When did you stop playing games for fun.

When you reach a certain age you stop living in the moment and start focusing on winning more then fun. The concept of loosing was not ever in your mind when playing. Your mentality shifts. I have a hard time to give an exact date or game but I think it was around The Legend of Zelda to the NES. I think I was 9.

I know this looks sad but I still enjoy games. It’s not black and white.

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Songcaller

I haven't ever really played for fun. The mega drive instilled a steely disposition because you couldn't save progress and my parents used to turn the console off each night. Thus, speed runs became my bread and butter. Prior to that I was in competition with my brother and later with my girlfriends and friends. I feel I need for competition to thrive in games.

daveywavey

When games stop being fun, I generally stop playing them. What's the point?

Nerror

If you replace "fun" with "engaging", then never. The game doesn't need to make me smile, just to engage and preferably challenge me. If I don't feel engaged, I don't play it.

Sunboy

daveywavey wrote: »

When games stop being fun, I generally stop playing them. What's the point?

Let me rephrase. When did you stop thinking about games as only games.

VekoKrava

We all enjoy games in our own ways, although I am almost certain that try hard competitive players are ruining MMO genre, to start off from economy, I think they use every bit of hole there is in every new system for their profit, I seen economy collapsing so many times in WoW due to that reason.

As well as for open world activity games such as New World or some similar game that has some kind of open world non shared participation for reward - they will utilize every bit of effort into going around logical gameplay ways into highly speed rushing play for profit kind of mentality, the same way they ruined chest runs in New World they will ruin every open world shared participation content in every other MMO.

I do not want to mention for example casual random BGs in WoW... How many times I got angry because some people cannot control themselves and start poking me or other people because of their competitive drive... Why did Suares bite another football player when he did not have any other way to stop him from achieving goal, why do some footballers make foul on purpose.... (you may say it can be done to stop player and get a yellow card, but from integrity perspective - is it nice to do that?)

If you look from competitive perspective everything can become a reason to do if it serves your needs, but if you look from integrity and virtue point, you realize that there is more to the world then what you may see as a highly competitive person...

So yea, I try to not become selfish competitive player, instead I focus on having fun in MMOs whatever that means...

Songcaller

VekoCrnogorac wrote: »

How many times I got angry because some people cannot control themselves and start poking me or other people because of their competitive drive...

I find the comment ironic.

VekoKrava

I think that they are just making community different then it should be, and I think from bigger point then my compulsive drives, I get angry because everyone is involved in making new era how it should be, not the way it is now, and their actions make me angry because I realized we could enter new world era because of internet, but instead of us being rational, many are dangerously compulsive about things.

Azherae

I stop playing games when they stop being fun, does that count?

Even by your definition of fun, I'm blessed in that I've never really gone down that path too much. I'll push through frustrating 'stuck' parts, because it's hard for game designers to be perfect, so a few pain points are expected.

But things that are explicitly designed in ways that are not fun, or even when I can tell that the optimal method for something isn't fun for me, don't get a lot of my time.

I don't care about losing, I care about the times when 'playing the way I want to' isn't a thing the game really 'allows', which means that for competitive games, I can equally easily 'enjoy losing 0-50' because I'm having fun, or 'hate winning 20-0' because my opponent refuses to let the contest be enjoyable.

So I think that for me specifically, IF this ever changed, it was for some relatively short period when I was very young, and changed back at some point.

Ludullu

The games are fun BECAUSE I play them to win or to compete or to even just get all the achievements. Otherwise I wouldn't be playing them.

Sunboy

Azherae wrote: »

I stop playing games when they stop being fun, does that count?
.

Of course it counts but I was thinking more of when the abstract concept of fun began to blur and not the more emotional fun.

But reading your post. You should consider yourself blessed and lucky.

Sunboy

NiKr wrote: »

The games are fun BECAUSE I play them to win or to compete or to even just get all the achievements. Otherwise I wouldn't be playing them.

Big tru! ❤️

Azherae

Sunboy wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I stop playing games when they stop being fun, does that count?
.

Of course it counts but I was thinking more of when the abstract concept of fun began to blur and not the more emotional fun.

But reading your post. You should consider yourself blessed and lucky.

Yeah I think so. Can you clarify more of your definition of it, though? My group members would probably be glad to throw in their data too.

The definition of fun I usually use when designing games is related to my fortune in life.

"Fun is expressing your self/style in order to face a challenge that can be overcome."

This applies whether the challenge is set by yourself (such as a game that is technically unbeatable, but you can challenge yourself to reach a high score/high skill level) or by the game.

In my perspective, if a game is just 'pattern matching trying to find the way the designer wanted you to do it', and you can't express your own style, it can be 'entertaining' and even 'engaging' but I don't call it 'fun'. Similarly, if the game gives absolute style freedom but no goals at all and you don't have any way to use your style to distinguish your outcomes from anyone else's (basically everyone arrives at the same outcome) it's a leisure activity like... knitting, or 'walking on a beach', but not 'fun'.

I'm pretty interested in your perspective on it. But if this is getting too deep or derailing, just ignore me.

Sunboy

Azherae wrote: »

Sunboy wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I stop playing games when they stop being fun, does that count?
.

Of course it counts but I was thinking more of when the abstract concept of fun began to blur and not the more emotional fun.

But reading your post. You should consider yourself blessed and lucky.

Yeah I think so. Can you clarify more of your definition of it, though? My group members would probably be glad to throw in their data too.

The definition of fun I usually use when designing games is related to my fortune in life.

"Fun is expressing your self/style in order to face a challenge that can be overcome."

This applies whether the challenge is set by yourself (such as a game that is technically unbeatable, but you can challenge yourself to reach a high score/high skill level) or by the game.

In my perspective, if a game is just 'pattern matching trying to find the way the designer wanted you to do it', and you can't express your own style, it can be 'entertaining' and even 'engaging' but I don't call it 'fun'. Similarly, if the game gives absolute style freedom but no goals at all and you don't have any way to use your style to distinguish your outcomes from anyone else's (basically everyone arrives at the same outcome) it's a leisure activity like... knitting, or 'walking on a beach', but not 'fun'.

I'm pretty interested in your perspective on it. But if this is getting too deep or derailing, just ignore me.

No no I like these conversations sometimes. You wanted my definition of fun? Well.. if you want me to quantity it simply then it would be when I smile. Not a fancy answer but I think sometimes easy questions have easy answers.

Voxtrium

Sunboy wrote: »

When you reach a certain age you stop living in the moment and start focusing on winning more then fun. The concept of loosing was not ever in your mind when playing. Your mentality shifts. I have a hard time to give an exact date or game but I think it was around The Legend of Zelda to the NES. I think I was 9.

I know this looks sad but I still enjoy games. It’s not black and white.

All of my friends make fun of me for being a try hard. Something I have always tried to explain is that I am playing the only way I know how, I am not actually trying hard. I also find trying hard to be fun though, and I absolutely disagree, winning is fun but so is losing, just depends on the reasons behind each.

Dolyem

When games become chores, I stop playing them. Otherwise being competitive is very fun to me, hence my focus on PvP. As long as everything I am doing feels like I am accomplishing something I am happy. Once they becoming annoying and repetitive I tend to leave, unless those things allow me to become better in other fun aspects of the game.

Solvryn

Sunboy wrote: »

When you reach a certain age you stop living in the moment and start focusing on winning more then fun. The concept of loosing was not ever in your mind when playing. Your mentality shifts. I have a hard time to give an exact date or game but I think it was around The Legend of Zelda to the NES. I think I was 9.

I know this looks sad but I still enjoy games. It’s not black and white.

I've always play games with efficacy in mind, so I'm always having fun and I'm always winning.

Sunboy

Voxtrium wrote: »

Sunboy wrote: »

When you reach a certain age you stop living in the moment and start focusing on winning more then fun. The concept of loosing was not ever in your mind when playing. Your mentality shifts. I have a hard time to give an exact date or game but I think it was around The Legend of Zelda to the NES. I think I was 9.

I know this looks sad but I still enjoy games. It’s not black and white.

All of my friends make fun of me for being a try hard. Something I have always tried to explain is that I am playing the only way I know how, I am not actually trying hard. I also find trying hard to be fun though, and I absolutely disagree, winning is fun but so is losing, just depends on the reasons behind each.

Im not sure what statement you disagree with but let me counter argument if its the firtst statement i made. We are born with a blank slate. You grow up up learning things and develop more and more consciousness as time go. For example, toddlers and dogs give love unconditional, they do not question the reason behind things. Dogs like to chase things and toddlers like other things. They just are. But we are not dogs and develop a more complex consciousness of morality, reason, intelligence, etc. When this happens, not that its at a specific magic point but a gradual one, i do think that that it is then fun things becomes less pure. Example, Scoring a goal is fun but you also have things like, status, respect, honor, etc. Our brains cannot just turn these things off and go back to the pure fun we had. This is the fun im talking about. And its not black and white as i said before. And nobody is wrong for thinking their version of fun is wrong, my idea is certain so different from yours now when we have grown up that its hard to discuss the subject. But as i said to Azheare before, my definition of now fun is when i smile.

Much love and end of rant.

Voxtrium

Sunboy wrote: »

Im not sure what statement you disagree with but let me counter argument if its the firtst statement i made. We are born with a blank slate. You grow up up learning things and develop more and more consciousness as time go. For example, toddlers and dogs give love unconditional, they do not question the reason behind things. Dogs like to chase things and toddlers like other things. They just are. But we are not dogs and develop a more complex consciousness of morality, reason, intelligence, etc. When this happens, not that its at a specific magic point but a gradual one, i do think that that it is then fun things becomes less pure. Example, Scoring a goal is fun but you also have things like, status, respect, honor, etc. Our brains cannot just turn these things off and go back to the pure fun we had. This is the fun im talking about. And its not black and white as i said before. And nobody is wrong for thinking their version of fun is wrong, my idea is certain so different from yours now when we have grown up that its hard to discuss the subject. But as i said to Azheare before, my definition of now fun is when i smile.

Much love and end of rant.

I was disagreeing with "When you reach a certain age you stop living in the moment and start focusing on winning more then fun".

However fun for me is being challenged in the game but also playing with others and feeling relaxed while doing so. Perhaps fun is the same for me, when I have a smile on my face, or maybe just the feeling of contentment I get when I am enjoying the moment.

A few weeks ago I was playing space engineers with some friends, 2 moments where most memorable for me, the first when I crash landed our only space worthy vehicle into the moon and we survived by a hair and we all thought it was an epic moment. The next was not long after when all of us where doing our own farming up to build our base and chatting about random topics while gaming. No purpose, no winning, it was just fun and the game enabled that.

Vaknar

So, I think I understand what you're getting at here.

For me, it was when I got into competitive gaming and eventually Esports.

I struggle to play single-player RPGs these days despite how much I love them because it's easier for me to hop on and grind competitive in multiplayer games. Sometimes, I don't even have fun but rather just a drive to win when I do so

This is one of the reasons why I love MMORPGs so much. I get the best of both worlds

Atama

I only play games when they're fun. Or that's my goal.

There are times when I get into a routine of playing a game regularly, and eventually it feels like a chore that I need to complete every day, like taking out the trash or doing dishes. That's when I quit. Or at least take a break.

But no, I'm 45 years old and games never stopped being fun for me. I also don't play games to be competitive for the sole sake of winning. Games that only exist for that sake (like MOBAs) have zero appeal to me.

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