Ever have that feeling of gaming ennui? Don't worry! |
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You may not know it, but ennui is something you've probably experienced at least once in your life, but have you ever experienced it as a gamer?
Ennui is boredom. The dictionary defines it as a "feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest." As gamers, we've all probably gotten bored with a game... but rare is the occasion when we've grown bored of actually playing games or of doing something game related.
For instance, ennui sets in for online gamers when they realize that everything they do inside the game doesn't actually have any appreciable impact on the world around them. For console fans, it's probably come across in the form of frustration, or simply the sudden inability to care about what happens to Link, or to your Gamerscore, or to your plans for another ultimately awesome installment of Ponies and Kittens homebrew. Well, either boredom or despair, but they tend to be the same thing in this sense.
In either case, the feeling of WANTING to play seems to disappear out the window for most of us, and it's a shame, because there's something missing in our play that we don't completely understand. It's not the purpose, because the purpose behind play is always there. It certainly isn't the feeling of satisfaction of downing a boss with a well-timed Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku- Shouryuken- Hadouken combo.
In fact, no matter what reason you have for stopping, or whatever feelings you've got inside over your current pasttime, let me tell you something very important: it's okay.
Yep. The world (of Warcraft) will keep running without you, and the games you love, the guilds you cherish, and the respect you pick up from the homebrew community will remain intact even if you're not there for a little while. The important thing about games, which we sometimes forget in this day and age of trying to make games more mainstream and worthwhile, is that the worth of a game and the pasttimes we love come from the fun we derive from it.
Our suggestion: do something you haven't done yet. Your pasttime will welcome you with open arms, and you can tell us what else you've been up to. In the meantime, tell us about your stories of gaming ennui. We certainly would like to know how you got past your period of gaming ennui.
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Comments [refresh]
I got drunk...
Errrrr..........
Yeah, thats about it....
This is strange, because I think I'm going through this right now. I feel like I should be doing something more worthwile with my life, and all of a sudden, recently, I haven't been playing games much.
I think I may be depressed right now, and this is a side effect of it.
That might be ennui and depression.
Relax. Try to think of the cause and then accept it, and then see if you can't try something new while you sort it out.
Whoa, the odds of this article. I have recently been going through this. Found a cure though, play the all time greatest classics and new things. Playing Half life 2 again. Just brilliant.
OMG this is similer to what i am going through, i have almost 2000 ps2 games, till about 6 months ago i used to play the new games all the time, i played the good games all the way through, but lately, i have bought the games, played them for 5 mins and then on to the next, in the last 6 months the only game i have completed is final fantasy 12, and even then i did about 2 hours everyday then stoped and never really got into the story like i did with ff7.8.9 and 10. I feel there are more important things, i start feeling lonely in my room just playing by myself, but this is something i only realised lately. Im 20 years old and games are my life, but i dont know whats happening, i cant sit and play for hours like i used to, or even all day, games like god of war i used to complete in one sitting. I bought myself an xbox 360 and a ps3 and wii, but i seem to be more interested in just trying them instead of actually playing them or getting engrosed with them. Are video games becoming boring or am i losing interest by becoming bored. All i know is this is just weird.
I quite often find that natural gaming breaks like too much work, socialising, holidays, or time spent on other more fiddly productive hobbies often are enough.
I loaded up GTA LCS the other day for the first time in 4 months (I haven't finished it), and got past the mission that made me put it down 4 months ago so the game has come back to life for me. The reason I loaded this up? We had a house fire and so our house is in complete disarray being cleaned/decorated/refitted etc. and we have been so busy sorting out that I hadn't put the PC back together (normal gaming fix latest DoW, HL2 episode, or Carcassonne on a German game site). I found the PSP tucked in a packing box and thought "I wonder if it still has juice?", low and behold up came GTA LCS and I played for what seemed 5 minutes but was in fact 30 minutes. So my gaming boredom/frustration disappeared and I have picked it up regularly since then (trying to find the charger was a nightmare!).
The word "Ennui" seems to imply more meaning to your boredom in my mind.
Found this about it: Ennui pronounced "on-we," this French word comes from Old French enui, root of the English word 'annoy'
Same thing with me bro, bought a gamecube with 80 games from a dodgy gumtree dealer, and played almost every game for about 5 minutes and then poof, i havn't touched the lil blighter in 5 months. Before that i played my ps2 everyday, sometimes even all day and nite trying to comlpete final fantasy and kingdom hearts, but lately i have been feeling the blues and don't really WANT TO play games. I played final fantasy 12 and it was good and all but i felt like i was playing it becuase i HAD TO since i have completed all the others from 1-10. I can honestly say ff12 was not a boring game at all, but i still felt rather distant from it. I hope this is not a trend.
Sounds like you bought a PS3.
I started feeling this pinch in mid 2006 and it eventually turned into depression and I didnt feel like playing games very much or for longer than an hour a day and then almost lost interest.but then the wii came out and that fixed that for 2 months. but even so I dont have the motivation as I once did and cant seem to keep playing a game nowdays for hours on end like I use to and have second thoughs about playing games when I can do a more productive hobby such as programming pics to do certain things or build something cool out of electronic components. also I have games that I only played for a day or so and never played them again as if they wernt fun when they were. are games going downhill nowdays and not as fun as they use to be or am I just going through a phase?? as I am 21.
I have been going through this too... I used to be able to play games all day and LOVE it. These days I barely play my consoles, and when I do it really does just feel like a chore to complete the game.
All the extra stuff in twilight princess is a great example, I used to love just playing games to 100% complete every side quest and optional extra, with TP I've found hardly any of the poe souls yet i really cant be bothered to go round looking for them, or even to complete it anymore. I want this feeling to go away! I used to love playing games right up til the end.
I have experienced this several times in my gaming 'life' (or lack of...). I wasn't aware anyone else experienced it!
What i do is when the whole NEW CONSOLE!!!/HD TV!!!/ NXT GEN!!! blah blah gets old, i downgrade.
yep, i skip the current trend and jump back a page... Currently the world is on the PS3 vibe, Im packing a Saturn and loving it. The fun soon comes back, you get to hunt out old favourites, swap stuff for 'unwanted' games with your mates, and (most) the games are only pennies!
just for the record, while everyone jumped on 360, My n64 came back to life!...
I've not played Vice City Stories for about a month now. I may also have ennui for other parts of my life too. I've tried learning to code, but now I've lost that motivation as well. Depression and ennui, maybe?
Which is why I took up other hobbies besides playing video games. I enjoy writing poetry, gfx, electric guitar, running a website and playing soccer. If you get a sense of boredom, then for god sake do something about it. It's not healthy to sit around thinking about how bored you are.
this is like a rehab.............!!
hehehe, no seriously, just reading the above has scared me. i dont feel like half as bad as you lot but still get bored wi games.
hehe, anyway.....good luck wi your 12 steps course.....an if it dunt work dont worry, ill join u in a few weeks if i dont get rid o me gameplay blues.......;-)
yeah, i used to be a gamer. can't really do it anymore. Back when i was sick with mono and stuck at home with nothing to do, i played counter-strike source for an hour, then realized there was no point. i got bored and stopped. in november, i camped out for a ps3 for 3 days. i was 4th in line. loved it. cherished it. but i only played it for about an hour, tops, over the course of 3 months. i just sold the thing to a friend, unable to let such a good thing sit unused. I have a psp. i check pspupdates every day, several times a day. I've got the latest custom firmware on it, i've got my favorite classic ps1 games (ffvii, metal gear solid) and a bunch of good *****. but then i don't use it. i haven't played my psp for more than 2 hours in the last 2 months. i seem to be doomed to not care about games.
i'm gonna give GTA4 a shot when it comes out, but nothing else really excites me. i'd rather hit the gym, earn some money, or chill with my friends. but sit and play madden for hours? can't do it.
and i don't know why.
I thought I was the only one that got bored with games. I asked my psychiatrist about it and they convinced me that there is something wrong with me. But now I know that I am not alone. Finally I can sleep knowing that when I stop playing video games the world actually won't end. This whole time I thought life itself was a video game. I started feeling depressed when I stopped playing but then I realized that I was depressed because I never stopped in the first place and wasted my entire life in the real world.
wake up people, video games don't even come close to satisfying every need in your life. Your life shouldn't be measured by looking at the periods in which you were bored with video games and what you possibly did during those desperate times. Instead try weaving in video games here and there when you are bored with your life, not the other way around.
Right now im bored of gaming since last 2 years, cant find anything else to do, ocassionally i can find a game to play for hours to days but thats it. When all else fail, i come browse qj for gaming news that will bring me back to my favorite past-time i grew up with. You could consider it seperation anxiety cause thats what it really is.
I'd say he bought a DS, ...but whatever you think..
I was going through this as well, and didn't play games for months. I have hundreds of games on different consoles, but I was touching any of them. My PS1, n64, PS2, etc were just sitting there. Then, when I bought my PSP about 8 months ago...I was cured...and I haven't put the thing down. Now 44 UMD games later, and I've never had so much fun. PSP brought gaming back to life for me :) Thank you Sony!
this happens to i think everyone i know i have gone throught this, just now i feel as if i lost intrest in games but all i do is to get over it is i start some sort of a project or just finish other things i never got arround to doing. Then after sometime that feeling comes back to me.
I have felt this way a few times. The fastest and best way i have found to cure it is to buy a new game and not play it right away (MGS 3 was my last one).I just hang out with my friends in the mean time and in about 2-4 weeks i can't wait to play the game.
I've been feeling the same exact way recently, for the past 2 months or so. I think it's because I'm looking forward to so many games that I'm so excited about that don't hit shelves untill fourth quarter 2007.
I know once those games come out, I'll be gaming like crazy again..... I hope =/
even if game are making your brain work i think that the boredom of playing game come for the lack of intelectual stimuly that a game offers let me explain, game in the last 10 years wether computer or console have evolved alot graphic wise they havent evolved alot AI wise the principle is always the same observe pattern prevent patern the lack of evolving AI in video game is whats macking gamer loose interest now of course there is always new gamers that have not yet reach this level of disinterest, what this mean is do you remember getting UT for pc then getting UT 2k3 or 2k4 just to say to yourself wow what amazing graphic but after a few week of playing it getting bored because its still the same thing run around and shoot or playing the recently release rainbow6 just to be amazed by the graphic but observe that the only difference AI wise is that now the bot waits 5 second before coming out of the room when you shoot at the door to make it come out or that the only difference between the last NHL game and the new one aside again from the gfx is that the goaly is now weak from shot coming from the wing instead of slap from the center anyway i guess you see where i am going the while the gfx a making leap of 100% per generation of game the AI are barely making 10%
stop reading me like a book damn it >
You know I have been feeling a disconnectednes s from all of my videogames lately. I have been wondering if it has anything to do with my getting older and developping a different attitude toward games.
Sometimes you realize, at times while playing, at other times from having not played, that you really don't give two craps about what's happening in that game. I think this is even worse for people who download their games. I think when you spend hard-earned cash on a game, there is more determination to play it through. There is a psychological need to extract from the game the perceived investment. You play it through to rationalize having bought it (assuming the game is decent for the most part). When you download a game, you don't have this investment, both financially and psychologically , to account for so there is a large portion of the motivation removed. Although this isn't what we are thinking about when we play these games, I think these feelings exist on a subcontious level.
Other times, the reason for letting a game gather dust is just a lack of connectivity. If you don't feel a connection to your characters, you are unlikely to get too involved with the game. If you feel your actions don't have a connection to the world your character lives in. If you feel the goals you are trying to acheive aren't worth acheiving. Sometimes the difficulty of a task far outweighs any possible benefits that could be gained from it.
Is ok, I had subway. :)
is supposed to be referred as boredom for the rich people...back in the midevil times.
Games have become boring this gen. I dunno...yeah theres Gears of War and Lost Planet, but i dunno man. Just something, i dont care anymore about actually playing the games. Its pretty weird, lol. What a mystery =p. At the end of the day...I had a subway too =)
yeah ive had this it started ever since i had a job like 3 years ago, i allways wante dto play the newist games that i could not afford and when i have the money i dont buy them anymore coz ive played the same type of games before and the whole gaming scene is full off puzzler crap or the same generic FPS, so from playing games every evening im donw to maby 4 times a month if im bored enough to boot up one of my two psp game cube xbox or ps2, but i did pick up the ps2 last week and im addicted to Zone Of The Enders 1 & 2 all though i compleated them boths atleast 10 times allready and now its going to be the 11th maby 12th time ! weird
The only thing I really play is my PSP, but really that is mostly for classic games. (I really have no interest at all in the PSP's actual games.. except ratchet and clank, that was fun) ANyways, as far as any and all other games go, I have been on a hiatus. I played Twilight princess all the way through.. and other than that havent touched my Wii PS2 PS1 Gamecube, DS or even PC games. well, no new ones anyways. I have found that playing the classics is still fun though. I have been running through Mario world, and ff7 and mario64 .. all on my PSP. just because those game manage to hold some sort of excitement while new games fail to grab me at all. I didnt even get drawn into GoW when I played it for awhile at my friends house.. I can tell you it's agreat game, but I wouldnt play it or any new games that have come out recently. they arent bad.. I just wouldnt play them...
I have had nothing to do for the past month either, so my gaming apathy has been driving me nuts.
Strange to know other people have been through this too.
I have as well, I will sit there sometimes thinking about all the games I have and which one to play and I start to go play one then decide man Ive played it before and then run through the list again.
Then start getting a bit depressed I guess cuz I don't know what else to do outside of gaming but if I don't want to game I just sit haha. I will sit at my computer and stare at it just to be close to it even if I don't do anything with it.
Well maybe this is something different.
I got bored of gaming long ago, i play every now and then.. Especially happened with Twilight Princess, too damn long!! Finally beat it
I have passed for this so many times, the only thing that you need to do is take a breake from the games and do some other stuff and a few days you`ll be ready to get back.
Been feeling this lately, I think it is the fact that we are "growing up" and having a different attitude and vision of games.
I find this the most convincing answer because i remember i used to love playing games like Croc (around age 11)(played it for months) and now im playing something more absorbing (and complicated) like oblivion(still, not playing it the same amount of time as i played croc. even though oblivion is arguably 124836234023650 times better). and now even if i force myself to play a game like croc, id probably rather sit down and stare at the wall.
This might eventually happen to me even with Oblivion and eventually end up not playing games anymore (nooooo)
Christopher
(age:18... sadly?) haha
i was actually feelin this yesterday
games felt borin for some reason and didnt want to play
but them started playin and it went away :)
The easiest way to overcome gaming ennui is to download a PSP homebrew game that involves the word "Tetris". Hours of fun (and addiction) there, ladies and gents.
That was back in my days of selling my old consoles when I bought a new one, and I wouldn't play anything that didn't let you kill something. I think it was the later days of the PlayStation that made me feel like playing other types of games, though. I started buying old consoles, playing more original games, reading about the process of game development... I found there was much more to gaming than playing Resident Evil 2 and anything that reminded me of it.
Never been bored with gaming since that. If releases are slow, I'll buy an old classic that I've never tried. If releases are really dire, I'll get another old console. It keeps me very satisfied.
Even if the process of playing games is starting to bore me, I'm always interested in the industry. The compromise between creativity and making profitable products is very interesting, and with technology changing so rapidly, it changes daily.
guys i think it goes with age... from the age of 7 - 18 i've been playing games on almost every console that came out. from atari to NES to Sega... missed on the Saturn coz when i was about to get one coz the PS1 was already out, PS2 and now i just got a PSP about less than a month ago. i think when u reach a certain age u want to explore other things and get out a bit more, rather than u coop up in a room alone for a couple of hours.
i'm 21 now and my PS2 is about a couple of years old and i also have lost the drive to actually WANT TO play a game on it even though its a fantastic console... i just lost it and cant seem to hold the controller for more than a few minutes. its also probably related to the fact that i've got a full-time job and a lot of my attention goes into it...
now here's my cure, i picked up on the things i left behind while bashing happily away on a controller, like that book i wanted to read and the profile i left undone, then after that i got myself a PSP. now while at work i can pick up on gaming and that gradually built up on my gaming high again. right now i'm finishing FF12 and started on Rogue Galaxy. ^_^
Lately I've put a lot of work into my PSP: getting everything just right. So I've got all these classics that I love, but i've beaten them to death already. without using cwcheat, there's really nothing new to them... so once the new games get here, our PSPs will start to shine again. ;) Until then, I might just get that new comic book rolling out...!!
Yes, so bored of all this. It never used to be like this, I would spend hours/days playing through video games but now I have just lost the interest. I like the idea of some games but when I actually try to get into it I just get frustrated and turn it off after 5 minutes never to return. I check QJ a few times a day, spend more time reading about games than I do playing them.
I have 2 psp's always up to date with the latest hacks, custom firmwares and games but I don't even play it. I have a slack job where I have about 2 - 3 hours a night where I have nothing to do, just sit on my ass and wait around but I still don't play my psp. The game I have played more than anything else on my PSP in the last 6 months is Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, sad isn't it.
I have the money to pre-order a PS3 right now here in the UK and have been waiting for a long time to do so, but now I have changed my mind. Instead I was going to buy a triplehead2go setup for my pc so that I can play Live For Speed properly but I have even changed my mind on that now, gonna pay off my student debts and save for a real car instead. Get out of my room and see the world, maybe that will make me happy.
I'm 26 BTW.
It never used to be like this.
'(^_^)'
i used to play my psp for atleast 2-3 hours a day every day and get all the latest games i have over 50, and then something happened to me which completely turned my world upside down and yeh i dont even play games anymore its been a month and i havnt even picked the thing up, but yeh things just get put into perspective and gaming just doesnt seem like that much fun anymore. id rather be out making the most out of life. my point is never neglect your fiance for games trust me it bites you back in the arse tenfold.
Sorry, but I love my PS3, but i can honestly say its starting to get dusty, play resistence online like once in a while, sorry but the games suck right now, the game that I have played most on the PS3 is GTA:San Andreas, I like drawing that makes me feel better
Thats true, I've had this game that only had tetris games, i can honestly say that i have broken the buttons
I think we're not interested in games anymore because we figured out that they dont have b00bs
yea im definatly in one right now no matter what games i play, i just get bored of it
bought gears of war
havent played it since the first week i got it
borrowed saints row, its laying collecting dust
im only playing madden, but i get bored real quick
im going through the same thing....with my psp! i keep getting new games and emulators and spent all my time pimping out my psp......but i dont touch the games! I try them for like 5 minutes and then leave them.....
i got bored when im reading this article. what is it called?
At the moment actually. Ever since I got Oblivion for my 360 I haven't played anything else. And now that I'm in this state of "ennui" I don't want to play anything else. I play Halo 2 through MLG. Now I NEVER practice on Halo 2. I used to be so excited to get home and code a game. That went down the *****ter. For now at least. And now I'm bored as hell until it goes away.
This post is very good. I'm glad to be on QJ with thoughtful things like this. Keep up the good work!
haha thats funny "sounds like you bought a PS3" haha
DUDE, thats the same thing I do, my friends are like what games do u have, and I'm like look at the sound it makes when you turn it on
I have this feeling every day, it's called WORK! Glad it only lasts 8-10 hrs! Seriously though, I felt like this in my heyday of gaming in the mid '80's were i'd game (on my C=64) for 12-18hrs on the weekends, and about 8hrs a night on weekdays! Somehow I kind of miss those days.... XP
I'm glad that their are other gamers out their that feel the same pain I'm feeling. I just wanted to say I'm depressed because games arent changing paths anymore. I think games like halo and zelda are really overrated, and their the same games every time to me.
All I want is a game that can fully utilizie a "rush guage" a la Bujingai, and dragon ball advance adventure(dueli ng mode), as soon as a game that comes out that can master that sort of system, I will die a happy gamer. :(
Maby the new euphoria system made from lucas arts can surprise me who knos, *SIGH*
this is what is going on with me right now.
I have so many fkin games to play, i have my suped up psp... my nintendo wii and my 360
i have about 10 games that id like to finish but i dont feel the greatness from games anymore. Alough i really want to play games and get satisfaction because about a month ago when i was playing i couldnt wait till i could save and turn it off..
i need a cure :(
Around about summer last year I went through this. I solved it by flashing the DVD drive on my 360 and getting every game I ever wanted for it. As soon as you can "afford" the games the boredom goes away.
Still gaming at 21, but I don't really play new games anymore, unless it's a new Metal Slug or Guilty Gear. Call me crazy, but for some reason, playing newer, recently released games doesn't have much of an impact on me as much as the old-schools ones did/still do. The fact that I'm absolutely happy that I had gotten Gradius Collection over ANY other PSP game (as a b-day gift from a friend) should explain that well on it's own.
To this very day, I still find myself playing Castlevania III, Jackal, Gradius and Contra on the good ol' NES for hours and hours over the likes of GTA and Warcraft III (though Warcraft III can get pretty fun).
Which kinda leads to my theory on this "ennui": I think we're all getting bored with games today because we never had to have high-expectations for games back then (with a lot of quality and originality had being put into those 8/16-bit retro consoles and games, why should've we?). Now these days, all we ever see anymore are cookie-cutter fighting games and first-person-shooters developed as cash-ins on popular genres. I think the entire video-game industry needs to focus on new ideas rather than remake the same games over and over again.
UT2K4 is more different to UT2K3 than 2K3 was to UT classic. 2K3 was more or less a graphical overhaul, 2K4 only reskined a couple things, then added stuff like Onslaught, etc which changed the game a lot more.
Play Morrowind. It's the predecesser and it's bigger and has way more stuff to do.
Oblivion has fancy graphics, but Morrowind was a better designed game.
Longest I ever gone without playing a single video game? A Year and a half... almost two years. SNAPS. and I'm a big time gamer.
Well, I'm content with my life... Sooooo....Yep that's it, no depression here PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!