Topic: Playing games and not having any interest in completing them

Yesterday I saw this thread that have been closed:
https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/nintendo-switch/do_you_int...
because there already is a Skyrim thread.
A few days ago I bought the Kingdom hearts collection on PS4. I completed KH2 on PS2 many years ago, yesterday I unlocked the last Disney world of the game (I still have to complete Atlantica and 100 Acre woods and a few other things but they are all unlocked) and I know that I have no interest at all in going further in the game. I just want to have all those worlds unlocked and load the game and be able to visit my favourite ones every now and then. Now I want to get to Halloween town in KH1 too. Halloween town is the only thing I like in KH1. Once I will unlock it I will stop making any other progress in that game, I don't care.
The same goes for Skyrim. I have played it for more than 1000 hours now and I couldn't care less about the main story. All I care about is overpowering my character and having all the things I want like the homes I like, clothes I like, weapons, jewels and so on.
I never completed Skyrim. I completed Oblivion, Oblivion is one of my favourite games ever but I regret having completed it. The main story was a waste of time. If only it was playable with a gamepad like Skyrim (I have it on PC so it is not) and had a better third person view mode (at least as good as Skyrim) I would still be playing it instead of Skyrim.

The point is that with all those story driven games, games made to be played, experienced from their beginning to the end, and then either left behind or replayed again through their main story, I feel like for the most part developers are not really going towards what I am looking for in games lately. They are so focused on objectives, goals to achieve and points to reach and when you are done with the game and have seen everything you are supposed to feel satisfied.
I don't feel satisfied that much. Except if the game is short enough or exciting enough that I want to replay it again I don't feel like I have gained anything, it is the opposite really, I put a lot of effort to beat the game and once I beat it I have no real reward, I actually lose something instead (the game is over, I am not supposed to play it anymore).
There are of course games that works in a different way: Animal crossing is made to be played as long as you wish without any real ending, Elder Scroll games can easily be turned into something like that even if they have an ending, and you can force this playstyle even in games that really are not intended to be played that way, for example Kingdom hearts.
But for the most part people still think that the only real objective in a game, expecially in a single player game, is to complete it. I don't think so. The main objective is to have fun and to be pleased, and if you play to get to the ending the fun and the pleasure ends too when you reach your goal. This was obvious and I was ok with it in the past. Sometimes you did not even have the possibility to save your games and often games were so short that I was able to complete them in an hour or two once you were good enough at them so it was fun to replay over and over your favourite games even if they had an ending, you knew you was going to replay again them soon. But today things have changed for me. I feel like for the most part games should be developed from a different perspective.

@LuckyLand
You can take a time to complete the Unfinished parts, but it doesn't always a necessary thing.
The most important is you still enjoy your Post games, even just wandering around, do some Random Battles, playing Mini games, etc.
If you want to finish the Unfinished things, make sure you are in the mood to play serious.

Btw, i had finished the Storyline of Fantasy Life 3DS 4 years ago and now i was in Post Game, still completing the Unfinished things continue the DLC Story , grinding my character to Lv 200, etc.
Pretty time consuming but it feels like Open Ending game.

Note: I also had neglected my Fantasy Life 3DS pretty long due my Save data on my Old 3DS XL. When i want to play on my New 3DS XL, I couldn't find my Old Save Data. I had realized if the Save data was written on Internal storage, not inside the card. Well... i have to start from Zero again to play in my New 3DS XL.
I can always revisit Fantasy Life on my Old 3DS XL, But i will not as satisfied as on New 3DS XL due to Lower sound volume on Old New 3DS XL.

I really don't get what this is about, since it just reads like a bunch of rambling, to be blunt. If your point is that games are different now....no ****. But if your point is that you're finding it harder to enjoy a game for its story, or that you can't find the drive to complete a game like you used to? Yeah, games are longer now, a lot of them are designed to monopolize our time, since that's what we demanded, apparently. I don't know when that was, but hey...that's the excuse the publishers give us.

And of course, there's the obvious point you didn't seem to mention: You're older now. It's a lot harder to justify putting a ton of time into a game once you have other responsibilities, especially when you know how long they can be, when they aren't fresh like when you first played an Elder Scrolls game, or when you aren't confident that it'll be worth the investment. That's kind of part of being an adult: you learn to prioritize your time so you can do things more efficiently. And part of human nature seems to dictate that once things become routine, they're no longer exciting.

I could go on, but I think you get what I'm saying: Some of it is the games, but the rest is also just getting older - whether it's going from child to teen, 15 -> 25, or a young man to a middle-aged adult with 2 worries for every wrinkle on his brow.

Then again, personally, I will say that I like a game to have context, but I never felt they were stories meant to be witnessed from beginning to end. I always want an adventure, and the end is nothing but a destination - nowhere near as thrilling as the road to get there.

nailed it.

@LuckyLand Forgive me if my replies makes no sense but I don't have it in me to read a wall of text.

From what I gathered from your post I usually don't finish main games either, I get distracted easily and start doing other things like crafting, side quests, or just exploring. It's one of the reasons I haven't finished Assassin's Creed Origins yet. Which I don't mind too much though it does create a huge backlog at times.

For me, I suffer not being able to muster the drive to finish a game SOMETIME because I have already read up the story on a FAQ or someone inconsiderate enough spoiled stuff in my media intake on various board.

Sometime I just got into the sidequest (which are harder) like in FFX that I didn't care of going fighting the last boss who I already overleveled. against.

Sometime, it just happened... I stopped playing DQ XI on my 3DS at one point and couldn't find the will to get back into it (even if I haven't had it spoiled or anything) and gravitate towards other game (Pinball, Story of Seasons, even other RPG like Tales of Eternia on my Vita)

I've been trying to find my drive and willpower to finish DQ XI and other games I abandon mid-game but sometime you just don't have it and other newer game takes my attention. I do have regrets but I don't want to be playing a game when it's not fun for me. so...I guess you should play whatever you want and feel no obligation towards a game. After all it's just a game...not something REALLY important.

The point is that today I often prefer games that are designed to monopolize my time instead of games meant to be completed. Yes games have changed according to this type of mindset, but expecially when we talk about single player games (the only ones I care about) often they stand in a middle way that is not really satisfying in either way.
For example @Tasuki mentioned Assassin Creed games, I played Assassin Creed 2, and honestly in my opinion its structure makes it a disappointment in both ways, if you try to enjoy it as a story driven game to complete or a free roaming game to enjoy and play with no other goal than have fun with it, it was disappointing and frustrating either way in the end.
There are other games that are a lot better for what I'm looking for, I'm not saying that there is nothing out there, and Assassin creed is probably in the worse part of the spectrum, many games probably stand in the middle, they haven't that perfect balance but are not as disappointing and frustrating as Assassin creed 2 has been for me.
Probably the best thing would be to avoid this middle way and make games that stick more to only one of those two different playstyles, instead of trying to do both things at the same time.

There's also another thing: today I prefer games (single player games) designed to monopolize my time, but this is probably the worst kind of games from the point of view of the developers. If they make a game (a full, complete game that don't necessarily needs dlc and updates) that is able to keep me playing for thousand hours, then I will probably be less interested in buying new games, because I already have something that pleases me so much and it is not designed to necessarily have an ending, so they just have to hope that I get tired of it. But the better the game is, the less probable is for me to get tired of it, so in the end it is very inconvenient for them to make great games that work this way... unless they fill them with overpriced dlc, lootboxes and so on, which of course I'm not a fan of...

PS: I don't mean that I want extremely long games. If a game has an ending, I usually prefer it to be rather short so that I can enjoy replaying it over and over again. I often want games that don't have endings (or designed in such a way that I can completely avoid the ending and everything else that I want to avoid) and have fun doing anything I decide to do inside the game world. So for my taste it is either short games (hoping that they are good enough that I want to replay them over and over again), or potentially infinite games (hoping that they are good enough that I want to keep playing them forever).

When I was a kid I found it easier to replay games. Mainly this was because after I'd gotten through a game, I'd make up a story about what's going on in it. Roleplaying and feeling as invested as your game character can also enhance the experience.
I used to play through Goldeneye and pretend everyone was mobile suits from Gundam Wing and use cheats to access guns according to which mobile suit I wanted to emulate.
I'd play all my fighting and sports games over a weekend as a kind of Olympics in which my chosen competitors represented my country.
I'd play through Battlefield 1942 and Battlefront II as historical lessons in the rise of a power to galactic dominance.
Finally, I'd pretend my character in Harvest Moon 64 was a veteran with PTSD, trying to escape his bloody past, live in peace, and find a good woman.
Nowadays, actually being married and having a job, there's a little less time to sit down and play multiple games in a good mindset like this, but my most common fantasies nowadays are pretending I'm at an arcade or the owner of a brand new atari or NES and have a ball playing through everything.
I might sound mental, but playing games on my own terms, rather than as designed, is sometimes extremely fun and relaxing.
Game on!

@LuckyLand I’m more of the opposite. I like a few open ended games (really wish we’d get a new Animal Crossing) but I like the feeling of finishing something I started and, even more so, I like to play games to experience their stories, something that isn’t possible if they don’t have an “ending”. For me it’s like reading a novel - I have no urge to just stop reading 3/4s through the book or repeatedly reread older chapters to avoid finishing it. I have fun reading novels, I have fun playing games, but I can’t have fun playing the same game forever and I wanna see the ending. If I want to after beating it, I can go back and play more. Like with Kingdom Hearts games, I can beat it and still go back to do other stuff afterwards, it’s not like my save file is deleted as soon as I beat the big baddie.

...though in many cases when I beat the game I’ve generally had enough of it and don’t go back, I already had my fun with it, there’s plenty of other games to enjoy!

@ShadJV of course if a game allow me to continue playing it after the ending I'm not against playing the main story, unless it is not worth it or there is something in it that I really want to avoid. If there is an open ended game that I like with a main story that I like I would just play the main story too just like it was another side quest and then go on and continue playing the game.
In Kingdom hearts I don't want to complete the game because I don't like the main story, I usually skip all of the cutscenes except the ones about the Disney worlds I like.
I also did not remember if that game allowed you to continue playing after the ending or not, so I did not want to risk
But even if it does, going on and completing it would be a waste of time for me.

I understand what you say, but I feel the opposite. I need goals and achievements to reach in order to feel I've played a game and completed it. Of course, I like arcades too, although they're usually high-score oriented with no real story in them. But usually I like playing games, such as RPGs, with completing the story in mind. And after that, back on the shelf and to reduce (or try to) my backlog with another game. I like to move on.

@nitake92 You played Dragon Quest 11 on your 3DS? Oh my god, please tell me! Where did you get it?

If you take one good look on my profile, it tells very bluntly that I buy many games, too many to even finish (my addiction to Splatoon ain't helping either). You just don't feel like
sitting down with a game you've been looking forward to sometimes. I get it. That's just how it is sometimes. Some might question why you even bought a game if you didn't wanna play it at that time. God knows I've done that with many games before. You just gotta wait until you're in the mood for something. And I don't see why one should force themselves to finish a game they don't feel like playing.
Honestly, I've never understood the whole backlog sentiment.

@LuckyLand I most definitely does, I’m not aware of many games that just lock you out of the game once you beat it. I completely play KH for the story though, I mean I don’t see much point in playing it for the gameplay considering most of the game can be beaten by just mashing X (aside from some of the bosses on the hardest difficulty). Besides, don’t unlock any of the cool super bosses (which mostly do take some strategy) unless you get nearly to the end!

@ShadJV the gameplay of Kingdom hearts is not particularly interesting but it is still quite fun, anyway I play Kingdom hearts 2 mostly because there are many DIsney worlds that I like (I like them in the game, for example I don't like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies but I like Port Royal in the game) and I like to see all the different art styles in the different worlds. Kingdom hearts 2 is a guilty pleasure for me it is not the best game out there of course but I enjoy it.

@GoldenGamer88

I am in Thailand and thus Japanese 3DS cart are pretty much common here so I bought one when it came out. I can see a used one (DQXI) selling for cheap at the shop I frequent recently too. Is it THAT hard to find oversea?

@nitake92 Thing ain't even coming overseas from what I know. Only the PS4 version is and that not for another three months. Tbh, I completely forgot about the 3DS port to the point I thought you were referring to Dragon Quest IX. My bad.

@LuckyLand
Looks like Animal Crossing is a good fit to you.

@LuckyLand
Do you like these games ? (Open Ending games)
1. Animal Crossing
2. The Sims series
3. Portal Knights
4. Bokujou Monogatari / Story of Seasons

@Anti-Matter I don't know the last one. I only like Animal Crossing, I don't like The sims and Portal Knights. My favourite version of Animal Crossing is the Gamecube one. There are a few things in Animal crossing that I think are quite frustrating and I would change but overall I like it.