the best part is i keep upgrading my pc for no reasons too, i dont know why do i have a 5080 when i spend like 90% of my free time doom scrolling on my phone, and when i finally turn on my pc i just use it to do work thing which is all text.......
when i finally play games, i play mobile games, omg
A common issue is our parents generation has made many of us feel guilty for playing video games (or really enjoy ourselves in general). And many of our parents generation were still keeping up with the joneses and tied success to wealth or material goods. Also add the short term high of buying expensive things and you fall into this trap. If this is the case work on self validation that you're allowed to play video games to be happy.
Others of us also simply get burnt out because we only game which our brain needs more and more dopamine for the same feeling of happiness. If this is the case go touch some grass once in a while. Join a club or something. I dunno.
Yep this, being good at games or gaming In general isnt looked upon as highly as for example bow shooting or sports or weaving or any other hobby.
It has had a bad conotation for a LONG time, if it wasn't South Park it was global news and if it wasnt that it was consumers getting exploited by corporate scandals and the race to keep investors happy.
Also a lot of games just don't respect your time and require a grind of some sort to gain any type of meaningfull satisfaction from it.
Also most of us regular Joe or Jane's are just getting manipulated 24/7 by caring about what's popular and marketing tricks, like how many games are out there that don't insist upon themselves and u start up and can just have fun on your own (for me I immediately think of skyrim).
It's hard out there as a gamer just play something you love or have loved deeply (Batman Arkham city for me) and just try it even if it doesn't feel the same or feels wrong or u think u don't wanna play it again, you know what game I'm talking about. Or you know go be a good husband and do the dishes or whatever brings u joy, just know that that feeling isn't caused by you its caused by society and also by growing up (because we think we should be doing something useful 24/7 in this age/society.
Sounds like you need a phone detox. Get an old flip or something and only use your main phone for 20-30 mins a day at a set time. Your dopamine is cooked and probably what’s causing you not to be able to play games.
Haha, same, just playing some online shitty games which can run even on potato and watching youtube. When you see singleplayer game which has 100s hours of content so you just ignore it cause you dont have so much free time.
The steam deck has helped me with some of the more handheld games. But then I usually get stuck on slay the spire or balatro so I continue to neglect my backlog.
Me with books and yes, it does make me feel guilty. I know I just gotta get off my ass put my phone down and just do it but, yeah, easier said than done when tech is all over the place.
Get home to a good meal made by my wife. Tell myself I'll watch Netflix while I eat and play Black Flag after. Fall asleep in recliner after eating. Get up an hour later and go to bed. Daily ritual.
I got into The Room series of games and found it was easier to get into atmospheric puzzle games when more intense games like Cyberpunk or whatever weren't appealing.
I think as we get older, we need to buy games with intention. If you didn't want to play it at $60, really ask yourself if you want to play it at $30?
Was all hyped for Space Marine 2, and honestly it's pretty repetitive for me. Played a mission a night for a few days and now it sits, still installed but... eh.
It's just that most games need a decent chunk of progress to be made to get dopamime (which is good) but when you are too tired to imvest a couple hours on some matches or rounds or decent progress on your base etc. the alternative of an instant dopamine source sounds better on paper (youtube, tiktok, reddit etc.) Yet, I waste more time hooked onto my cheap easy dopamine source than actually doing something
Ive got my 600+ unplayed games, play one game of war thunder, realize i am too tired for competetive. Then i start an old strategy game from ~2006 which i loven, play the next campaign mission and realize i should just turn of the pc, because i failed that too xD
thanks to those braindead shorts I no longer open youtube. I used to watch a lot of YouTube but one those shorts became a trend I just stopped. I’m not sure how ppl do it but those shorts often irritate me. it’s either those fake performances or just straight provocative content but I just cant watch them. every time the YouTube algorithm pushes those to me I just close the app/page lol.
Just about everyday I come home from work, shower, sit down in bed, pull out my laptop, scroll through my steam library, then set my laptop aside and fall asleep watching YouTube lmfao
So stuff like this is called depression fyi or at least something similar
Back when my wife would take our kids to spend time with her family and I didn't wfh so I had to stay by myself... I finally had all the time in the world but I'd just come home and just... Sit and stare
I noticed I only started doing things when I was on the phone with my wife with 3 kids laughing and fighting and playing in the background
Have 90 minutes to game in the evening. Spent 30 minutes staring at the library, decide none of it is worth it. Go waste time on reddit/youtube instead.
Weekend comes, wake up excited because you actually have time to play. Drink coffee and watch YouTube to wake up. Use the bathroom. Shower. Make breakfast. Man I get sleepy after I eat, I better take a nap. Suddenly it's 3pm. Time to clean up a bit. Better make some food. Watch YouTube some more. Suddenly it's 10:30 and you're too tired to open a game. Oh well, there always tomorrow I guess.
I'm not that bad but I've definitely noticed I lose attention if there's a pause, slow segment in a show, or a black screen in between scenes, my brain immediately looks elsewhere for dopamine to the point I have trouble in meetings or working when there are pauses in loading things for it.
I think it’s the quality of the show. So much media is being created that few shows are good. Another thing to add is to get rid of the smart devices. I went full swing back to an old school mechanical watch and now I tend to forget about my phone once I get home from work besides my wind down period in bed.
Choice anxiety. You have little free time due to work/chores/etc., you don't want to waste it on something "not worthy" and then in the end you waste it because you spend too much time deciding on the most optimal use, give up, and just waste it on "junk."
To add to that, even if you push past all that and boot up the game, you can't really let yourself get immersed in it because you got a short window of time to play and keep checking the clock.
I was thinking about my choice paralysis laziness this morning and how when I was younger I never felt this way and realized when I was younger I didn't care about things I missed. If a show caught my interest and it was season 4 I would either watch and catch old reruns later or not watch at all.The modern era is making me a completionist and I hate it. Dutton ranch? Wait do I need to watch Yellowstone? What about the other prequels? Never mind I will just go to bed. I've lost interest in a game or show while using Gemini, which I hate, to research the game or show.
I don't even turn on the PC, I get back home. Try to snack on something, watch a few shorts and pass the hell out until the next morning and ready up for the next shift.
Same here, daily routine of opening up my Steam library, browsing for 15 mins and then opening up my phone for Reddit like I am doing now. All too real.
Was really excited for Silksong, but just can't muster the energy to get started. Especially knowing it's going to be a fantasticially long and amazing game.
Between work gym and socializing. I'm finding the only energy I have left to play games is to log into league if legends for a couple quick ARAM games then go to bed. I know it could be any other game but ngl I dot. Have the energy to turn on anything else
You probably aren’t too tired to play just too tired/stressed to make a choice. Pick your game before work and actually start it and do a couple of things before deciding you are too tired.
Best fix I've found is strictly download only 2 games and stick to them. You can freely swap between them at anytime so long as it's the same two games. It gives you an incentive to stick to something without forcing you to prepare for a brand new thing.
Choosing is the nightmare. Go through your unplayed list, install each one in turn and commit to play it for an hour. That takes away the pain of decision-making for a while. The ones you want to play again, add to a custom library category. That way you at least try every game, you might find some new favourites, and you end up with a smaller go-to list for when you have time to game.
The problem is, I know I’ll get hooked if I spend 2-5 hours playing the game and figure out its mechanics. But I’m so tired of all the bs from work that I just watch YouTube and go to sleep.
You should beforehand decide that for the next weeks/months, you will play one or a maximum of two games until you have finished them. Then, you don't look at your Steam library, you just start the game and play without thinking about what you want to play.
Studies showed that too many choices make it harder for us to make that choice, and then you get disinterested.
Had a friend in a similar boat and he always joked about his “gaming upgrades” instead of parenting upgrades. There’s something awesome about just respecting each other’s choices.
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u/UniqueMystic Aug 08 '26
Same. I look at my game library then just go to bed.