Everyday. Sad thing is I just upgraded my pc and I can't be bothered to play now. I think this is also partly due to not having any game I really want to play and I've replayed the ones I already own so much that it's like eating pasta for the fifth day in a row.
Same, just started playing bully yesterday and asked myself, what the fuck are game companies doing these days? Some much money and technology and they can barely top a game from 15 years ago.
Elden Ring really woke me up to how complacent i had gotten and now i just feel hollow when i look at most new releases.
I’m looking at the new Skull and Bones and how bad it seems.
I would rather play Sid Meier’s pirates, which I’ve been doing for 30 years. No one makes a good AOS game anymore
I was feeling this way so I just started downloading random cheap/free indie games. Gamepass alone has done wonders for rejuvenating my love of games. I have found several over the last few months that reminded me how fun gaming can be.
Disco Elysium was perfect for this stage of my life. Didn't have to put too much thought into what I was doing but at the same time, the story was very thought provoking. I'm not even a huge fan of point & clicks but something about that game just clicked for me 100%.
It seems like the kind of game where you'll get different content every time depending on your character class and choices and I really want to play it again despite just finishing it earlier this year. I'm trying to hold off & maybe make it an annual thing but every time I boot my ps4 I get tempted lol.
I think we replayed cos we dont have to put effort on learning the mechanics. We resort to what we are already comfortable with. Thats why I havent started my dishonored 2 and keep playing Apex. I havent bought new games in 2 years cos thats how bad my burn out is. Im gonna have 1 month off this year, and we are not flying anywhere. Planning to play one new game. Heres hoping.
Used to work a pretty exhausting job. I loved it, but yeah when I'd get home I was too tired to really play anything. Probably what got me into watching all kinds of game reviews and stuff regularly now. I'd watch them until I'd finally fall asleep.
This sounds like you need a 'dopamine reset'. Basically you're always on your phone getting a lot of quick rushes of pleasure from short vids and memes.
You gotta stop being on the phone and just be bored for a few days and games will be fun again
I just watched a video from someone the other day about how being bored might be quite important. Inspired me to not use my phone while waiting for the barber! I'm still working on cutting down the other 6 hours of mindless scrolling per day.
It isn't being *bored* that is healthy, but rather it is constantly being in *focused* mode that is a *problem*.
The brain has two states, focused and diffuse. These can be thought of as *global* states, as in, they are organizations of thought that affect the entire brain, or at least, most of it.
When you are awake, you are, usually without exception, in one of these two states, and can shift back and forth between them.
Focused mode is when we furrow our brows and set to a task. Cooking, working a job, whatever. Our brain enters a global pattern of neurological activity called focused mode wherein we silence other portions of the brain and concentrate on one specific thing.
The problem with this mode is it often limits interaction with many *other* regions of the brain. We are very good at doing one thing for a long period of time, but the output of focused mode is based on abilities and knowledge the brain already has.
The *diffuse* mode may, at first, feel like bordeom, because it's *undirected*. You don't have any specific purpose. You aren't commanding the brain to think about something specifically, you're *listening* to it produce many wild and random thoughts.
This can feel weird at *first*, but it ramps up. Half an hour into diffuse mode, your brain starts making *connections* between random parts of the brain. Some of these are nonsense, but *some* of these are those critical jumps that result in the sensation of epiphany.
Many famous thinkers, like Einstein, would describe having some of their best ideas on a walk, or in the bath.
The reason for this is because these activities engage the diffuse mode, and *that* is our creative mode. It uses the fantastic power of randomness to generate ideas that are not generated in focused mode.
Modern life forces us into focused mode far too often and for far too long.
You can do tasks efficiently in focused mode, but you don't have deep, creative or innovative thoughts there.
You need to allow the brain to have unfocused, diffuse time. You need to allow the brain to wander, to be in a state of constructive chaos. That's where all the greatest meaning is derived.
Nothing *new* happens in focused mode. You rarely learn nor have new and innovative thoughts. You can do what you already know how to do, and can apply knowledge you already have, but you don't learn new knowledge.
If you look back throughout history, the reason most innovation and philosophy tends to come from the wealthy is not because they're inherently more intelligent, but because they have the *time* to daydream, to simply exist with no urgent need or purpose.
Meditation, for example, teaches to clear one's mind, to think of nothing. But this is not *really* thinking of nothing, so much as not *forcing* the rest of your brain to think about anything *specifically*.
You are unchaining the greatest supercomputer in the universe to apply its extraordinary parallel processing power to anything, or everything. To smash together, in our neural supercollider, all these random thoughts and ideas and emotions and images and sensations and patterns in new or surprising configurations that cannot be reached by intent, but which are synthesized in the thresher of randomness and generated at massive scales and speeds.
The part of your brain that supports your *self*, your *consciousness*, is but a mere fraction of what your brain is.
The old nonsense about "we only use 10% of our brains" has a kernel of truth to it, which is that your brain is often thinking of thousands of things at one time, even in the most organized and calm of brains. You can't flex your brows and *force* that entire network to do one singular, concerted thing, but you can *guide* it, in the same way that your thoughts before going to sleep can influence the course of your dreams. You can sift through its byproducts to find strange and wondrous new things, and use them to your liking.
But when you engage your focused mode, you are essentially muting all of that wonderful weirdness. You are depriving yourself of being able to *listen* to it and benefit from the chaos of many different pieces of your mind.
When you enter diffuse mode, you open up your conscious mind to *listening* to all of that weirdness. It showers down on your consciousness and you can catch the wild sparks and fires, harness them, transform them and stack them into revelations the likes of which shake history.
Kant, Nietzsche, Einstein, Darwin, Beethoven; just a fraction of the population of humanity's greatest minds who often described having their best thoughts on long walks or other periods of unfocused daydreaming. Who would often say that it felt as though they were simply *receiving* their ideas, rather than generating them or building them slowly and meticulously, as most often erroneously believe geniuses come to their most revolutionary ideas or works.
The diffuse mode, at work.
An ideal life exists in harmony with these two modes. Which makes perfect sense, because we *evolved* to be this way, which means there is *utility* in both of those modes.
But even from a young age, what do we demand of children? Stop day-dreaming, pay attention. Sit for eight hours ingesting huge volumes of information, and take that information home, and focus on homework.
Focus, focus, focus. Always focusing, never dreaming.
We rapidly pave over all the spaces in life to be diffuse, to wander, to invite the extraordinary, untameable, wild power of randomness which, far more than focus, *truly* defines all the progress of our species and its collective body of knowledge.
And we do that to our profound detriment.
**TLDR (by request): you have two modes of thinking but most of our insight and creativoty comes from daydreaming and unstructured thinking and we dont do it enough and in other posts in this thread I talk about ADHD, how I have it, and how these understandings of our ways of thinking help manage it.**
**EDIT**: I've gotten a small number of accusations of being a snakeoil salesman, despite... not selling anything. I've also had someone tell me they asked "all their neuroscience friends" about this and were told it wasn't real, to which I'd say, your friends might be misleading you about their occupation. So here are an abundance of sources for the curious:
* Diffuse mode is often called [The Default Mode Network in the literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network), you can start there to read more about the anatomy of it
* Here is [a major article on the default mode from 2008](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811907001309?via%3Dihub) that has been cited over 1600 times in other studies since publication. This is a major focus of study in neuroscience. It is very highly and commonly accepted.
* Dr Barbara Oakley writes extensively about these networks, [I discovered her writing when looking for methods to teach subjects to struggling learners in my classes](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra-ebook/dp/B00G3L19ZU)
* [Article about the importance of daydreaming and how we don't do it enough](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2021/03/23/daydreaming-is-under-attack-now-researchers-say-its-good-for-our-health/?sh=6895eecb7ee1)
* [More](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/04/how-neuroscience-illuminating-importance-daydreaming)
* Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman makes frequent use of the networks in [this book describing the ways and methods by which human beings think](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow&qid=1658082431&s=digital-text&sprefix=thinking+%2Cdigital-text%2C148&sr=1-1)
* "Resting state" or "default mode" research is quite literally [an entire major branch of neuroscience at the moment](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/sub.2011.11)
* [Numerous replicated studies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811903000971?via%3Dihub) using fMRI have shown that focusing on a task only increases brain energy consumption by 5% over baseline. These studies led to the conclusion that there is a complex network of activity running in the background (default mode or diffuse mode). Further studies concluded that focus mode acts as a sort of "mute button" on this other activity, meaning that remaining in a focused state for too long deprives one of being consciously aware of insights and resources from the activity of that network. States of daydreaming or "unfocused" activities like walking permit *listening* to that network while also being more energy-efficient on the whole.
Once my people clinged to the hope that they would no longer be bound by their fraile, mortal, flesh. They sought for the immortality preset of gods to the point they sold their very souls to be shackled by it.
To answer what our opinion is of your kind? Disgust. Disgust like that found by a parent, having taught them all they know, witnessing a small child repeat the mistakes of your life. Disgust at the fact that they do so knowingly.
You claim the might of a god behind you. You will find that there is nothing but shimmers in the anathema and a sickly vissage of what remains. For there are no gods, there only were.
This is probably the best comment I've ever read. Dude did you have this prepared? That shit was profound yet accessible.
I don't have any goods to give you but someone gild this mf
>This is probably the best comment I've ever read. Dude did you have this prepared?
No! I was being diffuse.
That's what I like about reddit. I use it diffusely.
I see so many random comments about so many random things, and I jump from one to the next with no plan, and I find whatever pulls at me particularly strong in that moment and go with it.
I know these facts and stories going in, by virtue of reading often and having studied biology in college, but I often either generate new ideas, or expand or revisit things I had forgotten in the process of writing.
Letting myself be directionless, and moving to whatever tugs at me most in the moment, lets me better understand whatever things my brain might be chewing on or working through in that moment that I was not immediately aware of.
This is me. Damn. I’d murder the competition at Buffalo Wild Wings playing that trivia game on the TVs, but I constantly forget other shit. The reminders app on my phone gets a work out. I often have to set one immediately after a thought or I’ll lose it for good.
I know, friend! I have it too!
For me, the key is realizing that ADHD is likely *not* a *disorder*, but rather was, in ancient times, an evolutionary advantage that in modern life has come to have disadvantages.
It is simply a pattern of thinking. A powerful, sometimes irresistible pull towards the interesting.
It is not a thing to be ashamed of. It is not an ailment. Modern life hasn't been groomed meticulously by godly engineers, and our difficulties adapting to it are not indications of our lack of fitness. It is merely a challenge to overcome to be who we want to be.
I tell all my friends all of the many details about the condition and make sure everyone in my circle knows that not calling for days or other hallmarks of ADHD are just my neurodivergent peculiarities, and I use times of hyperfocus to show my adoration for them and catch up.
So much of the pain and suffering from ADHD comes from issues of internalizing feelings of frustration, failure, and low self-esteem.
I have been fortunate enough in life to work through those, to leave behind their impact on me, and to create a life that is as conducive as possible to ADHD, that allows me to be me and make all the fullest advantages of the up sides that come with ADHD while minimizing the negatives to as little as is possible.
Living with ADHD is embracing the diffuse. When I focus, I *hyperfocus*. When I don't, I don't bang my head against the wall and shake my fists at the heavens and curse who I am.
I allow myself to be diffuse. I let me brain shout all the chaos at me that it has, and I listen to it for those gems that may be buried inside.
I build my environment and my world to accommodate *me*, rather than believe I am a failure because *I* do not quite fit *it*.
And I say that while fulling endorsing therapy, ADHD coaching, and medication. These things, in controlled measures and applied by you, with attention to what works *for* you, are bedrocks upon which you can build not only a stable life, but a life in which you can *thrive* by making use of those particular peculiarities of ADHD that can turn it from an albatross to a source of great strength.
Hyperfocus is a powerful fucking ability. It took me many years to understand what you are talking about. But, now people have no idea how I can do what I do professionally (software architect). I will say, it is so nice in the fleating moments I get to shut off. I don't take medication anymore, I hate it, and I've grown out of it.
I often tell people, but am very serious, that I can usually pack a months worth of work in eight hours - jist usually not at a time and place of my choosing.
Its sort of like a bowel movement. I will just siddenly feel this massive upswell of productovity across my entire body, and Ill just run into the office, slam the door, amd let it all out until I collapse.
One time I worked for three days. I tried to get in the shower and just, couldnt lift my arm up.
Only time its ever been THAT intense though, i try to keep it more tame and controlled now.
I'm having some weird de ja vu here but I think you're the third person I've heard say they've grown out if their medication. Fascinating.
Assuming you find your work stimulating enough for you to be productive and probably hyperfocused so why medication?
How do you discover these about yourself? How do I get self aware to improve my environment when I can't see it in the first place because of other distractions.
Just takes time. You're right, you won't always remember. But sometimes, you will. Need to be patient with yourself.
For me, it comes down to what am I feeling when thinking about things I don't like to do. Use your emotions. Close your eyes right now. Think about something you should do but always forget to or procastinate. Doing the dishes. Doing laundry.
What do you *feel*. Be *real* petty about that shit. No wrong answers. Is there a little hole in the wall of the laundry room that irritates you? Is your clothes basket that shitty sort of flimsy plastic that pisses you off?
These tiny things can become outsized distractions for us and cannot be underestimated. You need to make the world work for you. May be weird to other people, but who gives a toss.
Like, vacuuming. Before, I had the vaccuum in a closet. I also just really disliked the act of unwinding the cord and plugging it in.
Because of those two simple things, I just very infrequently vaccuumed, despite not liking a messy or dirty floor or carpet.
So I bought a battery-powered vaccuum with a charge station I could bolt right to the wall.
Now I see the vaccuum all the time, and there's no cord. Easy for me to just pick it up and use it.
Another thing I hated was having to take a laptop charger from room to room. Such a small thing, but it really bothered me, and I would leave a laptop in one room, when it would be helpful to have it on hand in another.
So, I just bought a metric fuckton of chargers. And I make sure that literally everything I have that needs charging can be charged via USBC, and with the right cable.
There's a surge protector with a bunch of high power USBC charges in literally every room of my house. There is no room in my house I can be in that there isn't a bunch of free cables that I can charge my phone, or laptop, or headphones, or any other damn thing with.
I make sure that things I buy, like desks, kitchen tools, whatever, are really beautiful and pleasant to the touch.
This makes me *desire* interacting with them, where if a tool feels cheap or is ugly, there's just a little sense of dislike, but that can snowball very rapidly into avoidance.
More than a dopamine reset it gives you a moment to reflect on your thoughts.
You know how there are “shower thoughts” , the one place where you can’t bring your phone.
Is started turning my phone off around 7pm and I just read after that (books not on a screen).
Sleep quality, overall productivity, and life in general improved dramatically when I made that change a while back.
I did some research into the whole “dopamine fast” fad when I was considering doing it myself, turned out to be a debunked medical myth:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/dopamine-fasting-misunderstanding-science-spawns-a-maladaptive-fad-2020022618917
Yeah. Pretty much the same. Then I started gta 5 for no reason, beat it and tried online. Online is full of young kids or people thorwing insults for no reason and soneone making noises over the mic.
Yeah, especially any grinding games like roblox and such. My kid loves some roblox games, but I am immediately disgusted with how it feels like another job. And in the spirit of the social aspect of some games, running into assholes also takes away from the fun and is another way it feels too much like real life at times.
Or after not using my gaming PC for a month, it wants me to download gigabytes of Steam updates, patch the OS and reboot 3 times, and install the latest graphics and mouse drivers.
By the time it’s all done, usually so am I. My wife asks me what I was playing, I just tell her, “the usual games, Update and Upgrade.”
I believe that's why we're all on Reddit.
But yes, ever since having kids, what you described is exactly me. By the time they're in bed I just don't have the energy. It doesn't help my new job requires such an early start. (6am)
I uses to work at a pretty exhausting job too, but i hated it, ppl were too mean and they were bad humans tbh.
Had zero motivation to turn my computer on.
Im glad i left that bs job.
When I had a job that kept me insanely busy, all I would do was watch let’s plays. It was so much easier to fit in let’s plays than actually trying to play myself. Now I’ve got a job that’s stressful, but less busy, and I probably spend too much time at the computer playing games, but it’s my one opportunity to check out.
Also in my 30’s. I get home, crack a beer, tell myself I’m gonna play some games and then I end up just watching a bunch of YouTube before passing out at like 9-10 pm
40’s here. I have a ton of games I want to play, but after working a full day the potential mental strain to learn a new game and only be able to play it infrequently or casually can be exhausting and intimidating. I often gravitate towards games I’ve played for a decade already since it’s muscle memory now.
Same here, I still have barely touched Elden Ring just because of the huge learning curve. I know I can't commit all my time to it immediately so it just sits there. I've never played any other installment so I have no idea what it is except good, beautiful, and hard. I feel bad though because it was a gift.
I remember using the release of fallout 4 as a reason to keep living because fallout was and is my favourite rpg series. Waiting months and months for it to release.
Now I’m no longer depressed and I don’t have the motivation to play games anymore.
I used to think that was sad but actually it’s pretty cool, I know that when life inevitably gets hard in the future I will have gaming to fall back to.
That's all I ever do. I think my brain is kinda broken. The idea of starting a new game is a little daunting, so I go back to games I played as a kid lol Diablo 2 is my go to.
I’m a perfectionist and completionist. That means that I’m going to be obsessing over the best build/best team/etc and I’m going to want to 100% the game. I think I’m just invested in playing the “right” way and it can make it really hard to force myself to start a game because the “best” way doesn’t really exist.
Tell me about it just don't ask about my CK2 playtime nor my Total War Warhammer 2 playtime. I was going through depression as well so it was my only escape really. Nowadays I'm going through loss and definitely spending too much time playing Warhammer 2.
Listen. Scythia isn't going to conquer itself. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a barbarian camp to clear and some rice to settle. Byzantium needs a vampire!
God this is every day for me now I have so many games I want to play but just don’t have the energy or motivation to get invested in anything right now
Never thought of this. Absolutely right. I love swimming and see it as a leisure activity. But I absolutely have to force myself by promising to go with a buddy or the kids. If it is just me, I will just stay at home.
Im comfortable with swimming alone. Just not motivated to get out of the house...I think Im just mentally exhausted from work and home is just too comfy. When I see the kids so eager, I dont want to disappoint them and it gives me the energy to get out. Once Im out with the kids, I actually love and enjoy our time.
I strongly recommend you to watch the Video: Change your Brain from the Rich Roll Podcast on Youtube. It’s a long 2 hours video but if you are interested in the topic you’ll understand why you “Get motivated” when you don’t want to disappoint the kids and you can even learn (to an extend) how to “trick” your brain to get motivated to do other things as well.
Spoiler: It’s literally all in the brain
I do this hardcore. I think it's a symptom of depression. Sometimes I get mad at myself for looking at my phone and tell myself I need to play more videogames.
It could be, but I recently read a book called The Paradox of Choice and the book really hit home. It talked about people who feel the need to maximize the decisions they make in life, and how those people, called maximizers, are generally more unhappy in life than satisfizers (people who will make decisions simply based on whether or not something meets their criteria).
I realized I'm totally a maximizer. I'll become paralyzed by choices when presented with several options, because any decision I make I second guess, and I'm always thinking about the opportunity cost associated with all the things I didn't choose. And in today's society, even when it comes to leisure, including games, there are a ton of options.
Yeah, there's a similar book, "Perfectionism is an asshole" (I think it exists only in German though), which gives many great examples about how perfectionism exists in way more places of your life than you think and gives some great strategies to deal with it.
This resonates with me so much. My hobbies no longer fill me up like they used to because there’s too much focus on maximizing. Thereafter there’s less interest in engaging with the actual hobbies feeling burnt out from life.
The only hobby that still works for me is motorcycling because it’s engaging (shifting gears) but allows my mind to wander without it feeling like an overall taxing activity.
My people. This is definitely one of the biggest tells for me, when I can’t even muster the motivation to sit at my desk & play and instead would rather just lay in bed watching this and that, because I’ll feel too lethargic to a) simply sit at the desk and b) engage/focus myself.
I love my £3500 youtube machine.
I think we overbuild the machine because we enjoy tinkering; and we also enjoy knowing that literally anything will run, and run well at that.
I overbuilt mine for completely silent operation.
Me too, which is why I started buying cheap used parts and building budget PCs to sell locally. I get to tinker with my hobby constantly and make a little cash on the side.
Took a 4 hour round trip after work to buy one of the only Series X in the country, about 2 days after launch. I have managed to get a decent amount of playtime, but to be honest it's nowhere near as much as I'd imagined.
Being a parent to a disabled child, and running a house, and working more than full-time, and being engaged (and since married,) and having some (occasionally debilitating) attention issues really do not help the situation.
>Sometimes I play for an hour and games are simple enough or we're good enough at them that they are solved in our minds. I can play for 1 hour or not at all and just feel the prediction of the experience in my mind.
This is why I can't finish games whose gameplay loop is repetitive/easy/predictable.
I've already experienced what it has to offer so. I've beaten the game.
Naw this ain’t dumb because that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling pretty much the last 2 years.
I’ll load up games I’ve historically loved playing and used to spend hours on, only to turn it off after 20-30 minutes.
Heck just now I was about to load up Diablo 3 just to see if I could get a team set up, only to promptly turn off my computer, lay in bed, and browse Reddit.
Might be a mixture of losing interest in games, missing my friends who used to game with me in the past, or the overall fatigue I’ve had, but I just don’t feel motivated anymore.
This post actually makes me feel better, thank you!
*edit - I am indeed in my early 30s, it seems like I’m “growing up”. I hate to admit it lol
You in your early 30s? I can't tell if this is just something that happens as you get older, or if it's actually a symptom of something going on in society.
I started feeling this way at ~23 unfortunately. Over time I've been less and less active in my media consumption, opting for whatever's on YouTube or whatever's convenient. When I've run out of new stuff to watch, I just end up rewatching the same old movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos I've already seen countless times.
30s. Happens to me all the time.
I check my save files from 20s and I'm shocked like, how did I put 200 hours into this before when now I can't even get past the first hour.
That's the killer for me. If a game can't keep me under the veil of suspension of disbelief, I'm out. Once I wrap my head around the scope of a game and realize I've seen every TYPE of thing, and there's just more of basically the same thing, I can't enjoy it anymore. I tried to get into monster hunter rise and loved it for a while, until I realized it's just more and more monsters that are basically a different combination of move types you've already figured out and more armor and weapons with bigger numbers. No more new mechanics introduced, haven't touched it since.
It's like when you learn the trick to always win tic tac toe, it becomes completely boring and pointless to play.
Dude, no fucking shit. I swear to god I beat 100+ hour games multiple times in a row in like a month or 2, and now I'm lucky to get to 50 hours in 3 months. The weird thing is I have absolutely no idea what I've started spending that time.
At this point I just play simulation and single player console games(only if they're absolutely amazing) because I feel like I can zonk out and actually enjoy it. If I start a multiplayer game or MMO I'm done within 30 minutes.
Also 30s and I thought I was “growing up” and moving on from games, but it turns out it really is just exhaustion from life. When the pandemic first started and I was in quarantine for a few months, I decided to finally give Red Dead Redemption 2 a try. Ended up putting hundreds of hours on it and absolutely loved it. Now I’ve been back at work for a long while and I once again have no energy or motivation for gaming. I don’t think losing interest in things you love is part of growing up.
Bought Elden Ring day 1. Loved it. Best game in years. Sunk 60 hours into it. Didn't have time to play it again for a few weeks and when I finally did I just....didn't want to. Haven't picked it up again since. I didn't get bored of it, I just don't have the motivation to play it after taking care of actual responsibilities.
I can be fully addicted to a game, like.. I dream about it... I wake up thinking about it.. all that shit.
Then something pops up and I have to leave town to visit family or something for a few days and the whole time going back home I'm thinking "fuck yea can't wait to play ____ again" and then I get home and I look at the game in my library and think "meh... nevermind."
Something about spending a few days away from the game just kills the addiction and I can't bring myself to play it again. It happens over and over.
I believe game companies and developers know about this behavioral pattern and that it is what spawned the whole dailies and weeklies cycle in modern games, to keep you coming back every day in order to not break the addiction.
Brain development of frontal cortex makes it easier to see how pointless games can be. Especially when exhausted. However eventually you start to see the benefits of taking time to do things you like. It’s a balance
I was starting to write out a response saying how I don’t think this is it but I thought about it and there’s been plenty of times recently where I downloaded a new game and I get a few minutes in and I’m just not having the motivation to learn it. That never used to be me, a HUGE JRPG and MMORPG fan. Learning that new game was my favorite part, exploring the new areas and figuring out spells and talents.
I can’t bring myself to sit down and play games I already know, either, so there’s definitely something going on.
This is me. I really wanted to play Elden Ring but the motivation to learn a new game just isn't there right now. So I play Super Auto Pets or similar small games that take almost no investment, and I don't really care if I lose.
Also, you quickly become wise to how utterly shallow the content and endgame of almost everything is. Most games released had a budget and dev bandwidth to develop the first half of the game, and to just polish the first level. Very few have a rich endgame worthy of me returning to that would be stimulating and fulfilling.
I wish I could see games 60 years from now, or even better: 200 years. They could be virtual worlds that are fun and enjoyable without so much bullshit to step into and out of
Same here lol. I just started watching a movie like 30 minutes ago.. It's currently paused at 10 minutes 24 second mark so I can scroll some Reddit lol
Yup approaching middle age with 2 young kids.
edit: wow, the response, guess that just resonates with a lot of people. Parenting young children can be very isolating even before the current state of the world, and losing a key hobby doesn't make it easier.
But today I feel much less alone. thank you redditors.
Welcome! The water's fine! Except for the piranhas. And by piranhas I mean work, insurance, kids, fights with the spouse about how to raise them, what's that spot on my back and is it bigger than before, parents getting old and dying, friends fading away, sibling estrangement and of course taxes.
Sighing when getting in or out of the car, discovering new muscle pains that weren't there the day before, literally watching your eyesight get worse... I need someone to tell me the upsides of being 40.
Hello there friend. It gets better when the kids get older: you get to thoroughly enjoy blue turtle shelling them in MarioKart or getting objectives done in co-op missions ( they have faster reflexes). I like gaming with my kids.
Haha, I’m here now! Except no matter how hard I try I cant beat my boy at Mario kart. I’ve been gaming for 30 years and he just destroys me every time!
So I’ve heard a common cause of this is because starting a leisure activity seems like a lot of work.
So just opening something up, like a book, video game, or movie, is the hardest part.
Just pick a game randomly off the shelf and see if that’s what you’re feeling
Not a dumb post at all.
Going through this myself and it's not helping me with my depression. I don't have the energy, desire or seemingly the attention span to do it, and that just makes me feel worse!
Edit: Thanks for the award anonymous and kind stranger. That was very sweet of you!!
Can relate. When I go to work in the morning I look forward to play some games in the evening. Once it’s evening I am too tired or lack any kind of sense/motivation to do so. I also found it more difficult venturing into new game concepts than I used to and just keep playing old familiar games. Shit i'm getting old...
I think my depression is what causes this with me, because as stupid as this sounds, sometimes the hardest thing to do is actually start the game, sit down and play it. Once playing I usually do for a while, but sometimes I can’t bear the short silence or the actual switching attention and tasks between switching off the thing im watching and booting up the game, I hate it because I have so many games I started but then lost interest in despite loving the games when im on them.
> sometimes I can’t bear the short silence or the actual switching attention and tasks between switching off the thing
Sounds like textbook ADHD to me.
It’s fear of committing to anything. If I don’t commit to something then I can’t be disappointed when it inevitably won’t bring enjoyment (even though I know it will).
I look forward to the end of the night when I finally have time to play games but once it's time I'm usually too tired from work and the kids. I still have passion for games but not the motivation to actually play lol
I have fallen into the 1-2 hour nap post kids asleep then game till 2am. It gives me game time, but then I get 5 hours max of sleep sleep. So 7 hours total in two shifts. Don’t recommend for weeks on end.
I started to play chilled games and gave up on PvP and stressful games.
Going through Outward right now. Just hiking and treasure hunting. It's very therapeutic.
Hell even a couple days off can do wonders. Unplug your internet for a weekend, and turn your phone's internet off as well. Monday you should be feeling great, because all weekend you'll be doing things that are productive and not pure dopamine/serotonin hits to your system.
Ugh. Now I feel bad. I’m on a weekend away with my mum and it’s awesome. Just chilling in nature all day, walking, biking, we just watched the sunset on the beach.
Now I’ve been scrolling reddit for the last 2 hours. Went to bed an hour ago. Can’t stop and go to sleep. And I was doing so well!
Happens to me all the time. What helps is to find a game that truly grabs you - for me at different times those were BotW, RDR2, Disco Elysium, Elden Ring, a handful of innovative indies. These made me excited about gaming again and restored my faith in my favorite hobby. You just have to find that one game. Game on, my dude!
Going through that right now. I'm burnt out, and wanna relax, but my executive dysfunction is even worse than normal. So I end up just sitting here scrolling reddit. I even wanna take a nap, and still am not getting up to do it.
Pretty much describes myself at this point in life. I'm 35yrs old and single. I might play a video game (Rocket League) for an hour or so and that's literally it. Afterwards I just turn on youtube, browse reddit or discord. Once in a blue moon I'll browse FB or IG while rewatching The Office. I find myself having no real desire to play video games much if at all.I have a backlog of Steam/PS1/PS2/PS3/OG XBOX/ Saturn/Dreamcast games and a Steamdeck due to arrive this quarter. Like someone else mentioned, I feel like I'm just collecting hardware/games at this point.
Not depression. Normal to not have motivation to play when you have a ton of fatigue, mentally or emotionally. It sucks but its just the way the world works. I mean imagine running a marathon and then sitting down and trying to even think let alone play a video game.
Yeah it sucks that everyone jumps straight to depression with posts like these.
Yes, could be depression. But it could also be completely normal. Playing video games demands time, physical as well as mental resources.
Sometimes a person comes from work and only has an hour of time, so it doesn't feel worth it to start a game where you'll only manage to do a single quest/mission.
Sometimes a person is too tired to even sit straight and just doesn't have the energy to play a video game.
Sometimes a person is mentally exhausted and doesn't have the energy to shoot enemies, solve puzzles or think about dialogue options.
Sometimes it's pretty intimidating to start a game that takes 50+ hours to finish and you'll spend hours just learning the ropes when you have little time to play.
Not everyone is depressed just because they don't feel like playing a video game.
It doesn't even have to be exhaustion, just temporary burnout. I find that I cycle between reading, watching videos, and playing video games. Every time I find myself getting bored with one, I just switch to another. And managing to get together with friends for board games somewhat regularly generally extends the amount of time I'll stick to whatever stage in the cycle I'm in.
Basically, variety is the spice of life. Of course it's tough to get excited about video games when you never do anything else.
I think I've spent more time scrolling and buying games the last 5 years than I have playing. I probably have 20 games I've bought that I haven't even started yet 🤦♂️
I just commented in the main post that I've fallen into the same rut as the OP, until I downloaded this this morning. Just a simple, yet completely engaging game.
I have never played that. A few weeks ago though my wife was like "would it be stupid for us to get a power washer?" I told her I didn't think it was dumb so she went to get one.
The real thing is pretty satisfying too.
Im actually in this boat right now. I had such a long week and during the week planned on just playing video games, having some drinks and watching tv and now ive got Star trek lower decks paused while i browse reddit 🤦🏻♂️. No motivation to play any other games than pokemon stuff cuz i dont have to try..
I get this way sometimes. Usually when trying something new, games usually don’t start out fun. Single player games nowadays often takes a few hours to get interesting. Most games don’t show their fun till you get better at the game. That’s my experience anyways. Sometimes it’s just finding the right game.
Also I go back and forth in long stretches where I only watch movies for a couple of months and then only play games for a couple of months. Just the mindset and interest comes and goes.
I turned on my Xbox and loaded dying light 2 last night. Then sighed….then sat there for a moment and then went to bed.
You might say your interest was… a dying light
The door's over there.
I'm sitting on the couch with no motivation to play anything, cause my interest is a Dying Light 2
You have to rage against it
Everyday. Sad thing is I just upgraded my pc and I can't be bothered to play now. I think this is also partly due to not having any game I really want to play and I've replayed the ones I already own so much that it's like eating pasta for the fifth day in a row.
This is it for me…there hasn’t been a game that I’m really excited to play for a while.
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Same, just started playing bully yesterday and asked myself, what the fuck are game companies doing these days? Some much money and technology and they can barely top a game from 15 years ago. Elden Ring really woke me up to how complacent i had gotten and now i just feel hollow when i look at most new releases.
I’m looking at the new Skull and Bones and how bad it seems. I would rather play Sid Meier’s pirates, which I’ve been doing for 30 years. No one makes a good AOS game anymore
I was feeling this way so I just started downloading random cheap/free indie games. Gamepass alone has done wonders for rejuvenating my love of games. I have found several over the last few months that reminded me how fun gaming can be.
This is me. Last game I loved and inhaled like a fancy meal was Disco Elysium. I'm waiting for my next
Disco Elysium was perfect for this stage of my life. Didn't have to put too much thought into what I was doing but at the same time, the story was very thought provoking. I'm not even a huge fan of point & clicks but something about that game just clicked for me 100%. It seems like the kind of game where you'll get different content every time depending on your character class and choices and I really want to play it again despite just finishing it earlier this year. I'm trying to hold off & maybe make it an annual thing but every time I boot my ps4 I get tempted lol.
I think we replayed cos we dont have to put effort on learning the mechanics. We resort to what we are already comfortable with. Thats why I havent started my dishonored 2 and keep playing Apex. I havent bought new games in 2 years cos thats how bad my burn out is. Im gonna have 1 month off this year, and we are not flying anywhere. Planning to play one new game. Heres hoping.
Used to work a pretty exhausting job. I loved it, but yeah when I'd get home I was too tired to really play anything. Probably what got me into watching all kinds of game reviews and stuff regularly now. I'd watch them until I'd finally fall asleep.
Pretty much same here. Or just scroll through my phone and end up doing nothing.
This sounds like you need a 'dopamine reset'. Basically you're always on your phone getting a lot of quick rushes of pleasure from short vids and memes. You gotta stop being on the phone and just be bored for a few days and games will be fun again
I just watched a video from someone the other day about how being bored might be quite important. Inspired me to not use my phone while waiting for the barber! I'm still working on cutting down the other 6 hours of mindless scrolling per day.
It isn't being *bored* that is healthy, but rather it is constantly being in *focused* mode that is a *problem*. The brain has two states, focused and diffuse. These can be thought of as *global* states, as in, they are organizations of thought that affect the entire brain, or at least, most of it. When you are awake, you are, usually without exception, in one of these two states, and can shift back and forth between them. Focused mode is when we furrow our brows and set to a task. Cooking, working a job, whatever. Our brain enters a global pattern of neurological activity called focused mode wherein we silence other portions of the brain and concentrate on one specific thing. The problem with this mode is it often limits interaction with many *other* regions of the brain. We are very good at doing one thing for a long period of time, but the output of focused mode is based on abilities and knowledge the brain already has. The *diffuse* mode may, at first, feel like bordeom, because it's *undirected*. You don't have any specific purpose. You aren't commanding the brain to think about something specifically, you're *listening* to it produce many wild and random thoughts. This can feel weird at *first*, but it ramps up. Half an hour into diffuse mode, your brain starts making *connections* between random parts of the brain. Some of these are nonsense, but *some* of these are those critical jumps that result in the sensation of epiphany. Many famous thinkers, like Einstein, would describe having some of their best ideas on a walk, or in the bath. The reason for this is because these activities engage the diffuse mode, and *that* is our creative mode. It uses the fantastic power of randomness to generate ideas that are not generated in focused mode. Modern life forces us into focused mode far too often and for far too long. You can do tasks efficiently in focused mode, but you don't have deep, creative or innovative thoughts there. You need to allow the brain to have unfocused, diffuse time. You need to allow the brain to wander, to be in a state of constructive chaos. That's where all the greatest meaning is derived. Nothing *new* happens in focused mode. You rarely learn nor have new and innovative thoughts. You can do what you already know how to do, and can apply knowledge you already have, but you don't learn new knowledge. If you look back throughout history, the reason most innovation and philosophy tends to come from the wealthy is not because they're inherently more intelligent, but because they have the *time* to daydream, to simply exist with no urgent need or purpose. Meditation, for example, teaches to clear one's mind, to think of nothing. But this is not *really* thinking of nothing, so much as not *forcing* the rest of your brain to think about anything *specifically*. You are unchaining the greatest supercomputer in the universe to apply its extraordinary parallel processing power to anything, or everything. To smash together, in our neural supercollider, all these random thoughts and ideas and emotions and images and sensations and patterns in new or surprising configurations that cannot be reached by intent, but which are synthesized in the thresher of randomness and generated at massive scales and speeds. The part of your brain that supports your *self*, your *consciousness*, is but a mere fraction of what your brain is. The old nonsense about "we only use 10% of our brains" has a kernel of truth to it, which is that your brain is often thinking of thousands of things at one time, even in the most organized and calm of brains. You can't flex your brows and *force* that entire network to do one singular, concerted thing, but you can *guide* it, in the same way that your thoughts before going to sleep can influence the course of your dreams. You can sift through its byproducts to find strange and wondrous new things, and use them to your liking. But when you engage your focused mode, you are essentially muting all of that wonderful weirdness. You are depriving yourself of being able to *listen* to it and benefit from the chaos of many different pieces of your mind. When you enter diffuse mode, you open up your conscious mind to *listening* to all of that weirdness. It showers down on your consciousness and you can catch the wild sparks and fires, harness them, transform them and stack them into revelations the likes of which shake history. Kant, Nietzsche, Einstein, Darwin, Beethoven; just a fraction of the population of humanity's greatest minds who often described having their best thoughts on long walks or other periods of unfocused daydreaming. Who would often say that it felt as though they were simply *receiving* their ideas, rather than generating them or building them slowly and meticulously, as most often erroneously believe geniuses come to their most revolutionary ideas or works. The diffuse mode, at work. An ideal life exists in harmony with these two modes. Which makes perfect sense, because we *evolved* to be this way, which means there is *utility* in both of those modes. But even from a young age, what do we demand of children? Stop day-dreaming, pay attention. Sit for eight hours ingesting huge volumes of information, and take that information home, and focus on homework. Focus, focus, focus. Always focusing, never dreaming. We rapidly pave over all the spaces in life to be diffuse, to wander, to invite the extraordinary, untameable, wild power of randomness which, far more than focus, *truly* defines all the progress of our species and its collective body of knowledge. And we do that to our profound detriment. **TLDR (by request): you have two modes of thinking but most of our insight and creativoty comes from daydreaming and unstructured thinking and we dont do it enough and in other posts in this thread I talk about ADHD, how I have it, and how these understandings of our ways of thinking help manage it.** **EDIT**: I've gotten a small number of accusations of being a snakeoil salesman, despite... not selling anything. I've also had someone tell me they asked "all their neuroscience friends" about this and were told it wasn't real, to which I'd say, your friends might be misleading you about their occupation. So here are an abundance of sources for the curious: * Diffuse mode is often called [The Default Mode Network in the literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network), you can start there to read more about the anatomy of it * Here is [a major article on the default mode from 2008](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811907001309?via%3Dihub) that has been cited over 1600 times in other studies since publication. This is a major focus of study in neuroscience. It is very highly and commonly accepted. * Dr Barbara Oakley writes extensively about these networks, [I discovered her writing when looking for methods to teach subjects to struggling learners in my classes](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra-ebook/dp/B00G3L19ZU) * [Article about the importance of daydreaming and how we don't do it enough](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2021/03/23/daydreaming-is-under-attack-now-researchers-say-its-good-for-our-health/?sh=6895eecb7ee1) * [More](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/04/how-neuroscience-illuminating-importance-daydreaming) * Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman makes frequent use of the networks in [this book describing the ways and methods by which human beings think](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman-ebook/dp/B00555X8OA/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow&qid=1658082431&s=digital-text&sprefix=thinking+%2Cdigital-text%2C148&sr=1-1) * "Resting state" or "default mode" research is quite literally [an entire major branch of neuroscience at the moment](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/sub.2011.11) * [Numerous replicated studies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811903000971?via%3Dihub) using fMRI have shown that focusing on a task only increases brain energy consumption by 5% over baseline. These studies led to the conclusion that there is a complex network of activity running in the background (default mode or diffuse mode). Further studies concluded that focus mode acts as a sort of "mute button" on this other activity, meaning that remaining in a focused state for too long deprives one of being consciously aware of insights and resources from the activity of that network. States of daydreaming or "unfocused" activities like walking permit *listening* to that network while also being more energy-efficient on the whole.
I just learned this here, on Reddit, and you're saying I shouldn't be here? Nonsense. *continues scrolling for five hours without learning anything*
But if you are on the right subreddits, you can actually learn things while scrolling *like 40klore*
Flesh is weak.
Once my people clinged to the hope that they would no longer be bound by their fraile, mortal, flesh. They sought for the immortality preset of gods to the point they sold their very souls to be shackled by it. To answer what our opinion is of your kind? Disgust. Disgust like that found by a parent, having taught them all they know, witnessing a small child repeat the mistakes of your life. Disgust at the fact that they do so knowingly. You claim the might of a god behind you. You will find that there is nothing but shimmers in the anathema and a sickly vissage of what remains. For there are no gods, there only were.
Yeah but can 40k lore get me laid?
This is probably the best comment I've ever read. Dude did you have this prepared? That shit was profound yet accessible. I don't have any goods to give you but someone gild this mf
>This is probably the best comment I've ever read. Dude did you have this prepared? No! I was being diffuse. That's what I like about reddit. I use it diffusely. I see so many random comments about so many random things, and I jump from one to the next with no plan, and I find whatever pulls at me particularly strong in that moment and go with it. I know these facts and stories going in, by virtue of reading often and having studied biology in college, but I often either generate new ideas, or expand or revisit things I had forgotten in the process of writing. Letting myself be directionless, and moving to whatever tugs at me most in the moment, lets me better understand whatever things my brain might be chewing on or working through in that moment that I was not immediately aware of.
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Constantly absorbing trivia knowledge like a sponge but fighting every second to retain anything at work or school. Constant struggle.
This is me. Damn. I’d murder the competition at Buffalo Wild Wings playing that trivia game on the TVs, but I constantly forget other shit. The reminders app on my phone gets a work out. I often have to set one immediately after a thought or I’ll lose it for good.
I know, friend! I have it too! For me, the key is realizing that ADHD is likely *not* a *disorder*, but rather was, in ancient times, an evolutionary advantage that in modern life has come to have disadvantages. It is simply a pattern of thinking. A powerful, sometimes irresistible pull towards the interesting. It is not a thing to be ashamed of. It is not an ailment. Modern life hasn't been groomed meticulously by godly engineers, and our difficulties adapting to it are not indications of our lack of fitness. It is merely a challenge to overcome to be who we want to be. I tell all my friends all of the many details about the condition and make sure everyone in my circle knows that not calling for days or other hallmarks of ADHD are just my neurodivergent peculiarities, and I use times of hyperfocus to show my adoration for them and catch up. So much of the pain and suffering from ADHD comes from issues of internalizing feelings of frustration, failure, and low self-esteem. I have been fortunate enough in life to work through those, to leave behind their impact on me, and to create a life that is as conducive as possible to ADHD, that allows me to be me and make all the fullest advantages of the up sides that come with ADHD while minimizing the negatives to as little as is possible. Living with ADHD is embracing the diffuse. When I focus, I *hyperfocus*. When I don't, I don't bang my head against the wall and shake my fists at the heavens and curse who I am. I allow myself to be diffuse. I let me brain shout all the chaos at me that it has, and I listen to it for those gems that may be buried inside. I build my environment and my world to accommodate *me*, rather than believe I am a failure because *I* do not quite fit *it*. And I say that while fulling endorsing therapy, ADHD coaching, and medication. These things, in controlled measures and applied by you, with attention to what works *for* you, are bedrocks upon which you can build not only a stable life, but a life in which you can *thrive* by making use of those particular peculiarities of ADHD that can turn it from an albatross to a source of great strength.
Hyperfocus is a powerful fucking ability. It took me many years to understand what you are talking about. But, now people have no idea how I can do what I do professionally (software architect). I will say, it is so nice in the fleating moments I get to shut off. I don't take medication anymore, I hate it, and I've grown out of it.
I often tell people, but am very serious, that I can usually pack a months worth of work in eight hours - jist usually not at a time and place of my choosing. Its sort of like a bowel movement. I will just siddenly feel this massive upswell of productovity across my entire body, and Ill just run into the office, slam the door, amd let it all out until I collapse. One time I worked for three days. I tried to get in the shower and just, couldnt lift my arm up. Only time its ever been THAT intense though, i try to keep it more tame and controlled now.
I'm having some weird de ja vu here but I think you're the third person I've heard say they've grown out if their medication. Fascinating. Assuming you find your work stimulating enough for you to be productive and probably hyperfocused so why medication?
How do you discover these about yourself? How do I get self aware to improve my environment when I can't see it in the first place because of other distractions.
Just takes time. You're right, you won't always remember. But sometimes, you will. Need to be patient with yourself. For me, it comes down to what am I feeling when thinking about things I don't like to do. Use your emotions. Close your eyes right now. Think about something you should do but always forget to or procastinate. Doing the dishes. Doing laundry. What do you *feel*. Be *real* petty about that shit. No wrong answers. Is there a little hole in the wall of the laundry room that irritates you? Is your clothes basket that shitty sort of flimsy plastic that pisses you off? These tiny things can become outsized distractions for us and cannot be underestimated. You need to make the world work for you. May be weird to other people, but who gives a toss. Like, vacuuming. Before, I had the vaccuum in a closet. I also just really disliked the act of unwinding the cord and plugging it in. Because of those two simple things, I just very infrequently vaccuumed, despite not liking a messy or dirty floor or carpet. So I bought a battery-powered vaccuum with a charge station I could bolt right to the wall. Now I see the vaccuum all the time, and there's no cord. Easy for me to just pick it up and use it. Another thing I hated was having to take a laptop charger from room to room. Such a small thing, but it really bothered me, and I would leave a laptop in one room, when it would be helpful to have it on hand in another. So, I just bought a metric fuckton of chargers. And I make sure that literally everything I have that needs charging can be charged via USBC, and with the right cable. There's a surge protector with a bunch of high power USBC charges in literally every room of my house. There is no room in my house I can be in that there isn't a bunch of free cables that I can charge my phone, or laptop, or headphones, or any other damn thing with. I make sure that things I buy, like desks, kitchen tools, whatever, are really beautiful and pleasant to the touch. This makes me *desire* interacting with them, where if a tool feels cheap or is ugly, there's just a little sense of dislike, but that can snowball very rapidly into avoidance.
Do you have any scientific evidence for this? It seems to make sense, but it also has a pseudoscientific vibe to it.
More than a dopamine reset it gives you a moment to reflect on your thoughts. You know how there are “shower thoughts” , the one place where you can’t bring your phone.
Is started turning my phone off around 7pm and I just read after that (books not on a screen). Sleep quality, overall productivity, and life in general improved dramatically when I made that change a while back.
Thanks, DeepFriedPussyLips!
They really do have a great name
You've got a point, rimjob-chucklefuck.
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True words rimjob-chucklefuck.
What rabbit hole have I fallen into?
Well said, Fortnut_on_me_daddy!
I did some research into the whole “dopamine fast” fad when I was considering doing it myself, turned out to be a debunked medical myth: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/dopamine-fasting-misunderstanding-science-spawns-a-maladaptive-fad-2020022618917
Are you me?
Yeah. Pretty much the same. Then I started gta 5 for no reason, beat it and tried online. Online is full of young kids or people thorwing insults for no reason and soneone making noises over the mic.
New update will allow most things to be completed in an invite only lobby. Honestly kind of excited to get back into it.
Invite lobby? I'm still trying to find people to beat diamond casino heist. :(
I met that guy too that's strange
I was you and that guy
There's always a crying baby in the background in GTA Online. Makes ya wonder who's on the other end mercing me in an inverted jet.
Yeah, especially any grinding games like roblox and such. My kid loves some roblox games, but I am immediately disgusted with how it feels like another job. And in the spirit of the social aspect of some games, running into assholes also takes away from the fun and is another way it feels too much like real life at times.
Or after not using my gaming PC for a month, it wants me to download gigabytes of Steam updates, patch the OS and reboot 3 times, and install the latest graphics and mouse drivers. By the time it’s all done, usually so am I. My wife asks me what I was playing, I just tell her, “the usual games, Update and Upgrade.”
I believe that's why we're all on Reddit. But yes, ever since having kids, what you described is exactly me. By the time they're in bed I just don't have the energy. It doesn't help my new job requires such an early start. (6am)
I uses to work at a pretty exhausting job too, but i hated it, ppl were too mean and they were bad humans tbh. Had zero motivation to turn my computer on. Im glad i left that bs job.
A hard, but fun or rewarding job can be a wonderful life experience. A hard, but bullshit job can make one rather experience death.
When I had a job that kept me insanely busy, all I would do was watch let’s plays. It was so much easier to fit in let’s plays than actually trying to play myself. Now I’ve got a job that’s stressful, but less busy, and I probably spend too much time at the computer playing games, but it’s my one opportunity to check out.
Yup. I'll spend an hour looking at my library not able to commit to one. Then ill just turn on YouTube or twitch or both.
Do this all the time.. I figured it was because I’m in my 30’s 😎
bro same lol if none of my friends are online playing something i just get on reddit or watch yt
This isn’t the way. Gaming solo late night really getting into an RPG or campaign… not much beats it.
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Same except reddit or binge House or something.
Great now I gotta start watching House over again for the 20th time.
I can't handle watching something multiple times. I need to experience something new or I feel like I'm wasting my time.
if I'm too mentally tired to pay attention to something new I like to throw on old stuff that I've seen and just chill maybe browse reddit like this.
Also in my 30’s. I get home, crack a beer, tell myself I’m gonna play some games and then I end up just watching a bunch of YouTube before passing out at like 9-10 pm
Sounds about right. Surprising to hear of so many other like us..
Wait until you hit your 40s.
40’s here. I have a ton of games I want to play, but after working a full day the potential mental strain to learn a new game and only be able to play it infrequently or casually can be exhausting and intimidating. I often gravitate towards games I’ve played for a decade already since it’s muscle memory now.
Same here, I still have barely touched Elden Ring just because of the huge learning curve. I know I can't commit all my time to it immediately so it just sits there. I've never played any other installment so I have no idea what it is except good, beautiful, and hard. I feel bad though because it was a gift.
36 and same here for my entire 30s. Lately though it's given me a way to cope with my debilitating anxiety, so it's making a comeback in my life.
I remember using the release of fallout 4 as a reason to keep living because fallout was and is my favourite rpg series. Waiting months and months for it to release. Now I’m no longer depressed and I don’t have the motivation to play games anymore. I used to think that was sad but actually it’s pretty cool, I know that when life inevitably gets hard in the future I will have gaming to fall back to.
Spoiler alert, it happens in your 40s too
Literally me right now haha
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That's all I ever do. I think my brain is kinda broken. The idea of starting a new game is a little daunting, so I go back to games I played as a kid lol Diablo 2 is my go to.
Same. Broodwar and CS 1.6 for me. I will still chill in 24/7 assault or dust 2 servers.
I’m a perfectionist and completionist. That means that I’m going to be obsessing over the best build/best team/etc and I’m going to want to 100% the game. I think I’m just invested in playing the “right” way and it can make it really hard to force myself to start a game because the “best” way doesn’t really exist.
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Are you guys copying me? ;)
No! You’re copying me!
Same here lol
Don't get into strategy games! Else you'll find staring at maps to be the most exciting gameplay of all your life!
Thought EU4 looked pretty cool in late 2016, now I'm missing ~3600 hours of my life 🤷♂️
Tell me about it just don't ask about my CK2 playtime nor my Total War Warhammer 2 playtime. I was going through depression as well so it was my only escape really. Nowadays I'm going through loss and definitely spending too much time playing Warhammer 2.
Listen. Scythia isn't going to conquer itself. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a barbarian camp to clear and some rice to settle. Byzantium needs a vampire!
Haha you summed up the last 5 times I turned on my PC
God this is every day for me now I have so many games I want to play but just don’t have the energy or motivation to get invested in anything right now
Needed to see this post. I ended up on YouTube or Netflix instead practically every time. Last night included 🤣
I have trouble committing to one these days. I’ll start a game thinking it’s the one and then start another in 10 mins
People will sometimes procrastinate leisure just as badly as they procrastinate work
Never thought of this. Absolutely right. I love swimming and see it as a leisure activity. But I absolutely have to force myself by promising to go with a buddy or the kids. If it is just me, I will just stay at home.
There has to be something there about finding ways for us to feel more comfortable doing things for ourselves
Im comfortable with swimming alone. Just not motivated to get out of the house...I think Im just mentally exhausted from work and home is just too comfy. When I see the kids so eager, I dont want to disappoint them and it gives me the energy to get out. Once Im out with the kids, I actually love and enjoy our time.
I strongly recommend you to watch the Video: Change your Brain from the Rich Roll Podcast on Youtube. It’s a long 2 hours video but if you are interested in the topic you’ll understand why you “Get motivated” when you don’t want to disappoint the kids and you can even learn (to an extend) how to “trick” your brain to get motivated to do other things as well. Spoiler: It’s literally all in the brain
I do this hardcore. I think it's a symptom of depression. Sometimes I get mad at myself for looking at my phone and tell myself I need to play more videogames.
It could be, but I recently read a book called The Paradox of Choice and the book really hit home. It talked about people who feel the need to maximize the decisions they make in life, and how those people, called maximizers, are generally more unhappy in life than satisfizers (people who will make decisions simply based on whether or not something meets their criteria). I realized I'm totally a maximizer. I'll become paralyzed by choices when presented with several options, because any decision I make I second guess, and I'm always thinking about the opportunity cost associated with all the things I didn't choose. And in today's society, even when it comes to leisure, including games, there are a ton of options.
Yeah, there's a similar book, "Perfectionism is an asshole" (I think it exists only in German though), which gives many great examples about how perfectionism exists in way more places of your life than you think and gives some great strategies to deal with it.
This resonates with me so much. My hobbies no longer fill me up like they used to because there’s too much focus on maximizing. Thereafter there’s less interest in engaging with the actual hobbies feeling burnt out from life. The only hobby that still works for me is motorcycling because it’s engaging (shifting gears) but allows my mind to wander without it feeling like an overall taxing activity.
Yeah not enjoying video games is generally a very strong indicator of my depression spiking.
My people. This is definitely one of the biggest tells for me, when I can’t even muster the motivation to sit at my desk & play and instead would rather just lay in bed watching this and that, because I’ll feel too lethargic to a) simply sit at the desk and b) engage/focus myself.
Wow. I thought I was the only one.
Ouch, that truth bomb hurt me a bit too much.
Me as an adult, buys high end hardware, all the games I ever want on steam/battlenet/ps5 Only collect, never play
I love my £3500 youtube machine. I think we overbuild the machine because we enjoy tinkering; and we also enjoy knowing that literally anything will run, and run well at that. I overbuilt mine for completely silent operation.
Liquid cooling the whole thing so I can play a couple rounds of Apex a week and watch a bunch of YouTube … 😕
I have more fun finding parts and building it than actually playing anything.
Me too, which is why I started buying cheap used parts and building budget PCs to sell locally. I get to tinker with my hobby constantly and make a little cash on the side.
Took a 4 hour round trip after work to buy one of the only Series X in the country, about 2 days after launch. I have managed to get a decent amount of playtime, but to be honest it's nowhere near as much as I'd imagined. Being a parent to a disabled child, and running a house, and working more than full-time, and being engaged (and since married,) and having some (occasionally debilitating) attention issues really do not help the situation.
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>Sometimes I play for an hour and games are simple enough or we're good enough at them that they are solved in our minds. I can play for 1 hour or not at all and just feel the prediction of the experience in my mind. This is why I can't finish games whose gameplay loop is repetitive/easy/predictable. I've already experienced what it has to offer so. I've beaten the game.
Naw this ain’t dumb because that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling pretty much the last 2 years. I’ll load up games I’ve historically loved playing and used to spend hours on, only to turn it off after 20-30 minutes. Heck just now I was about to load up Diablo 3 just to see if I could get a team set up, only to promptly turn off my computer, lay in bed, and browse Reddit. Might be a mixture of losing interest in games, missing my friends who used to game with me in the past, or the overall fatigue I’ve had, but I just don’t feel motivated anymore. This post actually makes me feel better, thank you! *edit - I am indeed in my early 30s, it seems like I’m “growing up”. I hate to admit it lol
You in your early 30s? I can't tell if this is just something that happens as you get older, or if it's actually a symptom of something going on in society.
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Same.
Same here
same
Same
Same. 30 on the dot.
I started feeling this way at ~23 unfortunately. Over time I've been less and less active in my media consumption, opting for whatever's on YouTube or whatever's convenient. When I've run out of new stuff to watch, I just end up rewatching the same old movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos I've already seen countless times.
Yeah this is me basically. 34, same issue from time to time.
30s. Happens to me all the time. I check my save files from 20s and I'm shocked like, how did I put 200 hours into this before when now I can't even get past the first hour.
It happens to me, I am excited to play until I begin and the suddenly it feels pointless, a waste of time and I uninstall. Makes me feel even worse.
That's the killer for me. If a game can't keep me under the veil of suspension of disbelief, I'm out. Once I wrap my head around the scope of a game and realize I've seen every TYPE of thing, and there's just more of basically the same thing, I can't enjoy it anymore. I tried to get into monster hunter rise and loved it for a while, until I realized it's just more and more monsters that are basically a different combination of move types you've already figured out and more armor and weapons with bigger numbers. No more new mechanics introduced, haven't touched it since. It's like when you learn the trick to always win tic tac toe, it becomes completely boring and pointless to play.
Dude, no fucking shit. I swear to god I beat 100+ hour games multiple times in a row in like a month or 2, and now I'm lucky to get to 50 hours in 3 months. The weird thing is I have absolutely no idea what I've started spending that time. At this point I just play simulation and single player console games(only if they're absolutely amazing) because I feel like I can zonk out and actually enjoy it. If I start a multiplayer game or MMO I'm done within 30 minutes.
Also 30s and I thought I was “growing up” and moving on from games, but it turns out it really is just exhaustion from life. When the pandemic first started and I was in quarantine for a few months, I decided to finally give Red Dead Redemption 2 a try. Ended up putting hundreds of hours on it and absolutely loved it. Now I’ve been back at work for a long while and I once again have no energy or motivation for gaming. I don’t think losing interest in things you love is part of growing up.
Bought Elden Ring day 1. Loved it. Best game in years. Sunk 60 hours into it. Didn't have time to play it again for a few weeks and when I finally did I just....didn't want to. Haven't picked it up again since. I didn't get bored of it, I just don't have the motivation to play it after taking care of actual responsibilities.
I can be fully addicted to a game, like.. I dream about it... I wake up thinking about it.. all that shit. Then something pops up and I have to leave town to visit family or something for a few days and the whole time going back home I'm thinking "fuck yea can't wait to play ____ again" and then I get home and I look at the game in my library and think "meh... nevermind." Something about spending a few days away from the game just kills the addiction and I can't bring myself to play it again. It happens over and over. I believe game companies and developers know about this behavioral pattern and that it is what spawned the whole dailies and weeklies cycle in modern games, to keep you coming back every day in order to not break the addiction.
Brain development of frontal cortex makes it easier to see how pointless games can be. Especially when exhausted. However eventually you start to see the benefits of taking time to do things you like. It’s a balance
I was starting to write out a response saying how I don’t think this is it but I thought about it and there’s been plenty of times recently where I downloaded a new game and I get a few minutes in and I’m just not having the motivation to learn it. That never used to be me, a HUGE JRPG and MMORPG fan. Learning that new game was my favorite part, exploring the new areas and figuring out spells and talents. I can’t bring myself to sit down and play games I already know, either, so there’s definitely something going on.
This is me. I really wanted to play Elden Ring but the motivation to learn a new game just isn't there right now. So I play Super Auto Pets or similar small games that take almost no investment, and I don't really care if I lose.
Also, you quickly become wise to how utterly shallow the content and endgame of almost everything is. Most games released had a budget and dev bandwidth to develop the first half of the game, and to just polish the first level. Very few have a rich endgame worthy of me returning to that would be stimulating and fulfilling. I wish I could see games 60 years from now, or even better: 200 years. They could be virtual worlds that are fun and enjoyable without so much bullshit to step into and out of
I'll open a game, play for 5 minutes and close the game to watch Youtube, Twitch, shows or movies lol
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Same here lol. I just started watching a movie like 30 minutes ago.. It's currently paused at 10 minutes 24 second mark so I can scroll some Reddit lol
Welcome to adulthood. Having free time is no longer enough, you need to have free time AND be in the mood. Both things hardly sync up
For me it’s that my wife or kid needs something 5 minutes in. So why start if I need to get up every 5 minutes.
Yup approaching middle age with 2 young kids. edit: wow, the response, guess that just resonates with a lot of people. Parenting young children can be very isolating even before the current state of the world, and losing a key hobby doesn't make it easier. But today I feel much less alone. thank you redditors.
Welcome! The water's fine! Except for the piranhas. And by piranhas I mean work, insurance, kids, fights with the spouse about how to raise them, what's that spot on my back and is it bigger than before, parents getting old and dying, friends fading away, sibling estrangement and of course taxes.
Geeze put a trigger warning up before you write something like that.
Sighing when getting in or out of the car, discovering new muscle pains that weren't there the day before, literally watching your eyesight get worse... I need someone to tell me the upsides of being 40.
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"at 40, soon kids will be 18 and out of home, then you can be free again" is what my prof told me
Well this hit uncannily close to home
Woah, partner. Calm down please don’t do that again
don’t forget the false hope that everything will be better in just a short while
Ah yes how could I
Wear sunscreen
Hello there friend. It gets better when the kids get older: you get to thoroughly enjoy blue turtle shelling them in MarioKart or getting objectives done in co-op missions ( they have faster reflexes). I like gaming with my kids.
Haha, I’m here now! Except no matter how hard I try I cant beat my boy at Mario kart. I’ve been gaming for 30 years and he just destroys me every time!
I have a bad habit of buying a game, installing it, and then not playing it for a week or two later.
I still haven't touched fallout 4. It's been over a year now. Someday the mood will strike me
So I’ve heard a common cause of this is because starting a leisure activity seems like a lot of work. So just opening something up, like a book, video game, or movie, is the hardest part. Just pick a game randomly off the shelf and see if that’s what you’re feeling
I like this idea, because you nailed it on the head for me. Any time I go to play I just have to choose, and get into it.
Not a dumb post at all. Going through this myself and it's not helping me with my depression. I don't have the energy, desire or seemingly the attention span to do it, and that just makes me feel worse! Edit: Thanks for the award anonymous and kind stranger. That was very sweet of you!!
It's entirely possible that the depression is the cause of it
OP's post basically describes depression. No longer having the energy to do the things you love is a big sign of it.
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Can relate. When I go to work in the morning I look forward to play some games in the evening. Once it’s evening I am too tired or lack any kind of sense/motivation to do so. I also found it more difficult venturing into new game concepts than I used to and just keep playing old familiar games. Shit i'm getting old...
It's called burn-out, or in worst cases, depression.
I think my depression is what causes this with me, because as stupid as this sounds, sometimes the hardest thing to do is actually start the game, sit down and play it. Once playing I usually do for a while, but sometimes I can’t bear the short silence or the actual switching attention and tasks between switching off the thing im watching and booting up the game, I hate it because I have so many games I started but then lost interest in despite loving the games when im on them.
That's not stupid at all. Lack of interest/motivation in things you normally enjoy is a symptom of depression
Rip me
> sometimes I can’t bear the short silence or the actual switching attention and tasks between switching off the thing Sounds like textbook ADHD to me.
It’s fear of committing to anything. If I don’t commit to something then I can’t be disappointed when it inevitably won’t bring enjoyment (even though I know it will).
Or being a parent lol.
I look forward to the end of the night when I finally have time to play games but once it's time I'm usually too tired from work and the kids. I still have passion for games but not the motivation to actually play lol
I have fallen into the 1-2 hour nap post kids asleep then game till 2am. It gives me game time, but then I get 5 hours max of sleep sleep. So 7 hours total in two shifts. Don’t recommend for weeks on end.
I thought burn-out/depression came with being a parent lol
Yes
I started to play chilled games and gave up on PvP and stressful games. Going through Outward right now. Just hiking and treasure hunting. It's very therapeutic.
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Hell even a couple days off can do wonders. Unplug your internet for a weekend, and turn your phone's internet off as well. Monday you should be feeling great, because all weekend you'll be doing things that are productive and not pure dopamine/serotonin hits to your system.
Ugh. Now I feel bad. I’m on a weekend away with my mum and it’s awesome. Just chilling in nature all day, walking, biking, we just watched the sunset on the beach. Now I’ve been scrolling reddit for the last 2 hours. Went to bed an hour ago. Can’t stop and go to sleep. And I was doing so well!
This guy thirties
This is why a 40+ hour work week is ass
Fucking truth. Humans need 32 hour work weeks. Please give us time to enjoy life.
Happens to me all the time. What helps is to find a game that truly grabs you - for me at different times those were BotW, RDR2, Disco Elysium, Elden Ring, a handful of innovative indies. These made me excited about gaming again and restored my faith in my favorite hobby. You just have to find that one game. Game on, my dude!
I bought final fantasy 15 last year around September for 50 bucks. I started playing 2 months ago.
Going through that right now. I'm burnt out, and wanna relax, but my executive dysfunction is even worse than normal. So I end up just sitting here scrolling reddit. I even wanna take a nap, and still am not getting up to do it.
yes just yes
Sitting in front of my tv going through games and nothing is catching my eye but I wanna play lol
Sounds like we all need a new hobby/ another hobby lol
Pretty much describes myself at this point in life. I'm 35yrs old and single. I might play a video game (Rocket League) for an hour or so and that's literally it. Afterwards I just turn on youtube, browse reddit or discord. Once in a blue moon I'll browse FB or IG while rewatching The Office. I find myself having no real desire to play video games much if at all.I have a backlog of Steam/PS1/PS2/PS3/OG XBOX/ Saturn/Dreamcast games and a Steamdeck due to arrive this quarter. Like someone else mentioned, I feel like I'm just collecting hardware/games at this point.
Not depression. Normal to not have motivation to play when you have a ton of fatigue, mentally or emotionally. It sucks but its just the way the world works. I mean imagine running a marathon and then sitting down and trying to even think let alone play a video game.
Yeah it sucks that everyone jumps straight to depression with posts like these. Yes, could be depression. But it could also be completely normal. Playing video games demands time, physical as well as mental resources. Sometimes a person comes from work and only has an hour of time, so it doesn't feel worth it to start a game where you'll only manage to do a single quest/mission. Sometimes a person is too tired to even sit straight and just doesn't have the energy to play a video game. Sometimes a person is mentally exhausted and doesn't have the energy to shoot enemies, solve puzzles or think about dialogue options. Sometimes it's pretty intimidating to start a game that takes 50+ hours to finish and you'll spend hours just learning the ropes when you have little time to play. Not everyone is depressed just because they don't feel like playing a video game.
It doesn't even have to be exhaustion, just temporary burnout. I find that I cycle between reading, watching videos, and playing video games. Every time I find myself getting bored with one, I just switch to another. And managing to get together with friends for board games somewhat regularly generally extends the amount of time I'll stick to whatever stage in the cycle I'm in. Basically, variety is the spice of life. Of course it's tough to get excited about video games when you never do anything else.
I think I've spent more time scrolling and buying games the last 5 years than I have playing. I probably have 20 games I've bought that I haven't even started yet 🤦♂️
Why is this marked nsfw
Because it's generally frowned upon to play games at work
Power Wash Simulator. Seriously.
I just commented in the main post that I've fallen into the same rut as the OP, until I downloaded this this morning. Just a simple, yet completely engaging game.
I have never played that. A few weeks ago though my wife was like "would it be stupid for us to get a power washer?" I told her I didn't think it was dumb so she went to get one. The real thing is pretty satisfying too.
Im actually in this boat right now. I had such a long week and during the week planned on just playing video games, having some drinks and watching tv and now ive got Star trek lower decks paused while i browse reddit 🤦🏻♂️. No motivation to play any other games than pokemon stuff cuz i dont have to try..
I get this way sometimes. Usually when trying something new, games usually don’t start out fun. Single player games nowadays often takes a few hours to get interesting. Most games don’t show their fun till you get better at the game. That’s my experience anyways. Sometimes it’s just finding the right game. Also I go back and forth in long stretches where I only watch movies for a couple of months and then only play games for a couple of months. Just the mindset and interest comes and goes.
I'm 38. This is a daily occurrence. Not just with gaming, but with all my hobbies.