How many of you have moved on from PC gaming?

[PianoPlayer88Key]

I haven't voted on the poll yet, cause none of the options fit me....

 

Yes -- Not true, because I still game now and then.  (I actually have Team Fortress Classic (HL1/GoldSrc engine) running right now, connected to a server with the NeoTF mod, owning some bots with multiguns.)

 

No -- Don't feel this one fits me either, because I'm not really into much of the modern AAA titles.  Most games I play are older (like TFC mentioned earlier) or are casual games.

 

I was never into PC gaming -- The fact that I played dozens or hundreds of shareware games through much of the 1990s (some dating back to the 1980s) would be quite vocal with "LIES!" if I selected this option.

I'm not currently gaming as much as I used to.  My Steam profile currently says I've played 16.8 hours the last 2 weeks ... I remember several years ago (back in the early 2010s or so, I think) it was frequently above 40 hours, and I may have hit 60 or 80, idk.
I still play a little now and then, but, as I mentioned earlier, they are older or casual games.  My desktop's Intel HD Graphics 4600 would run them just fine, for the most part.

 

I've been interested some in trying a few newer games ...

but the learning curve would be a bit much for me (especially since I'm more used to the gameplay (both brain power and muscle memory, etc) of the older games I play,

I don't want to get involved with games that require dozens or hundreds of hours to progress through (I usually prefer 10 or 15 minute quickies, maybe sometimes an hour or so like I was just doing in TFC),  (One example... I got GTA V, cause I wanted to do some of the races I've seen people do on Twitch streams, and I wanted to be able to drive around the maps and explore in free explore mode or whatever ... but the game was trying to make me play through the story, do heists, thefts, or whatever, etc, which I have no interest in doing, so I fizzled out from trying that.  Also I'm guessing if I did get to the races, the gameplay would have been quite different from the last racing games I was used to - like Whiplash (from Apogee or whoever owns that name now), the original Need For Speed Hot Pursuit from the 1990s, etc.)
And I'm to the point where I really have other things I need to do with my life.  (I'm 40, have had trouble finding & keeping work, etc .... and while I don't think my past & current gaming is the main cause of that, I think it hasn't helped.)

[Avocado Diaboli]

14 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

My Steam profile currently says I've played 16.8 hours the last 2 weeks ... I remember several years ago (back in the early 2010s or so, I think) it was frequently above 40 hours, and I may have hit 60 or 80, idk.

I have similar numbers right now, always between 15-20 hours on the last 2 weeks counter. And I consider myself a pretty heavy gamer. But, you know, one with a job and other commitments and interests. Honestly, I feel like those are the number of hours you should have at the very most if you're not unemployed or gaming is your job. I love gaming but I can't understand people who would spend their entire free time playing games so they'd rack up play times that would rival my office hours. I'm not gonna call it unhealthy or something else along those lines, that'd be a baseless claim to make. But you know, variety is the spice of life and I wouldn't feel comfortable coming home from work and playing games until I go to bed only to repeat the cycle the next day.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

7 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

I have similar numbers right now, always between 15-20 hours on the last 2 weeks counter. And I consider myself a pretty heavy gamer. But, you know, one with a job and other commitments and interests. Honestly, I feel like those are the number of hours you should have at the very most if you're not unemployed or gaming is your job. I love gaming but I can't understand people who would spend their entire free time playing games so they'd rack up play times that would rival my office hours. I'm not gonna call it unhealthy or something else along those lines, that'd be a baseless claim to make. But you know, variety is the spice of life and I wouldn't feel comfortable coming home from work and playing games until I go to bed only to repeat the cycle the next day.

Totally agree, and I think I played too much back in the day, it held me back in some ways.
I remember seeing a few people on Steam that had like 150 or 200 hours  Like... how?!

Also my gaming kind-of has gone in ebbs and flows ... I might be gaming quite a bit for a few years, then not at all for a couple years, then playing too much for a few, not at all for a few (usually with a bit of a transition in between phases), etc.
A lot of that in the past has been because my dad has a habit of going a long time between upgrades, so the PC would be hopelessly outclassed for playing anything... and even then when it was new, would most likely have had nothing better than a GT 710's market position anyway, or maybe a GeForce 210 or 8400 GS.  (I'm comparing what his PCs had then, to what it would be like if you bought those GPUs today.)
Several years ago when I had my own PC, I had to take a break from gaming cause my PC died and I didn't have the $ to replace it.  (Yeah, I did play FarmVille on my dad's laptop quite a bit, but that's not quite the same.)
Currently, I've kind-of lost interest in it somewhat.  My iGPU could run the games I play just fine, but I don't play all that much, and am not really that much interested in many recent games for reasons I outlined earlier.

When I upgrade my PC (I need to, just torn between waiting for 2022-2024 so I can get a long-upgrade-life motherboard, so I can replace 2 or 3 SeaSonic Prime PSUs that are DOOA ("Dead Of Old Age" - dying within the warranty is "infant mortality" btw -- or another way to put it, be able to, until I've passed away of old age, upgrade the PC one part at a time, and not have to reset my OS) before replacing the mobo, vs upgrading now cause I'd like to shave tasks that takes months or days into minutes or seconds), I'm hoping to not get back into my past habits with gaming too much.
So I'd probably end up with like an x10 or x30 class GPU or an APU ... or maybe a Quadro or Radeon Pro based on the same silicon as an x60(0) Ti/XT to x80(0), if those would help with video encoding, or enable me to split up the resources (VRAM, cores, etc) to run multiple VMs off the same GPU.

[komar]

Even tho I voted "yes", I'm playing a few games on daily basis. Reason for my vote is, I no longer care about anything new. I even made a threat here, asking for MMORPG suggestions recently, and found out eventually that the reason I'm so picky is: I don't wanna invest time into learning a new game and I'm searching very similar to my current one which I'vee been around 15 years, actively playing for the last 7, know the ins and outs of 98% of the stuff and can beat almost anyone no matter their progression lvl (i'm mid tier). There is no way I get this same experience on anything else without investing hundreds of hrs and I no longer feel like doing smth like this.

The other reason is, I enjoy a lot more watching a playthrough of a new game I find interesting instead of actually playing. Big AC fan, last one I installed was Origins and played maybe 1hr before uninstalling it.

[Vangeli]

Still GPU-free all year (though 3090 FE pricing on eBay has dropped considerably; I don’t trust all of the “only used for gaming” descriptions with the sudden influx of cards available coinciding with the market crashes) and the Series X plays games very well. Not sure you can play Halo MCC at 4K HDR 120Hz on a PC that costs below $3k so I’m not too bent up about not PC gaming for the time being. Xbox is great.

[freeagent]

I have moved away from it. For two main reasons.. I cant get one.. and if I can get one its well over a thousand bucks to buy one, and that's not even for a good one..

 

When I was a little younger I would have. But I don't care how good the card is, how many frames I can get, or these cool new features. it is not worth the price, at least to me. A flagship card should be no more than 1000 bucks. A lot of suckers are paying double, triple, even quadruple that. That to me is crazy talk. Computers are just a hobby to me, and if I am going to get priced out of a hobby, I have others I can go back to. And honestly they are a little more fun lol.. 

[BuckGup]

I went a full 360 in the past 4 years. I used to game 8+ hours a day everyday for years. Then when I went to college I started hanging out with friends more and doing nefarious activities. But now I'm coming back to gaming as I find it to be very relaxing and an easy way to talk with your friends. It's much less than before but it's nice to have a balance of everything.

[da na]

On 7/11/2021 at 5:51 AM, IDK what to pick said:

im building a new PC and i need some advice . i tend to keep my desktops for a while 4-6 years ish so i need to to stay pretty top spec for that time and im wonder if i should make the trade of and bump my cpu down from a ryzen 7 5800x to a ryzen 5 5600x and get a 3080 im at a 3070 and i want to game at 4k max-high ish settings but i don't mind turning down the quality a bit if it means i can save a few hundred bucks. right so please help if you can or got any advice thanks and have a great day.

Go ask in another thread. This thread is not the place for that.

[TechnoLawyer]

I had for years moved to console gaming instead, but past few years have moved back to PC gaming. The move back was originally caused by the resurgence in isometric RPGs (I spent a gazillion hours in college playing BG1, BG2, IWD1, PST, IWD2, etc; yes, I'm old). 

 

When I play games on console now, it's usually with my kids. The degradation of my 2D platformer skills leaves me at around the same skill level as my 9 year olds, and I was always garbage at 3D platformers, so they're way better at me there (playing Hat in Time on co-op with them drives me nuts). We are evenly matched in Mario Kart too.

[ChurbleFurbles]

Video games are for children, they can best enjoy as they live through the lens of unlimited time.

[Man]

Generation Z and capitalism have ruined "real" PC gaming for me. 

 

As a 31 year old man I must say that capitalism has killed the very essence of video games. Games have become a product, as opposed to art. It's all about money, money, money and everyone seems to be trying to cater to younger audience because let's face it, that's where the money is! Just give them something graphically pretty with lots of bullets flying about or tons of flashy, cheap and cheesy hack and slash action and their little, developing brains will be more than happy. 

 

Who cares about A.I? Art direction? A sense of realism and accomplishment? It's a real shame that the game with the best A.I i.e F.E.A.R is now a decade and a half old. Kids don't want a challenge, simple as that, they'll throw their controllers at the T.V and then whine all over social media about how terrible and unforgiving the game is. 

 

Development times have gone up as well because it's not easy to create a 'pretty' game. Meanwhile, Obsidian managed to make Fallout: New Vegas, the best RPG on the planet, within 18 freaking months! It looks like shit, no doubt, but who cares? I've spent around 100 hours in NV and that without even touching the Legion side of things and a few DLCs!

 

Kids, huh?

Edited July 28, 2021 by Man

[MysticLTT]

To me, the games have only now reached the top quality, Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk, Death Stranding, and DLSS just got updated to 2.2, and the whole ray tracing. So no, it's only the beginning for me.

[BridgeBurner]

On 7/10/2021 at 10:37 PM, Roswell said:

Curious about the demographics here and wondering how many people have shifted away from the hobby for one reason or another. Whether it's for financial reasons, life happening, kids, losing interest or whatever, let me know!

 

Personally, I left the hobby -mostly- about 5 years ago, fully left it about 2 years ago. I realized that the stuff I was really playing or interested in were games on my Switch or emulating retro consoles. I think I just lost interest in the only thing that ever really captivated me on my PC, multiplayer competitive titles. I think I just got burned out and got tired of playing the same matches on the same maps over and over. I felt like there was never a sense of achievement. Contrast that with the single player pick up and play stuff on my Switch or retro games (think stuff up until PS2/GC era) and I end up feeling as if I can FINISH something along with the convenience of not being tied down to my desk.

 

What really sealed the deal for me was probably a financial situation. I had built the best of the best consumer build in 2013 (4770k/780 Ti/bunch of SSDs/etc) and it was aged to the point where it started to struggle with new stuff. At the same time I reeeeaaallllyyyy needed a new Mac for work. I started planning out a new desktop for gaming and a bottom spec MacBook 16 for work. It then dawned on me that I'm barely touching the desktop anyway and that It would be a waste of money. So I took the $4K I had budgeted for both and just went ham on the MacBook and I still don't regret it.

 

I'm now pretty happy just playing casually on Switch and emulating retro stuff on the MacBook. I guess a bonus is that if I reeeallllyyyy want to play a popular title that I still can since many of the eSport titles are compatible with Mac (or I can just bootcamp) and this one can handle gaming easily.

 

Anyway, what about you guys?

I find myself to be moving away from gaming in all forms but it isn't really by choice. Mostly its just a time thing. I still game when I can but I am more picky with what I chose to play with my limited time. I don't buy all the new releases and jump from game to game like I used to. Instead, I try to complete each game before moving on. With my most recent build I actually discovered that I like the hardware and building side of PCs more than the actual gaming. I think I have spent much more time benchmarking and tweaking settings than actually playing.

[Amias]

Game development has stagnated significantly the past few years. The industry is so starved for innovation the moment something good comes along it either gets ignored (love Subnautica and the world interactions, vehicles, exploration etc) or gets massively over saturated, (battle royal games, PUBG).

 

But no one plays with the format. Literally every BR game is a big map, weapons on the ground, and a circle that collapses into a point.

 

Give me a BR game only you know exactly where the circle is going to collapse to. Boom instant game change, do you land on the circle and hold ground defending it, or go else where, loot up then attack?

 

Give me a BR game where the circle move around the map, picking up speed, slowing down, etc. Then give me big ass lorries and moving trains the circle follows. Suddenly the games about getting vehicles and taking strategic points.

 

Moving outside of BR, give me a space ship game, only I don't want 18g spinning in circles shooting at moving boxes on my screen. I want a big ass spaceship I can walk round, have to maintain and repair, but more importantly fly into deep astroid caves, avoiding space mines. Slow, steady and impacting. Think the Cyclops vehicle in Subnautica in space (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgAh5FTcF-E (literally the best in game vehicle ever). You want combat? Give me the combat mechanics in World of Warships, in space, rather than the bore fest other space sims give me.

 

But no ... we get another corridor shoot fest for most single player games. Or we get a BR reskin. Or GTA V port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FRD]

Maybe not totally on-topic, but here's my perspective of it. I am and always was a console gamer, I never was a full fledged PC gamer. PC is just on the side for me. I had a gaming PC for years and just upgraded a lot of parts, but I still play on my console more. It's probably about the social aspect as well, I can connect with more on console. On PC it will be mostly solo/offline gaming, compared to online multiplayer on console. I do like PC gaming, but one day I might not be into it anymore. Maybe my job, getting a house or plans with girlfriend could drive me away. Other than that, my time will be much less in the future years.

 

Also, about gaming itself. I have times where I'm really into gaming and times where I decide to take breaks of days/weeks/months. You know, you can have days that you're entertained by every minute you play and days where you feel like nothing in-game is fun and it's just a grind or time waste.

[FrodoX570]

Multiplayer is infested with cheaters but also a lack of substance, it no longer matters much to me.

Single player games are fixed entertainment and some games allow you to tackle them in different ways so this is an OK way to game for me.

Otherwise my time is spent on learning, working and my family.