In today's half-hearted edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Robobrah shares an experience that many of us face during our gaming careers — the game completion slump.
After reading this recent article it made me think of something that's been bothering me for a while, and I'm interested if anyone else has ever experienced something similar, so here goes!
I've been a huge gamer for the vast majority of my life, some of my oldest and fondest memories are when my older sister got a Sega Mega Drive and we played Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, The Lion King and many other games constantly when we were children. I'm 23 now, however lately I've been feeling very distant from gaming, and I can't explain why. When I was younger I used to be able to play games for ridiculous numbers of hours at a time, and I wouldn't put a game down until I'd completed it, to do so would practically be blasphemy to my younger self, but over the past couple of years this has deteriorated dramatically, to the point where I can't seem to play a game from start to finish any more.
The odd game comes along that I do finish, but they're few and far between. For example, the last game I played the entire way through was Batman: Arkham City in February, and before that was Dark Souls on release last year. Every time I pick up a game, I seem to only play about a 3rd of it, or just put it down after the first hour or 2 session and never pick it up, I've done this to so many games I can't even count them anymore.
I find myself just staring at my Steam list, trying to choose a game I might actually play through, and even when I do get the surge that says 'Yes, I'm in the mood to play that!', I put it on, and 10 or 20 minutes later I've lost all enthusiasm and end up back at square one, either looking down my Steam list again, or simply browsing the internet to take my mind off the whole debacle.
I don't want to be one of those people that says 'Oh well, I guess I'm just growing out of gaming!'. I know that can't be it, I adore this hobby too much and like many others out there, especially here on Kotaku, gaming is a part of me, and something I couldn't simply grow out of, it means too much to me on a personal level.
Anyway, I've went on long enough, I just wanted to ask if any other gamers have ever went through a stage of 'gaming fatigue' like what I've described, and what your own personal experiences were during that time, and I thought what better place to ask than Kotaku!
About Speak Up on Kotaku: Our readers have a lot to say, and sometimes what they have to say has nothing to do with the stories we run. That's why we have a forum on Kotaku called Speak Up. That's the place to post anecdotes, photos, game tips and hints, and anything you want to share with Kotaku at large. Every weekday we'll pull one of the best Speak Up posts we can find and highlight it here.
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