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Your gaming retirement plan


DaveMcDamage

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You're definitely an older guy, I say over 40 years of age so you were around during the golden years of the arcades.

 

Don't call me a youngen. But I'm roughly around average age on this website. Lot of people older, lot of people younger.

 

Personally, I don't much care for many of the newer games. I definitely prefer the older stuff, and this includes late PS3/early PS4 era titles because since their popularity has greatly dwindled, I can pick up these games at a discount.

 

Eventually I will hang up the joypad. I just don't find the excitement and thrill of gaming anymore like I used to back when I was a teenager. I've been doing a lot of the same shit for decades. The reason I was a lot more immersed and engaged as a kid and teenager was because of the fact that I was a lot younger. So much felt new and exciting, as it should for most any kid. Seeing Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3 on the PS2 completely blew my mind as a teenager, but I didn't know what the fuck was going on story wise because I was too young to comprehend what Hideo Kojima was trying to tell in his stories. Ratchet & Clank was a game I played during my high school years, so it's obvious I would have a real sense of fondness and care for it. Devil May Cry was also a lot of fun.

 

Today I'm just going thru the motions. I buy a game, I play through it, I get the trophies, and I move on. Perhaps it is trophy hunting that has diminished my overall enjoyment but I've been playing stuff on Steam and I feel the same way. So my take on this is you're never going to have the same feelings you did when you were younger.

 

I got a job. I work. I go to college part time. I have a niece and nephew I look after every now and then. Recently I've had to help my aging parents because they can't do all the work on their own due to their age. I had none of those duties as a teenager. I could drink several cans of soda, sit at a chair and play Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask until it was time to do homework or go to bed.

 

A game for me will never give me that sense of thrill like it did when I was a kid. The new games coming out on the PS5 would of completely blew me out of my seat if I was 16 years old. But since I'm older, see more of society's flaws, have a working job, and generally see the gaming industry turning for the worse, I keep a cautious eye on any new game.

 

The newest game I have in terms of release is Mafia: Definitive Edition. So I definitely don't really go out of my way to buy and play newer games. If it looks really good and it's something I was looking forward to for a long time, I will probably get it. But games have to meet my high standards, if they don't then I will either wait for a discount, or skip them completely.

 

Games have to offer more than just graphics.

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I guess I’m nearer your age than the site average - not quite 40, but getting close now ? - but I can’t stomach the idea of ever falling off gaming.

 

It’s too exciting a format - basically the only entertainment medium we have left that no one has found the ceiling of yet.
There will always be great new films, or books, or TV shows but those are defined media at this point - everything that is being made now is playing in a sandpit that we know the parameters of.

Yes, people can make some grand castles in it, and there are some artists who can craft incredible ones, but we know where the edges of the sandpit are - and so to some extent, the size and scope of what they can do is quantifiable.

 

Gaming though?

It’s still a beach.

 

With the technology always expanding, the definition of what a game can be constantly evolving and the industry pulling in new talent all the time, who were raised on the previous generation of advancement, and can, and do, constantly invent, reinvent, merge and fuse genres - the medium is too exciting to ever allow me to rest and say “Well, now I’ve seen the best there will ever be.”

 

Every time I think I know what the limits of what a ‘video-game’ is, something comes out that defies my previous notions of the boundaries - whether it’s a new technological showpiece, or a new indie game that flips a genre on its head, or some artistic style I’ve never seen before, or some art-piece recontextualising the very nature of one.

 

The idea of retiring from that?

Of missing out on the real-time exploration of the last great frontier in media?

 

No thanks.

 

I’ll rather stay on that wagon, and die on it, than step off and watch it pass me by.

 

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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17 minutes ago, yuber1234 said:

As long as this SJW nonsense doesn't get into Japanese games, I'll probably game until I die.

 

I find myself spending way more time gaming as I age. Got all the partying out of my system in my 20s, and now I rarely feel like going out lol.

 

Kinda funny reading this as the older I get the more I invest into gaming again.

Story time :D

 

Started at age 6 or 7 I recall playing the sega with the Sonic games.

Growing older I went into N64+PS1

When I hit my teens I fell in love with PC gaming and once World of Warcraft released ohmy.. It was all I did.

When I hit ~20 up till 25 I was one of those party every weekend and get drunk and fucked up guys whenever I could.

I discovered trophies 4 years ago and started my playstation account.

2 years ago I met the most wonderful girlfriend in the world and got a great job and found the perfect combination for real life and gaming.

(I'm 30 btw!)

 

TLDR;

Will I ever stop gaming? I hope to have grandchildren one day and kick there ass in gaming. They can bury me with a console so I can continue gaming in heaven ?


 
Edited by Deluziion90
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3 hours ago, DaveMcDamage said:

I have been a gamer since the early 80's and whilst you will have many older gamers like myself talking about the old games of yesteryear, I myself only used them to pass the time. It wasn't until 2006 when the 360 arrived (or was it 2007?) that I was truly blown away by gaming and seeing how vast it expanded from the PS2 era and consoles before it. 

 

Then 2007 happened and it was magical. Mass Effect arrived. Whilst it wasn't until around 2009 when I got into achievements and trophies, it was Mass Effect that I completed over and over again and loved every moment of it. Then 2008-2012 was really the golden era of gaming for me personally...

 

Now whilst I have no plan on hanging the joypad up just yet, I do think for me personally that the PS4 will be the final console for me. I still have a fine set of games I want to play.....

 

That's pretty close to my history. Gamer since mid-80's. Was semi-casual, though definitely more of a "gamer" than all my friends. My mid teens hit, and suddenly all I cared about was partying, cars, and the opposite sex. A decade or so goes by. PS360 comes out, and I'm not even paying attention. Cut to Christmas 2008, and my parents surprise me with a PS3 because they know I want a Blu-Ray player. Messed around with Tekken 5 DR and Guitar Hero 3 for a good while, and was then wowed beyond belief with games like Bioshock, Trine, Uncharted 1, and Dead Space. Couldn't believe how far things had come.

 

2008 to 2012 was pretty much my golden era as well. My favorite types of games from those years aren't getting made too often nowadays, so like you, the PS4 will most likely be my last console. I've also become pretty spoiled by all the inexpensive gaming that can be had on PC. I buy a lot of bundles, and I also do Humble Choice. When you can get 12 good games each month for $8, these console game prices really start to negatively stand out.

 

About my retirement plan; I will keep playing my huge backlog. It alone will sustain me for years and years. It's honestly pretty ridiculous, so I have zero fear that I will ever run out of older games that interest me. There's still some PS2, PS3, 360, and PS4 games I'd like to get too, but not many, relatively speaking. I will keep getting Humble Bundles as long as they're good, and I will get the odd game from Steam or GOG during sales. But yeah, mainly just keep playing what I already have, until I die, or just don't want to do it anymore.

Edited by EverythingOnFire
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I am too young to think about "retiring", but I would like to reinvent my hobby. I've been hunting too much and stressing myself out too much, stop playing things I like and prioritizing others (I'm literally doing it now lol) so I have a plan to finish some things and goals here and there, and then just relax. I don't intend to stop hunting for trophies, but I do intend to become someone more casual and not a supreme grinder. Trophies can really end the fun if you're not careful.

And well, I would also like to venture into titles and sagas that I never got close to or played very little (Dead Space, Borderlands, Bioshock, Yakuza, old original Resident Evils, Skyrim, Fallout etc.) There are countless games and things I would like to playing, not necessarily completing the trophies, but playing and having fun. So sometime soon I intend to put my feet on the brake. Also, during my life I played most of the time on PlayStation only, so I would like to try some Pc gaming and also Nintendo (Zelda, I'm watching you!) As well as Retro Gaming; I have emulators and many old games of the highest quality, I would like to have fun with them. So that's it, retiring cannot be an option, I am very young. But reinventing my way of playing, yes.

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Some awesome posts from you guys. Really enjoyed reading them.

1 hour ago, Juzota said:

Retiring from gaming would be similar to retiring from watching movies or listening to music for me. So it's really silly to even think about retiring from something I truly enjoy. I wish to retire from my actual work to do all the cool stuff like gaming.

From being a youngen to a guy in his 20's, movies and music is what it was all about. But the PS3 and 360 era really pushed the development of games in tems of content and writing that I laid off the movies, as getting as involved as you can in an awesome game made far more sense than watching a story that I have no involvement in. But now I'm getting back into movies. Music not so much as when you get older you tend to stick to genres you like rather than expanding them as you do when you're a kid. Mostly because an old man shocking out to some grime would look a right c**t and you don't really share that timeline anyways lol. 

 

When it came to leaps and bounds in gaming. I'd say the PS2 era opened the door for what can be possible in the future and the 360/PS3 era held up there end. I'm not saying the PS4 era is bad or anything, but as others have said, the older you get, the less things seem new anymore. Its actually more about a person getting older than it is games getting worse. There are things that don't help like the accountants taking control from the devs etc etc, but gaming is probably the best its ever been right now. Imagine being a kid and your first game is something like Skyrim and your dads first game was Manic Miner lol. Swings and roundabouts. 

 

Edited by DaveMcDamage
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11 hours ago, DaivRules said:

The only retirement plan I have is to finally play through more of my backlog once I retire, which isn’t that far off. 
 

 

 

^ This.

 

The reason I don't mind collecting games faster than I play them, is the same reason I refer to my shelf as the retirement pile.  The question isn't when do I decide to stop gaming, because I'll keep going as long as I'm physically able... it's when do I give in and start turning every game onto Easy mode because I can't keep up like I used to.

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6 hours ago, Dreakon13 said:

 

^ This.

 

The reason I don't mind collecting games faster than I play them, is the same reason I refer to my shelf as the retirement pile.  The question isn't when do I decide to stop gaming, because I'll keep going as long as I'm physically able... it's when do I give in and start turning every game onto Easy mode because I can't keep up like I used to.

Haha! I'm starting to get there man. I can barely pass the button mash sequences anymore lol. 

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In a perfect world, I'd like to get much more of my broken up achievements lists, not just PSN, cleaned up before I formally call it quits. I'm in the position of being within a stones throw of my 40s (And experienced this so-called "golden age" of gaming some folks around here like to lament passing. I'll let you all in on a little secret, the same copy pasted bullshit you don't like today was just as rampant then.) and being stable in my general living arrangements. My partner and I have light workloads, with some of our time spent looking after his mother. I otherwise have a lot of sitting around time these days. But I find as I get older than I'm less and less willing to blow the extra time setting up the equipment, let alone playing anything. I've become much more interested in other areas. Catching up on books and movies I'd passed over the years, learning new skills and improving old ones, attempting some home improvement, appreciating quiet time with the people around me.

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I have no plans to retire just yet although I do feel that I've now hit a peak with the PS4. I have a great library of games, mostly physical, with titles that could keep me going for the next 20 years.

 

Moving forwards I can't help but feel the industry is going to continue to push further ahead into a domain I don't want to be a part of which is digital only, all games becoming a monthly subscription like Netflix with the bigger gaming companies having their own separate subscription services, consequently more advertising and more microtransactions. In the end spending x amount of money each month renting games and never actually owning anything. 

 

I don't think it will be me retiring from gaming it will be the new age of gaming retiring me.

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1 hour ago, FawltyPowers said:

I have no plans to retire just yet although I do feel that I've now hit a peak with the PS4. I have a great library of games, mostly physical, with titles that could keep me going for the next 20 years.

 

Moving forwards I can't help but feel the industry is going to continue to push further ahead into a domain I don't want to be a part of which is digital only, all games becoming a monthly subscription like Netflix with the bigger gaming companies having their own separate subscription services, consequently more advertising and more microtransactions. In the end spending x amount of money each month renting games and never actually owning anything. 

 

I don't think it will be me retiring from gaming it will be the new age of gaming retiring me.

 

This is pretty much how I feel too.  I've bought more games on PS4 than on any other console before it.  Many of them have yet to be loaded onto my profile, but I reckon there are enough titles in the backlog to keep me going for another 4 years or so, and that's assuming I don't buy any new ones in the meantime, which I undoubtedly will.

 

A digital only console is something that I have zero interest in and will never buy, no matter how good the games might be for it.  Google Stadia or whatever it's called - a streaming only gaming service?  Hell no.

I will always take the physical option where possible - I like knowing that I actually own my own copies of games, films, etc, and that I don't need to rely on another company having them "in stock" to be able to play or watch them.  I use Netflix of course, like most of us probably do, but sometimes I've seen a film on there that I enjoyed enough that I then bought it on Blu-ray so I could watch it again somewhere down the line.  At last count, I own 305 films on Blu-ray, and there are many more still to buy. :P

 

As for my retirement plan, well, I'm currently sitting on about 9,500 trophies, and once I reach 10,000 I feel like I will have peaked.  Certainly by the time I reach 200 platinums, I will start winding down my trophy hunting, and will no longer actively pursue every trophy in a game.  I will turn 40 later this year, and although I'm not married and don't have children, I still don't have as much free time as I did even a couple of years ago.  So, I plan to start easing up on my gaming soon, but it will likely be a long time before I actually stop gaming altogether.

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38 here.

i have no kids.

no partner.

no house of my own.

a dead end job which is the best i can get

no real friends

noone to talk to

disinherited by my dad for not providing him grandchildren

genuinely lonely

insomnia (or nightmares)

angry, hateful and increasingly bitter

nowhere near mentally sharp as i was when i was a university student

cant find pleasure in anyting in life not even nature/animals

depressed

i have no hope for the future.

 

gaming is all i have. but even thats not making me happy anymore, because my enjoyment has been seized by my obsession with trophies.

 

i fkn hate it.

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18 hours ago, rockstarjazz said:

38 here.

i have no kids.

no partner.

no house of my own.

a dead end job which is the best i can get

no real friends

noone to talk to

disinherited by my dad for not providing him grandchildren

genuinely lonely

insomnia (or nightmares)

angry, hateful and increasingly bitter

nowhere near mentally sharp as i was when i was a university student

cant find pleasure in anyting in life not even nature/animals

depressed

i have no hope for the future.

 

gaming is all i have. but even thats not making me happy anymore, because my enjoyment has been seized by my obsession with trophies.

 

i fkn hate it.

Gaming can be more of a curse than a hobby when you're in a bad way mate. Think about it. When you're down on your arse and life still keeps trying to kick you in it, you need to find that lift to get you back up. You plonk on a video game and guess what... it starts to kick your arse. So now its like even your hobby feels like its against you. Sometimes its good to put the pad down and get back in those baby steps, do things that are easy but will give you a sense of accomplishment and then in the near future you will find the urge for challenge coming back. Video games might not be the best thing for you right now. Its could be your way of escaping a bit of shit reality but then even the fantasy seems like a total dick. 

 

The anger, hate and bitterness is all on you at the moment because you feel like you can't get off your arse and sort things out, even though you know its down to you to do so. 

As for being mentally smart, well that goes hand in hand with being positive. Right now you're not in that place so obviously you will feel like an idiot at time, a bit of the old self loathing keeps showing up etc etc. But as I said, get back in the baby steps and work yourself to progress. Even putting the pad down and going somewhere like the gym could be a massive step for you turning your life around. No gym near you? Get some tunes on and go for a walk or jog. Rather than taking so much in right now, try thinking about what you need to get rid of to get yourself back on track. 

 

As for the trophy hunting. There's a couple of ways to look at it. Eventually no matter how good the run, a game will just be so dog shit or difficult that the run will have to end. So you either need to get it in your mind that you should just be going for what you really want, or do you actually want to go for them in the first place? Sometimes in order to stop something you have to learn to hate it, its only then that you realise how fucked up it was for you to keep going. This can be used for many things in life which can be bad for you but you get so used to them that you think you need them.

 

 

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I'm only 28 and unless I get arthritis in my hands making me unable to play games anymore, I want to keep playing until I'm old. When I retire some day, instead of gardening, sudoku, reading or knitting like many old people are into, I would instead use my time to game. 

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No plan here to ever retire from gaming, and since I am unable to work due to a number of health issues, I can play games most of the time, and it's great. I mainly stick to JRPGs which I feel anyone at any age can easily enjoy (they're especially great when you have a lot of time on your hands and tear through other kind of games within a couple of days or less).

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