why most people don't finish video games

for me it's usually because the alter levels just become tedious;


"ok so he's mastered basics so just throw endless more men + some people who are just needlessly well armoured. This way it seems ahrder without us having to do do any cleaver map design or having smarter opponents just more of them"



then it's just a grind though massive numbers of dumb enemies and becomes pointless.
 
HangTime said:
However I think the perception may be that gamers are younger because younger people probably game for longer.
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I suspect it's really only because it's young gamers who post the most on BBSes. The youngsters have to remember that us old-timers grew up with gaming, and most people who start, continue. But I agree that the main reason that most games don't get finished is that the player loses interest in them. And not always because they are a grind as someone suggested, but for various reasons. I have games I have put weeks of play into, and others I've abandoned after one two hour session. I've played games so flawed that I've given up after minutes (step forward Two Worlds). But other games have swallowed hundreds of hours of play, because they are good enough to keep you interested: Bethesda are the masters here. I don't have a problem with grinding - in fact I play several games (like Sacred 2) which rely on it. But I have a problem with some FPSes, mainly due to skewed difficulty - but that's probably just me.


M
 
I probably finish more than I don't really. I think it's hard to put any specific reason because it can depend on a million factors with both the game and real life.

1. Time combined with difficulty to "pickup and play". X3 is a good example, awesome game but takes so much time and if you try to pick it up to play 3+ months later you've forgotten how. And spend the exist week re-learning everthing...

Arma2,Starcraft 2 are also examples of this.

2. Too many games. And they are still cheaper than they were back in the day. Especially with things like steam bundle sales. I've got a ton to even start playing past the first level.

3. Rubbish games. I'm looking at you Dragon Age 2!
 
Merlin5 said:
I've got 10 games on hold, 5 of which I haven't started. One is called 'Keepsake', a difficult point and click adventure, and my last save game is dated 2004, lol.
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who hoards savegames. I've probably got at least 30 games on hold (started and have at least a vague intention of going back to one day).

Act of War (2005)
Chrome (2006)
C&C Generals (2003)
DoW: Dark Crusade (2006)
DiRT (2007)
NFS:HP2 (2002)
FlatOut (2004)
GTA3 (2009, but that was picked up from a 2002 savegame after I took a 6.5 year break from it)
Midnight Club 2 (2006)
NOLF2 Contract Jack (2006)
Splinter Cell (2005)
System Shock 2 (2004)

Games like Halflife took me over 3 years to complete on the same savegame.

jakspyder said:
"The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 41" all the kids are pirateing because they cant afford to drop £40 minimum on latest games. And those kids also know that the £40 they are spending is for 2.5 hours of already seen before gameplay...
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Actually games are cheaper than ever in real terms from what I can see. Very rare you need to pay over £35 for a game these days, yet 15 years ago games still cost that much, in real terms games should be costing £50+ these days.

Rezident said:
Does anyone else find it tremendously comforting that the average age of a gamer is around 37 – 41? I’m 34 and while my gf is great, once we move in together, get married, kids etc. I was dreading the impact it might have on my gaming life. This makes me feel much better about the whole thing :)
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When I was a teenager I assumed I would grow out of games and become a 'responsbile adult' at some point; in fact when I got to about 16-17 I stopped asking my dad for games as presents because I felt that it would seem a bit childish.

Make no mistake about it though, moving in with a partner and having kids will impact on your gaming life. It will be much harder to sustain a 'serious' gaming schedule i.e. committing to being online for gaming within set hours etc.
 
I feel its mainly because we are spoiled for choice now and its so easily get hold of games.
Compared to 10, 15 years ago the main way to get a game was to simply go to the shop. Now we have games on demand with Steam etc and easily can play one game for a few hours or weeks and move onto a new release.
 
I haven't completed many of the latest games simply because I don't find them as engaging as I used to. Maybe I'm a bit older and played enough great games when I was younger, that the new stuff just seems too linear or treading on the same ground, I don't know. It takes a really good game for me to play it from start to finish. The last good game that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish was HL2. I've completed other games since, but some have felt like a real chore and others I didn't enjoy.
 
anuraj said:
I try and finish my games off. If I don't like them I won't. If I finish them somehow and not liked it very much gets uninstalled. It's as simple as that.
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I used to pride myself in finishing games.

But now I'm the opposite.

For one, I have a lot more games. Completing them all would take weeks.

But secondly, I'm a gamer approaching his 40th birthday. I've seen a lot of things (you people wouldn't believe).

When I play a game now two things happen.

1. I realise I've played something very similar before.
2. For most titles, I can tell pretty early on how grindy and how repetitive the game is going to be.

So I end up abandoning a lot of games, not because they're *bad*, but because I have zero tolerance for grinding out games that offer me a variation on a theme of something I've seen before.

Recently I just started playing Child of Light. After a couple hours, I know where this game is heading. The story is as old as the hills, and I know the gameplay is going to be incredibly repetitive. The skill tree looks decidedly dull. Ability X-1. Ability Y-1. Half way through the tree - Ability X-2. Ability Y-2. Same deal, bigger numbers.

I know that the gameplay loop is uninspired. The music is nice but fairly repetitive. I couldn't really care for the story.

So two to three hours is all it gets. It's not a *bad* game, but why waste time with it when I could find something new. Something original. Something unique; memorable.

Something with a killer soundtrack or an awesome story.

Something that makes me laugh. Anything.

Everything else gets two or so hours before going back on the shelf, marked "Seen enough".
 
blueshift said:
Get rid of bosses, and spots where your trapped and enemies keep spawning and rush you, and stupid dificulty spikes, and a lot more people would complete them gaming is supposed to be fun, not a chore.
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Never play Super Meat Boy then. Some people enjoy the challenge of a grind. I've completed Super Meat Boy to 106%. It was horrible at times, but overall it was fun.
 
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I've always been on and off with completing games. I think for me it comes down to three things:

1. The game becomes tedious and repetitive.
2. The narrative has completely lost me.
3. Getting stuck at a point and not being able to overcome it.

As a kid during the PS1/PS2 days whenever I got frustrated or got to the point where I couldn't get past a specific point in the game, I'd use a cheat cartridge and boost my level or something to help me continue. That way I could experience the end of the story which was often all I wanted. It was handy for really tedious JRPGs back in the day if the story didn't grip me enough to put up with the weird and wonky game mechanics.

They prevented things like this when the PS3/360 arrived, and so I have a lot of games I've just never finished because I can't be bothered putting up with the gameplay to see out the story.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
nope the reason for me is single player is often 99.9 boring. regardless of money spent. multiplayer is where real people live. where fun is. thats my op on it.
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And where all the lamers, hackers and cheats are. This is EXACTLY what has put me off multiplayer.
Especially the “premium” or “season pass” games where you unlock every damned weapon from the start, giving you a mahoosive advantage over players who don’t spend the extra. It can turn noobs into pro’s (with the right weapon).
No thanks, single player and co-op with immersive story for me. Games like wildlands that are constantly supported offer endless hours of gaming without idiots ruining it for you.
 
blueshift said:
Get rid of bosses, and spots where your trapped and enemies keep spawning and rush you, and stupid dificulty spikes, and a lot more people would complete them gaming is supposed to be fun, not a chore.
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Games in general are far far easier than they have ever been. Unless you play on hardest level it's simply a matter of playing through. Even puzzle games are a breeze now if you are happy to use Google. In the past you at least had to wait a few months forms guide in a magazine.
I have been introducing my lad to gaming and playing with him the games when I was a kid.... Jet set willy, manic miner on the speccy or even more recent games on the amiga. They are brutally hard and with no save options there is no way back from mistakes. Most games now you are essentially invincible and there is no lose state any more. (Certainly not in open world games like ones from Unisoft)

I hardly ever complete games partly down to time. But there are just so many games now and so cheap. I own over 1000 games . I will never play 80% of them.
 
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