Anybody else find that once they started reading regularly they became much less interested in video games...

Anybody else find that once they started reading regularly they became much less interested in video games? Not meaning to be pretentious either, I just don't find them as enjoyable anymore.

Pretty much any less-structured, less artificial experience than gaming makes games seem passe. I dropped games because I discovered fishing as a young lad and no game could measure up to even a lazy afternoon catching catfish.

dude same thing happened to me. the year before I started reading I spent 3 grand a gaming pc too. now it just sits there collecting dust.

I've been reading heavily since I was 12 and videogames became less and less interesting, although once I had sex I completely lost interest altogether.

I do occasionally play a game a year and they are all single player

Nope, you just played shit games, you should ask /vr/ about games not /v/

I have phases I alternate between. Sometimes I read for months and barely play videogames, other times I just play games if there's a string of good releases and ignore reading. Happens with every hobby I have.

If I'm interested in a story I'd read a book

if I want some blood-rush I'd just play Doom or something

its really just about knowing what you want

yes but i think correlation not causation. grew older, lost interest in task completion of games, don't play them, more time, some used on reading

Yeah. Though I've still got a soft spot for Boletaria.

Happened to me with anime. Plotlines became way too superfluous for me after it.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only person who built a gaming PC, only to later decide games weren't at that worthwhile.

This is why consoles exist

PC gaming is literally nothing but consoleports anyway

With the exception of the objectively best genre of games, RTS

No. There are periods of 4-8 weeks where I just don't want to play vidya and would rather spend them time reading, but it also happens the other way around.

I find myself enjoying less things as I grow older. Not that I discard music, literature, paintings, movies or videogames. It's just that I have more of a hard time finding something that really moves me, maybe because I, as everybody, cannot help but ask for a better execution and a deeper/richer experience each time I finish contemplating a great work.

My last great findings were
>Détruire, dit-elle
>Bloodborne
>Niels Lynn

With Bloodborne I loved the architecture, the way you move through a very strange world and the ways start noticing your perspective of it as a whole, almost dynamic, structure. The same thing happened to me with its "story" that is more of an archaelogical endeavour the player has to take taking into consideration the geography, items descriptions, images of items, statues, cinematics, dialogues with NPCs, interaction with the enviroment and enemies, bosses, mechanics such as insight that changes the way you see the world... Each thing by itself and the relations and contradictions between all of these. And that art design and fucking atmosphere with a lovecraftian twist.

>do a thing
>other things get done less

Tfw not going to read as much now after taking up guitar ;__;

its called growing up.

Bloodborne is not as good as demons, dark souls 1 or dark souls 3.
Still good though.

Me t b h

nah games offer something no other medium can

Bloodborne/ Ds1 > Dark Souls 3 > Demon Souls > Dark Souls 2

But that's just my opinion.

That happened to me, kind of. Books and music "squeezed out" games for me. Not intentionally, I ended up forgetting that I could be playing a game because I was reading or listening.
Well, this isn't really true anymore, because I play a game every other day or so. They are still interesting to me. Strategy games, point-and-click games like Machinarium and Beneath a Steel Sky, artsy stuff like Psychonauts and Portal and chess... They are actually really good, dumping all this stuff would be denying yourself interesting experiences.

escapism for manchildren

games are not really all that fun. they're basically a simulacrum of fun.

it's like ramen compared to a nice steak dinner. the steak dinner takes effort to prepare, but is vastly more rewarding. same with reading and video games

Steak dinners are better than reading and video games, I see now

I don't mind video games so long as they're engaging

Everyone has their preferences if you like it or not. While I personally view books as the steak dinner others won't and that's fine.

This. Sometimes all I want to do is log on and blast shit, sometimes I look at my Steam list and not a single thing there appeals to me so I'll pick up a book.

of course, and everyone will judge people if they like it or not.

It depends on the game to be honest. I've moved from playing mostly multiplayer games to more experimental story driven indie stuff.

All videogames except strategy and sims got increasingly stale after reading alot. Also i only keep playing games to spend time with my husbando on the other side of the planet.

single player games are for fags.
dota and cs ftw

There is many good videogames with a great story.
Saying that videogames aren't good enough is just admitting that you haven't searched enough.

I want more walking simulators about moving through strange and abstract enviroments.

The vanishing of ethan carter.
Look it up, is a great game, at least the map is.

I go through phases between all of my hobbies and these stretches can last months. I switch between movies, western shows, anime, books, manga, video games, audio books, podcasts. I usually am heavily into two at once. I also have noticed if I'm more active (work is more stressful or I've been working out a lot) I am less likely to play video games (unless I have been excited for a specific video game). Right now I'm playing dark souls 3 and hyper light drifter, so my book backlog is getting pretty big. I want to read Kafka On the Shore next.

try something with more subtle story telling. Something that tells story telling through visual design and game mechanics (like dark souls or hyper light drifter).

if you are comparing video games to ramen, then you are playing the wrong kind of video game.

*tips fedora*

Gotta know what you like. I don't play game for stories but for mechanics, so I prefer shit like Cook Serve Delicious or Dota2 or Europa Universalis 4.

Except for Persona 4, only game where I have a waifu - Chie best girl fite me

I haven't dropped games but I CERTAINLY look at games through other eyes ever since I've started writing, which is almost analogous to me starting to read heavily.
I also developed other interests.

I honestly don't understand how something like fishing could compare to the experience of playing Ocarina of Time. It has everything that is calming and awe inspiring about the simple experience of nature, but with more deliberate contrasting structure and without the mindless torture of fish. I can understand valuing the visceral sense of realness, but there's nothing inherently more worthwhile about that.

Seriously, there's something obviously lacking about whatever reason he was playing games before.

Now that you say,I haven't touched a game in weeks.
Reading has been doing things to me.
I feel a lot happier nowdays,even less sick.
But my thinking has became more disconnected.I jump between themes/ and then I forget what I was talking about.
I get lost in the labyrinth of my own analogies.

Depends entirely on what kind of game you're playing. Games have become both more and less structured. As you grow older your imagination tends to ossify and a lot of the wonder of the game, the game you're playing in your mind, becomes less boring.

The magic of stuff like secrets and glitches disappears, they're just bits of code in the mind of an adult. The adult mind chafes at the limitations of a game while the mind of a child imagines his character doing things outside of the game's limitations.

Games are less structured in our minds than they are in our hands, and when the mind begins to align with the body and understand the physical limitations of the world around it, the game becomes less fun.

I haven't stopped playing videogames but I no longer enjoy them, much like I've lost enjoyment of most other forms of media. I'm not sure I enjoy anything anymore and I don't know how I feel about it

Start doing some real then, go for a walk in the forest or something.

Didn't leave much time for video games during a few years, but I make the effort and try to mess around with one every now and then.

I've never cared for story in video games so no, I play for gameplay, if I want story I will read a book.

Same here, but my hobby phases can also involve trying and failing to learn a new skill, like improving at chess or figuring out how to interpret car models.

No, OP, they were separate. I played shitloads of videogames from the age of 5 to 19/20. I think videogames peaked with Sega during the Dreamcast and Capcom / Konami during the PS2 era (I only played most Nintendo classics years after they were released, and really liked them, so they get a spot too). I then got bored.

I only started reading since the age of 17. I have read tonnes more than the person on the street and I'm obviously aware there's much more to read. I'm not tired of books by a long shot, but I am sick and tired of the entire art form being embedded within the pseudo intellectual tradition of obscurantist garbage and cultural capital signalling and pretentious Oxbridge / New England publishing monopolies, and half assed philosophies and ON AND ON. I'm not even saying I read genre fiction. I barely do, and my favourite books are by "literary" authors. But I'm so fucking tired of everything on the list and more. What a load of cancer!

The only video game I've played within the past 2 years was Super Mario Bros 3 within the past week. I think this is a good litmus test. Someone's reaction to this game basically sums up their attitudes towards creativity, their pretentiousness, their (faux) intellectuality etc.

a book is never going to be able to emulate a 2 hour round of Project Reality
don't really know why you'd bother comparing them 2bh

The Beginner's Guide is the peak of art in gaming, so try that out.

I rarely read fiction, so no

90% of games other than niche indie stuff and pre-2000 ones are garbage, anyway. Also what said, games were meant to be interactive and that's what they're best at - providing entertainment through interaction. When a game designer tells you that the gameplay is intentionally shallow and simplistic in order to give way for a complicated plot, you know it's going to be shit (see: any walking simulator released in the past 15 years).

>never huge into video games
>want to get into games
>want to have these wonderful epic experiences in a new unique artistic media
>download Dark Souls because that's supposed to be the highest achievement of video game artistry
>tfw been playing regularly for a month and still can't get beat the second boss
>tfw always get frustrated and go back to reading books

No, it's shit. Another "woo, I'm so self-conscious, look at me, faggots" kind of game. Same goes for Stanley Parable, entertaining for a while but imitative as fuck. Heavy-handed satire only gets you so far.

Games these days are shit. The reason that the Souls games are praised so much is because they are like the typical 8/10 game from 15 years ago

Both PS2 and Dreamcast have massive libraries of great obscure/relatively unknown games, too.

What are past games that are great artistic achievements?

I don't mean artistic, I just mean gameplay and design choices

So you haven't played it?

the Souls franchise is nothing like any game 18 years ago

But gameplay is an important part of the game's art?

you are playing too much. That's all.

I have and my point still stands. That "twist" is pathetic.

It plays like a mix between King's Field, Enclave and Blade of Darkness.

The "Twist" isn't why the game isn't why i said it was the peak (although i liked it). The game is lean and varied with every aspect of it building to one narrative.

Elaborate, please.

Yeah. Reading is just so much more fufiling than video games. I still play counterstrike though, it's a 15 year old habit at this point. Hard to believe

My brothers

While the game is bare in mechanics, the mechanics the does have are all necessary to the narrative (such as the gun being used to destroy previous levels or the forced backwards walking creating a similar camera angle to the Escape frome Whisper ending). Wreden uses of color and texture to create parallels between levels like, using white texture-less walls and blue light to create a sense of holiness. The dialogue in game also had some jarring moments like: The Phone Booth, The Speech Bubbles, The Professor, and the first set of conversations I especially liked the line "Yes, there was a world stamped with whiteness."


That said I honestly believe the narration was pretty great even though it verged on being to sentimental.

I did the same thing as well. Seeing that it's so common, I think building a PC is more a sign of exit rather than a statement of going all in. Like building a monument for an event that had long since passed. Trying to reclaim those old feelings you had playing Zelda on the N64 that were only possible due to your long gone childhood imagination.

I know I'm going to sound like some redneck opposed to avant-garde art in the early 1920s, but I'm honestly tired of conceptual/metafictional games that have little to show in the department of gameplay. It all feels gimmicky, almost as if the whole attention came from testing the boundaries and exploring the medium.

Where's the fun at? Ulysses still has an interesting story and atonal music is challenging but enjoyable.

I think it's pretty fun, but I'm also a sucker for that sort of blotchy and surreal space. I laughed a lot during the game, but also felt uncomfortable in a way that most things can't reach. I think the game has a certain beauty to it that I find myself thinking about a lot. That said I'm doing a reading list to build up to Ulysses now because I loved portrait so much.

I was never big into videogames, Ive had PS consoles since I was eleven. Its fun to play with friends, but if I spend longer than 2-3 hours playing I get bored and turn it off. I know people who'll forgo sleep to play whatever they want for 10-12 hours, be really tired and lifeless the next day and "not know why" its fucked.

pretentious af

I read heavily from my infant years until I started playing vidya as a teen. I still read more than most, but was more focused on gaming. Then around age 21 I lost all interest in games (except Minecraft which I went through phases of using socially). About seven years later I don't game at all, just read.

It might be,but it still happens.

I stopped playing video games in early high school and was never particularly interested in them outside of popular RPGs like Pokemon and The Elder Scrolls. I don't fault people who love them because they are a form of art, it's just that the vast majority of video games have uninteresting characters, lazy narratives, and a superficial grasp of politics and philosophy--this is because video games usually are focused more on virtual mechanics rather than traditional storytelling.

Video games are made to pander to the lowest denominator possible. Pathetic men with no real accomplishments in life need to simulate them in a tube to feel worthy.

Who /dwarf fortress/ here?

I like following a newborn child's first years in my fortress, seeing him make friends and face death.

how retarded is this shit?
playing video games and reading books are two entire different activities, it's like saying watching a movie is better than riding a bike, you can do both and it's just your fucking opinion.

real life experience > simulated experience
while fishing may not be your thing, any walk through nature is inherently greater than staring at a screen not only due to its visceral realness but also due to the countless unforeseen variables and possibilities, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, etc.

UUUUGhgghhh, I know right?!?!?
I was born in the wrong generation :((((((

yo I can't go shoot people in real life man

Riding a bike is in another category. I personally seek enjoyment in consuming sone sort of media (movie, game, book) and similarly to OP, as I got older, games just didn't do it. Books are much more stimulating to me, which makes them more worthwhile.

i quit playing games in my late teens. my favorites were always the Zelda series. in my case, and maybe others can attest, video games are a fun and entertaining way to spend some time but there is very little actually learned, accomplished, or rewarded in completing a game. while reading a good book tends to be more fulfilling, enlightening, and a more overall rewarding experience.

>countless unforeseen variables and possibilities
>"WOW, I can't wait to see what's behind this tree!"
>"OH MY GOD IT'S ANOTHER TREE!!!!!!"

haha. join the army, mate.

mate, if you can't appreciate nature, then that's on you. as any hiker can tell you, no two hikes or trails are ever the same.

DaS>DS3>DS2>DeS, for me.
Haven't completed BB and I played DeS after played the first 2 Dark Souls games, so I may be biased.

they're different. you get stimulated in a different way playing video games vs books. and if we're talking storyline wise, obviously books shit on video games i mean don't play video games if you want a fucking story but there are so many other types of video games that to compare the two mediums is silly.

>what is weather
>what is foliage
>what is wildlife
Please go outside ever.

Same here. Just got a gtx 970 and all that shit but I really couldn't bring myself to play anything. But not because of reading. It was more due to realising I can do productive stuff rather than consume mindlessly(this was due to reading). I wondered what was wrong with me then I literally downloaded anything which Google said would be addictive and I couldn't play anything for more than 5 minutes.
However one thing I will concede is that multiplayer competitive games with immediate ramification(dota 2) still hold my interest because it's more about beating the other person. I hope to replace this with an actual sport in the near future.
Single player games are really boring for me now. So is watching most TV and movies.

This nigga gets it.

I can't do both. I'd rather read in the free time I have. I feel like I'm wasting my time when I play games.

I have no fucking clue what you're talking about. I read regularly before I played video games. My guess is you're just a pleb obsessed with novelty, which is why you posted a shitty image criticizing modern AAA garbage and nothing about any good games.

Out of curiosity, what are some good games? Being serious, what do you like?

>talks about how his taste is improving throughout the years
>mentions videogames in a positive light
come on now

My problem is that the big, noticible problem of vidya being a highly commercialized form of entertaiment.

are you me?