Wanted to know how you all decide to stop playing a game

I've been very impatient lately in approaching games- if something isn't enjoyable, I put it down and move on. Whether it's awful dialog, sluggish walking or unreasonable difficulty curves, I find myself strapped for time as I get older and want to cut out the bullshit more. Something needs to grab my attention, like an interesting story or an innovative gameplay mechanic. And it's through these things that video game bullshit becomes tolerable- "well X is so great that I can just deal with Y for the time being."

But I worry that this mindset leads to impatience, especially with slower stories that aren't as demanding or gameplay that's more difficult. I want to be mindful of my time, energy (and money) but I also don't want to deny myself a great experience because I didn't connect with it at first. That's not to say I'm searching for quick gratification, but rather I want to feel like I'm going to have fun from the get-go. And lots of bullshit, in my experience, is indicative that I won't.

I'm curious as to how others do this as they chip through their backlog, so I wanted to broadly ask: How and when do you decide when to stop playing a game? How do you know if something isn't for you? Do you keep trying until it works for you/come back later?

Depends on the genre of the game for me.

If it's a genre I don't really care about, I'll have no qualms with dropping it pretty quick. For example, if it's a genre I know I usually don't enjoy, like an RTS, I'll give it a shot but yeah. I dropped Company of Heroes 2 in like, half an hour.

If it's a genre I usually enjoy I'll stick with it for longer. I sometimes beat it even if I think it isn't that good. I think that there's something to be gained for me by thinking about why it was bad and so on. Sometimes it's just so bad its good.

And if it's something I'm not at all familiar with, I'll look up reviews online and decide on that basis whether I stick with it or not.

Usually I tend to finish a game even if I don't like it because I hate the idea of wasting money on something and then not using that thing (games in this case).
There are a few exceptions though, and I stop playing if after 3 days of playing, the game doesn't change even a little bit and continues to be reaaally boring.

IMO it's simple - if I'm not enjoying myself, I stop playing.

I might not stop forever and can usually tell if I might want to come back to something at another time, but ultimately, if I'm not having a good time, I stop playing. For me games are pure entertainment and about having fun, or enjoying the experience one way or another. If that's not happening, I'm not interested in continuing.

There's nothing wrong with dropping a game if you're not enjoying yourself, and I can't think of a real-life scenario where it would ever matter.

I tend to be very picky about games I’m willing to spend money on. My general rule of thumb is that I want to get one hour of play time for every dollar spent. So I don’t buy a game unless I’m confident I’ll enjoy it enough to get the time value in or confident I’ll be willing to stick it out long enough to give it a fair shot.

I’ll give a recent example. I purchased Persona 4 Golden for $12 a few weeks ago. I wasn’t totally convinced I’d enjoy it enough to finish it but I knew I’d be willing to spend at least 12 hours giving it a try. 14 hours in I’ve decided I don’t want to play it anymore. Maybe I’ll come back to it but if I don’t I got good time value out of it.

There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Indies are my main exception. I usually love indie games but they don’t tend to be very long. I’m willing to spend $20 on a game I’ll finish in 5 hours because I know I’ll either enjoy my time with it or at the very least support a small game studio.

Other exceptions include a game like Last of Us or Spider-Man. If I buy them at full price I know I won’t put as many hours in as dollars spent. But I know I’ll love them and know they are worth the price.

Following this principle has kept me from wasting a lot of money on games and kept me from developing a hopelessly large backlog. And it’s gotten me to invest time in genres I might not typically enjoy. For instance, I never planned to buy Elden Ring…I don’t typically enjoy that genre. But after hearing countless recommendations I took a chance on it knowing that I would be willing to give it a fair shot making it worthy the investment. I ended up playing it for nearly 50 hours and enjoying it quite a bit.

Back to my P4G example. Because of the price, I took a chance on a game I wouldn’t have normally played. I played long enough to learn that I enjoyed the premise, I just didn’t enjoy the setting. So, I took a chance on Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Similar premise but in a setting I enjoy more (medieval fantasy). And I’m absolutely hooked on the game! I spent $33 on it at a used game shop and know that I’ll put at least twice that many hours into it.

It’s not a foolproof method but it has worked for me for years. I’ve purchased far more games I’ve enjoyed than not.

IMO it's simple - if I'm not enjoying myself, I stop playing.

I might not stop forever and can usually tell if I might want to come back to something at another time, but ultimately, if I'm not having a good time, I stop playing. For me games are pure entertainment and about having fun, or enjoying the experience one way or another. If that's not happening, I'm not interested in continuing.

There's nothing wrong with dropping a game if you're not enjoying yourself, and I can't think of a real-life scenario where it would ever matter.

My approach is pretty much the same.

For example, I'm on the 'egg express' section in Shadow Warrior 3 and I can't get through it. Its mostly grappling hook/ playforming. One mistake and you start the whole annoying thing over. I had so much fun before but I'll just move on.

I'll play gamepass games to get a feel of them but drop them after an hour cause I wasn't super into the genre anyway. I like that about gamepass.

After 40 hours

IMO it's simple - if I'm not enjoying myself, I stop playing.

I might not stop forever and can usually tell if I might want to come back to something at another time, but ultimately, if I'm not having a good time, I stop playing. For me games are pure entertainment and about having fun, or enjoying the experience one way or another. If that's not happening, I'm not interested in continuing.

There's nothing wrong with dropping a game if you're not enjoying yourself, and I can't think of a real-life scenario where it would ever matter.

This basically. I might force my way to the end if I'm pretty close but sometimes games go out of their way to dissuade me from doing so.

If a game is annoying me I will usually go away and come back a few days later and I might have another go, but sometimes I'll just delete it on the spot.

If you are in a position where you have to think about if it's worth continuing, you've probably already realised it's not for you.

If I don't like a game, I hopefully drop it before it really starts to piss me off. If I beat any game at all, that means I had some enjoyment out of it even if it wasn't much. Bad movies is one thing, they require no participation from the audience and doesn't require nearly as much time investment where with games, if I am not getting at least *some* enjoyment from it, then I am dropping it. The lowest I can give a game I saw through to the end is a 5 out of 10. I am also under the firm belief that if anyone manages to beat a game at all, and they supposedly didn't like it, then that tells me they did enjoy the game to some degree but they are just too prideful to admit that they did. Beating a game you dislike requires a lot more effort than finishing a movie you "hate". Playing a sub par game for multiple hours requires far too much effort to see through to the end especially if you find it *that* repulsive.

To give an example, I spent multiple days in 2019 trying to beat Kingdom Hearts 3 and I just wasn't enjoying it at all. I should've dropped the game and I really should've done it sooner, but then I got to the final "boss rush" section of the game and my patience with it was slowly but surely starting to dwindle, I got to one of the bosses and I gave up. I resented the game for a while for spending so much time with a title I clearly wasn't liking and I acted like it was the game's fault but in fact, it was mine, I should've dropped it sooner instead of trying to see it through to the end. If I had any enjoyment from it, I would've made a priority to see KH3 through but instead I gave up and resented the game instead of my own stubborness.

I learned quite a lot after that. I also found it quite suspicious that there are people who "hated" Last of Us 2 but yet were able to get to the end of the game at all. I didn't care about the Joel death that much but if you plowed through the game in spite of that, then that tells me TLOU2 must've engaged you to some degree and in a sense, Naughty Dog's attempt at killing off a major character to get people invested into killing Abby worked better than they ever could've hoped for.

And also, I have a crapload of games to play more than ever before, I also download roms and iso files and play through emulators, so when I play those kinds of games where I didn't even drop money on, you better hope the game is good. I am certainly not going to be playing bad games that I find repulsive to the point where I find nothing good in them. I don't have an audience or am masochistic enough for that. So you won't exactly see me playing shit like Dragon Ball GT Final Bout and Ultimate Battle 22, Bubsey 3D or Superman 64.

Anyways I am done rambling now, at the end of the day, I just hope I have fun playing games since time flies by and games is one of the few things that makes me happy. I want to enjoy them while I can.

If I don't like a game, I hopefully drop it before it really starts to piss me off. If I beat any game at all, that means I had some enjoyment out of it even if it wasn't much. Bad movies is one thing, they require no participation from the audience and doesn't require nearly as much time investment where with games, if I am not getting at least *some* enjoyment from it, then I am dropping it. The lowest I can give a game I saw through to the end is a 5 out of 10. I am also under the firm belief that if anyone manages to beat a game at all, and they supposedly didn't like it, then that tells me they did enjoy the game to some degree but they are just too prideful to admit that they did. Beating a game you dislike requires a lot more effort than finishing a movie you "hate". Playing a sub par game for multiple hours requires far too much effort to see through to the end especially if you find it *that* repulsive.

To give an example, I spent multiple days in 2019 trying to beat Kingdom Hearts 3 and I just wasn't enjoying it at all. I should've dropped the game and I really should've done it sooner, but then I got to the final "boss rush" section of the game and my patience with it was slowly but surely starting to dwindle, I got to one of the bosses and I gave up. I resented the game for a while for spending so much time with a title I clearly wasn't liking and I acted like it was the game's fault but in fact, it was mine, I should've dropped it sooner instead of trying to see it through to the end. If I had any enjoyment from it, I would've made a priority to see KH3 through but instead I gave up and resented the game instead of my own stubborness.

I learned quite a lot after that. I also found it quite suspicious that there are people who "hated" Last of Us 2 but yet were able to get to the end of the game at all. I didn't care about the Joel death that much but if you plowed through the game in spite of that, then that tells me TLOU2 must've engaged you to some degree and in a sense, Naughty Dog's attempt at killing off a major character to get people invested into killing Abby worked better than they ever could've hoped for.

And also, I have a crapload of games to play more than ever before, I also download roms and iso files and play through emulators, so when I play those kinds of games where I didn't even drop money on, you better hope the game is good. I am certainly not going to be playing bad games that I find repulsive to the point where I find nothing good in them. I don't have an audience or am masochistic enough for that. So you won't exactly see me playing shit like Dragon Ball GT Final Bout and Ultimate Battle 22, Bubsey 3D or Superman 64.

Anyways I am done rambling now, at the end of the day, I just hope I have fun playing games since time flies by and games is one of the few things that makes me happy. I want to enjoy them while I can.

I think you should block out the TLOU2 spoiler.

I think you should block out the TLOU2 spoiler.

I added them, all though with how bad the discourse of that game was, I am pretty sure everyone knows.

I added them, all though with how bad the discourse of that game was, I am pretty sure everyone knows.

You’re probably right unfortunately.

I usually give a game 1-3 play sessions ranging from 2-3 hours each to see if it's something I want to stick out to the end. Usually, I stick games out to their end but that really just depends on how much of a time sync they are. I've played many games that I can't say that I particularly love to the end due to their length, and longer open-world games such as The Division and Assassin's Creed Valhalla tend to get dropped pretty quickly the moment I start getting bored with it. Sunk Cost Fallacy tends to be something I struggle with when it comes to games, and so to combat myself blowing an insane amount of time on something I really don't like, I like to bounce off a game pretty early if I feel that way.

That said, when it comes to games with insane difficulty spikes, I tend to sometimes drop 100% completion entirely if it's something optional and then focus on wrapping up the game, but if reach an insanely difficult patch of a game that's required to finish a game, I often force myself to beat it. I play a lot of super hard game, so this doesn't end up being a common problem, but at those moments when I just can't progress, I do search up guides or videos to see what I need to do to best make it through something that's giving me a really hard time. There have only been a few times that I have actually dropped a game due to it being to difficult, but those games usually are dropped for other reasons as well such as them being rougelikes that I'm kind of getting bored with, or borderline softlocks and large amounts of grinding needed to proceed.

If I don't like a game, I hopefully drop it before it really starts to piss me off. If I beat any game at all, that means I had some enjoyment out of it even if it wasn't much. Bad movies is one thing, they require no participation from the audience and doesn't require nearly as much time investment where with games, if I am not getting at least *some* enjoyment from it, then I am dropping it. The lowest I can give a game I saw through to the end is a 5 out of 10. I am also under the firm belief that if anyone manages to beat a game at all, and they supposedly didn't like it, then that tells me they did enjoy the game to some degree but they are just too prideful to admit that they did. Beating a game you dislike requires a lot more effort than finishing a movie you "hate". Playing a sub par game for multiple hours requires far too much effort to see through to the end especially if you find it *that* repulsive.

To give an example, I spent multiple days in 2019 trying to beat Kingdom Hearts 3 and I just wasn't enjoying it at all. I should've dropped the game and I really should've done it sooner, but then I got to the final "boss rush" section of the game and my patience with it was slowly but surely starting to dwindle, I got to one of the bosses and I gave up. I resented the game for a while for spending so much time with a title I clearly wasn't liking and I acted like it was the game's fault but in fact, it was mine, I should've dropped it sooner instead of trying to see it through to the end. If I had any enjoyment from it, I would've made a priority to see KH3 through but instead I gave up and resented the game instead of my own stubborness.

I learned quite a lot after that. I also found it quite suspicious that there are people who "hated" Last of Us 2 but yet were able to get to the end of the game at all. I didn't care about the Joel death that much but if you plowed through the game in spite of that, then that tells me TLOU2 must've engaged you to some degree and in a sense, Naughty Dog's attempt at killing off a major character to get people invested into killing Abby worked better than they ever could've hoped for.

And also, I have a crapload of games to play more than ever before, I also download roms and iso files and play through emulators, so when I play those kinds of games where I didn't even drop money on, you better hope the game is good. I am certainly not going to be playing bad games that I find repulsive to the point where I find nothing good in them. I don't have an audience or am masochistic enough for that. So you won't exactly see me playing shit like Dragon Ball GT Final Bout and Ultimate Battle 22, Bubsey 3D or Superman 64.

Anyways I am done rambling now, at the end of the day, I just hope I have fun playing games since time flies by and games is one of the few things that makes me happy. I want to enjoy them while I can.

I don't blame people for dropping TLOU pt 2 for that particular moment as it's pretty awful to experience. I know a lot of people who really enjoyed that character and to see him get brutalized like that is really not pleasant. I'd rather someone drop the game there due to them not being able to handle whats going on rather than attempt to push themselves all the way to the end while really not enjoying the experience overall.

I don't blame people for dropping TLOU pt 2 for that particular moment as it's pretty awful to experience. I know a lot of people who really enjoyed that character and to see him get brutalized like that is really not pleasant. I'd rather someone drop the game there due to them not being able to handle whats going on rather than attempt to push themselves all the way to the end while really not enjoying the experience overall.

It's pretty much a narrative hook to have people play through the game. But you are right, the people who chose to drop the game there are more honest than say the people who already disliked the game and then decide to see it through to the end. It's already a long game so I am guessing they just wanted to see Abby die for what she did but even then you could argue it works to Naughty Dog's favor but the haters of the game won't really admit that, they need to stand proud even if it is just fiction at the end of the day.

If I don't like a game, I hopefully drop it before it really starts to piss me off. If I beat any game at all, that means I had some enjoyment out of it even if it wasn't much. Bad movies is one thing, they require no participation from the audience and doesn't require nearly as much time investment where with games, if I am not getting at least *some* enjoyment from it, then I am dropping it. The lowest I can give a game I saw through to the end is a 5 out of 10. I am also under the firm belief that if anyone manages to beat a game at all, and they supposedly didn't like it, then that tells me they did enjoy the game to some degree but they are just too prideful to admit that they did. Beating a game you dislike requires a lot more effort than finishing a movie you "hate". Playing a sub par game for multiple hours requires far too much effort to see through to the end especially if you find it *that* repulsive.

To give an example, I spent multiple days in 2019 trying to beat Kingdom Hearts 3 and I just wasn't enjoying it at all. I should've dropped the game and I really should've done it sooner, but then I got to the final "boss rush" section of the game and my patience with it was slowly but surely starting to dwindle, I got to one of the bosses and I gave up. I resented the game for a while for spending so much time with a title I clearly wasn't liking and I acted like it was the game's fault but in fact, it was mine, I should've dropped it sooner instead of trying to see it through to the end. If I had any enjoyment from it, I would've made a priority to see KH3 through but instead I gave up and resented the game instead of my own stubborness.

I learned quite a lot after that. I also found it quite suspicious that there are people who "hated" Last of Us 2 but yet were able to get to the end of the game at all. I didn't care about the Joel death that much but if you plowed through the game in spite of that, then that tells me TLOU2 must've engaged you to some degree and in a sense, Naughty Dog's attempt at killing off a major character to get people invested into killing Abby worked better than they ever could've hoped for.

And also, I have a crapload of games to play more than ever before, I also download roms and iso files and play through emulators, so when I play those kinds of games where I didn't even drop money on, you better hope the game is good. I am certainly not going to be playing bad games that I find repulsive to the point where I find nothing good in them. I don't have an audience or am masochistic enough for that. So you won't exactly see me playing shit like Dragon Ball GT Final Bout and Ultimate Battle 22, Bubsey 3D or Superman 64.

Anyways I am done rambling now, at the end of the day, I just hope I have fun playing games since time flies by and games is one of the few things that makes me happy. I want to enjoy them while I can.

yes pretty much similar. there has been exceptions where i somehow did drag myself to the end even though was barely finding any enjoyment anymore at all (Assassin's Creed 3, Far Cry Primal and Conker's Bad Fur Day), but otherwise its like need to find something there which sticks.

nowadays drop games even faster... tbh am even better to not even start them and tell before if it is worth try at all.

about Last of Us Spoilers... ye sadly it wasnt avoidable. i know two things of that game and was spoiled by close people for no reason even tho i asked for them that i do care and didnt want associate with internet mess. Still havent played that game.

I have a problem in that I try to finish a game even if I'm not enjoying it. The sunk cost fallacy is definitely real, I hate spending money on something I don't fully experience. Heck, I put over 50 hours into beating INSOMNIA: The Ark a couple years ago and that game was terrible. I think the only time I really drop a game is when I get to a difficulty spike and just cannot progress.

The answer is simple - I don't.

But jokes aside, I very rarely leave any game not completed. Most of the time it's the game that leaves me (for example, when developers shut down the servers or something). But there is one game that I stopped playing and I didn't get the last achievement in it. It was Paladins and its infamous achievement for reaching Master Rank in competitive mode. I was playing duo with my friend and we were just ONE MATCH away from getting it. But we lost it and then tried again and again and again. We were just getting more and more tilted until we saw that we lost 6 or 7 games in a row. We decided to not go for it anymore as it was bad for our mental health.

yes pretty much similar. there has been exceptions where i somehow did drag myself to the end even though was barely finding any enjoyment anymore at all (Assassin's Creed 3, Far Cry Primal and Conker's Bad Fur Day), but otherwise its like need to find something there which sticks.

nowadays drop games even faster... tbh am even better to not even start them and tell before if it is worth try at all.

about Last of Us Spoilers... ye sadly it wasnt avoidable. i know two things of that game and was spoiled by close people for no reason even tho i asked for them that i do care and didnt want associate with internet mess. Still havent played that game.

I have played games where I questioned why I beat at all like Wolfenstein 2 and the Bad Company 2 campaign but outside of those, I rarely if ever push myself to beat a game I am not getting SOME enjoyment out of. There are some exceptions like the Bouncer and Rogue Warrior but those games enter into the realm of so bad they are good. The battle with the sunken cost fallacy is real. All though I like it better when a game is consistently mediocre and easy as opposed to mediocre and then suddenly gets super hard. It's why I prefer something like Dirge of Cerberus over Brutal Legend.

It was a shit show to say the least. It was at it's worst back when the came out. The whole world seemed like it revolved around TLOU2.

I, personally, rarely finish games in one go, and instead put them on hold when I grow tired of them. I only really "retire" games when I realize I have zero interest in coming back to them. That being said, I still almost always finish my games, as even bad games have something appealing, otherwise I wouldn't start playing them in the first place.

I used to force myself through games I wasn’t enjoying, but nowadays I just want to play what I like. Most games I buy aren’t too expensive so sunk cost fallacy doesn’t affect me too much, although the cost of time does come into play sometimes. There are some games where I get quite far in, but end up quitting and I feel like I have wasted lots of time. However I’m much better at telling if I’m going to not enjoy a game right away now and quitting while I’m ahead.
For example, games with crappy checkpoint systems. This is a small element, but it makes or breaks a game for me. Games with checkpoints super far away from major challenges are super frustrating for me and I’ve retired some games over it.
Honestly, it’s just as simple as playing what you enjoy. If it’s not fun, why bother?

I used to force myself through games I wasn’t enjoying, but nowadays I just want to play what I like. Most games I buy aren’t too expensive so sunk cost fallacy doesn’t affect me too much, although the cost of time does come into play sometimes. There are some games where I get quite far in, but end up quitting and I feel like I have wasted lots of time. However I’m much better at telling if I’m going to not enjoy a game right away now and quitting while I’m ahead.
For example, games with crappy checkpoint systems. This is a small element, but it makes or breaks a game for me. Games with checkpoints super far away from major challenges are super frustrating for me and I’ve retired some games over it.
Honestly, it’s just as simple as playing what you enjoy. If it’s not fun, why bother?

Yup, I can relate, games that checkpoint well are harder to drop than games with far off checkpoints and redoing lots of content. Also, load times are also important, I don't want to die a lot and spend a lot of time waiting at a loading screen to try again. If a game has far off checkpoints and I enjoy them and its not on emulator, I try to grind for more lives or play on easy mode, if neither of those work, then yeah, most likely I will drop it. Something I really dislike is when a game manages to be easy or just right in terms of difficulty and then a difficulty spike happens. There is nothing I strongly dislike more than difficulty spikes. Depending on how much I like a game, I might try to get past it but it really becomes an uphill battle.

Yup, I can relate, games that checkpoint well are harder to drop than games with far off checkpoints and redoing lots of content. Also, load times are also important, I don't want to die a lot and spend a lot of time waiting at a loading screen to try again. If a game has far off checkpoints and I enjoy them and its not on emulator, I try to grind for more lives or play on easy mode, if neither of those work, then yeah, most likely I will drop it. Something I really dislike is when a game manages to be easy or just right in terms of difficulty and then a difficulty spike happens. There is nothing I strongly dislike more than difficulty spikes. Depending on how much I like a game, I might try to get past it but it really becomes an uphill battle.

Yea, I found it was with super hard boss fights that had checkpoints far away. Hollow knight did this pretty bad, although I adore metroidvanias and had fun with it it just became more exhausting than fun to play at a certain point

Yea, I found it was with super hard boss fights that had checkpoints far away. Hollow knight did this pretty bad, although I adore metroidvanias and had fun with it it just became more exhausting than fun to play at a certain point

One big reason why I never played that game. Hard bosses is one thing but making me run back to them instead of fighting them on the spot? That is a quick way for me to drop any game. I also dislike phased bosses that make you do it all again after dying on one of them. I don't want to redo easy phases or stuff I just conquered to get past the part I am stuck on. That is just a waste of my time. I get why arcade and NES games did it, they were short as hell and needed to squeeze money out of you, but now? Games are able to be longer without needing to be super brutal in terms of difficulty.

One big reason why I never played that game. Hard bosses is one thing but making me run back to them instead of fighting them on the spot? That is a quick way for me to drop any game. I also dislike phased bosses that make you do it all again after dying on one of them. I don't want to redo easy phases or stuff I just conquered to get past the part I am stuck on. That is just a waste of my time. I get why arcade and NES games did it, they were short as hell and needed to squeeze money out of you, but now? Games are able to be longer without needing to be super brutal in terms of difficulty.

Yea, I enjoy well-designed, super hard bosses but only with good checkpoints. I can handle some phases being repeated because you eventually become a master of the phase, until you master the entire fight. Raven Beak is my favourite video game boss ever and you have to repeat its phases. But bosses where you restart far away become quickly grading. But I get your point, it can get quite annoying in some games and really stings the first time.