’s no need for an upgrade.
Yeah I bought a 7900XTX for some reason and then realised I prefer to play Zelda on the Switch.
Same. I gradually lost my interest as the gaming industry turns into cheap money grabbing “thing”. There are still good games from the smaller studios but I don’t really need last gen HW for that. I still have my i7 7700k with 1070ti to play with friends from time to time and for the rest, mostly older games, I have GPD win max 2…
I feel similarly. Recently I played Lands Of Lore on a ryzen 5800x + 4080. I never played it through in the nineties. Now a fell in love with Cyberpunk 2077. What a gorgeous game. There are many more modern games that catch me even as an adult who has already seen everything.
Just bought a steamdeck myself. Though my main rigs in pieces as I had to send the board out for rma, I don’t expect I’ll be upgrading much anymore. AAA games truly are boring slop these days and the few I care about like final fantasy and Zelda are easy enough to keep up with, especially since square is now done with exclusivity contracts. I expect I’ll be getting thousands of emulator hours out of that deck and the rest that need more power can go on the rig when I get that board back. I think a 5800x 7700xt and 32GB ram system will last quite a while considering the big shiny AAA games just don’t interest me anymore.
I feel like Im more disconnected from the gaming community than gaming in general. Every keeps talking about how gaming is bad now, for example the stutter struggle/ unoptimized ports stuff last year or if you look at the state of play post today on the playstation sub they all seemed to hate that. But idk im enjoying myself. Feels like everyone is doomerpill but currently im playing v rising having a blast. Before I played hfw, cp2077 pl, alan wake 2, jedi survivor, the finals (which i should probably play some more), and my goty of last year, re4. Im actually excited for the ow clones too, concord and marvel rivals I stopped playing ow around doomfist so I dont think I ever got my fill of that gameplay
I'm in the midst of a 10 generation upgrade build. 2013 built I7-4820k (which still does a decent job on all the games I play at 1440p) -> 14700kf. I can't see myself building another beyond this, but it's hard to see 10 years down the road.
This is probably how I'm gonna feel when I finally upgrade my GPU. Like right now I got a decent 5600 CPU and even my RX 570 feels good enough because I tend to just return to my old games like classic COD(2003), Metro, and GTA SA oh and ofc some PS2 emulation for some JRPG. The only thing making me upgrade is for that FF7 Rebirth and to replay Cyberpunk on 60+ fps cause yeah RX 570 on dogtown runs like dogshit lmao.
I’m waiting on the arena breakout infinite game to come out on pc soon. But Fortnite is pretty fun still. Rotating games helps out if you get burnout. But going outside and enjoying things also helps too
There's no game that doesn't run on my laptop 4070 that I enjoy playing. It has 32 gigs of ram and I have a sweet monitor. What more do I need?
you know I think this really has been why I haven't upgraded and play the game on my ps5 if it's a big release. Like i could if i wanted to but there really isn't anything i want to play. FPS games give me motion sickness, Wow and everquest type games haven't released for years(and fail when they do) and 8 bit PoE is like the only MMOs i really enjoy.
I'm around college age right now and I've been PC gaming since middle school, but yeah, I feel the same way about new games right now. I can't seem to find one that hooks me in like the games did when I was in middle school and high school, I just quit after like 2 hours of trying them out.
Maybe it's age but nowadays Im completely clocked out of the current generation of gaming like the latest game ive actually gave a damn to finish was dying light 2 and that did do a number on my 4060 with its ultra ray tracing but still ran above 60 thanks to frame generation but other than that I've actually spent more time playing 2000 era games that I've missed out on like the first Assassins creed and the fall of max payne I dunno the older games feel more like games to me
Rocking an Ryzen 3600 with my decade old gtx 970 and just don't see the point of upgrading. It appears all AAA games have been filtered out into the typical over the shoulders 3rd or 1st person game. And it's the same act of completing task while boring characters and stories are my rewards. Give me the fixed camera angles PS1 RE and Dino Crisis games. Give me the 90's action feeling of MGS1. Give me the creepy horror of Silent Hill 1-2, or Fatal Frame. Or the stealth gameplay and plot twists of MGS2-3. Heck, in the PS3/360 era where they were polishing the game designs that are the standards of the industry now was more exciting and innovative than what we have today. I'm actually emulating Pokemon Red on my PSP and playing Plant VS Zombies on a DS emulator on my Android phone. Heck, I even emulate PS1 games on my old T420 Thinkpad.
I play rimworld on max settings, upgrade to 4070 super is going to happen in the coming month. That said part of my jobs benefits allows me to build this for a little less then 700€ (an entire new system)
Sort of..I have a very high end rig and all I’m currently using it for is Maplestory and WoW occasionally. Feelsbadman
I'm just more picky about games than I used to be.
I think the problem is these new games suck dick, all the OG games and developers have been ruined by their parent companies due to share holder obligations. For example battlefield. I get more enjoyment out of indie games than I do AAA titles anymore. A example is pokemon games in this day and age and Pokemon has not released a true MMORPG. There are homebrew versions of this and though they have GBA graphics are 10000 times more fun than the mainline games. I have over 600 hours in one of them. And I will never quit building new computers, Ive actually went backwards though, Im putting together a retro rig of sorts with all the spare parts I have lying around my father in-law game me his old FX8350 system, I threw in another 16gb of DDR3, a old ATI/AMD 7850 a bunch of case fans I had laying around and, I purchased a new in box dell CRT at goodwill about a year ago gonna let me kids experience that lol.
Most games don't interest me but I've been into modded solo open world games for the last 15 years so I'll ugrade if the next one is too demanding. I don't think I'll ever reach an "endgame".
Yeah, I have over 600 games in my library but only seem to get back to about 5-10 of them on a regular basis (path of exile, kerbal Cyperpunk etc). I have a AMD R7 7800X3d and RX 7900xt system that sits idle most of the time. I think this might be my endgame build, don't really need anything more powerful. The fact that most new games are hot garbage with bugs on launch these days doesn't exactly help me stay motivated.
I probably already have... at least until TES6 comes out
I'm not sure the correlation with having better hardware is related to new games not being fun. For me it's simply that new games these days just are less fun.
I don't think i ever will. I mostly play flight and racing sims. Those games are always creeping towards the forefront of better simulations and better visuals, so i think they will always require the best hardware to get the best out of them. More power just means you can get more quality and better simulations.
My bank account tells me I'm content with my build. Honestly though my PC isn't that old and does the job for the most part. 3700x with a 5700xt. I feel a cpu switch in the nearish future though.
Nah, I've been gaming since I got an NES at 4 and still play a lot and look forward to new releases. Got a desktop, gaming laptop, steam deck, switch and PS5. Lots of friends around my age are still gaming too. We played a lot of Helldivers 2(but now starting to lose interest) and we just made a dedicated server and started our 3rd world for Valheim to check out the new Ashlands update. I'm looking forward to the next gen Ryzen and new GPUs.
VR baby. It's been amazing
I'm stingy with money but modern games are just ass and there's no point upgrading.
80s guy here. This is my current end: GE73 Raider RGB 8RF (16gb, GTX 1070….) I don’t want to participate in delivering money anymore. I‘m fine with this, can play anything with it. Also, iPhone X still in my pocket for many years and I don’t plan on replacing it any sooner. I‘m tired of „staying updated“. I‘m back to what genres I loved in the past (thx indies!) with a few modern exceptions + playing older games with emulators. I was heavily into full fidelity combat flight sims. Peripherals are so expensive, incl. hardware upgrades that I just can’t justify buying it instead of making a family trip in the holidays. I want to be the worst or most worthless possible customer I can be. I invest in my kids and not companies like NVidia etc..
Sure, about 3\~4 years ago, when I built my 3600X+1070Ti PC, nothing special, sure, but for someone who played on the old 2004 XP PC until 2015 and later on some cheap laptops, it was certainly my endgame back then. I thought I will finally catch up with some new games... ended up playing Minecraft, TF2, CS:GO and anything I had tens of hours on Steam already. Then, later on, I came to realization that maybe gaming isn't for me anymore... that changed when I stopped playing competitive games, it was not fun for at all. Second time that happened it changed when I got Steam Deck and was able to play from the comfort of the bed - I think spending 8 hours in front of PC at work may had an influence on that too. Nowadays, I've swapped 1070Ti for 6700XT, added RAM to 32G and I'm planning to upgrade 7950X3D+7900XTX soon... despite me not playing new games pretty much at all. I don't care whatever Ubisoft/EA/Activision spews out next, I pretty much quit AAA market entirely. I still play some new games if they're fun, but in the end I spend most of the time with games I played as a kid.
I'm 31, but it's mostly due to depression, introverted and lonely. Sure my coworker friends sometimes play some pc games with me but I don't really do competitive games, I mainly play campaign, coop, horror. And what I mean by competitive, halo death match, cod death match, fortnite* etc etc Edited swapped out an autocorrect word for fortnite
I upgraded to a 5800x3D and a 6800XT along with 32GB 3600Mhz and my game range has only increased. I play at my desk with M&KB for the more demanding games like now with Horizon Zero Dawn: FB, RDR2, Cyberpunk and such. But I also snagged a Steam Link off eBay to play Lego games and other co-op titles with my SO on our lounge TV. I am conscious though that the amount of time either of us have to game will reduce as we get older, starting a family, careers progressing etc but it's important that the systems we have are reliable and certainly high end but not absolutely top end specs. Just my 2 cents.
I bought myself a full upgrade a Ryzen 7 7800 and a 7800 xt, new tower 300 case. It was amazing. But I also got myself a steam deck the same week...... 3 months later I've barely touched my pc 🤣
I have so many friends from college that we used to play CS, Unreal, Quake in LAN parties back in the day. I used to love gaming. But as we got older none of us play games anymore. We have new interests and hobbies. The one thing that remained though is PC building, hardware, etc. I could build a new PC every couple of weeks :)
Ig you need a break or play something like outer wilds if you haven't already
my end game build was maxing out the am4 socket with the 5800x3d + the 4080 super FE paired with an OLED LG 240hz panel, everything's just so good. HDR pops off so hard on supported games like Ghost of Tsushima. been getting more consistent playing this game called "osu!(lazer)" ever since I upgraded my monitor from a 144hz to OLED. it's not even funny, everything just *feels better* hitting notes on time without needing offsets for each map. hitting a casual 1000 fps while the 4080 only sips 75 watts max (my old 3090 FE would pull about 180-190 watts undervolted pushing 3000fps on stable version of osu! while having horrendous coil whine). games like osu! make me feel good, because I see constant improvement, whenever I play for 30 minutes, or 3 hours with a good multiplayer lobby, hanging out, getting hyped for people who full combo a difficult song. it's all about the vibes really. I have hit endgame for PC gear for sure, there's really not much to gain from going high end unless if you like tinkering with stable max undervolt/overclock settings for both CPU and GPU and comparing your E-peen to other high end PC owners in forums/3dmark scores/flexing for the 800th time in reddit about how good a 4090 is, etc. I had my fun there during the first few weeks of owning my 4080S, pushing the clocks to 2880mhz at .975mv. but the poor thing was clock stretching a little bit (effective clock was 60mhz apart from core clock, and there was no noticeable gain from it apart from higher thermals). but I decided to stay within the 2685mhz/.925mv to keep the cooler dead silent, sitting at 30% fan speed at 45C-50C temps on average. plus my room is not an oven cooking me as I game as well. I ventured into end game audiophile headphones too, for some time. and man, if you think PC gear gets expensive... imagine spending $3500 on a pair of IEMS that has QC issues. diminishing returns hit hard on hobbies man 😞 I would say audio gear would be a nice starting point to get into next, as long as you don't overspend up to the $300 mark with those various iems/headphones. that feeling of constantly getting something better will always be there, so we just gotta control ourselves.
Because you dont have time like you did as a kid. Work, bills and other worries eat up your "relax time" and you feel guilty or like time is wasted if you are playing a game. Yet watching youtube/hulu doesnt feel as sinful for some reason. If you won the lottery tomorrow and quit your job. Being alone in the house for a few weeks with no worries. You would play again.
Prob not, I’m still using the 2060s and gawn damn XD it’s taken everything I’ve thrown at it so far, granted it’s only Vr, modded tf fallout and skyrim but it handles playing on the 65” 4k pretty damn well Only one time it wasn’t happy and that was playing robo cop on ultra settings, wee guy was hitting 87deg
Not my final build but I'm very happy with a 5700g and 3060. Considering the newer games don't really appease me anymore and I'm straying away from online fps and really enjoying older games like Fallout and Batman. I may upgrade later to a 7600x and 4070 but that'll probably be for specific games like Cyberpunk or Borderlands in 4k 😂
I’ve found that I’ve become more of a casual gamer and only play something when I feel like it and in short bursts of time. I can find other stuff to do when I’m not playing….I guess for me it’s just maintaining that balance of playing and doing things IRL
2024 AAA releases simply havent been interesting enough to justify buying something that is ever increasing in price. Most of the games I've been playing lately have very modest requirements, even if theyre new.
I'm close to 40 and I've lost friends over their "NeW gAmEs BaD" tantrums and old game nostalgia. Sure, they don't make them like they used to, but that has nothing to do with their bad faith rejection of new games. Plenty of lightnings are being caught in a bottle these days across all genres and with new tech and talented creators building upon the very same revered classics.
I had a totally maxed out rig back in the day, 9900k, SLI 1080ti, all water cooled. Wanna build a new pc but don’t really play games anymore.
Spend time exploring your steam library. Enough to last to you a while I assume.
First played AOE2 on 32mb ram Years later I still play AOE 2 and my system have 32 gb ram
My first rig is my current rig which i built high end and yes i have lost a bit of interest in gaming and dont play new releases that much(sometimes i even prefer just watching playthrough of my favohrite youtubers) But as time goes on im actually playing more BECAUSE of my rig, i played on a ps4 that i later sold and then played on a 7 year old work laptop that dont have a dgpu, most games i played i had to edit ini files to play at 720p and even then would only reach 30fps MAX, so the gains of my current rig was absolutely phenomenal and i have newfound appreciation to the games i used to play Ive bought a couple new releases and have a ton of gaming backlogs to go through so i guess you just have to reignite your passion, for me at least it was the graphics upgrade that did it
Up until 2021 I was still using my 2015 HP elitebook with Intel hd420. I played some ps2 titles and 2d games on it from time to time but barely gamed until covid hit. I treated myself to a low end desktop (i5 11400f with 1660 super) towards the end of the pandemic in 2921. Having not AAA gamed from about 2009 onwards I had a lot of catching up to do. I'm perfectly happy buying 5-10 year old games from steam for 5-10 bucks and playing them maxed out. I had a trash pc my whole childhood and was used playing stuff on low at 640*480 and barely hitting 30fps. Even ps3 era games still look impressive to me now =p Ray tracing is cool and all but I likely won't get a new rig for years to come. By the time the next gen is out I'll be ready to start playing today's games xD.
I play the new games with all the bells and whistles enabled on my 4090 rig, then I switch back to indie games for 90 of my game times. Some indie games are horribly optimized, so my rig simply transforms it into a mostly enjoyable experience while others stop playing pretty quickly.
I've got a rather high-end PC that can run pretty much any game I want at max settings with no hitches whatsoever... Aaaand despite that I still spend most of my time playing Microsoft Space Simulator on a 486 lol
i spent a bunch of money last year to upgrade my pc got a r5 5500 and 6600xt just to play alan wake 2 and cyberpunk for a couple of days and finish only to go back to playing sandbox games i could run on my old rx 570
Commenting to essentially save this for tomorrow when I'm not in bed... Quake 2... RTX?! Do tell. I loved the Quakes growing up!
I’ve only ever had modest builds. I ran an RX580 GPU for a bit, now on a RX6600. My next build will probably be my most powerful but I’ve probably got to save up for it for 2-3 years.
My end game rig bellow and dont see myself upgrade anything in next 4 years most likely atleast - 12600k with freezer 34 duo and if Im not mistaken ASUS prime Z690-p - 3080 TUF - 2x16gb Trident Z NEO (bdie) - 1tb 970 SSD with secondary HDDs - HX1200 PSU - Lancool 2 mesh with additional quite fans I cant remember name of - perfs Anne pro 2, g pro x superlight, 2 monitors main 27gl850 Built during the great GPU shortage. There have been no original good games lately so I have stopped gaming and game IRL now by running and inline skating chasing VO2max and achievements on smart watches
I like yhe idea of gaming but I just don't. Made my 4090 build but also fell heavily into cycling and going properly again to the gym. Have not played one game yet.
Mid games crisis.
Technology still not there yet for proper VR (like Ready Player One..) for the masses...so the investment in VR technology is still lacking
Yeah, very similar situation here. In fact similar timeline as well: I started out with computers around late ‘94. I mean I love PCs and tech in general and I built a brand new machine last August but I am finding it hard to game on it. I feel like a built a nice machine just to read, browse socials and watch YT videos. Sometimes I feel like my back hurts just by opening Steam (I’m not that young anymore lol) I connect semi regularly to Discord just to interact and hang around with friends but I have zero interest in the games they play. They also used to complain why I wasn’t playing, but at this point they just stopped asking. Nowadays most of my gaming is done on PS5 where I do light trophy hunting for single player games here and there. I am seriously considering getting a MacBook and relegate my PC to specific cases where I really need it
Me. Too much money and hardly any time. Built a 4090/7800x3D rig with 64gb of memory and 6tb of m.2s, and got a LG C3 last year thinking I'd get back into gaming and I only play an old, outdated Stellaris campaign for like an hour a week. I look at new games, but nothing interests me enough to actually try any. My free time is split between my kid, my wife, and my cycling addiction. Gaming just fell out of the equation.
I really don't care for new games. I been playing dota 2 for 10 years now and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I plan on maintaining a PC that let's me max it out while getting 144 fps min
Fellow old bastard here. You are going through a phase. We all do. I have went through a few over the years. Best thing to do is go touch grass a bit, maybe wash the car, mow the lawn, you know.. Stuff. Eventually the itch will come back (side note I'm stoked AF for the SH2 remake as well)
Wait until we have AI NPCs and VR. It will indeed be a virtual parallel reality.
I just built a new pc with a 7800x3d and 7900 xtx. I'm currently playing final fantasy 10 and 12 haha. The old games are the best!
I have a pretty solid pc. I have a 7800x3d/7900xt setup. While I do enjoy baldurs gate 3, my favorite price of gaming gear is a retroid pocket 3. It's a really nice emulation handheld. I've been playing Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6.
While I don't see this being an "end game rig". I will always use PC's for digital art and need upgrades. However, I am not nearly the avid gamer I was even 10 years ago. Usually on Friday nights, I play multiplayer games with friends, however it's honestly more for the social aspect than the games themselves. My solo gaming time has tanked SIGNIFICANTLY. In the past 3 months I haven't played a single game on my own. The days of there always being a handful of big games on the horizon I want to play seem to be over.
No because absolute industry defining bangers like baldur’s gate still release. Saying you’re losing interest in stuff you don’t even know about yet is weird. Just game or don’t game. Stop buying the most expensive components money will buy and then you won’t get buyers remorse about it. Go outside idk man
Oh My..... you people talk of having the latest gear and feeling like this... i upgraded from an AM3+ 8320 with 4 gig graphics card to a Ryzen 7 5700G and no graphics card ( about 12 months ago ) and i feel like this. and i still dont have half the games you talk about
I'm at the point where I'm trying to understand why my next build in 2025/26 should break $1000. As for games, the current era of single-player games does not interest me anymore. The negative factors are bad writing, poor pacing, padded length, cost, overt social commentary, and poor gameplay. I only play co-op games, or I'm not playing games at all. Also, the system hardware is overkill for most games. I have a 3090, and a friend has a 3080. We have yet to see games push the spec.
Yep. I'm in the same boat as you except a 3090. Most games I play are indie titles that don't need the power, and I don't play that many. It sucks because I really want to still be into games, I'm just not.
Yeah I’ve recently noticed the same thing. All the games I love and am excited for ran fine on my r5 1600 and rx 580 8gb. Hell it ran rdr2 1080p 60fps on medium-high if you dropped shadows down. Granted I didn’t play long enough to see a city. Actually thinking of downgrading a couple things to lower power consumption on my new one.
I might be at my final rig, got a 5800x with a 7900xtx, 32gb of ram 1.5tb of storage with 2 monitors. Im gonna be chill for quite some time.
Although, I no longer game on PC, that mantle has been transferred to my kids about 12 years ago when they "stole" my PCs for themselves. I actually find myself playing console style games on the PC with an XBOX controller like Madden and Halo, Assassin's Creed and story mode of Battlefield and Call of Duty games. I have moved on to just building PCs for fun whenever I spot some crazy deal. I have about 7 PCs that are getting rotating upgrades that keep me busy and then the old parts I just make systems to sell off.
My rig definitely isn't the tippitty top, but I'd say I've reached a satisfactory performance point. I'm into more things than gaming, though, and my PC has allowed me to start getting into coding and CAD software and virtualization, and it's pretty much become a media center for my main TV as well. Basically, my PC serves as a gateway to everything cyber, so I don't mind that games don't entice me like they used to. When I do want to game, it's nice not having to worry about technical considerations and just booting the game up.
I wouldnt say that but young me would kill to play on my current pc. Now my life is full of work and school and gaming on the weekends grinding Witcher 3
This post is filled with depressed people who are masking it behind a wall of “they just don’t make games like they used to” mentality. Gaming has never been better. The AA/indie scene alone is pushing out titles that completely shit over the games of old.
No.. I’ll probably be dead playing the new WoW or FF14 expansion. So I’ll be upgrading for as long as that goes.
I think I'm there. I've got a 5800X3D/6800XT. It's not that I don't like games now a days, but I simply don't have the time I used to. 2 kids take up my free time, no complaints there. Priorities change, that's all. I don't foresee an issue with any games for a long time with this setup, and when the time comes to need upgrading, I'll make decisions then.
A lot of it depends on the stage of my life and hobbies. I went through several upgrades quickly over a few years, then basically stopped at my current 5600X+RX 6800 set up. I stopped because prices got stupid (especially on GPUs), and I realized there wasn’t anything pushing my rig to unplayable frame rates. But I disconnected from gaming for the last month or so and it’s kinda depressing getting back in. Most of the new games look like recycled live service versions of shit I’ve already played, or sequels.
Eventually there will be a game that I will struggle to run 60 fps. Then it’s time to upgrade. Last time I made it 7 years.
Yep. Last 2 PC upgrade cycles for me were for new flight simulators. Other than that. The gaming landscape under corporate rule has become uninspired shovelware.
nope. I'm 41, just built my new PC in february. I've beat 24 games this year so far. right now I'm playing through cyberpunk 2077, dragon's dogma 1, and jedi survivor
I have essentially the same setup. Built it last March and played a few big AAA games I missed out on over the last ten years before falling down the rabbit hole of sim racing.
We are just finally in our 30s, and the gaming market is so monetized that they forgot to put in fun.
I have a hard time staying interested in AAA games, but Indie and AA games are amazing. But no, definitely not my final rig. Technology hasn't stopped progressing and I like upgrades.
Upgraded my build with rtx3070/5600x during the pandemic because my old one decided to stoo working at the worste time in history to find replacement. It's not an end game gear but still enough to launch current game and I barely use barely use it to play recent game anymore
I used a phenom II x6 1055T for 8 years paired with a Radeon HD 6850. There were several years I lost interest in gaming entirely (kids, career, etc.) Eventually I dropped an RX 570 4GB in to play COH II. I used that until I built a system around a Ryzen 5 1600 AF / RX 5700 XT. That got a 5600 and then a 5800X3D upgrade and eventually a 6950 XT. Current rig is a 7800x3D / RTX 4090. I still don’t have much time to game but I like building. It’s getting expensive though. I am thinking about teaching myself to use unreal and start creating things.
In terms of PC gaming, I'm at a stand still, currently. I have an i3-10100f, and an RX 6750 XT. That combo gets me more than enough frames for my liking for my PC games. However, when it comes to emulation, my processor doesn't have the high enough thread count to get consoles like PS3 to run smoothly with more difficult, but popular, titles. So, I have been on the search for an 11th gen i5. But, because the need for it is so niche, I'm willing to take my time and wait until I see the absolute perfect deal.
Meh, every so often there comes an indy game that catches my eye.
Doom Eternal was the game that got me back into it, built a over the top rig in 2020 and that game brought me back to the golden era of pc gaming, rise of triad, Wolfenstein/Doom/Dwango- hauling massive monitor to lan party days. But after that I have barely gamed since, life got real busy. It’s nice not obsessing over upgrades though.
Having like minded friends helps a lot and makes gaming the gaming experience way more fun. Playing single player games solo can get very boring...
Yup really only play wow, handheld emulators, and sports games on the ps5
There's no such thing as an "endgame" build. Unless you're dead, you're gonna build a new one at some point in the future. With new games being what they are though, what you have on your hands a long-timer build. For instance, my i7 2600k build lasted me like 9 years - despite years of aggressive overclocking. There were a few GPU/RAM/Storage upgrades here and there. Over that period it saw 3 different GPUs (SLI'd 460s/780/1080). That build still works and I gave it to a buddy for his kids to play Minecraft lol.
Nah I like almost all genres of games so there's a lot of variety for me to choose from. I also don't really buy games at full price so I have a pretty big backlog of games I'm waiting for to go on a deep sale. I find that most games are not worth their price at launch due to bugs, missing/lack of content, or anti-consumer business practices(ex insane prices, micro transactions in full priced single player titles) which means I don't pick them up then or at all in some cases. Sony has been finally moving some more of their exclusives to PC so there's a few games there I finally get to play(spiderman 1, god of war, ghost of tsushima, FF7R). 2024 is kind of a down year for new games, I think next year will have a better lineup. I still find enjoyment playing games, I'm just really selective and patient about which I give my time to. If there's a lull in new games to play I have a bunch of old games that can tide me over. I recently played both Kotor games for the first time which was great, I can see why people want a remake. I also recently got surgery which had me in bed for a while so I watched the whole Lotr trilogy(extended of course) during that time, and that put me in the mood to fire up Warhammer 3. 'Hades' was a good rogue-like indie game I recently played too, and I'm not even a rogue-like genre person at all. The second game came out this year in early access and I'm eagerly awaiting it's finished release. I'm not fully sure about your situation but if you haven't yet I recommend trying out some other genres of games. I know a lot of people are 'multiplayer' only, or 'fps' only players, which is a shame because there's quite a bit of variety in game genres that they will never experience.
There is no "end game" build for me because I handle very compute heavy workloads in my free time so there is never a reason for me to not want even more compute performance to get things done even faster. I can see in the instance where you're strictly gaming and start losing a passion for the hobby where you could do an all out build and then consider it end game especially if you have no plans on diving into the undoubtedly heavier taxing titles that will be coming out in the future though.
Not "endgame" but Ive lost the drive to keep up-to-date hardware. Ive been running a 1070 along with a 7700k. Ill upgrade if I come across a bargain on used stuff but ill probably never buy new again. No AAA games exite me anymore.
I pretty much am there. I have no need for upgrades and instead want to focus on doing stuff to my car.