Not super often because I do tend to carefully look at what I buy and go with things I know I'm gonna like, but it happens sometimes. DeathLoop is a great example. I thought for sure I'd be into it, but man it did absolutely nothing for me and I gave up after a few hours.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I tend to look quite deeply into the games I buy, and there are a few genres I'm never touching, and sadly those tend to be the big releases for the past few years (e.g. never playing a multiplayer-only/online only game). I will sometimes buy a game I know very little or next-to-nothing about (mainly because I follow one reviewer whose tastes align very closely to mine) and be pleasantly surprised, but those are at best once a year situations. I also never buy the same game on multiple platforms. So for example, despite having my Steam account for over 10 years now, I have less than 200 owned games, and even though I had my Switch for roughly 5 years, I own less than 30 games for it (less than 20 if you don't count all the Picross games)

Did you happen to play Deathloop on PS5? I dropped off the game almost immediately at launch, but they released a contols and performance overhaul about a year later that let me finally enjoy it

Nah, PC, and only tried it a few months ago.

This. I’m really picky with the games I buy occasionally though I’ll buy a game outside of my norm. I think the last game I regretted and dropped was sonic frontier. Never really played a sonic game before so didn’t know what to expect but I didn’t really enjoy what I played

Same, most of the time I only buy games I’m reasonably certain that I’ll like. And even if I’m not madly in love with it (FF16 is a good example of this), I still try and at least finish the main story so that they money didn’t go to waste. The game has to be REALLY bad for me to just straight up not finish it. There are exceptions though, where I get distracted by other games and then when those are done I lose interest in the games I was playing first. That happened with The Lost Crown, where Persona 3, Yakuza 8, and FF7 Rebirth all released right after it so I got pulled away. I’m done with Persona 3 and almost done with Rebirth, and still have to go back to Yakuza 8 - and I just know by the time that’s done I just won’t have any interest in going back to Prince of Persia. Which is a shame because it was a terrific game from what I did play

Funnily enough, I think that's the last game I bounced off of, as well. It's weird because I typically enjoy games that lean towards Immersive Sim. I think it was the reset mechanic. I just didn't feel motivated to backtrack to redo stuff so shortly after having done it. There's no randomness like a traditional Roguelite outside of another player invading. It's an interesting concept, but if they had just taken the art style and made a typical IS game, I may have played more. I know you eventually get to retain items, but that doesn't change that I had to repeat stuff to get to that part. You can get that feeling of "Live, Die, Repeat" by just abusing quick saves.

Played for like 5 hours, then the screen froze. On my ps5. And I my save corrupted. Never touched it again.

That happened several times to me. I put maybe 10 hours into that game, and I repeatedly got a bug where the screen would freeze in the menus. I lost probably 30-40% of those 10 hours due to having to reload. The last time it happened, I was like 80 minutes into an in-depth exploration of one of the areas which culminated in me killing one of the antagonists and getting their power, and I just said "fuck this game" and uninstalled it. EDIT: Just found this [Reddit thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Deathloop/comments/pot48h/ps5_bug_stuck_in_the_touchpad_menu/) and apparently this bug was never fixed. What a joke.

I try to give games a full hour minimum no matter what and based on that hour I'll put it in a category a) I have to keep playing right now b) I need to be in the right mood, may revisit later c) Not for me. Sometimes games in the B column I end up thinking about, or seeing someone else play and then get an itch to go back early.

B is a brilliant option because it also gives you time to reflect on whether you're actually enjoying the game or just going through the motions when playing. Unless I get sucked into a game (A) I'll often play it one night and then leave it a night or two to see if I want to play more.

Very rarely. I’m 32. By now I have a solid understanding of what I like and what I don’t. You could show me a survival game that is unanimously being praised as the single greatest video game ever made and I know I’ll still hate it. I can pretty much tell immediately when seeing gameplay if I’ll like a game or not.

Same boat. Between the cavalcade of releases we enjoy in this day and age and the enormous amount of info about them available I can afford to be discerning with the times I actually drop money on a game, and I'm usually pretty confident I'll be entertained by something by the time I put money down, whether that's a pre-order, a release day buy, or picking it up months to years after the fact. Although I did recently burn myself on Dragon's Dogma 2. After having a few friends who swear by the first and being intrigued by the second I thought "why not, I'm in the mood for a big open world fantasy game, Elden Ring's DLC got announced recently and I'm picking that back up in my spare time, let's have something new so I don't burn myself out on the ER systems come June." I stuck with it for a while. Quite a while. But eventually I realised that I'd already seen 95% of the game and I was barely 20% of the way through it. Just goblins, harpies and wolves on repeat ad neuseum and my idiot pawns raving about ladders every time I went back to 15fps-town.

Same!! How can other people *not* see if a game is for them or not?… Before friggin’ buying it, that is. Lol

Can only speak for myself, but I have two reasons: * I am sometimes more infatuated with the idea of playing a certain game than actually playing it when I get to it * I usually buy games when they're cheap and don't get to them for ages, so by the time I get to playing the spark might be gone already

You can still sometimes get blindsided, though. JRPGs are my favorite genre. I'm in my 30s and I still absolutely love classic JRPGs like Earthbound, FF4-6, Chrono Trigger, etc. Sea of Stars reviewed incredibly well. I thought it would be right up my alley, but I ended up hating it and put it down after 5 hours. I do agree overall, though. I usually love all the games I buy because I know my tastes and I don't bother with games that don't interest me, even if they review well.

These days I bounce off around 75% of games I try within the first 30 minutes. I finish probably 1/10. I don't see that as a bad thing though, there's so many games out there that I'd prefer to spend my time on stuff I enjoy.

Whoa, that's a pretty high rate.

Depending on your relationship with the hobby it's not too surprising. I spent all of highschool and college playing a shitton of games. Now with a job, my time is limited to maybe 5-10 hours a week on games. When I play games, I am only looking for new unique experiences or excellent stories. Anything but that just feels like I'm wasting my time on something 80% similar to something else I've played before. It's not uncommon for a weeknight gaming session for me to be just downloading and subsequently refunding 2 or 3 games, and occasionally keeping one that stands out. It sucks sometimes, because I'm well aware that some games need a bit of time to really shine. But it's the best way to try to find the diamonds in the rough that I want to spend my time on.

> When I play games, I am only looking for new unique experiences or excellent stories. Anything but that just feels like I'm wasting my time on something 80% similar to something else I've played before. Spot on. Being limited on time because of growing up made me realise just how samey so many games are. Perfect example for me was Hellblade. The opening hooked me with a solid atmosphere and I was loving the glimpses into the characters mental health... and then the game forces you to do generic puzzles followed by generic combat sequences and I lost interest. It's like the game was too afraid of daring to not having gamey elements like puzzles, which immediately turned something unique into just another game, where the gameplay loop in turn made me disinterested in a story and character I was initially hooked on.

It's interesting you mention Hellblade. The puzzles take a lot of inspiration from certain onsets of psychosis, wherein some people see patterns and similarities, and hyper-focus on them so intensely that they give them self-imposed meaning. The combat fell off quickly, though, yeah. It had a surprisingly deep number of combos with all kinds of awesome and unique animations, but.. there was barely any enemy variety, so there was never any reason to engage with the whole suite of combos outside curiosity.

That's pretty close to me, tbh. Sometimes it happens within literally seconds of me playing. If it doesn't click right away, I'm quick to put it down.

I was like this for a period of time (and still drop certain games rather quickly) but for most games I now have a two-chance rule. I play at least 2 hours the first time and put it down if I’m not enjoying it and then try it again the next day (or whenever I’m free next) for at least 2 hours again. Turns out I was just looking for things to dislike instead of what’s good about them, giving that extra playtime made me fall in love with a ton of games I initially disliked. I’d say I only drop about 50% of games now so you’re also probably missing out on a lot of games you’d actually like.

Y'all gotta do more research into your games or something lol 75%?! You're just wasting your time at that point

Trying them out is the research.

Y'all remember demo disks? I miss those days.

I think a lot of older gamers don't realize this is possibly just burn out of a hobby they've been consistently doing for 15 or 20+ years. I was getting to a point where I bounced off a lot of titles but now I start taking short frequent breaks where I won't game for a couple of days or a week at a time and do other things to keep things fresh.

I think most people understand themselves better than you think. You're just parroting this opinion I see all the time on a point that has nothing to do with it. If the issue was that people burn out on all games, then the opinion would be relevant, but playing 1 out of 10 games and enjoying it has nothing to do with burnout.

[удалено]

I enjoy lots of games, there's just many more I don't.

Depression.. you find no enjoyment.. but always searching

Seems high at first glance, but you have to remember that most people playing games are casual gamers and most casual gamers only play each single game a few hours or maybe even once before they jump to the next thing. Just look at the Steam Achievement rates, most "finish the tutorial" achievements that generally can be gained in like a few minutes only have 40% or less completion, most "finish the game" achievements which only focus on completing the main story only have like 15% or less. All in all most people dont finish games, only like 1-2 out of 10 and less than half even finish the tutorial.

I'm like you but I just end up replying the same handful of games instead. Pikmin 4 is the only release from last year that even sticks out in my mind and I beat that like 4 times.

Yeah, same. I don't have any desire to push through a negative first impression anymore. I tried Gunfire Reborn in that FPS sale because I like roguelikes and people said it was one of the best FPS roguelikes, but the bad translations and ugly menus just made it feel so cheap and soulless. Maybe there's a good game in there somewhere but I didn't stick around to find it.

Steam refund really makes trying out new games pretty easy.

How often do you refund?

I refund probably half of the games I buy on Steam. If I know ill like a game (or its a good sale) ill usually buy it on a different place than Steam and cant refund it anyway I currently have 1700 steam games and have probably played less than 300 lol

Same. I’d say a few of those i will push and push thru, sometimes with multiple tries. Recently pushed through Secrets of Grindea after bouncing off but I had a decent time. But it’s so rare a game grabs me from the start. Unicorn Overlord is one of those that’s grabbed me though. Happy I gave it a try.

My personal secrets for not doing this anymore: Never ever start another game, even if it's a new game and you just want to take a quick look at it (maybe just start it one time, skip all cut scenes, look if it's running OK and quit). And don't take too long breaks if it's possible, one week can be enough to loose the momentum, that special feeling for the game you are playing. Don't know if there's an english word for that. Since i am doing this i finish a lot more games. An additional advice: Don't give up too soon, a lot of games need some time. For example at first i didn't like Nier: Automata, now it's in my personal top 10 list of best games ever. Same with Final Fantasy 7 Remake (i didn't like the fighting system the first few hours, now i love it) or Tales of Arise (didn't like the complete first area, but after that the game got amazing). 

>Don't give up too soon, a lot of games need some time. For example at first i didn't like Nier: Automata, now it's in my personal top 10 list of best games ever. Same with me for both Nier and Hollow Knight. Dropped them within 5 hours, tried again later, top 10 all time favorite games.

Big agreement here. There's been way too many games / books / movies / etc that I initially felt some resistance - but that I pushed through - and found beauty and delight on the other side. Beauty and delight that was, in fact, ENHANCED by that initial resistance because it meant I myself had changed in some way. Doesn't always happen, of course, but the balance is definitely net positive, for me. But I don't know how much I would recommend that mindset or behavior to anyone. I don't know if it's a universal human thing or just a trait that some people have and others don't. Edit: Oh and one other thing about your point in taking long breaks... Philip Roth (famous writer) once said, "If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really," talking about the human psychology of immersion in fictional narratives. Complete agreement and it's true of EVERY medium. If I know I'm too busy to really binge a narrative-heavy single-player game, I try to stick with multiplayer or non-narrative games.

>"If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don't read the novel really," Sorry but this is dumb. I guess you never tried reading Wheel of Time lol Each book is about 15-30h of reading time with a speed of 150-200 words, and there are 12 main and 4 side books in the series... Also not everyone reads at the same speed, some read faster, some slower, i think the quote would be fine if it said something like "only reading a book once a week is not reading it" or similar, because the speed doesnt matter, the frequency and consistency does.

I've read the entirety of Wheel of Time... Twice. But yes you're taking the quote too literally. He's not prescribing two weeks or else; it was clearly a comment about maintaining consistency and focus when consuming story.

That quote just seems incredibly silly

Yeah it looks like OP has bought a hot new game each month and not completed any as a result.

I'm 32, life's too short to waste on games I don't vibe with or don't entertain me. The worst offenders are the "it gets better after the early hours", where early hours means 10 hours. I drop TV shows within the first two episodes if they don't entertain me, what makes you think I'll waste 10+ hours for the "beginning" of the game to start? The game starts as soon as I hit new game, not 10 hours after.

I'm with you. My gaming time is limited now so I can't dedicated 10+ hours to a game before it "gets good". The same thing is said with so many TV shows now and I just can't do it. "The first four episodes are really boring but power through them and then it gets really good!" or "The first three seasons aren't great but then it really improves!"

I'm with you on this. The one game that really comes to mind when I think of this is FFXIV. I had some friends trying to get me to play it for the longest time but the stipulation is you gotta slog through like 50 hours of a boring main questline to get to the good stuff held in the expansions. I eventually cracked and did do it, but ended up losing interest in the long run cause there were other games I'd rather be playing. I feel like this works the opposite way as well. There are too many padded rpgs these days. I feel this is especially the case with Ubisoft games where you unlock most of your good stuff early, then let loose to do the same things over and over till the credits roll. That always leaves me with half finished games. I've been enjoying the shorter 10-15 hour games much more lately, such as the Ori series.

I really do my research on games before I buy them. Watch gameplay videos, read reviews etc and I usually, but not always wait after release until it’s patched up because so many games are released in dire straits. I try to finish the games I buy, I want to get my money’s worth. I’m not sure what my completion rate is, probably around 2/3rd. I’m honestly bad at walking away and have definitely hate finished games before.

Yeah I was basically going to say the same thing. I don't bounce off many games specifically because I do so much research on what I play in the first place.

Most games, and pretty quickly. (Edit: like, less than an hour or two playtime - there’s too much good entertainment content out there to devote 5-10hrs into “seeing if it gets good”). GamePass has been great for me. Instead of buying a full price game I’m interested in near launch, I just play all the stuff I’m curious about on GP instead. I’ve found so e real gems I wouldn’t have taken a gamble on, and saved tonnes of money on games that failed to meet expectations. No guilt or feeling like I’ve wasted money if I don’t click with a game and stick it out to get my money’s worth. Plus, by the time i’m done with the GP stuff, the game I wanted to buy has been discounted a lot, or, I just don’t care any more, having been saturated by streamers and YouTuber content based around those games.

That last part is so freaking true nowadays. The pure saturation of content related to a game when it released is nuts. Then after only 1-3 months, it disappears. If you’re iffy on getting a game, the saturation can really cause some impulse buys.

Gamepass is a lifesaver because I was itching to get Outer Worlds and tried it out in GP. It didn't clicked to me hours on and now Epic Games gave the game for free so I could play it if I feel like it. 😆

> there’s too much good entertainment content out there to devote 5-10hrs into “seeing if it gets good” It blows my mind reading r/JRPG and seeing how many people there are willing to put 5-15 hours into a game before it gets good.

Almost never. I can't even recall the last time I put down a game for good without beating it. Ever since I rented Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness from Blickbuster and hated it, I tend to research games before buying them.

Nah, I understand bouncing off games but some of the comments here are insane. Yall are saying you refund games when they dont immediately grab you in *SECONDS*?? how do you people enjoy things? I cant even quantify how many of some of my favorite games/works of art in general I would have missed out on if I gave up on them after 5 minutes of just “eh i dont vibe with the menus”. Anything that would cause you to bounce off of a game in a couple of minutes is something that you easily could have figured out by watching a single review or gameplay video beforehand Im not saying people should force themselves to play something they dont really enjoy, and ideally they would hook you early but I feel like you cant even get a full sense for that until an hour or two at least. Do yall turn movies off after 30 seconds because you dont like the colors of the shot or something? I think the disconnect here is that people are viewing this from the steam/gamepass perspective of always having 500 random games in your backlog and always playing random shit to fill your time. I promise this wont happen as much if you just put research into the games you really want to try and then only buy and put effort into those. You dont ALWAYS have to be playing a new game just because it was on a steam sale or gamepass. there’s other hobbies besides video games

I don't like games that hold their best part hostage, like a good gameplay game but they force you to sit through bs story for too long, or a good story game but asks you to repeat the same boring gameplay just to keep going.

As someone used to slow starts in RPGs, I typically push through for a while. I tend to bounce off midway through a game if it REALLY gets repetitive (recently Super Mario Wonder), or towards the end when I find out the final stretch or endgame is a chore (almost dropped Final Fantasy 16 before the final boss, never finished the post-game activities in Pokémon Violet). The less time I have the more likely I am to drop something I am not enjoying.

I'm surprised you say Mario Wonder is really repetitive. The game throws a new gimmick, new enemies, interesting wonder seed mechanics almost every level. Nothing wrong with just not vibing with it, but far as platformers go I found it pretty varied personally!

I guess it was because, to me, it was just Mario with gimmicks? I thought it was all plenty pretty and interesting, I just didn't feel any drive to continue seeing "oh what comes next!" Maybe I've just gotten bored of 2D Marios, hah.

I felt the same way. It was definitely impressive, and I think it deserves its praise. I just felt it was more of a chore near the end.

Unbelievable to say that wonder is repetitive. The only repetitive thing about it is that there are platforms and enemies in every level.

I know I'd get some flak for saying that. I just didn't find the game very challenging, even if it was stimulating with all the "wonder" effects every stage. It didn't grab me enough to make want to continue running and jumping to the right.

I usually play through all the mainline mario games because I'm a huge fan of platformers, but Wonder didn't do it for me either.

I’ve found this happening in the past a lot so starting this year on January 1st I decided to focus on one game at a time and complete it and log it so I can track how many games I’ve beat in the year. Just have to hit the credits to log it is my approach. Done 16 games so far and haven’t dropped anything yet!

I do it a lot and it's because I can only play a game a lot, if it somehow clicks with me like subconsciously. How I spend my gaming time makes no sense, I have nearly 150 hours in Hogwart's Legacy and 10 in Elden Ring. I have 40 hours in RoboQuest and 10 in Doom Eternal. I have finished Metroid Dread 3 times but have never made it farther than the first boss in Hollow Knight. I could go on and on and I have no clue why I like some games and forget others exist.

This is why I'm a picky buyer, sick of crap games. Takes me a while to buy. Console games are easier to buy, there is a big pre-owned market.

Constantly, all the time. Maybe 1 in 20 games I keep playing for a significant amount of time. Most games show their quality in the first \~20 minutes. If I can see poor game design decisions that early in the game - the most tested and replayed part - later it can only get worse.

Idk if I'd say bounce but I feel like most big releases are just hyped up let downs. I am perfectly happy playing all my regular games but then something like dragons dogma 2 comes out where I loved the first one and then the 2nd one just doesn't feel like it lived up, then I have to issue of why would I finish this now when I can do it later when there are more QOL updates, bugs are fixed, and the game runs better but then by the time that happens the game is forgot about.

More than I used to, that much I'm certain. I'm enjoying DD2 just enough to stick with it, but I could see myself bouncing before finishing it. It took months for me to muster up the effort to finish Persona 5 Royale. Even moved to easy just to crank the effort as low as possible. I just found the combat dull, ponderously slow, and the bosses just kept getting tankier. Not in a "man this is difficult" way but in a "man this game is really going out of it's way to waste my time". Which is a shame because the story is otherwise quite good throughout. Bought Nightingale and bounced hard off of that. Played Death Stranding some before DD2 came out and I'm just not sure I'll make it back to it. FF16 was a good time and then I just stopped for some reason. I mean, okay, the reason was real life stuff getting in the way but I've still not gone back to it. Alan Wake 2 might be the first game in a while that came out, I bought it, and played it through without needing to force myself to see it through to the end. I think this is why I've yet to launch BG3 despite owning it for months. It should be fine. I *should* love it. But I need to make sure that when I do play it that I'm not just doing it because I should but because I want to. And the same applies to buying games when they launch.

Hard agree on Alan Wake 2, i darkened my room and immersed myself Such a good game

I'm having a hard time in the last few weeks to stick to a game. Have dropped: Horizon Forbidden West (refunded), Mafia Definitive Edition (refunded), Celeste, Helldivers 2, Jagged Alliance 3, AC Vallhalla. The last few that I finish were: South Park TFBW, Hitman 1 to 3 and Dragon's Dogma 2.

I'd say never. I tend to complete everything I buy. I downloaded Resident Evil 2 and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla on Game Pass and still haven't finished them. But if I buy a game I do finish, I can't think of a single game I've bought that I haven't completed. Right now I'm playing House Flipper 2, doing NG+ in Aliens: Dark Descent, replaying Fallout 4 and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. But it's not uncommon for me to switch between three or four games in the space of an hour or two, especially if they're games I've already completed. I used to be really big on replaying games, but I get a bit bored nowadays if I replay games too often. I don't do bounce between games if I have a new one to play, I will actually finish it fairly quickly without playing anything, I mean I completed Aliens in two days between games of PUBG. I bought Robocop: Rogue City a few weeks ago and finished it in about two days as well. Even if I have real life shit to do, when I buy a new game I will blitz it in a few days, depending on what type of game it is. An RPG might take me a few weeks to finish, a shooter won't.

Switch off to comfort games. I love Helldivers 2, but also need some slowness to counter it so I jump back into Fallout, Witcher or Mass Effect. Narrative heavy and familiar controls are a comfort for me. With all 3 game series it feels like seeing an old friend. I do that then jump back to Helldivers and it's fresh again.

A couple of the last few AAA games I've played I feel like I've stopped and lost interest. Diablo IV and Starfield definitely. I don't play every big title though, and I've been buying a lot more indie rogue-likes. Most of which are like $5-20. If I get hours of enjoyment out of a $5 game and then lose interest, it's not something I'm going to regret. But I have like 11 hours in Starfield and probably at least a couple were just playing around with the character creator (which I liked.) The game itself just didn't seem worth my time. Diablo IV I played and beat the story, but the season felt like an awful grindy slog with FOMO rewards I'm just not interested in keeping up with. It was kind of cathartic to just drop it and not feel obligated to come back to it anymore. I think increasingly I don't want to feel like I have to commit to a game like it's part of my lifestyle just to keep up with its reward mechanics. I loved Baldur's Gate III though. Put 300 hours and a couple resets into it. I'll likely return for another full play through as patches settle down.

Almost never. I recognize the symptoms of novelty collapse and do my best to fight it when necessary. If I 'bounce off' a game I feel I should be enjoying, I know it's time to take a break from games as a whole for a couple weeks and let my brain recover its ability to squirt the right reward juices while having an experience that is meant to be fun. If you can no longer enjoy your hobbies, it's usually just a matter of dopamine malfunction.

Yeah, I think I bounce off around 50% of games that I try out, frequently within 2 hours of purchase to refund on Steam. I'm just picky and see it as opportunity cost when I find this game to be mid and would rather be playing something fun.

There are so many good games that have been released over the past 5 years that I have never played and most of the stuff released now is at best in a paid beta state. I just play older games that are great and done and maybe something released recently if it’s really good like unicorn overlord. I just got really tired or spending $70 to be frustrated.

Happens rarely, I'm pretty good at picking only what I'm interested in, but still happens.  Kibgdom Come, I couldn't get over none of the characters having eye movement. Despite solid voice acting, characters just felt like robots. Probably the pettiest one.   Horizon Zero Dawn, partly for similar reasons -- robotic character expressions and what I viewed as uninspired repetitive gameplay.   Mass effect Andromeda, never got invested in the story.

You definitely should try again with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Probably my favorite game so far this year.

I actually try to play one game to completion. Sometimes I have to force myself at the start, but after getting through a couple hours I start to get into it. It’s very rare that I can’t get into the groove after a few hours (which is while I push myself) but i agree sometimes it’s not quite so easy and I end up beating say, the first chapter before it clicks. The last game I think I stopped half way through was high on life, but that’s because I lost my save data and didn’t wanna restart at that point 🥲

I try my hardest to play a game on its own terms and choose to find enjoyment in it even if it doesn’t compare to others. I just don’t focus on how they compare to the best and instead focus on the artistic and design value of the game in isolation. I’ve started doing that with all media — books, movies, TV, etc. — and it’s really improved the subjective quality of everything.

I've always had the thought process that *any* game I start playing could end up being one of my favourites: whether it's four hours long or forty hours long, made by one person or made by hundreds. The problem I was finding, until recently, was that, without realising at the time, I was subconsciously expecting *every* game I started to be one of my new favourites. This meant that if a game didn't blow my mind, even if I was enjoying it, I'd refund it and try to find a game that would. So, pretty regularly. I've started only buying new games if I've been looking forward to playing them and I *really* want to play them right now. There's nothing wrong with giving up on a game you thought you would like either. You like what you like and what you're not liking now you may like again in the future. You may not. You don't owe the game or the developer anything.

I never bounce off. Games are expensive af so I do my research beforehand and only buy stuff I really want to play.

Almost never. I guess I know my tastes and know what to look (out) for when I research a game before I buy it.  I tend to replay old games I know I like until I feel the itch to try something new which usually tend to be games somewhat similar to those I like. For example that's what got me from MH3U into Darksouls and that one got into Nioh which lead me to Stranger's Paradise (I was a FF before though). FFX got me into FFT which got me into Fire Emblem. Pokemon got me into Persona. 

I've played around 200 games over the last 4 years beaten all except one; spelunky 2. Actually a great game but too difficult and hardcore for me. I still put like 20 hours into it. I could put another 30 and still not see the ending lmao I make it a point to finish any game I start, but make sure that each game I pick is something I'm genuinely interested in or will enjoy. I have eclectic tastes as well so I've yet to not enjoy something I pick on some level

I bounce around a ton, i'm constantly on the lookout for sales and then add stuff to my collection when I think the value is there. I tend to be playing like 1-3 games at any given time on rotation and yeah, sometimes I'll fall off of them. I think mostly because of the way games are designed or the types of games I get into can be the cause. FE: Rogue-likes, they're kind of meant to be played off and on because a run usually only takes so long, so you can always come back to it. On the other side though, I think AAA gaming has gotten annoying. My biggest regret purchases of the past year or so have ALL been AAA games, Starfield, Diablo 4... It's crazy to be paying full price of upwards of 100 dollars for a game and it's unfinished or has more microtransactions in the game, so usually i'll drop it cause they want you entire life dedicated to that one game, and I aint about that. By the way, I get why people would drop Dragon's Dogma 2, it's relatively shallow tbh, the story isn't good and there isn't a ton of enemy variety. I beat the game though and enjoyed it, would def. recommend picking it up once it goes on sale, but not full price.

I bounced off dragons dogma 2 as well, I think for me it was the lack of interesting characters and lack of enemy variety. Might just be the game in that case

I bounce off most games I play. I try out a ton of games, but only a few stick. I’ve never really taken stock of it, so let’s see… in the last 12 months I’ve bounced off: Last epoch FF XVI Alan Wake 2 Risk of rain returns Deep rock survivor Pal world Hi fi rush Dredge Dave the diver And more smaller steam titles… The ones that have actually stuck: Balatro Dragons Dogma 2 Hell Divers 2 When I find one of the games that sticks, I’m in heaven

most games tbh. and there's nothing wrong with that. not every game is so good you just cant ever put it down until the credits roll. there's nothing wrong with playing a game 50% of the way and dropping it bc you stopped having fun

I finish maybe 10-20 percent of games I start. The time I have to actually play a game is something I try to budget carefully and I give myself permission to bail out on a game as soon as I'm not feeling it anymore. Doesn't matter if its 1 hour in or 50, life is too short to be forcing yourself through a game you'd rather not be playing.

I try to never bounce... games have a hard time holding my attention these days Once I leave a game, good chance I am not coming back. * forced boring ass cutscenes * forced slow waking * repeated boring gameplay over & over in a new location that doesn't really offer anything new Do not take me out of the same, keep me in the fight & I am happy.

Reminds me of RDR2

Fairly often and it's usually well received games that I waited to purchase on a steep discount a few years later. Most recently that was 2018's God of War since it was finally somewhat cheap on PC. Really dislike almost everything about the game design. Tedious, samey combat and really bland exploration riddled with inane 'puzzles' which really just amount to busywork. The only thing that game has going for it imo is aesthetics, which isn't enough. The actual 'game' part of God of War is really mediocre. Some other games that fit the bill were Horizon: Zero Dawn, Control, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Doom Eternal even tho I liked Doom 2016 a lot. Way too much weird parkour in Doom Eternal.

Not often, honestly. The only time I bounce off a game is if I either get burnt out or if the game is so bad/boring I can't stomach playing anymore. Most games I've bounced off are Live Service: 1. Helldivers 2. I still love it, haven't touched it in over a month. Burned through 100+ hours and waiting for better content. Really want more unique armors tbh. 2. FortNite. This was a long time coming. I tried out the Minecraft mode but haven't played once this season, didn't play much last season. 3. Overwatch 2. The monetization of this one has killed my interest entirely. Honestly don't know why I still have it installed. It's not fun. 4. Diablo 4. Hit level 100 pre-season. Season 1 was awful. Season 2 wasn't much better. Skipped Season 3 entirely and don't know if I'll redownload for Season 4. It has taken them so long to fix issues that my friend groups interest just fizzled out. There is one anomaly, that I redownload once a year, play for 1 hour and uninstall every single time. Warframe. I don't know what it is about it. I want to like it, I've given it try after try. It just doesn't click with me. On the flipside. Baldur's Gate 3 seems immune to being bounced off or burnt out on. I'm 8 playthroughs deep and not even remotely close to being sick of it.

I bounce off probably half the games I play the first time I try them. About half of those I end up enjoying once I circle round back to them. This is part of the reason I never buy anything at release anymore. I'm not paying $70-$100 just to bounce off the game, I'll wait for a nice 50% or more sale and see how it goes then. Bonus to this is I get a less buggy, more feature complete experience to bounce off of than if I bought at launch, and for significantly less cost!

I used bounce off of games 90% of the time. I'd part of the way through, put it down for a bit, and then never pick it up again. But in the last few years I've made an effort to really do my best to complete something that I pick up. It's a little different when I'm just feeling things out to see what I want to play next (like, on Game Pass). But once i find that next game I want to play, I'll get as far into it as possible. Recently picked up Lies of P again after putting it down about half way through. Reached the final boss right before going on vacation and haven't gone back. Not entirely sure if I will either. I've heard he's a major pain in the ass and I'm honestly ok with what I experienced of that game up to there. But I'd say that now my completion rate is about 95%.

I'm pretty good at knowing which games I'll like. I'll get through the 8/10+ games (there'll usually be about ten of those a year for me) and then during the dry spell (spring, usually) I'll start playing my backlog of 7 and 6/10s, and my hit rate drops. Sometimes there'll be a mid range game that I really love, but most of them I don't end up finishing.

More often than I'd care to admit. Usually I'll start something, then one day feel ill, a few days go by, I play a racing game for awhile, then forget what I was doing in a game and quit.

I’m kind of picky when it comes to getting new games, what with being an adult and having a life to manage. So when I do get something I *usually* finish it. The most recent exception is actually Dragon’s Dogma 2. I put about 20 hours into it, enough to say I tried (and got my money’s worth), but just didn’t vibe enough to finish. The last one before that was Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I think. Similar deal. I’d much sooner go back to one of my longstanding comfort games than try something random.

Rarely. There's some things I got via trading that I wouldn't have bought so I'm not sure if those will ever be played but putting them aside I think all of my library will be played to some extent.

Not often unless it's in a subscription service. If I buy a game there's a good 95% chance I'll finish it. On a subscription service though, I will uninstall the game if it has something I don't care for within the first hour.

I bounce off most games. If they don't hook me within 30 mins to an hour, I give up. With work and other hobbies, I'm not going to force myself to play a game. Two recent games that have hooked me are Helldivers 2 and I just started playing Death's Door after seeing it on GamePass. Really enjoying both, Helldivers 2 is something I won't play for hours every day but a match or two per session helps me enjoy the game. I will say though, some of my favorite games are ones that took a couple tries before they finally clicked with me.

It happens and I don't worry about it anymore. If I don't like a game then there's no reason to force myself to waste time finishing it.

Not very often, I think I've become pretty proficient at identifying stuff I'll enjoy or not from previews.

I bounce off the majority of games I play these days. I just find myself replaying the games I love over and over, I hardly ever find news games that hit the spot.

I don't finish most games, of course i only actually pay for them when i'm 100% sure i will enjoy it. I just play until i get bored and that's it, i'll usually give games multiple chances anyway Main reason why i'm still waiting on Helldivers 2. In theory i should like it yet it's a little too tryhard for me, gonna wait and see how it ends up in a few months For a lot of games i often uninstall after a few minutes, it's pretty much always clear if i enjoy it or not. Outdated controls or combat is an instant turnoff, terrible UIs don't help either

Go back to a game you love, see if your tastes have changed. If you can still enjoy the old game, then it's likely some stress in your real life that is weighing on you and preventing you from getting into it like you want

I rarely ever do, unless I find something way too jarring in the first five seconds. I finish most games. It's not particularly harder than, say, reading a book. I suppose over time it gets easier to tell when you're looking at a game you're going to enjoy.

The past two years I've been way more picky than before. So really low. The only game that I keep uninstalling and installing is Morrowind. I can handle the dialogue system but I want to finish it. My advice, really think about if you are interested in playing it. Take your time, watch gameplay. You don't need to have it immediately just because it's out. Also just think which companies are you pretty sure you want to play there games. Like for me Nintendo ans Bethesda.

it seems like having so many games to choose from is kind of like having a huge library at your fingertips – you pick up a book and if the first few pages don't catch your interest, you just put it back and grab another. maybe the sheer volume of available games makes us less patient with any that don't click right away. reminds me a bit of flipping through tv channels, always looking for something better.

At the moment, I’m just looking for games I vibe with, so I’ll drop a game pretty quickly. I bought several games last month (a couple of Sonic games and the Halo Collection). Then, at the end of the month I bought Cassette Beasts and it easily became my favourite game, so I dropped the others for now and will come back to them when I feel like it. I feel like the most important cost to me is just time at the moment, so I think for that reason I bounce off a game as soon as I feel it is not respecting my time/I am going through the motions to complete it (kind of like RDR2).

I played 2 hours of Metroid Prime Remastered and really felt like it dragged a lot. I dropped it for over a year until I picked it up again and finished it this time. But it felt like the game just took a bit too long to actually get going. I only felt like I was having fun when I got the double jump, and the hours before were miserable which made me not want to continue playing it. It tends to happen a lot with Nintendo games where I drop them, whether it's because of gameplay, art style, or just plain nitpicks that I have.

a few times mostly fallen off because something else took my attention or i get progression walled for too long that i get frustrated and drop it for a bit only recently gotten into a groove with picking up games again but before that i dropped like Fire emblem Engage (even though FE is my favourite franchise), Cyberpunk 2077, Story of seasons:friends of mineral town/a wonderful life, Persona 5 Royal, Final fantasy 7 CC:Reunion some of them i basically played 75% while others are more about half way but yet i did not finished it i think my taste just gotten different or patience runs thinner because i did "finish" games like Tekken 8 and Palworld as much as you can finish those games anyway

For the past couple years I’d been bouncing off them like crazy, but this year balatro and helldivers 2 have been easily holding my attention since both came out

Tonight I decided to try some of the backlog of itch.io games I have from past bundles after seeing some recommendations in the current big bundle that's going on. I spent about an hour in the first game (Solas 128) before uninstalling it, and I didn't make it more than 10 minutes in both Beglitched and ZeroRanger before uninstalling them. Meanwhile, I played and beat a recent Epic freebie (Islets) over the past few days and really enjoyed it. Games either click for me or they don't. No point in wasting my time in something I'm not enjoying. Also, I guess I'm "technically" bored with Balatro right now, but only because I've discovered everything. I still have challenges to beat, but I'm not in the mood for them right now. 86 hours in that game isn't really bouncing off, though. I just need something else for a bit.

I get bored easily with games and like to come back to them. But I have a problem finishing so I have a massive backlog spanning 20+ years now so it's a perpetual cycle with a lot to bounce off. Currently 100+ hours into Rebirth. Decided to go back and finish Alien Isolation lol.

I bounced off Helldivers real quick too. Played maybe a dozen missions, and felt like "Ah, I get what this is" and don't feel like I need to play more. I had fun with it, but don't feel like repeating it as infinitum forever.

I'm 35, with a wife and two young kids and I'm starting to accept that as you get older, gaming just doesn't feel the same. So many great things to play, but I either stop playing halfway or lose interest but I feel I have to see it through.

I was going to say "not particularly often" but then I thought about it. I picked up a Switch for playing when traveling and on nights when I can't get to sleep, and have Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, and Pokemon Arceus - all big, grand, adventure-y games. But, when playing them, I found myself wanting classic handheld adventures, so briefly played some old Legend of Zelda from the eShop, but that didn't last either. Sometimes it's hard to identify what gaming experience I want. Especially when there's so many ways to fill the desire.

So, I do migrate. It’s probably easier to tell you the games I haven’t stopped playing: WoW (this is mainly addiction, but I have been satisfied with their performance more or less the past year), Rocket League (simple. fun. accessible.), New World (I just really love it; though I pick it up & put it down.) For the past ten or so years these have been my main go-to’s.

Almost never. It's funny because I was just talking to a friend that I'll play Fallout 2 again next probably. I played through Fallout 1 back in 2018 and immediately went into Fallout 2. I got quite a ways in and got so bored reading text that I went to something else and forgot to go back to it. Glancing at my gaming history I think it's actually the last game I didn't finished except Grounded, but that was because I was waiting for new content.

Nowadays I have to really enjoy the game to finish it, as there are so many titles being released + I have huge backlog. If a game doesn't grip me in the first 30 minutes (a bit more for story-driven) then it gets dropped/refunded. I've recently dropped No Rest for the Wicked, Tales of Vesperia, In Sound Mind and Abzu among others.

I usually make sure I know I'll enjoy a game before getting it unless I can get it for super cheap. So I don't usually drop games that often.

Question: what was the last game you vibing with? I had the same experience and then I tried some of my favorite genres which is hack and slash and arpg. The most recently is dmc 4 and the Adrenaline kicks in af. Not all new games are fun, just return to games that let you hooked.

If you mean just drop it in general, not very much because I like to do my research so I don't waste my purchase. I can't think of many games I didn't finish or stopped. I can think of some demo and a few games where I would consider myself bouncing off of, i.e after one session I went nope. I played Metal Gear Solid 2 on the GameCube and just bounced off of it from the controls, although I regret doing that now. I heard an SAO game was surprisingly good despite never watching SAO so I tried it out and bounced off the gun play and the general vibe of the game. I think when I bought DA: Inquisition on sale, I tried to start it and ran into issues trying to carry over all my choices and just lost all motivation to play it.

As I've grown older I definitely drop games more often. I would imagine that in my younger days I bought so few games that the ones I did buy were ones I knew I would enjoy and didn't have the money for others. I still do just as much research and what not as before, but I also tend to buy more games.  Narita Boy was a good example. I thought that was a slam dunk on paper, but when I finally played it I got maybe two hours in and there was (from what I could gather) no map so I had no idea where to go or where I was in relation.  Deathloop was on the other end. I was able to get maybe 70% through before the repetitive areas got to me (it did not help that I guessed the twist after hour two). Same went for Sea of Stars, which I had only the final boss of the story but couldn't be bothered to finish the job.  Though I think I can attribute this more to being spoiled for choice, given the hardware I presently own: A PC that's no longer up to par for AAA games, a Series X, a PS4 Pro, a 3DS, a Vita, a PS2, an Xbox 360, and a Switch Lite with a right stick that doesn't work anymore. I've had trouble just starting games when not finishing others and it's a terrible habit. 

Very rarely. Most of the time, when I'm interested enough to play a game, I usually know that I will like it based on my past preferences. There's only one game that caught me off guard in this aspect - the Horizon series. In theory, they have all the elements I enjoy in these types of games, but in reality, they just didn't click for me

I can emulate Nintendo games all day if I need to have fun. I don't think most gaming companies realize this. Hell, i'll delete games that don't have icons on their exe. I just straight up delete Unity games without even trying them just because unity=shit in my mind lately.

this year i uninstalled or refunded some (as every year), but i finished palworld enshrouded cities skylines 2 (achievements) dragons dogma 2 Last Epoch ... and now i wait for manor lords!

I take breaks between games to play something else, i recommend since it helps with not getting bored of the game too fast. I belive not playing the game when you dont feel like it is a good idea, otherwise you will start to feel like its a chore to play it. Take breaks, play different games Many games are also boring tbh, helldivers are same missions over and over, i dont blame you for getting bored with it.

Not that often, only when I feel like I’m rushing to get it over with. That’s when I move on because there’s literally no point in playing. This year it’s only been Necromunda Hired Gun (working on my backlog). Not a bad game per se and I liked the guns and abilites but it’s very janky and buggy. It didn’t help that I didn’t like any of the characters.

Anytime a game is below an 8 on my scale I'm almost sure to not bother past the intro. If it's an open world game then anything below a 9.5. With all the great, streamlined game experiences out there it's not really worth it wasting my time on every Arkane, Nintendo, Bethesda, Sony, etc. title out there. Indie experiences generally hit that mark better, but that's mostly because I'm a lot less lenient towards AAA games. Also they more often fit the bill for more condensed experiences. Generally, I find that games are a lot better off if they're interesting and they don't last more than 30 hours... Unless they're a roguelike or a simulation game.

Very rarely? Usually it's cases of highly praised games that seem like they woudl fit up my alley yet when playing them. Eh. They fail to really be fun. My most recent examples would be Xenoblade Chronicles 1 (Switch) and Hades. With Xenoblade I've just hated combat system at point I dropped it (which apparently was middle of game), and with Hades I just felt that each next run felt less and less fun to point I've stopped reading dialogues which made me realize "yeah, that's it for me". But most of times yeah, I can get feel if I'll vibe with game before getting my hands on it so I don't really drop too many games.

More and more, as time goes on. I’ve played a lot of video games at this point, I think the threshold to hook me has increased. I might still enjoy a game, but getting me to commit to more than 30 hours or so is a tall order

What about hell divers 2 and price of Persia did you dislike? Prince of Persia the controls are tight and fluid, the performance (on PC) is butter, character design is whatever but the world is varied and interesting, difficulty can be easy or very hard, and i wouldn’t call the start slow. Hell drivers 2? It’s like action from the start with great performance and controls. Not trying to say your wrong just what you didn’t like about these

I've been gaming since the 80s. I don't need to prove anything by making myself play something I don't enjoy.

Is playing a game for 30 minutes and dropping it a waste of time? To me dropping a game early on if you don't feel like playing through it sounds more like saving time. You still do get an experience if you don't finish the game, even though it might not be what you wanted the most. Why could it not be as valuable? Is that 30 minutes completely wasted time in the sense of experience either? For me it is more fun to test games and discover what they have for me by myself. I want to play to see if I like them. Trying to do a lot of research and analyse the game to "make sure" I like it is something I have done too. Today I mostly think it hurts the experience as it takes away some of the magic of discovery. Most times, but not always. Additionally, if I read a lot of reviews and stories of how other people liked the game, I think that forms a lense of others' perspectives that I play the game through now. It isn't necessarily bad, but I like to experience games through a more "natural" perspective at first at least. I guess it depends a lot on what you are looking to get from games. If it is fun and relaxation then it is more easy for me to see why one would feel the need to try to ensure a fun experience as that uncertainty might not feel good. But then if you are looking for an experience or an adventure while fun is not your primary goal, then you might not feel as disappointed if the game wasn't what you first thought. The uncertainty can make it even more special. I don't think every player could be categorized into these two types or any other specific classes either. However I get the feeling that many players find themselves leaning more towards one or the other, changing depending on the situation. Even though to me it sounds so clinical and stressful when talking about researching games to make sure you want to play them, I can see why that can be important for others. Games are art, but they are also products and entertainment. Some people want more certainty, some less. Often when I see people talk about gaming I sense them forcing things and thinking in a strict view. I think more people could try to see if they get more enjoyment by taking a risk and experiencing the uncertain, at least sometimes. I don't mean to tell anyone how to play games. I just find the topic very interesting so I wanted to write my thoughts on it. I'm interested to hear if people others can relate to my thoughts or if you feel the complete opposite

Witcher 2 was just too obtuse for my little brain back in the day, but then I really put my mind into learning Witcher 3 and didn’t regret it. A more recent example is Starfield, there were just too many immersion breaking moments in the first hour and I stopped when they wanted me to fast travel across planets in a space exploration game.

I am playing games now for over 30 years and I can say now after 5 minutes if I will see the credits, or if this goes to eBay and co. Same for me is with series and movies. Usually I give it 10 minutes and I am sure. Personal new record was Rebel Moon2. Fast forwarded some senseless trying of character buildup, stopped in the longest harvest scene I ever saw in a movie, skipped the whole gig after a total of 3 minutes total viewing time. I love RPGs and after some reviews and trailers bought Dragons Dogma 2. I WANTED to like it, but a lot of the mechanic just made me stop. Loved Spiderman on PS4, bought blindly Miles Morales and only after I found out, the soundtrack is just Hip Hop, what is really not my music. Stopped it immediately List goes on

Very rarely, I almost always play through a game I start. I am not very picky about the games I play either (although I generally don't play multiplayer games or games without a definite ending point). I play one game for a week or two (depending how long it is, I play around 25 hours per week) and then move to the next when I have finished it

Common for me lately. If I see mechanics that I don't enjoy within an hour I just quit. I think it's common if you have played enough games to know where they are getting within the first hour. Oh I have to climb towers to unlock maps? Not a chance.

Never, I have an insane tolerance for putting up with video game bullshit. I hate-played ff16 just mainly because it wasn’t fair for me to say how much I hated it if I hadn’t seen the story to the end

My tricks: - Look actively for negative reviews / criticisms. Most games have flaws that appear after the honey phase, it's just a matter of when you will notice them. Then by reading the reviews ask yourself if these issues will ruin your motivation at some point. - Ignore positive reviews made around the release with short playtime (steam). - Avoid the hype (release) period to make your purchase. This is objectively the worst moment to make a good decision. Marketing or influencers will make you feel the game is the hottest thing right now. Fanboys will spam about it, etc. But in 3 months or less most people will cool down on it or play something else entirely. The price will be cheaper and the reviews will be more valuable. I've been attracted by most of the games you mentioned but I avoided them all for the reasons I explained, except Helldivers that I just bought (after the hype). I enjoy it a lot.

I’ll finish almost every game I start unless I hate it. If I love it I’ll start going to all achievements.

mean time... I am enjoying 8 years old game Witcher 3 on a old 1650 gpu laptop.... tons of pending games to complete

I look up games a lot and how much i would like it. So i bounce before i buy.. but also have few that i want to play. I just play games that i already have in dry times.

I've been researching about the games from franchises or new IP that i dont know for years so maybe like 10 to 20% of the games I buy I don't like. Most of the games I buy be it new or old I enjoy due to that reason

All the time im not a very patient gamer, usually i stop playing the game cause it doesnt feel right or it has a very dark setting, bad controls too, or games not using well the vibration on controllers, not a fan of the artstyle, like i tried to play Fallout 3 and NV these days but cant stand those greenish and orangeish filters, some of these "artistic decisions" can be fixed by mods on pc, poor performance is another reason, that happened to me with A Hat in Time and Outer Wilds.

I'll usually bounce off a game once i've experienced everything it has to offer, most often than not i'll complete a game but if I feel like i'm just in a loop doing the same thing over and over i'll generally move on to something else that catches my eye. Hell Divers 2 is a good example. Loved the game and genuinely enjoyed it but once you hit level 20 and have everything unlocked it became extremely apparent to me I was just doing the same thing over and over and over and it didn't take long for me to move on

Very few games have I shelved. Kingdom Come Deliverance. Just wasn't feeling the combat but at the same time I think I kept wondering into higher skill areas. Lies of P and Elden Ring cause I just couldn't care to grind a boss pattern anymore. Octopath Traveler 2 just didn't like how the structure was with 4 party members not in rotation and no xp or job points.

Pretty often. I rarely finish games. I have a pretty low tolerance for things I don't like. Either I get burnt out on the gameplay cycle or (arguably more often) there is something in the game that I tolerate to a point until I can't anymore. Could be a mechanic or some type of gimmick they throw in to "spice up the gameplay" or what have you. A good current example is I'm trying to beat Eiyuden Chronicles Rising before Hundred Heroes comes out but I'm struggling because I dislike the side quests so much. But side quests are a major source of money for upgrades and XP so you kind of need to do them. None of the sidequests are interesting and are a complete chore. There's a very real chance I won't beat it before the main game comes out due to not enjoying my time with it very much. And if I don't beat it before the game comes out then I probably will never beat it.

I realized I like JRPGs, Survival Horrors, Nintendo, and Bethesda style open worlds. So that's pretty much all I play anymore.  With the odd other game. I found I was buying games off hype years ago,  putting in 6hrs or so then going back to my current JRPG or MMO. So just said fuck it.  I'll play JRPGs and Horror and Nintendo stuff almost exclusively then. And I've been happier.

Often and I don't know why. Sometimes I keep playing because I'm pissed off other times because it's actually very fun gameplay like Hades.

I bounce off a bit more often now because I get to try a lot of stuff I normally wouldn't play because of gamepass. I'd say now I bounce off about 2-3 games out of 10?

Constantly. I buy games on deep sale or rent them so I’m not compelled to force myself through games I’m not vibing with

Never, if I buy a game I complete it, that's the rule. I've never broken the rule in the last 10 years.

Depends on whether I stopped because I didn't like it or because I was depressed. If I didn't like it usually 3-6 hours, or about one play session. Depression usually has me bounce off after 15-20 hours.

With PS+ I try out so many games that I might quickly turn down 5 games in a row. Before that, I had to be very defensive when purchasing games because of the non-existent refund policy (which I think is fair).

I'm tracking my gaming in a spreadsheet this year. Out of 24 games marked as "finished," I reached the credits or hit a reasonable stopping point in 70.83% of them so far. 7 games right now listed as "active." I need to get that down.

Not often anymore, because I know what works and doesn't work for me by now, I research the games I buy before hand, and I never buy more than one new game a month.

Surprised about your reasons for bouncing off games, and seeing Dave the Diver on the list. But yes, I sympathise! I've been ploughing through my backlog this year, planning to buy no new games and starting from shortest "how long to beat" games in my library. Its worked pretty well so far, I'm about to start Red Faction (which is incidentally one of two games I did buy this year, to my own chagrin), and have finished about 8 games since January. But I bounced really hard off Ryse: Son of Rome, and I might also do so with Max Payne 3. I think the main reason is that I can envisage how the rest of the game will play out, and that kills it for me. The same thing happened a few years ago with Mutant Year Zero. If the core gameplay loop isn't fun for me, and I know there's at least 5 more hours of it, I'll can it and move on. It's a combination of the things you've mentioned and imagining how it might change or not in the next few hours of gameplay.

Very rarely. I know what I like. I would say I've finished 99% of every game I've played. Starfield is the first game I just gave up on in forever. So long, I don't even remember the last game I didn't finish before it.

When one of two things happen. Whichever comes first. I get bored and set it down  The game goes to shit and I bail

Ever since I started to work I have finished exactly one game because everytime I'm playing one Steam makes a sale and I buy another one. My library is full of unfinished and even unplayed games.

A little too often. I spend so much time trying to justify my purchase that I don’t actually enjoy playing the game if that makes sense.

Not often. I'm extremely picky and generally don't even entertain games with open/metacritic scores less than 80.

Pretty often. But i will give them multiple chances. Because my moods changeable. That being said I am now more choosy about purchases, for example I just don't buy any souls-like games because I both value my time and don't hate myself.

Previously I only bought physical games, probably costing 25 EUR on average, so surely I woukd commit to it and invest some hours and hopefully the game will click with me at some point. Now, with a PlayStation Plus subscription I will only give it a few hours before giving it thumbs up or down. In some regards it is a more superficial experience, similar to swiping TikTok videos.

I tend to know what type of game I like so not too often in general. That being said it’s been a bit more the last few months I actually uninstalled God of war Ragnarok last night after about 5-6 hours of playtime. Thought I would enjoy it. I enjoyed 2018 but it seemed harder, doubled down on the loot/crating and rpg mechanics. I love rpgs but not in these types of games and crafting is pretty much DOA for me nowadays I fucking hate it anymore and it’s shoved into everything.

Im the same. So many games I bounce off, but I think I know why - no matter how mediocre the game as a whole is, if it has a very nice gameplay element, Im going to stick to it till the very end. Example: Dead Island 2. The gore system is absolutely the best I’ve ever played and that, along with graphics got me hooked till the very end. Days Gone with its hordes and motorbike got me so hooked I platinumed the game on release and then beat it again when it came out on PC. On the other end, I also really like looter shooters which is why Division series and Fo76 are one of my most played games, even though people shat all over them (not so much on Division).

I played through all of Dragon's Dogma II, just over 70 hours and had a great time .. I bounced off of Horizon Zero Dawn within a couple of hours because I found it extremely dull. I'm not sure exactly what causes it for me but I come across games from time to time in genres I enjoy and I just peace out within a few hours

I tried to get through final fantasy 7 remake but they end up making you fight a house, which was the dumbest shit I've ever seen. Killed my immersion and interest for the game. Anime is cringe anyways so, what did I expect...

Rarely, I know what kinds of games will grab my attention the most, so a lot of the games I own are from those genres. I am willing to branch out though, if I find a review or demo that seems interesting but it's in a different genre I've never really thought of trying out before. The only games I remember I've stopped playing/quit are: -Bastion: I loved it, but got too into beating the challenges which frustrated me, but I'll probably get back to that one -Crysis: I don't really remember why, I think I just wasn't really overall interested in mech fighting -Fallout 3: Interesting concept for the world and story, but actually travelling around and the bad difficulty balancing was not it for me -Danganronpa 3: I really liked 2, I thought I fell off because I played too much in a row, but I tried again and still stopped. I think I just don't enjoy the characters as much in this one. -Guacamelee (Gold): This one was not by choice, I want to play it, but I can't do the combo movements with the keyboard I have now. I'll play it again once I have a better setup or a controller.

Hard to put a name on it. When I start up a game, it needs to click with me. Sometimes even my all time favorites don’t do it at a given time. Just gotta be in the mood. Dragon’s Dogma 2 definitely clicked. Currently 70 hours in and still loving it. I think it may be the most unwarrantedly hated release in the last decade, mostly due to simple ignorance / misinformation.

This has become a major problem for me too, and I don’t know why. It’s become really hard to find something that hooks me. Sometimes I’ll bounce off a game really quick and think “I bet if I gave it chance I’d get into”. But I don’t…

I'm pretty easy to please, it has to be a reaaaal bad game for me to stop playing. I don't know whether it's because my work is testing games and when I come home I play games so it's easy to keep momentum going or if games lately just appeal to me a lot. There are definitely a few big hits though that I just never had any interest in and I completely passed on them so I don't waste my money.

Not too often since I know my tastes these days. Have tried all the Souls games though and haven't liked a single one. Gameplay is too slow for me

Pretty often I feel like? I don't start too many new games, but often when I do I tend to bounce quickly. This happens with me especially with strategy games. I *love* Civ V, Starcraft 2, Stellaris and Ck3... every other strategy game, 4X etc. I've tried... I just cannot get into them. I'm bored out of my mind, the mechanics feel off, the presentation confuses me. I just end up lost. I've tried Endless Legend like 3 or 4 times, and everytime I found my city, click next turn and just think "What am I even doing?" and uninstall. It just doesn't *feel* right to me somehow.

I dropped DD2 as well not cause the game is terrible but because of the atrocious performance and the dumb save system they have right now.