It's called... TH-cam 🤣🤣 nah seriously I understand and fell the same as you. Maybe a "second tutorial" just to explain things while telling the story until it becomes a spoiler
This is why I dislike the tutorial being integrated into the game. If it was all a menu option of its own to train you then it would be simple (and make replaying easier so you don’t have to go super slow when you know what you’re doing )
@@sonicsean34I just recently got back into armored core 6 and the tutorial section/practice area they have is amazing. Wish more single player games had something like this.
They aren’t needed. Just look at the controls in the menu screen. After playing for a few minutes, you’ll be fine.I just started playing Cyberpunk again yesterday. The save file was from May ‘22. No issues at all with getting back into it.
My backlog is so large that I just had to learn that it is ok to drop a game if I’m not feeling engaged or satisfied by it anymore. Life is too short to waste time playing something you’re not having fun in. Sunk cost fallacy be damned. Don’t guilt yourself in finishing a game just to finish it. Maybe you’ll be in the mood to go back to it in the future.
I agree with this, but have you ever played a game that you didn’t like at first but you chose to stick with it and ended up really liking it? How do you differentiate the two? This happened recently with me and Unicorn Overlord.
So true. I always give a game I may not like a chance and try to let the mechanics and story open up. If I still don’t enjoy it, I leave it in the dust
Me and Dark Souls,@@CubicleJ0ckey. That said, I was 16 when I started it, and I was 21 when I finally BEAT it. Part of it was that I wasnt ready to go in-depth into the themes on offer at 16. The atmosphere of the game told me that.
@@CubicleJ0ckey This can happen for sure, and has happened to me before. But it's also healthy to say "this game has wasted my time" or "I'm just not enjoying this, I'm done". I do this with books all the time too. Personally, I feel like when I'm in this situation trying to decide, I can look at reviews again with a better critical eye to see if I can get hints about whether to continue. If a game is really all that mindblowing after a kinda crappy start, it'll be there in the future. Or I might just take the L. It happens sometimes.
Something to account for- there is more content coming out every day than there ever has been in the past, and not just video games. Its easy to get overwhelmed.
That's exactly it. There are tv-shows I wanna try to stay on top of, online streams I'd want to catch up on (impossible, as more keep accumulating all the time), games I need to finish, movies I wanna see AND actually trying to have a social life of some sort (failing miserably)... Too much to do, so little time. So games I WOULD want to finish but that I no longer remember well are just doomed to be in that limbo where I feel like I'd practically need to start over to remember what was up, or start playing from a much harder part of the game with no rememberance of how things functioned....
I'm definitely experiencing the same feeling, I was obsessed with games as a kid, but now barely have a desire to play them. The last one I completed was God of war ragnarok in January.
I had that problem too. Playing is something I like, and felt bad for not doing it. What worked for me is playing only one video game at a time, and when I know I'm close to finishing it, I choose one from my list and install it. So I always have one game ready to start playing, and I don't have to go through the chore of finding one and feeling unmotivated because I don't know what to play.
@@rohjani3717 I kinda agree. They have so many objectives, quests, secrets to discover and more stuff to artificially make them bigger and longer and justify the price, that they feel like you are completing tedious chores.
Wanted to add that after getting covid I came back to this video and finished it. On top of his tips I also would watch walk through videos to help me catch back up to where I was. Then during my 7 days of quarantine I beat returnal, moonlighter, moon crash, and got to the end of Act II in bg3. I tried not to buy new games and made a serious dent in my back log.
Instead of just picking up Tears of the Kingdom again this guy just decided to make a well-researched psychological video about picking up video games again
My problem is my perfectionism and maximisation tendencies. I want to milk everything the game offers, don't want to miss anything. But, doing that breaks my immersion and engagement so I either quit the game or sludge through it joylessly
Saaame! I can barely play open world games because of this. Developers need to realize that some people WILL in fact do every single thing, so please don't put too much content (or a bunch of boring grind content) in your game.
@@zpinn8242 Yeah and most of the game plots don't fit in an open world setting. Your long-lost beloved ward is seen nearby and being chased by a spectral army, how about you wander around the continent and play against local tcg champions, and explore everywhere in case of missable quests while your ward is still being chased and a catastrophe is approaching
To pick up a game again. Just go hype yourself back up by watching trailers and thinking of it as it's only just coming out again. Don't delete your old save. But temporarily start a new game. Playthrough the start of the game, you'll pick everything up again, and then you can go resume where you were.
This........ You are a genius! why have I never thought of doing this!!!!! I am going to do this with Xenoblades Chronicles . I have been wanting to finish these game, but I have forgotten the gameplay and don't want to start over again. Again you are a genius
Ngl this is low key some amazing advice - to start a new save to pick up the basics and then go back to your original save. I beat Witcher 3 but stopped about 2 mins into blood and wine and now it's been years and dozens of games later, I've all but completely forgot the controls, the game philosophy (inventory, upgrades, signs, etc), and characters dynamics.
Yes! I've been preaching this forever, soundtrack and/or audio design is like the drummer of a band, you barely even notice its there at the time, but when you think about it, it controls the entire experience, sure, fun gameplay and an interesting story may be more important but if a game doesn't sound great, it isn't going to feel great
Came to the comments to say this. I hate Final Fantasy Tactics with a passion, but after listening to the OST, I thought, “Yeah, I’ll give this game a fifth chance.”
One strategy that I've used to enjoy things in life (not just games, but things in general) is to intentionally deprive myself of them for a short while. Does your music library seem dull? Absolutely no listening to music. Before long I will be craving some music, ANY kind of music, and I'll cave on my own self-prescribed rule. But in so doing, the music will seem so much more enthralling. Games work much the same way. I think that a lot of the "Games are boring these days" sentiment comes from people who simply indulge in them too much. Set an open ended goal to not play games at all. Don't give yourself a specific time frame either. That is, don't say "No games for a day, a week, a month" etc. Say to yourself "No playing games until the urge to do so becomes overwhelming." When that comes, let yourself indulge a little. You will enjoy your favorite game 1000x more.
To me it's exactly the opposite - it's the friction of getting back into a hobby or interest I've put down for a while that prevents me from getting into it. Once I get into the "flow" of gaming, or reading, or making music, it's fine, but it's getting started on it, or returning to it after a while that's daunting.
It's not quite the same, as it's not deliberate, but some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had were like this. I'd read about a game, see screenshots, and just know deep down that this is a game that I'd like to play. Except it was rare or on a different console or just somehow remained unavailable to me for years. When I finally got to sit down and play those games I was enraptured by them from start to finish. Utter satisfaction.
Damn i thought i was the only one, this is me whenever i play the games i love. best examples are Skyrim and BOTW. I so love the game that I didn't want it to end because i know myself that once i finished games i will never pick it up again, only motivates me to finish it if Im being spoiled or something.
But it is over, because you’re valuing “I COULD always come back” over actually finishing it. This is the same energy as refusing to commit to a dating relationship because “I COULD date anyone I want.” It neglects to take the appeal of depth and progress into account. We’ve probably all done some version of this, at least temporarily. But it closes off some of the most important challenges AND rewards in favor of this illusion of choice. If you never allow yourself to choose to complete something, what you’ve actually done is rob yourself of organic endings in favor of manufactured ones. Because if you’re being honest with yourself, leaving a game (or a book or even a relationship) in that state means you’re never actually going to go back. It’s understandable to want control, and to not want things to end. But the reality is that, whether or not you reach the credits, there will be a time you play that game for the last time. And if this is the pattern you’ve dropped yourself into, you’ll die without knowing how the vast majority of your favorite games end, or how it feels to down the final boss. Isn’t that a worse outcome than being able to mentally shelve the game and have a full experience and all of its memories? To think of this as being not merely “ended” but FULFILLED?
the takeaways I got are: to avoid falling off: * refrain from starting another long game in the middle of playing a long game to get back on if you fall off: * seek out positive content about the game to try to build desire * commit to doing it for at least 2 minutes to push past the reluctance
Seeking out positive content is actually a really good and underrated tactic, thank you for mentioning that. When I was starting up my playthrough of tears of the kingdom, I just kept hearing about how botw was so much better and the story in this one is garbage and how disappointing it was and all that. But when I actually picked up the game again and started playing, I realized that personally, I really liked it. The positive content method also lets you know that there are other people who enjoy the game and are excited about it as well, which also motivates you out of your state of "I'm the only one enjoying this" or "this is boring" So thank you again for mentioning that
@@HannafordNuclearBomb "But when I actually picked up the game again and started playing, I realized that personally, I really liked it." - this is exactly why I stopped listening to critics on matters of taste. They might tell you that a movie is bad because it's confusingly written and has bad acting, but they rarely ever say anything about what the experience is like, subjectively. Just because a movie is well written doesn't mean it's fun to watch. Primer is a good example of a well respected movie that's (IMO) not fun to watch, the movie is boring because it steeps itself too much in time travel mechanics trying to avoid plot holes, it's like watching a dry class lecture). Troll 2 is a good example of a movie that is considered among the worst of all time, but if you actually sit down and watch it, it's hilarious and a good time. Darren Ewing ("they're eating her, then they're going to eat me") takes his role so seriously but stutters his lines and overacts throughout the whole movie, and I adore him. He and Deborah Reed elevate the movie from what would be a boring slop film to one of my genuine favorites of all time. Critics will tell you to watch Primer and skip Troll 2, but having seen them myself, I recommend the opposite. For games, I have a better idea of what I do and don't like, so when I look at reviews for games, I ignore unimportant things like score, graphics, story, whether the reviewer personally liked it etc and focus in on the words of the reviews for anything troubling, like unplayable bugginess, devs abandoning the game, abusive pricing tactics, unethical practices. etc. The reviews you saw about TotK saying it's "garbage" and "disappointing" fall into that ignore category for me. Neither of those things tell me what the experience might be like for me. Objectively, the most important things in a movie and game are their story and gameplay, respectively. But subjectively, the only thing that matters in any form of escapism art is the escapism part--is it enjoyable? Is it fun? Is it worth your time? Does it make the hours fly by or painfully drag on? That's a personal question that only you can answer (or make an educated guess at). Nobody else can answer it for you.
@@HannafordNuclearBomb... I don't think I have ever actually seen anyone say BotWs story was so much better than TotKs that the latter was garbage. I don't think I've ever even seen someone say they preferred BotWs story. Or BotWs anything. Where on earth were you socializing that gave you that impression?
That's because many (and basically ALL AAA) games nowadays are designed to be full of chores to force engagement and incite feelings of sunk cost. Short experiences are great for busy days but sometimes it's nice to just boot up longer title when you finally get the time. Still, quality hours > number of hours every time.
My common strat, for single player games especially, is to watch the beginning of a lets play. This reintroduces me to the story, gameplay mechanics, and often brings with it the positive perspective of a new player. Fresh energy is infectious, and gets me right into the zone.
Watching letsplays makes me want to get back into the game 99% of the time not because it’s a refresh but because half the time letsplayers suck ass at the game and make it look more interesting than it actually is
My biggest problem in getting back into games is my tendency to just start them over. I think about how I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve played, how disconnected I feel from my previous progress, and also about how much fun I had with the part of the game I played already and conclude I might as well start over to get back up to speed. In particular, with games that let me customize the build/play style of my characters, I’ll look at the builds I made after a while away and it feels like they were made by someone else. The gaming journal sounds very helpful for my problem, since I can go back through my previous journey with the game and feel reconnected with the progress I’ve made.
That's the problem I've been having with books recently. I'll start it, forget some of what I read because it's been a while and then feel the need to start over. I'm definitely gonna start the game journal, but I don't know what to do about the book problem lol. Maybe just need some gingko in my diet or something
I’m 29 and I’ve found the reason I extended the length of a game I like is because I’m disappointed by so many modern games that when I do find one I don’t want that experience to end. It’s definitely worse the older I get
In your 50 u can end up in hundreds of hours sunk in World of Tanks, and with attention span to the new games so short, that it cannot survive time from decision "oh, that's interesting" to "download finished" and never launch the new game, but delete fresh download 😅 And then back to WoT.
This is exactly how I feel so I end up not finishing games I love and finishing the games I don’t. It sounds weird but the way you put it describes how I feel.
@@kosmologic6007 it doesn’t help that the games are getting bigger! I wish more games had levels instead of a massive open world. I miss doing something interesting rather than staring at a bumper or horses ass for hours!
@@chubleigh958 it’s a nasty side effect of gaming for so long. You know exactly what you like/dislike in a game so you avoid games you think look bad but could actually be your next favourite game! But when I’m stuck on what to play next I just boot up a palette cleaner like hotline Miami or furi.
I stick to 1 game at a time and fell in love with gaming again. When I want to play I know exactly what game I need to start. No need to choose a game and then feel this guilt that I could play something else. I’m so glad I did this.
I'm the same way! When I first got Playstation Extra after not having a Playstation for several years I was overwhelmed by the amount of games I had at my disposal, and I couldn't really get into a game when I was trying to juggle 2-3 games at the same time
@sonicadv27 I agree, man. I like the 1 game idea, but if the game has a long campaign, it is nice to have a short palette cleaner game. Nintendo games are not as hardcover but there are some really well made casual fun.
@@invisibleloveone I know what you mean. I do get tired of long games. But if that happens I simply do other things and do not play for days. It is also a great way to keep your "game addiction" at bay.
About the journal tip: Steam introduced a new feature in its overlay a few months ago. For any game, you can leave written notes and they will remain there until next time you open up the game. The same way as you said, before I close the game I leave a few notes there about what my plan is for when I next open the game. This helped a lot.
This is brilliant. Currently in use walkthroughs and just leave the tab open on the area I’m in. Really helps to remind me of where I was and where I was going.
I don't really play video games like I once did but, the two minute rule works with just about everything. From hobbies to goals, the hardest part of doing anything is just getting yourself started. I love the video and I believe the information you provided is really helpful in a lot more scenarios than just video games.
What mainly stops me (as someone with a preference for games with stories) is that I completely lose track of who was who in the story and what was happening. If it's been long enough, I'll replay from the beginning, but once a month or two passes then I've just completely lose investment in the story by that point. As a result, I tend to limit myself to two games at a time, at least insofar as story focused games go.
I think I've restarted Cyberpunk 2077 at least four times now; about once a year or so. I get to the point where Jackie dies, and then stall out. Every time. The game looks amazing though, and I'd love to really dig in to the rest of it.
This video literally described every feeling I have when I abandon a game. I definitely think about it while playing other games, hop on, suck, abandon again then try a whole new other game while I’m feeling low confidence in my skills which effects my gameplay in the next game
I realized the perceived time commitment of something is not only what keeps me from enjoying games, watching a show or movie, or reading, but what gets me stuck in doom scrolling and other time-wasters. I think I want to do something and it'd be nice to watch an episode of a show or play a bit of a game because I want to relax for a bit, but I have this deep seated worry of wasting time. So, i instead opt to just open up my phone and scroll for a minute; it's something to distract me and it's far shorter commitment than a show or game. However, I end up getting sucked into the scrolling and end up wasting as much time, if not more, than if I had just done the other thing. It's easy to say "just one more post" because it's such a small increment. But conversely it's hard to say "just one more session of Zelda" because I worry the minimum time to enjoy it is already too long.
The 2 Minute-Rule got me back into reading books about a year ago and I don't know how I never had the idea to try the same with games that I want to finish but couldn't. Thanks for making that connection for me :)
never heard of that! looked it up. thanks. not sure how to apply that to gaming. usually i give a game 1 hour to get me back into it. if it has not managed that i play something else.
I once did a journal on a game because I kept getting those "Oh, it makes a lot of sense!" moments regarding its plot and the reasoning behind some mechanics and shenanigans. After some time I just had to start the journal to properly understand my appreciation for this game. Turns out this journal followed me to the very end of the journey, and made me realize just how deep the devs went with it. The game never felt like a chore because I always had this fresh reminder of my appreciation for it. So it totally helped me finish the game smoothly.
My unfinished Elden Ring play through from 2022 (last played Fall 22) really needed this video. I have no clue what I’m doing but the journal tip is definitely what I need.
Elden Ring is great because if youre rusty you can just pick a random grace on the map, go there and start murdering things to get in the feel of it again. Maybe youll discover something you missed while doing so as well
I can't imagine dropping Elden Ring. Only time would be once you're close to endgame, since Mountaintops of the Giants is kinda boring. But after you get past that it's back to great
I can absolutely attest that a gaming "journal" helps a lot. I started keeping notes on particularly complex games (like Kerbal Space Program, Satisfactory, etc.) in Obsidian, the software I use to organize my entire life (HIGHLY recommended; it's free, and can do basically anything you want, as it's essentially just organized, connected Markdown), and now I make a new entry for any game I play. It's definitely helped me stick with games that I would often end up bouncing off of, for whatever reason.
omfg this kinda software is what i've been looking for forever, i've tried with other apps and softeware but nothing as all encompassing thank you So so much!
Yeah, I'm a list-taker and checkbox-ticker, so I'm really excited to try that method especially! I think having a clear goal I was shooting toward will really help me feel less overwhelmed to pick games back up again. Even if it's a boss I was stuck on, having it written down presents it as this quantifiable challenge--"Oh right, that's what I was struggling with. Let's see if I can tackle it now!" I also like puzzle games, but there are some answers I just find obtuse. I always give myself license to go look up an answer as a hint if I've gone two or more separate play sessions and just can't break through a puzzle I'm stuck on. Oftentimes it turns out to be something I probably wasn't going to find or figure out on my own.
@@michaelbe5887 sorry for the late reply, totally forgot about this. It started as just keeping notes on particularly complicated or involved mechanics or things I was building in Kerbal Space Program and Satisfactory, and now it's expanded to include things like lists of quests/missions I do, bosses I've killed (Elden Ring, which also includes death tracking, just for my own amusement). And to-do lists are also a part of it, especially if I know it's something that's going to take several sessions to do. I've also included things like a rough copy of a gear/skill loadout for games like Borderlands 3, so that I know I'll be able to quickly re-create it in the future if I want to. My most extensive notes are probably for Destiny 2, mainly the raids (I'm an avid raider, have done them with mostly the same group of people for 9 years now). I have quick encounter descriptions; challenge requirements; what I typically use for dealing damage to a given boss; who in my group typically does what; etc. For context, I have my notes up on a second computer next to my PC, usually just pause throughout and type away for a few seconds
Talking about your experience with TOTK is literally my exact experience. I've been playing so many other games when I'm literally at the final boss battle. This video was great.
I finish nearly every game that I start (eventually). For me, these are some of the most helpful mindsets and habits: 1) Allow yourself to take a break-- a long one, if needed. Just because a game is 100s of hours long, it doesn't mean that you need to stay committed to it exclusively from start to finish. Unless you stopped playing because you don't like the game, don't tell yourself that you gave up on it/dropped it/quit. There's no need to put any kind of finality on it. Unless you sell it, the game will be there for you when you're ready for it again. 2) Don't restart your file! This one is huge. I always hear people talk about wanting to come back to a game they fell off of, and how they're going to start over. My question is always: What makes you think you're not going to fall off at around the same place again? It can be intimidating to jump back into a game part-way when you've forgotten the mechanics and what you were doing. Realistically, it's almost always significantly faster to push through the re-learning process than it is to start from the very beginning, re-treading familiar ground. And you have the added bonus of making a little bit of progress almost immediately. 3) Try to avoid jumping on the next shiny new thing. I used to be terrible for this, and if you follow games media/podcasts, it's easy to get sucked into the conversations/hype around the hot new thing. There are times when a particularly special game comes out, and I *must* play it a.s.a.p., but usually, I'll just open up my "Games" note file on my phone and add the title to my list of things I want to remember to play eventually. The best part is, by the time I'm actually ready to play them, they're usually way cheaper. No more wasted money. 4) Look at your backlog. If you're getting a little burnt out on a game, or if something new is tempting you, just look at your backlog. It was mentioned in the video, but pushing through that first wall of getting yourself to boot up an old game often results in playing and enjoying it again.
The issue is if you’re someone like me number 2 is actually necessary if your break is long enough. I can pick up the game mechanics quickly enough, but the issue is moreso the story. I don’t remember who is who. I don’t feel connected to the characters anymore. I don’t feel aware of why I’m here, where I’m going and where I’ve been. It results in my feeling completely lost and detached from the game and it’s world and I will remain fixated on everything that I can’t remember. But if I’m deep enough restarting is also a pain. In my scenario, something that I try to do is start off with the easiest solution. If the game has a story so far option, I use it and see if it’s enough for me to feel familiar. If that’s not enough, I now try to go watch play throughs of people so that I still re-experience the beginning of the game up to wherever I am without constricting myself to focusing entirely on replaying what I already had done. Alternatively sometimes I’ll just watch the cutscenes but I usually prefer seeing the in game interactions too.
@markinlife That's kind of a tricky one. Personally, I rarely get very invested in games' stories, but I understand that that's not everyone. You actually already mentioned my solution, though: There are always recaps/let's plays that you can watch to catch up without needing to re-do everything yourself. I admit that there have been two games that don't work with these rules for me: Metal Gear Solid V: I played it quite a bit around when it came out. I loved it, but I was fussing over 100%-ing it early on, and I got frustrated with it. I find that game to be exceptionally complex-- so much so that I'm looking forward to starting completely fresh. The other one was Sekiro. I played up to the butterfly woman who throws knives at you (if you're familiar). I got stuck, and then TOTK came out. My attention was ripped away for a year or two. When I came back, I couldn't figure the game out, and the boss that I couldn't beat before was a bad place to re-learn. Even trying to practice on some of the nearby smaller enemies was too frustrating to get anywhere.
Boy I can relate to # 2 and 3. There's a few games that I've kind of lost interest in and quit playing , but I did "like" the games. So, I will try to play again, and of course starting from the beginning and again loose interest and quit. Next time, I will just start on my old save and see how I feel first! And the new shiny. I learned that for me, I just don't watch game news, vids or anything about other games while I'm invested in and playing 1 atm. Again, I've dropped a game I was enjoy and having fun with, just because I got an itch to try something different.
Just did this today. I got a brand new Spider-Man 2 for 20 bucks cheaper than the original price. Playing Elden ring right now but GOW Ragnarok and Hitman 3 and now Spider-Man 2 to play after. One by one
I think a lot of it is related to plain old procrastination and the psychology around it. Anything that finds a place on our "to-do" list becomes a problem. Starting a game never feels like something we "should" do. Sustaining a game takes a little more effort. But finishing one can feel like a chore (as you mentioned about journaling). I find that just "eating that frog" so to speak, often works, i.,e., "the 2 minute rule" you cited--just fire it up, sit with it, start a quest, and stick with it. Eventually, those neurons will start firing once more, and you may just find yourself wondering how you ever "fell out of it" and feeling glad you're back into it. But as with all things, this becomes harder and harder with every playthrough.
I will use the 2-minute rule as a life hack, to develop self-improvement habits I’ve wanted to develop. I will use the journaling method to help me be more consistent with my personal programming projects. Thank you for the video. This is not just for gaming but can be applied to so many things.
Dude, you hit the nail on the head! As a motivation researcher and someone who studies Self Determination Theory full-time, I am extremely impressed with how you integrate it into this video. You made my day! Yes, feelings of competence and mastery experiences (the latter technically comes from Social Cognitive Theory but is still a measure of competency) are ultimately what drive our intrinsic motivation to play games, and knowing that we have a sense of autonomy in our actions and connection to a wider community further fuel our interest (gradually moving from situational interest to individual interest, part of interest theory but still applicable). We are all inherently motivated to do things that we enjoy when we feel like that decision comes from the self, and we will always work toward completing a goal when we are oriented toward that task. Many of us experience problems in life when we feel that we are doing something due to external reward/punishment and we are required to integrate the values of others. So glad I stumbled upon your video! Great job mate.
@@luked2982 Great question! SDT comes from cognitive psychology, which shares a lot in common with Behaviorism but focuses more on internal processes rather than just external stimuli. That being said, SDT is rooted in the Baconian method, measuring the environmental factors that either support or hinder a person's motivation. I admittedly am not an expert on Behaviorism but I would say most people who study motivation now prefer to approach it from a cognitive psychology lens because our motivations are not simply a reaction to our environment. There are many internal processes that take that external information and then integrate and regulate it into the self. If someone makes me do something I'm motivated purely extrinsically by the threat of punishment and reward, but if I can consciously value what they want from me I can integrate the task more into my own identity. Gaming is something we do intrinsically out of our own interest and enjoyment.
Thank you, truly. It really means a lot coming from someone in the field. Cognitive psychology and human behavior are subjects that I've always been drawn to, but never pursued any formal education in. My hope for this channel is to do my best at synthesizing the research topics that I find interesting and relate them to my favorite hobby. Hope to hear from you again in future videos :)
This is really interesting! I’d be intrigued to hear more about “being required to incorporate the values of others” into life as an intrinsic demotivator. As an autistic queer adult, who also finds themself in the middle of a terrifying political moment - this massive push toward blind conformity and autocratic rule - I’ve spent most of my life getting told that my values are bad and unworkable, and other people’s values have to be my values instead. As an adult, I’ve moved away from this as much as possible, and it’s made me much happier - but there is so much hate in the world for this. It seems like some people don’t feel like they can be themselves unless they get to oppress other people, and I have struggled to understand why that is or how we can mitigate the impact of this. To the best of my understanding, people who value not only connectedness but obedience and conformity, may have less need for autonomy and a greater reliance on hierarchy just to understand what to do, because they don’t want the cognitive load of making their own decisions. Yet they don’t treat forcing conformity on others like a cognitive load but instead like an emotional urge almost mirroring that of a need. It’s not enough that their little ingroup is all the same - the Other offends them by virtue of its very existence. I’d be interested to know how much of that is about fear vs how much of that is fulfilling needs other than survival and safety. Because this kind of thinking seems to cap at “love and belonging.” You’re probably not going to earn “respect and esteem” by being the same as everyone else, and self-actualization is clearly out the window. So what other motivations do people have for ignoring the rights of others?
Triangle Strategy and Code Vein are the games I got stuck on, and largely due to needing to grind in order to get past a certain point. The funny thing is, your solution to just commit to two minutes a day is a perfect method to get through such a trial: do one round/route of grinding a day, making a little bit of progress at a time, until ready to pursue the game in earnest once more. Good video. Hope this one gets caught by the algorithm like your first.
Much appreciated!! I also struggled a bit to get through Triangle Strategy…I enjoyed the combat and found the story interesting, but yeah the need to do those camp training missions had me losing steam at certain points!
@@markmaxwelljr For me, it's a fight where you either sell your buddy out or defend him while potentially sacrificing your town. I do have a save of the "sell out" route, but I really didn't like where that was going so I either get a story route I'll hate or I grind.
@@sethjette6883 No actually, though that section is fortunately easier on co-op. It was the boss AFTER the ice and fire duo boss, and my buddy did not have any applicable buff/debuff abilities that could help in my run. In his game world, I was able to poison that super tough boss because host always seems to draw aggro, so we waited out the last ten or fifteen seconds and just let his HP run out. However, since he had nothing to help in my game world, I just kept dying to the aggro as I never had enough openings to apply any debuff and we just couldn't whittle the health down enough. It stunk!
this is the first time any of these "try this" videos actually helped. Most of the time it's just someone spouting nonsense and giving no real solution other than "change your mindset" so it is MUCH appreciated. I also never leave TH-cam comments but felt this on was warranted:)
The journal is a good idea but it can also be a trap. Because when you leave with "I was to go beat that boss next", it can become the friction that will prevent you from coming back. Our brain is dumb and think you need to listen to yourself wanting this. So the idea of beating the boss (even if you don't have to do it lol) will block your mind. The 2 mins rules of "let's log in to chill or do nothing preplanned" is pretty perfect. This way your brain freely decides "as your go" what you will engage into. There's nothing lower than this as a bar of entry (except maybe playing the game for the first time). Also, you will never get good without a bit of discipline (like with anything in life). I personally disrupted my need for new games at launch. This changed my life. Now, I don't crave login in a new game (I still buy it though) and it prevents me artificially interrupting a game am currently playing. Another behavior for me that has been very effective is impose a limit on the number of games I can start at the same time and the "no game if of the same genre at the same time" rule. It keeps things fresh and you avoid the resulting "of god so many games started" feeling that discourages you to come back to any. Lastly, and that one is more personal but could inspire you maybe to find you own contextual rules, you need to respect your personality while playing videogames. As an example, me I don't like much competitive games. In multiplayer games I have this need to be the best or the leader else I don't find it much fun. So am simply not playing multiplayer. There's always a shitload of people better than you need. I get much more satisfaction mastering single player experiences so I focus on this! Basically remember you don't have to play what people play, you don't have to "connect" (I think this one is a bit bullshit) and you don't have to play what's popular or game modes people generally play. Be yourself, just enjoy yourself because your gaming time is RARE and PRECIOUS.
Connection is a need that all people have, because humans are fundamentally social beings. The same brain and nervous system that makes us cognitive problem-solvers, also makes us socially motivated. However, bringing up the point of respecting your own personality (which is lovely phrasing for this!), many people seem to favor one of these needs over the other. Competence and connectedness tend to have an inversely proportional relationship in the brain, where very compentence-oriented people value connectedness less, and very connectedness-oriented people value competence less. Most people are somewhere in the middle, but it’s a roughly normal distribution - a bell curve. So if you find that your game time is personal and not social, and you don’t game with the intent of relating to anyone - that’s completely understandable. But please remember not to invalidate people who do seek social connections through gaming and other hobbies - who are also fairly likely to take the game’s elements of mastery a little less seriously, due to the game’s role as a vehicle for them to spend time with others. (My main reference for this line of thought was a book called NeuroTribes, so if you’re interested in reading more about the relationship between cognitive problem-solving and relational empathy, there’s some insight to be had there.) Your goals and your enjoyment are valid. Other people’s goals and enjoyment are also valid.
Make your own rules is definitely key to fun/ success. As soon as you drop your feels of pressure and "the game tells me to do so and so..." no fxck it. 😅 You will feel like fresh forest air
I recently started to just play without thinking too much. Instead of sitting and staring at what games I have and thinking what should I play, I just launch whichever catches my eye first and commit to at least an hour with it. Less thinking more playing, like it used to be back when I first started gaming.
As someone who actually does psych research I can't believe this video was about self-determination theory XD I was rolling my eyes hard ready to be hit with the basic "reward systems, operant conditioning" nonsense and you just go and pull out my absolute favorite theory of human motivation. SDT for the win.
My go to strat for the last few years is deliberately watching silly challenges for whatever game it is I haven't played in a while. It shows others experiencing enjoyment and excitement that you mentioned and reintroduces playing strategies that have faded from memory. I've managed to consistently make huge chunks of progress and finish many games with this method. It shouldn't be a chore to game, so seek out people who make it fun! Happy gaming!🎮
Our experience was similar watching videos of people finding fun in game they love helped me remember why I held onto this "hobby" for 38 yrs of my life
This was super helpful! Putting motivation skills in the context of finishing games (something I want to do) rather than just pure productivity (something I need to do) is a much more digestible framework. And now I have a few tips that can help me finish games AND productive projects!
Something that I do personally to help me get back into a game is to watch a streamer that I really like play the game up until the point that I am at. It helps me remember the story a lot better. which is what I struggle with the most.
When I play certain RPGs I have a couple of strategies to keep me from getting lost and not wanting to continue I always end my game sessions in whatever dungeon I'm supposed to do next. Second, if I have to make certain choices for a specific route, I'll name my character after whatever route I'm going for so when I get back in, I'll remember
I just realized that's why I like jumping back into silent hill 3 more than other games, the map essentially journals for you, marking which doors you can't open if you've tried and stuff
The move towards more games that do this is quietly incredible - Outer Wilds' ship log is an absolute pinnacle of ingame journaling, and quite a lot of games have some form of it now (Etrian Odyssey/Persona Q have the whole map drawing aspect, Dredge's fish log broadly tells you where and how to catch everything and is far more satisfying because of it, for example. Even FF14 does similar things.) So when I played Lorelei and the Laser Eyes I found myself genuinely disappointed - I often draw maps and use notebooks so I thought it would be perfection, but they went a little too far in explicitly wanting you to make notes and came out the other side at "unhelpful." And having watched a few streamers play it, what they actually do instead is forget things, disconnect and start looking up guides. I definitely think developers need to be very aware of things like that, you can make your game so much more satisfying with a bit of considerate journaling
@@storageheater its def a very much needed trend that should be started, being able to stamp scribbles on your map at least (like an arrow to point in the general direction you wanted to go next and such) Alternatively if more physical versions of games came with the game's map you could just use that irl as you play, wich at least sounds pretty neat
physical game guides have been a game changer for me for two reasons. 1. the guide provides a lot of info that the game doesnt give you as clearly like lore character backgrounds and things like that. they typically breakdown the map to understand it better as well. 2. as a casual gamer who doesnt pride myself on triumphant hard parts, getting stuck can ruin a game for me since ill put it down and then never pick it back up because i dread opening that save where im stuck. the giude helps me get through those parts where i would have otherwise given up and moved on.
absolutely phenomenal video, both this and the xbox game pass video. such great psychological insight about real life behaviors that im so many people feel the experience of but probably dont know how to characterize and respond constructively to with their video game consumption approach. A few strategies that ive developed to find success in not falling into the SDT pains by leaving games is: 1) if i am still enjoying a game in any meaningful capacity, i continue playing it with the goal of ultimately seeing it through (whether that be a plan to simply finish the game, get as far as i see fit at the moment, or achievement hunt w an end goal in mind etc). i continue playing it even if i am more excited to start something else. i actively try to keep the thrill of novelty from robbing me of the great experience that i already found myself cozied into. 2) avoiding spoilers related to fundamental game experience/progression/average time completion stats/etc, as it is effectively junk food dopamine that really disincentivizes starting or continuing experiencing anything first-hand...which is tricky situation with the 3rd arm of SDT being connectedness. thats almost where having a backlog of games that you know are widely praised but no longer actively viral is such a beautiful zone for personal immersion. single player games thrive here. knowing a game is considered great, but not knowing what for, and its yours to discover. you may lose out on that 3rd arm but man do the first 2 arms really get to shine. being able to make custom lists on sites like dekudeals is phenomenal for putting a pin in an exciting game you hear about (since it also has metacritic ratings, price/sale watching notifications, etc) without spoiling yourself so you can properly go experience it later when you're ready. it really helps build the thrill of novelty like i mentioned in the first point, which is great, once you have worked to develop the discipline to not act on it right away to steal away part of the experience of the game you're already on. 3) if i can, i try to not leave a gaming session with a daunting task immediately sitting in front of me. when i finish a session, i make sure i dont know exactly what is on the horizon in order to try to re-instill the feeling of freedom and endlessness for the next time i plan to sit down. like you said in the gaming journal section, having a fun (key word fun and not daunting) direction i want to investigate/explore next. that keeps the immersion feeling inspiring and not like a brick wall that i have already seen and will be immediately returning to whenever i consider sitting down to play again. i fucking love your gaming journal voice memo section. its such an interesting and intimate way to feel more of what you experience (obvi, its journaling haha but still its really nice) this type of stuff is what brings me so much life with the field of psychology. im about to graduate med school going into psychiatry and behavioral tenants like these are so meaningful for helping people understand how and why certain psychotherapy techniques work, by taking the time to really get to know the relationship between their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. thanks so much for the amazing content :)
so many great points here, thank you for the kind words and the thoughtful comment! Your second strategy about limiting exposure to fundamental game elements is something I would love to explore more. Over time I have started to abide by this more and more, and truly believe it leads to a better experience. You're right that it is in direct conflict with that third component of SDT, which is why I think it can be hard to resist in many cases. But yeah, being a #patientgamer and playing things after the hype has died down can often be the most enjoyable way to play a game. Adding some notes to my future video ideas file now!!
The reading positive reviews part is a great idea. Also watching gameplay in it too. If I can use that to persuade myself into impulsively buying a game, than I can use it to impulsively get back into playing a game! It's a win-win!
This is such an interesting video because all of these strategies can be seamlessly applied to completing long-term projects in general and begs the question: are games just long-term projects? Unlike many other forms of entertainment media (especially digital), games cannot, by design, be engaged with passively. You can’t just “put it on in the background” like a movie or TV show. In many ways, if you want to finish a video game then, like a project, you have to take some responsibility for your own engagement. Video games are not passive media that you can use to fill in time (even though that’s how we might intuitively understand them). They’re projects that we should plan for and engage with actively, if for no other reason than to derive maximum enjoyment from them
I've wanted content like this for so many years. Seriously at least a decade, because I've struggled with this damn near my whole life. I'm 32 now, laden with depression and ADHD, and that shit can wreak havoc on one's abilities to find, get into, stay into, or later return to a game. Every step of the way is compromised in some fashion. If I can get something to click with me, I'm usually in it for a good long while, but I still fall off many games that aren't done in < 20 hours. I fell of Tears of the Kingdom and couldn't remember why till you reminded me with your own reason, as it was the same for me. Starfield, that disappointing game that was super exciting for a little while and then it wasn't. My ADHD compels me to seek out novelty and new shiny stimulating things (though not necessarily in the form of like, fast paced games. Euro Truck Simulator has been a shiny stimulating thing to me at various points lmao). Your second technique I literally laughed out loud when you said because I didn't expect to hear it and it's something I rely on very heavily, especially if I'm trying to get into something I "want" to play but can't get the rest of myself on board with it. That could be returning to a game or it could be a game I've never played before but I want to love, like Souls games (still haven't been able to pull that off. Patience is a colossal barrier that I can't goddamn overcome). Another weird "technique" I've discovered for at least deciding on what I want to do for the first part of the day is - well, I've come to the realization that my brain, and probably others, are most impressionable when we first wake up. I realized after a streak of happenings where I'd browse my reddit homepage on my phone as I woke up in bed and something would really catch my eye and make me go "ooh" either as the post itself or even in the comments. Most recently this led me to going on a cowboy kick, primarily led by Clint Eastwood and the three Dollars Trilogy films being watched for the first time with ample Red Dead Redemption 2 in between. Shortly after that was a brief flirtation with Lawrence of Arabia (didn't finish the movie, though I was enjoying it lol) and remembering that there were some Lawrence of Arabia related missions in Battlefield 1 which I went back and played and had some fun with. I think I got maybe 2 days out of that and it fizzled out. The struggle never ends, that's for sure. Recently I got back into Star Wars Jedi Survivor now that it's not utter shit on PS5 (though still not perfect), but I already feel like I'm slipping away from that again as I retread old ground, having started from the beginning because of the cognitive load of trying to come back into the middle of something that was at least halfway through and all of the mechanics, lore and other knowledge and aptitude that would have to go along with it. The gaming journal is sort of a neat idea, but for things like this I don't think it would be able to offset. Dunno who tf is gonna read this long ass thing but maybe someone like me will see it and relate to it. Now to find out what that one big sword fantasy game you were playing through half the video was (not Valheim or TotK) maybe I'll put that on my list too lol.
I don't do the notes thing he says, but I do have a spreadsheet of all the games I am playing, ones I have frozen/stalled and completed games, games I haven't played and even ones I haven't even bought yet. Sometimes the goal I set isn't beating the game and I may change it. Sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 YEARS to beat a game that isn't even really that long. But as long as it is on that list, it has a chance to be completed. I stopped playing tears of the kingdom too. I don't know why but don't really care, because I will finish it since I will see it on my spreadsheet/list or some random youtube video reminds me lol. I let myself get randomly distracted by games then when I feel lost I look at what I was playing. However I typically do not have the problems this person describes (double barrel shotgun). I don't care if I forget how to play or can't play well, and I would never want to restart. My main problem is I simply get distracted and forget about the game, it mainly applies to non-steam games as steam games I see recently played every time I play any steam game. I also usually remember why I stopped played if it was a well defined reason. I don't really fight my adhd unless I feel frustrated or bored at what I am playing. If I feel stuck like I can't find anything the list is there to help out. Trust me the list will always have stuff on it if you add things on a whim and frozen/stalled games you enjoy. You can even just look at the ones you completed and just start playing it again maybe because of a new patch or a new goal.
32 here and I share that sentiment Currently in the middle of Elden ring and it has completely consumed me. Helps with the depression. Hope life gets better for you
ADHD and depression here as well (thankfully the latter hasn't been so much of an issue in recent times). I definitely feel the "Interruption Event" quite frequently. It can be as simple as hearing a song from a different soundtrack, and before I know it I'm thinking about that other thing, the original thing in my rearview mirror. As you said, this is a recurring phenomenon with pretty much every interest in my life due to my ADHD, and it's deeply frustrating because I end up with a very wide range of experiences, but when it comes to game completion or creative endeavors (like drawing, writing, etc.), all of them tend to be pretty shallow because I can't focus long enough to get through the long haul. The few exceptions are when my hyperfocus kicks in long enough that I can stick with it. I can count on one hand the number of videogames I've actually completed: Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey are the most recent, and it's looking like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is going to be added to my list within the next month or so (main story lines are finished, and now I'm playing the DLCs with The Siege of Paris nearly finished). It's a difficult prospect and I try not to get too down in the dumps about it, because ultimately life is short and there are more important things-and, of course, one advantage of having such a large gaming library as I do is that there's always options when I am in the mood to play. I also try to remind myself of this when I feel the urge to impulse buy a new game because it's on sale or I watched a great trailer for it (impulsive spending being another symptom of ADHD).
the most interesting part is that you can apply the "field journal" technique and positive exposure to ANY hobby or practically anything that you learn for yourself. Many of us lose interest in one hobby and move on to another because of the same reasons. Something had lured us off, and then it was too complicated and scary (for losing confidence) to start again. That was really good universal advice.
My interruption event was my dad dying. Zelda is my favorite series of all time and I feel so bad that I haven’t finished it. I’m about halfway through. I will finish it because it’s an incredible game. It’s just sad that I won’t get the same experience coming back more than 6 months later. I did a Somali thing with elden ring. These games are so big that something in your life is bound to come along and keep you from playing consistently
Not if you don't have friends or family an everyone hates u etc, my life's sad... Lol nah I tell my daughter shit up n watch me play!!! Lol no I'm lying all around I stop n play Mario kart 10xs again lol... She loves mk
@@michaelsterling8422 I haven't ever played eldin ring I'ma have play it soon, it looks amazing, I don't have a PS4 or 5 I sold mine be4 eldin ring released because all I ever used was the switch, I love switch idk why but my favorite console all time honestly n I was a HUGE ps, PS2, PS3, guy but idk by time PS4 came out(maybe cuz I'm older) I never really played it I've bought like 8 of them maybe more but Everytime I end up playing one r 2 games I really want to play n don't touch it again for cpl months so I end up getting rid of it n buying Nintendo stuff w the $ instead. Idk I grew up right along side NES were like twins same age n all lol ... Old
The two minute rule is so helpful and actually is just what I did today for Ghost of Tsushima. I said I will do just one quest today. Ended up playing for 3 hours and had a blast! Amazing video and tips 🙏🏼
Ghost of Tsushima is a game I've had my eye on for a long time but never picked it up. Is it difficult to get into? Tried Elden Ring and it didn't do it for me.
@@BGNewsReporter Not at all! I played Elden Ring and it is 100x more difficult. Ghost gives you different difficulty levels so you can customize the experience to your needs!
@@BGNewsReporterGOT is a breeze compared to ER but I play on normal 😂 Great game tho, I hope you get a chance to play and enjoy it 🫡 I got the Plat in ‘21 and played the DLC too.
This video found me at the right time, it describes exactly what happened to me numerous times, and showed me why it happens. Thank you so much for it.
I have a google doc of all the games ive played in a year with a check mark by the game if ive completed it. I usually only play 3 games at a time, this motivates me to finish my games its been really helpful
Me and some friends have a collaborative Notion page with a list of games we want to complete before 2025, I can see this being a great idea, not only is it serving as motivation to complete the games, but also a fun way to interact with friends.
These theories and strategies can be applied to so many things in life. I'm not really struggling with finishing games these days, but your video got me thinking about other, completely unrelated aspects of my life. 👍
I loved your insight on this topic! There are several games that I have put down recently because I became a father (which is so so rewarding) and at night when I have free time, I often don’t have any motivation to do anything for myself. Life has just gotten busy, but at night when I put my son to sleep, I want to find the motivation to pick some of those games back up again because they truly do bring me joy, sometimes it really is just hard to get back into it once it’s been sitting for long enough. So tonight, I’m going to try the Two-Minute rule on Mother 3!! Wish me luck!😊
there's a strategy that can be pretty powerful and easy depending on the game, start the game from the beginning, and enjoy all the things you mention about starting, after that you can load your old save and it will be even better, because you feel super powerful with all the progress you suddenly have, of course it doesn't work for any game but it was effective with some.
Having trouble getting back into LOZ Skyward Sword, Red Dead Redemption, Octopath Traveler 2, Mario & Luigi Dream Team, and Prince of Persia the Lost Crown. Most of the problem for me is that I just keep starting more and more games (I am busy with the Switch's Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door Remake, Stardew Valley, and the SNES Donkey Kong Country Trilogy for now) but as time passes, I feel like I'm never going to get back into these titles that I really enjoyed and can't bring myself to continue for some reason. I'll definitely try some of these techniques and its cool to see someone make a video on this topic that you don't hear people discussing very often!
Man those were the days, sinking countless hours of gaming without worries. Now with a toddler with unlimited energy lol. Gaming got me through the darkest times and will forever hold a special place.
The moment you mentioned Octopath Traveler 2 I had to pause the video and step back because I went “holy shit you read my mind”. Both Octopath games are games I really want to go back to because of how much I enjoy them but I’ve struggled getting back into them for no apparent reason. Finding this video is already helping me so much I can only attribute this find as a pure stroke of luck.
I enjoyed Octopath 2 a alot, but took a break in the same month it came out and never went back. The same happened with the first game and took me years to get myself to finally beat it.
I’ve seen a few videos on this or topics like it. Things like “why gaming isn’t fun anymore”, or “why games are bad now”. But what I’d love to see is a video for those of us that game to an obsessive degree. I finish every single game I play and usually do several playthroughs fully completing the game. A year or so later I’ll pull it back up and do another playthrough from scratch. When I get off work I race home and the first thing I do is fire up my PC and launch whatever game I’m currently playing. While I’m at work I listen to videos about whatever game I’m playing or upcoming games I’m excited about. I want to see a video about gamers that are obsessed with gaming. Great video btw 👍
@@johnnyangel4258 I would love to do that! I built my first PC this year to expand my gaming options AND start a TH-cam channel. I’m very thorough when I play a game and would like to make simple but competent guides for trophy/achievement hunting and maybe stream on the side. Thanks for the encouragement 🙏
Yeah i watched a hand full of those essays too. Often i think some people only know the few AAA games which are advertised all over the place and stand in the front row of the video game sections in a store like the EA, Activision, dice, ubisoft and bethesda games. But gaming is soooo much more. There are thousands of good games waiting to be explored. Hundreds of genres. There has never been such a variety in gaming. And people come around the corner with "ah gaming is dead 😢". I respect when people abandon this hobby in general because they seek different/ new goals/hobbies in life. But for those who still want to game... Go out there. Look what greatness of videogames is actually hidden behind the curtain of AAA gaming. You won't regret it. 😊
@@maximilian2843 yeah I totally agree. I’ve played so many incredible games in the past few years. Many of those games were from Indie developers, but I’ve also played a lot a great AAA games as well. Tbh I can’t relate when ppl say “gaming is dead”. I’ve been gaming for 40 years and currently there’s more great games than ever before.
I'm struggling to get back into tears of the kingdom as well. A gaming journal would have helped! I had this video saved to my watch later, and I'm watching it now just to give me motivation to play this game again. Your video delivered!
I forced myself to finish Dragons’s Dogma 2 and for Dead Space remake I finished the game in about 11 hour. One is a hate-play, the other is a rushed experience. What I learned from these is that you shouldn’t feel bad about not finishing a game. Your time is limited and gaming should be entertaining. So what if you wasted money on a game you stopped playing? Move on and do something you’d rather enjoy.
@@gbird5000 Man, the freedom. Not being tied to your desktop. Being able to just play anywhere, any time. It's funny because I now play at my desktop more often than not, but that option that the Steam Deck gave me, where I can choose where I want to play is what rekindled that fire.
Where has this video been all my life. I've recently gone back to finish up some games I left incomplete and half the struggle was getting myself to just insert the disc. 30 minutes later and I was having fun again
The 2-minute rule is what has repeatedly allowed me to continue building my truck. I didn't know this was an established method, but it definitely works with some discipline applied... something I still struggle with. I've had all of the parts for my engine for months, but just keep getting pulled away from it. It sits there, covered in protective shop rags, for weeks at a time, often a month or more. I want, every single day, to just go finish the darned thing. But I can't mentally budget the time to do it. So I commit to walking out to the shop when I've got to leave for work in 30-45 minutes, to just look at it. I stand there and look at half of my mechanical turbodiesel, and imagine the sounds it'll make. Imagine the TORQUE it'll send to all six wheels, through the chunky iron 4-speed. Remember what the next step was. I'll usually find a particular pile of bolts and an associated part, and entirely lose track of time making solid progress on this thing I REALLY REALLY want to finish. Then my go-to-work alarm goes off, and I have to let it be again. Until tomorrow, maybe until next week, maybe until November. I never know.
I felt a little targeted with Octopath Traveler II being one of the examples 😂 I got the first Octopath when it came out, put 25-30 hours into it, and haven't been back since.
this video helped me finally start playing cyberpunk 2077 again. the base game is one of the few games i actually HAVE finished but i was having a lot of trouble getting the motivation to play through the dlc. journaling definitely is helping me to stay focused, and it is definitely making me engage with the game in a way i find really intentional and satisfying. thanks for the great video!!
Great video on an extremely relatable issue. I appreciate the research that went into this! I'll have to give the gaming journal a try, and I may try the two minute rule to get back into a replay of FF9. You're one of the more refreshing gaming channels I've discovered recently--keep up the great work!!
Super fascinating application of SDT!! Definitely feeling this way about a few games atm. The 2-minute commitment feels like a really low-stakes option, so I’ll definitely be giving that one a try! Great video!!
I'm in the exact same situation with Zelda, and many games. Appreciate this insight! The potential lost of competence is so real! The very game design that rewards time and experience with a sense of mastery simultaneously makes it feel hard to reengage after a time of disconnect. Never thought about fixing this...but now I'm grateful to know how! Very cool.
tl;dr: 1. Journal your gameplay documenting accomplishments this session and goals for the next so you can reference them in the far future to easily get back into it. 2. Watch videos of other people playing the game having positive experiences and reviving your interest. 3. Just commit to play the game for 2 minutes. You may find that's all that's needed to rekindle your interest.
300+ hrs in Elden ring and I’m only 66% through and I’ve been playing it since launch, I fall in and out of love with playing it and I stop playing for extended periods and every time I do it is so hard mentally to boot it up again but once I do second nature kicks in and I’m off running but I kind of want it to be over cause it can be a real slog to get through. I used to only ever get one game at a time and I’d finish it before turning to a new one, now I have a huge backlog…..something I wish I’d never known. I am going to give this voice memo trick a go cause it does make sense.
the algorithm showed this to me at the perfect time. I was this close to falling off an RPG I was really invested in just a week ago. I'll give the two minute rule a shot and see if I don't go right back to enjoying it
Brilliant video, I appreciate the amount of time and effort you put into your research. I find it refreshing that I am not the only one that struggles with this, and I think gaming subscriptions like game pass are also a factor as you can easily have access to so many games and your brain wants to play them all. You deserve a lot more subs, keep it up 👍🏻
I got 4 minutes and 33 seconds through this before pausing it and intending to come back to it later. I don't think this issue is just restricted to videogames.
i love this, you have renewed my love for games i thought abandoned... i share a console with partner and she plays more than me, so when i pick up a game again i have to use the 2-5 minute rule to get back in, also journal and positive exposure helps greatly. thanks for this, it gets me more motivated to play games i didn't think i would get to finish. it would be nice if the game recognized you havent played for a week and asks if you want to play bit in sandbox so you can get used to the controls before you jump back in.
I’m afraid I expected this video to tell me nothing new from similar “how to complete your backlog” essays, so I was pleasantly surprised. Especially the idea of journaling! I have to do that for lots of other things in my life, so the idea of doing voice memos at night is 100% something I’m going to start doing, especially for big open world experiences!
I can personally attest to the two minute rule too! I noticed that around a year ago and started applying a “just try it” mentality since. I feel very reluctant to get back into games like Fallout or Red Dead Redemption 2, but as soon as I start, I get pretty caught up and immersed once again!
Played totk for 10mins just to see if I can get back into my save and am slowly starting to pick things up again. The performance is so much better than on launch imo, and there is so much to do. Great video man keep up the good work
My problem is that I need to be fully into a game to play it. I cannot just play a game for an hour or two. I need to sit down and play a game for a while. With work and all the things going on in my life, it is hard to find times to be able to do that
The journal strategy is actually something tha help me continue to play stardew valley, it was very hard to me remembering what I was gonna do each day when I spent smth like 4 days without playing, the journal really helped me to know what I just did n what I should do at least on the first day when I rentered the game
Many of the games you show in your video are "endless treadmill" games. Too much content designed to waste your time. I tend to bounce off these because once you understand the basic loop it rarely offers any additional challenge because open world games have no way to increase the difficulty except inflating damage numbers.
Disagree, examples of games that are "endless treadmills" are gachas for sure, and it is a big reason I dropped like 3 of them whilst playing 4 at a time. Those games that he mentions are a bad example of "endless treadmill" games imho
Use shortcuts, read the pamphlet, use cheats, mods, dont be afraid to choose easy mode, youre not a streamer or trying to impress anyone, games should be fun, not an obligation 😊
I was nodding my head in understanding and empathy the whole time. I have so many great unfinished games that i want to go back to. God of war, baldurs gate 3, destiny 2, ff7 rebirth, and many many more. I thought it was just having to learn the controls again that was stopping me but this video showed me its much more than that. Thanks
I'm so glad this vid popped up in my recommended tab; the middle part about losing competence made me feel so understood. I've been meaning to get back into Star Ocean 2 (JRPG) on switch because it's a really cool game that I haven't touched for months sadly, but it's also pretty complex in terms of character progression/party optimization, so the thought of being overwhelmed by all those systems has been keeping from diving into the game again :( hopefully I'll able to use the tips from this video to get back into Star Ocean 2 (and other games eventually)
My brainrot has gotten so bad that not only can I no longer finish books or movies, but I can't even finish games anymore. I literally don't even have the attention span for the kinds of activities that shorten your attention span.
Same for me. What have been helping a bit is what have been stated on the video though. I can't interact with most active activities, but more passive and less important stuff seems easy, like youtube videos. So what I do is watch experiences about video games. Essays, reviews, analysis. That gets me fired up to boot up the games mentioned or try something new. If I dont do the same to other games while playing the current one, I'm mostly able to finish it, but if I excited about another game, I always abandon it. Another thing that helps with games is trying to play everyday, even if it is for 15 minutes. The longer I dont play it, the more likely it is to not even boot it up later. For TV shows and movies I subscribe to a few good reaction channels and when they post a reaction to a movie or show that I havent watched, I skip the video. If I like the personality of the reactor that can be enough to make me seek out that title to watch, so I can engage later. Havent found a good one for books yet though. I try audiobooks while doing chores sometimes but it's not the same
I think when it gets this bad, a multi-day stimulation detox is needed where you just allow yourself to be bored and to tolerate that discomfort for a while and ground yourself until it no longer feels uncomfortable. Moving your body in some way helps too, as your body might be holding on to excess energy that make it hard to settle into passive activities.
Time to de-escalate my friend. Give yourself five minutes of silent contemplation without touching your phone when you wake up or before you go to bed, or avoid using two different devices at the same time. Slowly ween away from the constant influx of information and you'll see a slow but sure progress towards longer attention span. I suffer from the brain rot content too.
Valheim one of the most underrated games in the last few years . If you love open world/ base building with a splash of magic . Then you'll love it also
I actually accidentally did a few of these strategies before watching this, I was watching TH-cam videos, then I decided to try picking up totk for 5 minutes again, now I'm re-engaged in it and having fun again
Good video! I like to apply these strategies with personal projects or with work, however, here comes the question - is it worth returning to the game if it really doesn't feel like finish it? Maybe perhaps is better to let it go? 😅
If your heart tells you it’s not worth it, then it probably isn’t :) I would only use these strategies for games that you really believe have more to offer you. Thanks for watching!
Love this! Journaling, positive exposure, and the two-minute rule are excellent strategies for staying in/getting back into a video game. I can also apply these strategies for reading a girthy book, working out, and keeping my wife happy. Keep 'em coming, MM!!
I need a "back to the game" feature where you can relearn the mechanics and a short wrap of the story because i forgot everything.
It's called... TH-cam 🤣🤣 nah seriously I understand and fell the same as you. Maybe a "second tutorial" just to explain things while telling the story until it becomes a spoiler
This is why I dislike the tutorial being integrated into the game. If it was all a menu option of its own to train you then it would be simple (and make replaying easier so you don’t have to go super slow when you know what you’re doing )
@@sonicsean34 ¿Por Qué No Los Dos?
@@sonicsean34I just recently got back into armored core 6 and the tutorial section/practice area they have is amazing. Wish more single player games had something like this.
They aren’t needed. Just look at the controls in the menu screen. After playing for a few minutes, you’ll be fine.I just started playing Cyberpunk again yesterday. The save file was from May ‘22. No issues at all with getting back into it.
My backlog is so large that I just had to learn that it is ok to drop a game if I’m not feeling engaged or satisfied by it anymore. Life is too short to waste time playing something you’re not having fun in. Sunk cost fallacy be damned. Don’t guilt yourself in finishing a game just to finish it. Maybe you’ll be in the mood to go back to it in the future.
I agree with this, but have you ever played a game that you didn’t like at first but you chose to stick with it and ended up really liking it? How do you differentiate the two? This happened recently with me and Unicorn Overlord.
So true. I always give a game I may not like a chance and try to let the mechanics and story open up. If I still don’t enjoy it, I leave it in the dust
Me and Dark Souls,@@CubicleJ0ckey. That said, I was 16 when I started it, and I was 21 when I finally BEAT it. Part of it was that I wasnt ready to go in-depth into the themes on offer at 16. The atmosphere of the game told me that.
@@CubicleJ0ckey This can happen for sure, and has happened to me before. But it's also healthy to say "this game has wasted my time" or "I'm just not enjoying this, I'm done". I do this with books all the time too. Personally, I feel like when I'm in this situation trying to decide, I can look at reviews again with a better critical eye to see if I can get hints about whether to continue. If a game is really all that mindblowing after a kinda crappy start, it'll be there in the future. Or I might just take the L. It happens sometimes.
You sound like a casual normie scrub
Something to account for- there is more content coming out every day than there ever has been in the past, and not just video games. Its easy to get overwhelmed.
Yeah bro ... but vg are the peak entertainment so i'll always choose them (i hope 🤞)
All the more reason to be picky with the games you play. There are so many hidden gems out there and more to be released.
@@DonnyKirkMusic agree but vg are the most interactive(?) so ...
@@DonnyKirkMusic that why i like "generic" games
Dgaf about what people i always try to play a bit myself and make my own opinion
That's exactly it. There are tv-shows I wanna try to stay on top of, online streams I'd want to catch up on (impossible, as more keep accumulating all the time), games I need to finish, movies I wanna see AND actually trying to have a social life of some sort (failing miserably)...
Too much to do, so little time. So games I WOULD want to finish but that I no longer remember well are just doomed to be in that limbo where I feel like I'd practically need to start over to remember what was up, or start playing from a much harder part of the game with no rememberance of how things functioned....
Funny the way times change. I had trouble putting games down when I was a teenager. Now I have trouble picking them up even when I want to.
I'm definitely experiencing the same feeling, I was obsessed with games as a kid, but now barely have a desire to play them. The last one I completed was God of war ragnarok in January.
I had that problem too. Playing is something I like, and felt bad for not doing it. What worked for me is playing only one video game at a time, and when I know I'm close to finishing it, I choose one from my list and install it. So I always have one game ready to start playing, and I don't have to go through the chore of finding one and feeling unmotivated because I don't know what to play.
Plus video games aren’t fun anymore
@@rohjani3717 I kinda agree. They have so many objectives, quests, secrets to discover and more stuff to artificially make them bigger and longer and justify the price, that they feel like you are completing tedious chores.
@@rohjani3717 the games are fine. It's you who is not fun anymore, if you think this way.
good thing I keep adding videos like this to my watch later list and never finish the videos.
too fuckin real 😭
@@mayaan773me three 😔😔 womp womp wooooommmmppp :(
Oh, the irony
Wanted to add that after getting covid I came back to this video and finished it. On top of his tips I also would watch walk through videos to help me catch back up to where I was. Then during my 7 days of quarantine I beat returnal, moonlighter, moon crash, and got to the end of Act II in bg3. I tried not to buy new games and made a serious dent in my back log.
Facts!
Instead of just picking up Tears of the Kingdom again this guy just decided to make a well-researched psychological video about picking up video games again
My problem is my perfectionism and maximisation tendencies. I want to milk everything the game offers, don't want to miss anything. But, doing that breaks my immersion and engagement so I either quit the game or sludge through it joylessly
same . I try to explore everything in every game i thrive on the details
I feel you
Saaame! I can barely play open world games because of this. Developers need to realize that some people WILL in fact do every single thing, so please don't put too much content (or a bunch of boring grind content) in your game.
@@zpinn8242 Yeah and most of the game plots don't fit in an open world setting. Your long-lost beloved ward is seen nearby and being chased by a spectral army, how about you wander around the continent and play against local tcg champions, and explore everywhere in case of missable quests while your ward is still being chased and a catastrophe is approaching
As amazing of a a game as Persona 5 is this is the reason why I haven’t finished it yet
To pick up a game again. Just go hype yourself back up by watching trailers and thinking of it as it's only just coming out again. Don't delete your old save. But temporarily start a new game. Playthrough the start of the game, you'll pick everything up again, and then you can go resume where you were.
This........
You are a genius!
why have I never thought of doing this!!!!!
I am going to do this with Xenoblades Chronicles . I have been wanting to finish these game, but I have forgotten the gameplay and don't want to start over again.
Again you are a genius
I have a second account on my switch that I use to restart games and learn the basics. Then I go back on my original account that has 100+ hours
This exactly what I did with Horizon Forbidden West
This is exactly how I do it.
Ngl this is low key some amazing advice - to start a new save to pick up the basics and then go back to your original save. I beat Witcher 3 but stopped about 2 mins into blood and wine and now it's been years and dozens of games later, I've all but completely forgot the controls, the game philosophy (inventory, upgrades, signs, etc), and characters dynamics.
For a lot of games, my go to for getting interested again is listening to the soundtrack. It always helps me get re-immersed in the story and world.
Yes! I've been preaching this forever, soundtrack and/or audio design is like the drummer of a band, you barely even notice its there at the time, but when you think about it, it controls the entire experience, sure, fun gameplay and an interesting story may be more important but if a game doesn't sound great, it isn't going to feel great
This! Currently replaying breath of the wild because I've been listening to the soundtrack and it made me wanna play it again!
Came to the comments to say this. I hate Final Fantasy Tactics with a passion, but after listening to the OST, I thought, “Yeah, I’ll give this game a fifth chance.”
One strategy that I've used to enjoy things in life (not just games, but things in general) is to intentionally deprive myself of them for a short while. Does your music library seem dull? Absolutely no listening to music. Before long I will be craving some music, ANY kind of music, and I'll cave on my own self-prescribed rule. But in so doing, the music will seem so much more enthralling. Games work much the same way. I think that a lot of the "Games are boring these days" sentiment comes from people who simply indulge in them too much. Set an open ended goal to not play games at all. Don't give yourself a specific time frame either. That is, don't say "No games for a day, a week, a month" etc. Say to yourself "No playing games until the urge to do so becomes overwhelming."
When that comes, let yourself indulge a little. You will enjoy your favorite game 1000x more.
To me it's exactly the opposite - it's the friction of getting back into a hobby or interest I've put down for a while that prevents me from getting into it. Once I get into the "flow" of gaming, or reading, or making music, it's fine, but it's getting started on it, or returning to it after a while that's daunting.
Bro is living life in a mental chastity cage
how long would you advise to stay away? :D
I do that a lot. I go through phases where I don't want to play anything, nothing clicks. I step away for awhile then I love it
It's not quite the same, as it's not deliberate, but some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had were like this. I'd read about a game, see screenshots, and just know deep down that this is a game that I'd like to play. Except it was rare or on a different console or just somehow remained unavailable to me for years.
When I finally got to sit down and play those games I was enraptured by them from start to finish. Utter satisfaction.
For me I’ve always had a fear of finishing a game i love. Because once it’s finished i know that’s the end. If i never finish it can never be over.
Damn i thought i was the only one, this is me whenever i play the games i love. best examples are Skyrim and BOTW. I so love the game that I didn't want it to end because i know myself that once i finished games i will never pick it up again, only motivates me to finish it if Im being spoiled or something.
Same lmfaoo
Did that for ff9 and ff8 when i finally finished it a decade later it felt great but at the same time a huge sadness because it was over.
But it is over, because you’re valuing “I COULD always come back” over actually finishing it.
This is the same energy as refusing to commit to a dating relationship because “I COULD date anyone I want.” It neglects to take the appeal of depth and progress into account.
We’ve probably all done some version of this, at least temporarily. But it closes off some of the most important challenges AND rewards in favor of this illusion of choice.
If you never allow yourself to choose to complete something, what you’ve actually done is rob yourself of organic endings in favor of manufactured ones. Because if you’re being honest with yourself, leaving a game (or a book or even a relationship) in that state means you’re never actually going to go back.
It’s understandable to want control, and to not want things to end. But the reality is that, whether or not you reach the credits, there will be a time you play that game for the last time. And if this is the pattern you’ve dropped yourself into, you’ll die without knowing how the vast majority of your favorite games end, or how it feels to down the final boss.
Isn’t that a worse outcome than being able to mentally shelve the game and have a full experience and all of its memories? To think of this as being not merely “ended” but FULFILLED?
This was me with RDR2. I waited months just cause I didn't want Arthur to die
the takeaways I got are:
to avoid falling off:
* refrain from starting another long game in the middle of playing a long game
to get back on if you fall off:
* seek out positive content about the game to try to build desire
* commit to doing it for at least 2 minutes to push past the reluctance
Seeking out positive content is actually a really good and underrated tactic, thank you for mentioning that. When I was starting up my playthrough of tears of the kingdom, I just kept hearing about how botw was so much better and the story in this one is garbage and how disappointing it was and all that. But when I actually picked up the game again and started playing, I realized that personally, I really liked it. The positive content method also lets you know that there are other people who enjoy the game and are excited about it as well, which also motivates you out of your state of "I'm the only one enjoying this" or "this is boring"
So thank you again for mentioning that
@@HannafordNuclearBomb "But when I actually picked up the game again and started playing, I realized that personally, I really liked it." - this is exactly why I stopped listening to critics on matters of taste. They might tell you that a movie is bad because it's confusingly written and has bad acting, but they rarely ever say anything about what the experience is like, subjectively. Just because a movie is well written doesn't mean it's fun to watch.
Primer is a good example of a well respected movie that's (IMO) not fun to watch, the movie is boring because it steeps itself too much in time travel mechanics trying to avoid plot holes, it's like watching a dry class lecture).
Troll 2 is a good example of a movie that is considered among the worst of all time, but if you actually sit down and watch it, it's hilarious and a good time. Darren Ewing ("they're eating her, then they're going to eat me") takes his role so seriously but stutters his lines and overacts throughout the whole movie, and I adore him. He and Deborah Reed elevate the movie from what would be a boring slop film to one of my genuine favorites of all time.
Critics will tell you to watch Primer and skip Troll 2, but having seen them myself, I recommend the opposite.
For games, I have a better idea of what I do and don't like, so when I look at reviews for games, I ignore unimportant things like score, graphics, story, whether the reviewer personally liked it etc and focus in on the words of the reviews for anything troubling, like unplayable bugginess, devs abandoning the game, abusive pricing tactics, unethical practices. etc. The reviews you saw about TotK saying it's "garbage" and "disappointing" fall into that ignore category for me. Neither of those things tell me what the experience might be like for me.
Objectively, the most important things in a movie and game are their story and gameplay, respectively. But subjectively, the only thing that matters in any form of escapism art is the escapism part--is it enjoyable? Is it fun? Is it worth your time? Does it make the hours fly by or painfully drag on? That's a personal question that only you can answer (or make an educated guess at). Nobody else can answer it for you.
@@HannafordNuclearBomb... I don't think I have ever actually seen anyone say BotWs story was so much better than TotKs that the latter was garbage. I don't think I've ever even seen someone say they preferred BotWs story. Or BotWs anything. Where on earth were you socializing that gave you that impression?
I've discovered that the more I grow up, more games feels like a job, I end up looking for fast, action packed short experiences
20 hours of Link's Awakening is soooo much more... satisfying(?) than 200 hours of Tears of the Kingdom.
Yeah no wonder I love playing roguelike and roguelite games since you can pick them up and put them down so easily.
That is not about "growing up" but more about our brain gettin rotten on short term formats like Tiktok and TH-cam shorts, even 10 min yt video binge.
@@Darkcranio i really really agree with you
That's because many (and basically ALL AAA) games nowadays are designed to be full of chores to force engagement and incite feelings of sunk cost.
Short experiences are great for busy days but sometimes it's nice to just boot up longer title when you finally get the time. Still, quality hours > number of hours every time.
Criminally underviewed video. Great stuff.
thank you for the kind words!!
I I clicked by accident, I was ready to click away. But than I saw your comment. So let's give it a go.
This guy is a smooth criminal, his voice is relaxing
My common strat, for single player games especially, is to watch the beginning of a lets play. This reintroduces me to the story, gameplay mechanics, and often brings with it the positive perspective of a new player. Fresh energy is infectious, and gets me right into the zone.
My go to strat as well! :)
That's super smart, I'll give that a go next time I disengage
Watching letsplays makes me want to get back into the game 99% of the time not because it’s a refresh but because half the time letsplayers suck ass at the game and make it look more interesting than it actually is
My biggest problem in getting back into games is my tendency to just start them over. I think about how I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve played, how disconnected I feel from my previous progress, and also about how much fun I had with the part of the game I played already and conclude I might as well start over to get back up to speed.
In particular, with games that let me customize the build/play style of my characters, I’ll look at the builds I made after a while away and it feels like they were made by someone else. The gaming journal sounds very helpful for my problem, since I can go back through my previous journey with the game and feel reconnected with the progress I’ve made.
way to relatable
That's the problem I've been having with books recently. I'll start it, forget some of what I read because it's been a while and then feel the need to start over.
I'm definitely gonna start the game journal, but I don't know what to do about the book problem lol. Maybe just need some gingko in my diet or something
So true omg, especially with long rpgs, and you end up dropping it again because you start remembering what happens and lose interest again
I've replay witcher 3 5 times already and stopped around the red baron storyline :\
100% me
I’m 29 and I’ve found the reason I extended the length of a game I like is because I’m disappointed by so many modern games that when I do find one I don’t want that experience to end. It’s definitely worse the older I get
In your 50 u can end up in hundreds of hours sunk in World of Tanks, and with attention span to the new games so short, that it cannot survive time from decision "oh, that's interesting" to "download finished" and never launch the new game, but delete fresh download 😅 And then back to WoT.
This is exactly how I feel so I end up not finishing games I love and finishing the games I don’t. It sounds weird but the way you put it describes how I feel.
@@kosmologic6007 it doesn’t help that the games are getting bigger! I wish more games had levels instead of a massive open world. I miss doing something interesting rather than staring at a bumper or horses ass for hours!
@@chubleigh958 it’s a nasty side effect of gaming for so long. You know exactly what you like/dislike in a game so you avoid games you think look bad but could actually be your next favourite game! But when I’m stuck on what to play next I just boot up a palette cleaner like hotline Miami or furi.
As we age learning new things becomes harder so we stick closer to the things we know or the new things we like
So after doing this for a couple of months. I have never written in journals in my life. I can say this truly worked for me! Thank you!
I stick to 1 game at a time and fell in love with gaming again. When I want to play I know exactly what game I need to start. No need to choose a game and then feel this guilt that I could play something else. I’m so glad I did this.
I'm the same way! When I first got Playstation Extra after not having a Playstation for several years I was overwhelmed by the amount of games I had at my disposal, and I couldn't really get into a game when I was trying to juggle 2-3 games at the same time
I do the same, but I have one portable game, and one on home console. This way I can do 2 games in my backlog at once, but only 1 per system!
I do this but on a per system basis. I have one ongoing PS5 game, one on Switch and one on the Steam Deck. Works beautifully.
@sonicadv27 I agree, man. I like the 1 game idea, but if the game has a long campaign, it is nice to have a short palette cleaner game. Nintendo games are not as hardcover but there are some really well made casual fun.
@@invisibleloveone I know what you mean. I do get tired of long games. But if that happens I simply do other things and do not play for days. It is also a great way to keep your "game addiction" at bay.
About the journal tip: Steam introduced a new feature in its overlay a few months ago. For any game, you can leave written notes and they will remain there until next time you open up the game. The same way as you said, before I close the game I leave a few notes there about what my plan is for when I next open the game. This helped a lot.
Thats great! How do you Access that ?
@@emmanuelle7662 shift + tab while in a game.
@@emmanuelle7662 open steam overlay with shift+tab and search on the bottom in the list of icons. The third icon, with a pencil should open the notes.
@emmanuelle7662 It's in the steam overlay. Press Shift + Tab and then it will be one of the icons at the bottom.
This is brilliant. Currently in use walkthroughs and just leave the tab open on the area I’m in. Really helps to remind me of where I was and where I was going.
I don't really play video games like I once did but, the two minute rule works with just about everything. From hobbies to goals, the hardest part of doing anything is just getting yourself started. I love the video and I believe the information you provided is really helpful in a lot more scenarios than just video games.
What mainly stops me (as someone with a preference for games with stories) is that I completely lose track of who was who in the story and what was happening. If it's been long enough, I'll replay from the beginning, but once a month or two passes then I've just completely lose investment in the story by that point. As a result, I tend to limit myself to two games at a time, at least insofar as story focused games go.
why not use youtube to remember?
At least you limit yourself. Just two games. I've been playing 12 at one time before and it's just too much.
Watch a recap
I think I've restarted Cyberpunk 2077 at least four times now; about once a year or so. I get to the point where Jackie dies, and then stall out. Every time. The game looks amazing though, and I'd love to really dig in to the rest of it.
@@eric7591 strange, the game becomes more interesting from that point, imo.
This video literally described every feeling I have when I abandon a game. I definitely think about it while playing other games, hop on, suck, abandon again then try a whole new other game while I’m feeling low confidence in my skills which effects my gameplay in the next game
Me: "I'll get back to it one day"
Also me after 10 years: Still haven't played it....
I realized the perceived time commitment of something is not only what keeps me from enjoying games, watching a show or movie, or reading, but what gets me stuck in doom scrolling and other time-wasters. I think I want to do something and it'd be nice to watch an episode of a show or play a bit of a game because I want to relax for a bit, but I have this deep seated worry of wasting time. So, i instead opt to just open up my phone and scroll for a minute; it's something to distract me and it's far shorter commitment than a show or game. However, I end up getting sucked into the scrolling and end up wasting as much time, if not more, than if I had just done the other thing. It's easy to say "just one more post" because it's such a small increment. But conversely it's hard to say "just one more session of Zelda" because I worry the minimum time to enjoy it is already too long.
The 2 Minute-Rule got me back into reading books about a year ago and I don't know how I never had the idea to try the same with games that I want to finish but couldn't. Thanks for making that connection for me :)
never heard of that! looked it up. thanks. not sure how to apply that to gaming. usually i give a game 1 hour to get me back into it. if it has not managed that i play something else.
I miss my wife
I miss your wife as well 😂
I miss both of ur wifes 😂
He was a great man
@@Jeroen4 and a good friend
I miss her too
I once did a journal on a game because I kept getting those "Oh, it makes a lot of sense!" moments regarding its plot and the reasoning behind some mechanics and shenanigans.
After some time I just had to start the journal to properly understand my appreciation for this game. Turns out this journal followed me to the very end of the journey, and made me realize just how deep the devs went with it.
The game never felt like a chore because I always had this fresh reminder of my appreciation for it. So it totally helped me finish the game smoothly.
My unfinished Elden Ring play through from 2022 (last played Fall 22) really needed this video. I have no clue what I’m doing but the journal tip is definitely what I need.
Elden Ring is great because if youre rusty you can just pick a random grace on the map, go there and start murdering things to get in the feel of it again. Maybe youll discover something you missed while doing so as well
I randomly stopped playing and only picked it back up in April of this year. Finishing Elden Ring is definitely worth it
I can't imagine dropping Elden Ring. Only time would be once you're close to endgame, since Mountaintops of the Giants is kinda boring. But after you get past that it's back to great
Actually elden ti g is the only game in the last 3,4 years that i played in 1 breath from start to finish
@@ORLY911I finished it,came back a year later and have no idea where I'm going all over again 😂
I can absolutely attest that a gaming "journal" helps a lot. I started keeping notes on particularly complex games (like Kerbal Space Program, Satisfactory, etc.) in Obsidian, the software I use to organize my entire life (HIGHLY recommended; it's free, and can do basically anything you want, as it's essentially just organized, connected Markdown), and now I make a new entry for any game I play. It's definitely helped me stick with games that I would often end up bouncing off of, for whatever reason.
omfg this kinda software is what i've been looking for forever, i've tried with other apps and softeware but nothing as all encompassing thank you So so much!
Sounds interesting, which topics do you have in your Journal and how do you use it? After every Session or only when you feel Like it ?
Yeah, I'm a list-taker and checkbox-ticker, so I'm really excited to try that method especially! I think having a clear goal I was shooting toward will really help me feel less overwhelmed to pick games back up again. Even if it's a boss I was stuck on, having it written down presents it as this quantifiable challenge--"Oh right, that's what I was struggling with. Let's see if I can tackle it now!"
I also like puzzle games, but there are some answers I just find obtuse. I always give myself license to go look up an answer as a hint if I've gone two or more separate play sessions and just can't break through a puzzle I'm stuck on. Oftentimes it turns out to be something I probably wasn't going to find or figure out on my own.
@@michaelbe5887 sorry for the late reply, totally forgot about this. It started as just keeping notes on particularly complicated or involved mechanics or things I was building in Kerbal Space Program and Satisfactory, and now it's expanded to include things like lists of quests/missions I do, bosses I've killed (Elden Ring, which also includes death tracking, just for my own amusement). And to-do lists are also a part of it, especially if I know it's something that's going to take several sessions to do. I've also included things like a rough copy of a gear/skill loadout for games like Borderlands 3, so that I know I'll be able to quickly re-create it in the future if I want to.
My most extensive notes are probably for Destiny 2, mainly the raids (I'm an avid raider, have done them with mostly the same group of people for 9 years now). I have quick encounter descriptions; challenge requirements; what I typically use for dealing damage to a given boss; who in my group typically does what; etc.
For context, I have my notes up on a second computer next to my PC, usually just pause throughout and type away for a few seconds
Is it a game at that point, though?
Talking about your experience with TOTK is literally my exact experience. I've been playing so many other games when I'm literally at the final boss battle. This video was great.
I finish nearly every game that I start (eventually). For me, these are some of the most helpful mindsets and habits:
1) Allow yourself to take a break-- a long one, if needed. Just because a game is 100s of hours long, it doesn't mean that you need to stay committed to it exclusively from start to finish. Unless you stopped playing because you don't like the game, don't tell yourself that you gave up on it/dropped it/quit. There's no need to put any kind of finality on it. Unless you sell it, the game will be there for you when you're ready for it again.
2) Don't restart your file! This one is huge. I always hear people talk about wanting to come back to a game they fell off of, and how they're going to start over. My question is always: What makes you think you're not going to fall off at around the same place again? It can be intimidating to jump back into a game part-way when you've forgotten the mechanics and what you were doing. Realistically, it's almost always significantly faster to push through the re-learning process than it is to start from the very beginning, re-treading familiar ground. And you have the added bonus of making a little bit of progress almost immediately.
3) Try to avoid jumping on the next shiny new thing. I used to be terrible for this, and if you follow games media/podcasts, it's easy to get sucked into the conversations/hype around the hot new thing. There are times when a particularly special game comes out, and I *must* play it a.s.a.p., but usually, I'll just open up my "Games" note file on my phone and add the title to my list of things I want to remember to play eventually. The best part is, by the time I'm actually ready to play them, they're usually way cheaper. No more wasted money.
4) Look at your backlog. If you're getting a little burnt out on a game, or if something new is tempting you, just look at your backlog. It was mentioned in the video, but pushing through that first wall of getting yourself to boot up an old game often results in playing and enjoying it again.
The issue is if you’re someone like me number 2 is actually necessary if your break is long enough. I can pick up the game mechanics quickly enough, but the issue is moreso the story. I don’t remember who is who. I don’t feel connected to the characters anymore. I don’t feel aware of why I’m here, where I’m going and where I’ve been. It results in my feeling completely lost and detached from the game and it’s world and I will remain fixated on everything that I can’t remember. But if I’m deep enough restarting is also a pain.
In my scenario, something that I try to do is start off with the easiest solution. If the game has a story so far option, I use it and see if it’s enough for me to feel familiar. If that’s not enough, I now try to go watch play throughs of people so that I still re-experience the beginning of the game up to wherever I am without constricting myself to focusing entirely on replaying what I already had done. Alternatively sometimes I’ll just watch the cutscenes but I usually prefer seeing the in game interactions too.
@markinlife That's kind of a tricky one. Personally, I rarely get very invested in games' stories, but I understand that that's not everyone. You actually already mentioned my solution, though: There are always recaps/let's plays that you can watch to catch up without needing to re-do everything yourself.
I admit that there have been two games that don't work with these rules for me:
Metal Gear Solid V: I played it quite a bit around when it came out. I loved it, but I was fussing over 100%-ing it early on, and I got frustrated with it. I find that game to be exceptionally complex-- so much so that I'm looking forward to starting completely fresh.
The other one was Sekiro. I played up to the butterfly woman who throws knives at you (if you're familiar). I got stuck, and then TOTK came out. My attention was ripped away for a year or two. When I came back, I couldn't figure the game out, and the boss that I couldn't beat before was a bad place to re-learn. Even trying to practice on some of the nearby smaller enemies was too frustrating to get anywhere.
@@ivanchelo91 lol wut?
Boy I can relate to # 2 and 3. There's a few games that I've kind of lost interest in and quit playing , but I did "like" the games. So, I will try to play again, and of course starting from the beginning and again loose interest and quit. Next time, I will just start on my old save and see how I feel first!
And the new shiny. I learned that for me, I just don't watch game news, vids or anything about other games while I'm invested in and playing 1 atm. Again, I've dropped a game I was enjoy and having fun with, just because I got an itch to try something different.
Just did this today. I got a brand new Spider-Man 2 for 20 bucks cheaper than the original price. Playing Elden ring right now but GOW Ragnarok and Hitman 3 and now Spider-Man 2 to play after. One by one
I think a lot of it is related to plain old procrastination and the psychology around it. Anything that finds a place on our "to-do" list becomes a problem. Starting a game never feels like something we "should" do. Sustaining a game takes a little more effort. But finishing one can feel like a chore (as you mentioned about journaling). I find that just "eating that frog" so to speak, often works, i.,e., "the 2 minute rule" you cited--just fire it up, sit with it, start a quest, and stick with it. Eventually, those neurons will start firing once more, and you may just find yourself wondering how you ever "fell out of it" and feeling glad you're back into it. But as with all things, this becomes harder and harder with every playthrough.
I will use the 2-minute rule as a life hack, to develop self-improvement habits I’ve wanted to develop. I will use the journaling method to help me be more consistent with my personal programming projects. Thank you for the video. This is not just for gaming but can be applied to so many things.
Dude, you hit the nail on the head! As a motivation researcher and someone who studies Self Determination Theory full-time, I am extremely impressed with how you integrate it into this video. You made my day! Yes, feelings of competence and mastery experiences (the latter technically comes from Social Cognitive Theory but is still a measure of competency) are ultimately what drive our intrinsic motivation to play games, and knowing that we have a sense of autonomy in our actions and connection to a wider community further fuel our interest (gradually moving from situational interest to individual interest, part of interest theory but still applicable). We are all inherently motivated to do things that we enjoy when we feel like that decision comes from the self, and we will always work toward completing a goal when we are oriented toward that task. Many of us experience problems in life when we feel that we are doing something due to external reward/punishment and we are required to integrate the values of others. So glad I stumbled upon your video! Great job mate.
Is the theory based upon behaviorism and/or does it just (at least seemingly) have a lot of parallels to behaviorism?
@@luked2982 Great question! SDT comes from cognitive psychology, which shares a lot in common with Behaviorism but focuses more on internal processes rather than just external stimuli. That being said, SDT is rooted in the Baconian method, measuring the environmental factors that either support or hinder a person's motivation. I admittedly am not an expert on Behaviorism but I would say most people who study motivation now prefer to approach it from a cognitive psychology lens because our motivations are not simply a reaction to our environment. There are many internal processes that take that external information and then integrate and regulate it into the self. If someone makes me do something I'm motivated purely extrinsically by the threat of punishment and reward, but if I can consciously value what they want from me I can integrate the task more into my own identity. Gaming is something we do intrinsically out of our own interest and enjoyment.
@@littleshipko This was extremely interesting to read, thanks for taking the time to type it all out.
Thank you, truly. It really means a lot coming from someone in the field. Cognitive psychology and human behavior are subjects that I've always been drawn to, but never pursued any formal education in. My hope for this channel is to do my best at synthesizing the research topics that I find interesting and relate them to my favorite hobby. Hope to hear from you again in future videos :)
This is really interesting! I’d be intrigued to hear more about “being required to incorporate the values of others” into life as an intrinsic demotivator.
As an autistic queer adult, who also finds themself in the middle of a terrifying political moment - this massive push toward blind conformity and autocratic rule - I’ve spent most of my life getting told that my values are bad and unworkable, and other people’s values have to be my values instead.
As an adult, I’ve moved away from this as much as possible, and it’s made me much happier - but there is so much hate in the world for this. It seems like some people don’t feel like they can be themselves unless they get to oppress other people, and I have struggled to understand why that is or how we can mitigate the impact of this.
To the best of my understanding, people who value not only connectedness but obedience and conformity, may have less need for autonomy and a greater reliance on hierarchy just to understand what to do, because they don’t want the cognitive load of making their own decisions.
Yet they don’t treat forcing conformity on others like a cognitive load but instead like an emotional urge almost mirroring that of a need. It’s not enough that their little ingroup is all the same - the Other offends them by virtue of its very existence.
I’d be interested to know how much of that is about fear vs how much of that is fulfilling needs other than survival and safety. Because this kind of thinking seems to cap at “love and belonging.” You’re probably not going to earn “respect and esteem” by being the same as everyone else, and self-actualization is clearly out the window. So what other motivations do people have for ignoring the rights of others?
Triangle Strategy and Code Vein are the games I got stuck on, and largely due to needing to grind in order to get past a certain point. The funny thing is, your solution to just commit to two minutes a day is a perfect method to get through such a trial: do one round/route of grinding a day, making a little bit of progress at a time, until ready to pursue the game in earnest once more.
Good video. Hope this one gets caught by the algorithm like your first.
Much appreciated!! I also struggled a bit to get through Triangle Strategy…I enjoyed the combat and found the story interesting, but yeah the need to do those camp training missions had me losing steam at certain points!
@@markmaxwelljr For me, it's a fight where you either sell your buddy out or defend him while potentially sacrificing your town. I do have a save of the "sell out" route, but I really didn't like where that was going so I either get a story route I'll hate or I grind.
In Code Vein, was it the Cathedral section? That's where I hit the wall :D
@@sethjette6883 No actually, though that section is fortunately easier on co-op. It was the boss AFTER the ice and fire duo boss, and my buddy did not have any applicable buff/debuff abilities that could help in my run. In his game world, I was able to poison that super tough boss because host always seems to draw aggro, so we waited out the last ten or fifteen seconds and just let his HP run out. However, since he had nothing to help in my game world, I just kept dying to the aggro as I never had enough openings to apply any debuff and we just couldn't whittle the health down enough.
It stunk!
@@sethjette6883Cathedral sucks so much lol
this is the first time any of these "try this" videos actually helped. Most of the time it's just someone spouting nonsense and giving no real solution other than "change your mindset" so it is MUCH appreciated. I also never leave TH-cam comments but felt this on was warranted:)
The journal is a good idea but it can also be a trap. Because when you leave with "I was to go beat that boss next", it can become the friction that will prevent you from coming back. Our brain is dumb and think you need to listen to yourself wanting this. So the idea of beating the boss (even if you don't have to do it lol) will block your mind.
The 2 mins rules of "let's log in to chill or do nothing preplanned" is pretty perfect. This way your brain freely decides "as your go" what you will engage into. There's nothing lower than this as a bar of entry (except maybe playing the game for the first time).
Also, you will never get good without a bit of discipline (like with anything in life).
I personally disrupted my need for new games at launch. This changed my life. Now, I don't crave login in a new game (I still buy it though) and it prevents me artificially interrupting a game am currently playing.
Another behavior for me that has been very effective is impose a limit on the number of games I can start at the same time and the "no game if of the same genre at the same time" rule. It keeps things fresh and you avoid the resulting "of god so many games started" feeling that discourages you to come back to any.
Lastly, and that one is more personal but could inspire you maybe to find you own contextual rules, you need to respect your personality while playing videogames. As an example, me I don't like much competitive games. In multiplayer games I have this need to be the best or the leader else I don't find it much fun. So am simply not playing multiplayer. There's always a shitload of people better than you need. I get much more satisfaction mastering single player experiences so I focus on this! Basically remember you don't have to play what people play, you don't have to "connect" (I think this one is a bit bullshit) and you don't have to play what's popular or game modes people generally play. Be yourself, just enjoy yourself because your gaming time is RARE and PRECIOUS.
Connection is a need that all people have, because humans are fundamentally social beings. The same brain and nervous system that makes us cognitive problem-solvers, also makes us socially motivated.
However, bringing up the point of respecting your own personality (which is lovely phrasing for this!), many people seem to favor one of these needs over the other. Competence and connectedness tend to have an inversely proportional relationship in the brain, where very compentence-oriented people value connectedness less, and very connectedness-oriented people value competence less. Most people are somewhere in the middle, but it’s a roughly normal distribution - a bell curve.
So if you find that your game time is personal and not social, and you don’t game with the intent of relating to anyone - that’s completely understandable. But please remember not to invalidate people who do seek social connections through gaming and other hobbies - who are also fairly likely to take the game’s elements of mastery a little less seriously, due to the game’s role as a vehicle for them to spend time with others.
(My main reference for this line of thought was a book called NeuroTribes, so if you’re interested in reading more about the relationship between cognitive problem-solving and relational empathy, there’s some insight to be had there.)
Your goals and your enjoyment are valid. Other people’s goals and enjoyment are also valid.
Make your own rules is definitely key to fun/ success. As soon as you drop your feels of pressure and "the game tells me to do so and so..." no fxck it. 😅
You will feel like fresh forest air
I recently started to just play without thinking too much. Instead of sitting and staring at what games I have and thinking what should I play, I just launch whichever catches my eye first and commit to at least an hour with it. Less thinking more playing, like it used to be back when I first started gaming.
As someone who actually does psych research I can't believe this video was about self-determination theory XD I was rolling my eyes hard ready to be hit with the basic "reward systems, operant conditioning" nonsense and you just go and pull out my absolute favorite theory of human motivation. SDT for the win.
My go to strat for the last few years is deliberately watching silly challenges for whatever game it is I haven't played in a while. It shows others experiencing enjoyment and excitement that you mentioned and reintroduces playing strategies that have faded from memory. I've managed to consistently make huge chunks of progress and finish many games with this method. It shouldn't be a chore to game, so seek out people who make it fun! Happy gaming!🎮
Legit how i got bsck to resident evil 2 back in the day. Crazy how the mind works
Our experience was similar watching videos of people finding fun in game they love helped me remember why I held onto this "hobby" for 38 yrs of my life
This was super helpful! Putting motivation skills in the context of finishing games (something I want to do) rather than just pure productivity (something I need to do) is a much more digestible framework. And now I have a few tips that can help me finish games AND productive projects!
Something that I do personally to help me get back into a game is to watch a streamer that I really like play the game up until the point that I am at. It helps me remember the story a lot better. which is what I struggle with the most.
When I play certain RPGs I have a couple of strategies to keep me from getting lost and not wanting to continue
I always end my game sessions in whatever dungeon I'm supposed to do next.
Second, if I have to make certain choices for a specific route, I'll name my character after whatever route I'm going for so when I get back in, I'll remember
I just realized that's why I like jumping back into silent hill 3 more than other games, the map essentially journals for you, marking which doors you can't open if you've tried and stuff
The move towards more games that do this is quietly incredible - Outer Wilds' ship log is an absolute pinnacle of ingame journaling, and quite a lot of games have some form of it now (Etrian Odyssey/Persona Q have the whole map drawing aspect, Dredge's fish log broadly tells you where and how to catch everything and is far more satisfying because of it, for example. Even FF14 does similar things.) So when I played Lorelei and the Laser Eyes I found myself genuinely disappointed - I often draw maps and use notebooks so I thought it would be perfection, but they went a little too far in explicitly wanting you to make notes and came out the other side at "unhelpful." And having watched a few streamers play it, what they actually do instead is forget things, disconnect and start looking up guides.
I definitely think developers need to be very aware of things like that, you can make your game so much more satisfying with a bit of considerate journaling
@@storageheater its def a very much needed trend that should be started, being able to stamp scribbles on your map at least (like an arrow to point in the general direction you wanted to go next and such)
Alternatively if more physical versions of games came with the game's map you could just use that irl as you play, wich at least sounds pretty neat
physical game guides have been a game changer for me for two reasons.
1. the guide provides a lot of info that the game doesnt give you as clearly like lore character backgrounds and things like that. they typically breakdown the map to understand it better as well.
2. as a casual gamer who doesnt pride myself on triumphant hard parts, getting stuck can ruin a game for me since ill put it down and then never pick it back up because i dread opening that save where im stuck. the giude helps me get through those parts where i would have otherwise given up and moved on.
absolutely phenomenal video, both this and the xbox game pass video. such great psychological insight about real life behaviors that im so many people feel the experience of but probably dont know how to characterize and respond constructively to with their video game consumption approach.
A few strategies that ive developed to find success in not falling into the SDT pains by leaving games is:
1) if i am still enjoying a game in any meaningful capacity, i continue playing it with the goal of ultimately seeing it through (whether that be a plan to simply finish the game, get as far as i see fit at the moment, or achievement hunt w an end goal in mind etc). i continue playing it even if i am more excited to start something else. i actively try to keep the thrill of novelty from robbing me of the great experience that i already found myself cozied into.
2) avoiding spoilers related to fundamental game experience/progression/average time completion stats/etc, as it is effectively junk food dopamine that really disincentivizes starting or continuing experiencing anything first-hand...which is tricky situation with the 3rd arm of SDT being connectedness. thats almost where having a backlog of games that you know are widely praised but no longer actively viral is such a beautiful zone for personal immersion. single player games thrive here. knowing a game is considered great, but not knowing what for, and its yours to discover. you may lose out on that 3rd arm but man do the first 2 arms really get to shine. being able to make custom lists on sites like dekudeals is phenomenal for putting a pin in an exciting game you hear about (since it also has metacritic ratings, price/sale watching notifications, etc) without spoiling yourself so you can properly go experience it later when you're ready. it really helps build the thrill of novelty like i mentioned in the first point, which is great, once you have worked to develop the discipline to not act on it right away to steal away part of the experience of the game you're already on.
3) if i can, i try to not leave a gaming session with a daunting task immediately sitting in front of me. when i finish a session, i make sure i dont know exactly what is on the horizon in order to try to re-instill the feeling of freedom and endlessness for the next time i plan to sit down. like you said in the gaming journal section, having a fun (key word fun and not daunting) direction i want to investigate/explore next. that keeps the immersion feeling inspiring and not like a brick wall that i have already seen and will be immediately returning to whenever i consider sitting down to play again. i fucking love your gaming journal voice memo section. its such an interesting and intimate way to feel more of what you experience (obvi, its journaling haha but still its really nice)
this type of stuff is what brings me so much life with the field of psychology. im about to graduate med school going into psychiatry and behavioral tenants like these are so meaningful for helping people understand how and why certain psychotherapy techniques work, by taking the time to really get to know the relationship between their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
thanks so much for the amazing content :)
so many great points here, thank you for the kind words and the thoughtful comment! Your second strategy about limiting exposure to fundamental game elements is something I would love to explore more. Over time I have started to abide by this more and more, and truly believe it leads to a better experience. You're right that it is in direct conflict with that third component of SDT, which is why I think it can be hard to resist in many cases. But yeah, being a #patientgamer and playing things after the hype has died down can often be the most enjoyable way to play a game. Adding some notes to my future video ideas file now!!
The reading positive reviews part is a great idea. Also watching gameplay in it too. If I can use that to persuade myself into impulsively buying a game, than I can use it to impulsively get back into playing a game! It's a win-win!
This is such an interesting video because all of these strategies can be seamlessly applied to completing long-term projects in general and begs the question: are games just long-term projects? Unlike many other forms of entertainment media (especially digital), games cannot, by design, be engaged with passively. You can’t just “put it on in the background” like a movie or TV show. In many ways, if you want to finish a video game then, like a project, you have to take some responsibility for your own engagement. Video games are not passive media that you can use to fill in time (even though that’s how we might intuitively understand them). They’re projects that we should plan for and engage with actively, if for no other reason than to derive maximum enjoyment from them
homie really made an entire 20m video to procrastinate beating tears of the kingdom
I've wanted content like this for so many years. Seriously at least a decade, because I've struggled with this damn near my whole life. I'm 32 now, laden with depression and ADHD, and that shit can wreak havoc on one's abilities to find, get into, stay into, or later return to a game. Every step of the way is compromised in some fashion. If I can get something to click with me, I'm usually in it for a good long while, but I still fall off many games that aren't done in < 20 hours. I fell of Tears of the Kingdom and couldn't remember why till you reminded me with your own reason, as it was the same for me. Starfield, that disappointing game that was super exciting for a little while and then it wasn't.
My ADHD compels me to seek out novelty and new shiny stimulating things (though not necessarily in the form of like, fast paced games. Euro Truck Simulator has been a shiny stimulating thing to me at various points lmao). Your second technique I literally laughed out loud when you said because I didn't expect to hear it and it's something I rely on very heavily, especially if I'm trying to get into something I "want" to play but can't get the rest of myself on board with it. That could be returning to a game or it could be a game I've never played before but I want to love, like Souls games (still haven't been able to pull that off. Patience is a colossal barrier that I can't goddamn overcome).
Another weird "technique" I've discovered for at least deciding on what I want to do for the first part of the day is - well, I've come to the realization that my brain, and probably others, are most impressionable when we first wake up. I realized after a streak of happenings where I'd browse my reddit homepage on my phone as I woke up in bed and something would really catch my eye and make me go "ooh" either as the post itself or even in the comments. Most recently this led me to going on a cowboy kick, primarily led by Clint Eastwood and the three Dollars Trilogy films being watched for the first time with ample Red Dead Redemption 2 in between.
Shortly after that was a brief flirtation with Lawrence of Arabia (didn't finish the movie, though I was enjoying it lol) and remembering that there were some Lawrence of Arabia related missions in Battlefield 1 which I went back and played and had some fun with. I think I got maybe 2 days out of that and it fizzled out.
The struggle never ends, that's for sure. Recently I got back into Star Wars Jedi Survivor now that it's not utter shit on PS5 (though still not perfect), but I already feel like I'm slipping away from that again as I retread old ground, having started from the beginning because of the cognitive load of trying to come back into the middle of something that was at least halfway through and all of the mechanics, lore and other knowledge and aptitude that would have to go along with it. The gaming journal is sort of a neat idea, but for things like this I don't think it would be able to offset.
Dunno who tf is gonna read this long ass thing but maybe someone like me will see it and relate to it.
Now to find out what that one big sword fantasy game you were playing through half the video was (not Valheim or TotK) maybe I'll put that on my list too lol.
It was Dragon's Dogma 2.
I don't do the notes thing he says, but I do have a spreadsheet of all the games I am playing, ones I have frozen/stalled and completed games, games I haven't played and even ones I haven't even bought yet. Sometimes the goal I set isn't beating the game and I may change it. Sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 YEARS to beat a game that isn't even really that long. But as long as it is on that list, it has a chance to be completed. I stopped playing tears of the kingdom too. I don't know why but don't really care, because I will finish it since I will see it on my spreadsheet/list or some random youtube video reminds me lol. I let myself get randomly distracted by games then when I feel lost I look at what I was playing. However I typically do not have the problems this person describes (double barrel shotgun). I don't care if I forget how to play or can't play well, and I would never want to restart. My main problem is I simply get distracted and forget about the game, it mainly applies to non-steam games as steam games I see recently played every time I play any steam game.
I also usually remember why I stopped played if it was a well defined reason. I don't really fight my adhd unless I feel frustrated or bored at what I am playing. If I feel stuck like I can't find anything the list is there to help out. Trust me the list will always have stuff on it if you add things on a whim and frozen/stalled games you enjoy. You can even just look at the ones you completed and just start playing it again maybe because of a new patch or a new goal.
32 here and I share that sentiment Currently in the middle of Elden ring and it has completely consumed me. Helps with the depression. Hope life gets better for you
ADHD and depression here as well (thankfully the latter hasn't been so much of an issue in recent times). I definitely feel the "Interruption Event" quite frequently. It can be as simple as hearing a song from a different soundtrack, and before I know it I'm thinking about that other thing, the original thing in my rearview mirror. As you said, this is a recurring phenomenon with pretty much every interest in my life due to my ADHD, and it's deeply frustrating because I end up with a very wide range of experiences, but when it comes to game completion or creative endeavors (like drawing, writing, etc.), all of them tend to be pretty shallow because I can't focus long enough to get through the long haul.
The few exceptions are when my hyperfocus kicks in long enough that I can stick with it. I can count on one hand the number of videogames I've actually completed: Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey are the most recent, and it's looking like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is going to be added to my list within the next month or so (main story lines are finished, and now I'm playing the DLCs with The Siege of Paris nearly finished).
It's a difficult prospect and I try not to get too down in the dumps about it, because ultimately life is short and there are more important things-and, of course, one advantage of having such a large gaming library as I do is that there's always options when I am in the mood to play. I also try to remind myself of this when I feel the urge to impulse buy a new game because it's on sale or I watched a great trailer for it (impulsive spending being another symptom of ADHD).
the most interesting part is that you can apply the "field journal" technique and positive exposure to ANY hobby or practically anything that you learn for yourself.
Many of us lose interest in one hobby and move on to another because of the same reasons. Something had lured us off, and then it was too complicated and scary (for losing confidence) to start again.
That was really good universal advice.
My interruption event was my dad dying. Zelda is my favorite series of all time and I feel so bad that I haven’t finished it. I’m about halfway through. I will finish it because it’s an incredible game. It’s just sad that I won’t get the same experience coming back more than 6 months later. I did a Somali thing with elden ring. These games are so big that something in your life is bound to come along and keep you from playing consistently
Not if you don't have friends or family an everyone hates u etc, my life's sad... Lol nah I tell my daughter shit up n watch me play!!! Lol no I'm lying all around I stop n play Mario kart 10xs again lol... She loves mk
lol i put the same two amazing games down but went back and beat elden ringg
@@michaelsterling8422 I haven't ever played eldin ring I'ma have play it soon, it looks amazing, I don't have a PS4 or 5 I sold mine be4 eldin ring released because all I ever used was the switch, I love switch idk why but my favorite console all time honestly n I was a HUGE ps, PS2, PS3, guy but idk by time PS4 came out(maybe cuz I'm older) I never really played it I've bought like 8 of them maybe more but Everytime I end up playing one r 2 games I really want to play n don't touch it again for cpl months so I end up getting rid of it n buying Nintendo stuff w the $ instead. Idk I grew up right along side NES were like twins same age n all lol ... Old
The two minute rule is so helpful and actually is just what I did today for Ghost of Tsushima. I said I will do just one quest today. Ended up playing for 3 hours and had a blast! Amazing video and tips 🙏🏼
Ghost of Tsushima is a game I've had my eye on for a long time but never picked it up. Is it difficult to get into? Tried Elden Ring and it didn't do it for me.
@@BGNewsReporter Not at all! I played Elden Ring and it is 100x more difficult. Ghost gives you different difficulty levels so you can customize the experience to your needs!
@@BGNewsReporterGOT is a breeze compared to ER but I play on normal 😂 Great game tho, I hope you get a chance to play and enjoy it 🫡 I got the Plat in ‘21 and played the DLC too.
This video found me at the right time, it describes exactly what happened to me numerous times, and showed me why it happens. Thank you so much for it.
Leaving my comment for when your video goes viral.
This is quality.
Itd be crazy if this comment was in another video.
...Ask your reviewers what they're eating in the comment section.
How did you know???
Recently went back to a game I hadn’t finished and have been thinking about for 20 years. It can be done!
I have a google doc of all the games ive played in a year with a check mark by the game if ive completed it. I usually only play 3 games at a time, this motivates me to finish my games its been really helpful
Me and some friends have a collaborative Notion page with a list of games we want to complete before 2025, I can see this being a great idea, not only is it serving as motivation to complete the games, but also a fun way to interact with friends.
These theories and strategies can be applied to so many things in life. I'm not really struggling with finishing games these days, but your video got me thinking about other, completely unrelated aspects of my life. 👍
I loved your insight on this topic! There are several games that I have put down recently because I became a father (which is so so rewarding) and at night when I have free time, I often don’t have any motivation to do anything for myself. Life has just gotten busy, but at night when I put my son to sleep, I want to find the motivation to pick some of those games back up again because they truly do bring me joy, sometimes it really is just hard to get back into it once it’s been sitting for long enough.
So tonight, I’m going to try the Two-Minute rule on Mother 3!! Wish me luck!😊
there's a strategy that can be pretty powerful and easy depending on the game, start the game from the beginning, and enjoy all the things you mention about starting, after that you can load your old save and it will be even better, because you feel super powerful with all the progress you suddenly have, of course it doesn't work for any game but it was effective with some.
Having trouble getting back into LOZ Skyward Sword, Red Dead Redemption, Octopath Traveler 2, Mario & Luigi Dream Team, and Prince of Persia the Lost Crown. Most of the problem for me is that I just keep starting more and more games (I am busy with the Switch's Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door Remake, Stardew Valley, and the SNES Donkey Kong Country Trilogy for now) but as time passes, I feel like I'm never going to get back into these titles that I really enjoyed and can't bring myself to continue for some reason. I'll definitely try some of these techniques and its cool to see someone make a video on this topic that you don't hear people discussing very often!
Man those were the days, sinking countless hours of gaming without worries. Now with a toddler with unlimited energy lol. Gaming got me through the darkest times and will forever hold a special place.
The moment you mentioned Octopath Traveler 2 I had to pause the video and step back because I went “holy shit you read my mind”. Both Octopath games are games I really want to go back to because of how much I enjoy them but I’ve struggled getting back into them for no apparent reason. Finding this video is already helping me so much I can only attribute this find as a pure stroke of luck.
I enjoyed Octopath 2 a alot, but took a break in the same month it came out and never went back. The same happened with the first game and took me years to get myself to finally beat it.
I’ve seen a few videos on this or topics like it. Things like “why gaming isn’t fun anymore”, or “why games are bad now”. But what I’d love to see is a video for those of us that game to an obsessive degree. I finish every single game I play and usually do several playthroughs fully completing the game. A year or so later I’ll pull it back up and do another playthrough from scratch. When I get off work I race home and the first thing I do is fire up my PC and launch whatever game I’m currently playing. While I’m at work I listen to videos about whatever game I’m playing or upcoming games I’m excited about. I want to see a video about gamers that are obsessed with gaming.
Great video btw 👍
You might be the perfect person to make that video… maybe seeing your passion is what we need to spark ours…
@@johnnyangel4258 I would love to do that! I built my first PC this year to expand my gaming options AND start a TH-cam channel. I’m very thorough when I play a game and would like to make simple but competent guides for trophy/achievement hunting and maybe stream on the side. Thanks for the encouragement 🙏
Yeah i watched a hand full of those essays too. Often i think some people only know the few AAA games which are advertised all over the place and stand in the front row of the video game sections in a store like the EA, Activision, dice, ubisoft and bethesda games. But gaming is soooo much more. There are thousands of good games waiting to be explored. Hundreds of genres. There has never been such a variety in gaming. And people come around the corner with "ah gaming is dead 😢". I respect when people abandon this hobby in general because they seek different/ new goals/hobbies in life. But for those who still want to game... Go out there. Look what greatness of videogames is actually hidden behind the curtain of AAA gaming. You won't regret it. 😊
@@maximilian2843 yeah I totally agree. I’ve played so many incredible games in the past few years. Many of those games were from
Indie developers, but I’ve also played a lot a great AAA games as well. Tbh I can’t relate when ppl say “gaming is dead”. I’ve been gaming for 40 years and currently there’s more great games than ever before.
I'm struggling to get back into tears of the kingdom as well. A gaming journal would have helped! I had this video saved to my watch later, and I'm watching it now just to give me motivation to play this game again. Your video delivered!
I forced myself to finish Dragons’s Dogma 2 and for Dead Space remake I finished the game in about 11 hour. One is a hate-play, the other is a rushed experience. What I learned from these is that you shouldn’t feel bad about not finishing a game. Your time is limited and gaming should be entertaining. So what if you wasted money on a game you stopped playing? Move on and do something you’d rather enjoy.
I found out that buying the Steam Deck brought me back into gaming. I don't really use it anymore, but it was a the kickstart I needed.
That’s how I felt about getting a switch lite
Steam deck is my main console rn and I agree, it got me back into loving games due to the ease of use.
What was it about it that helped you get back into gaming?
@@gbird5000 Man, the freedom. Not being tied to your desktop. Being able to just play anywhere, any time. It's funny because I now play at my desktop more often than not, but that option that the Steam Deck gave me, where I can choose where I want to play is what rekindled that fire.
@@kukukachu that's a beautiful thing. I love that for you. I wish I could afford one of those machines right now
Where has this video been all my life. I've recently gone back to finish up some games I left incomplete and half the struggle was getting myself to just insert the disc. 30 minutes later and I was having fun again
The 2-minute rule is what has repeatedly allowed me to continue building my truck. I didn't know this was an established method, but it definitely works with some discipline applied... something I still struggle with.
I've had all of the parts for my engine for months, but just keep getting pulled away from it. It sits there, covered in protective shop rags, for weeks at a time, often a month or more. I want, every single day, to just go finish the darned thing. But I can't mentally budget the time to do it.
So I commit to walking out to the shop when I've got to leave for work in 30-45 minutes, to just look at it. I stand there and look at half of my mechanical turbodiesel, and imagine the sounds it'll make. Imagine the TORQUE it'll send to all six wheels, through the chunky iron 4-speed. Remember what the next step was.
I'll usually find a particular pile of bolts and an associated part, and entirely lose track of time making solid progress on this thing I REALLY REALLY want to finish. Then my go-to-work alarm goes off, and I have to let it be again. Until tomorrow, maybe until next week, maybe until November. I never know.
Same for me, just it's fixing my car
sounds an awful lot like edging ngl
I felt a little targeted with Octopath Traveler II being one of the examples 😂 I got the first Octopath when it came out, put 25-30 hours into it, and haven't been back since.
Dude same
octopath is a game that is always there for me to play 5 hours every 3 months and then stop lol but i love it for that
Literally SAME!! I had this exact experience and Googled Octopath 2 when he mentioned it to pique my interest again.
this video helped me finally start playing cyberpunk 2077 again. the base game is one of the few games i actually HAVE finished but i was having a lot of trouble getting the motivation to play through the dlc. journaling definitely is helping me to stay focused, and it is definitely making me engage with the game in a way i find really intentional and satisfying. thanks for the great video!!
Great video on an extremely relatable issue. I appreciate the research that went into this! I'll have to give the gaming journal a try, and I may try the two minute rule to get back into a replay of FF9.
You're one of the more refreshing gaming channels I've discovered recently--keep up the great work!!
Thank you for the kind words, really helps to keep me motivated for the next video. good luck on FF9!
Super fascinating application of SDT!! Definitely feeling this way about a few games atm. The 2-minute commitment feels like a really low-stakes option, so I’ll definitely be giving that one a try! Great video!!
I'm in the exact same situation with Zelda, and many games. Appreciate this insight! The potential lost of competence is so real! The very game design that rewards time and experience with a sense of mastery simultaneously makes it feel hard to reengage after a time of disconnect.
Never thought about fixing this...but now I'm grateful to know how! Very cool.
tl;dr:
1. Journal your gameplay documenting accomplishments this session and goals for the next so you can reference them in the far future to easily get back into it.
2. Watch videos of other people playing the game having positive experiences and reviving your interest.
3. Just commit to play the game for 2 minutes. You may find that's all that's needed to rekindle your interest.
300+ hrs in Elden ring and I’m only 66% through and I’ve been playing it since launch, I fall in and out of love with playing it and I stop playing for extended periods and every time I do it is so hard mentally to boot it up again but once I do second nature kicks in and I’m off running but I kind of want it to be over cause it can be a real slog to get through. I used to only ever get one game at a time and I’d finish it before turning to a new one, now I have a huge backlog…..something I wish I’d never known. I am going to give this voice memo trick a go cause it does make sense.
I feel the same way about Elden, I really think I just need to restart the game because I feel i've hit a wall.
Anything over 100 hours feels like a slog for me, except few games (Witcher 3, Skyrim, Divinity OS 1-2).
the algorithm showed this to me at the perfect time. I was this close to falling off an RPG I was really invested in just a week ago. I'll give the two minute rule a shot and see if I don't go right back to enjoying it
Brilliant video, I appreciate the amount of time and effort you put into your research. I find it refreshing that I am not the only one that struggles with this, and I think gaming subscriptions like game pass are also a factor as you can easily have access to so many games and your brain wants to play them all. You deserve a lot more subs, keep it up 👍🏻
Much appreciated!!
I got 4 minutes and 33 seconds through this before pausing it and intending to come back to it later. I don't think this issue is just restricted to videogames.
i love this, you have renewed my love for games i thought abandoned... i share a console with partner and she plays more than me, so when i pick up a game again i have to use the 2-5 minute rule to get back in, also journal and positive exposure helps greatly. thanks for this, it gets me more motivated to play games i didn't think i would get to finish. it would be nice if the game recognized you havent played for a week and asks if you want to play bit in sandbox so you can get used to the controls before you jump back in.
This is one of the best researched, articulated and presented videos I’ve seen in a very long time 👍
I’m afraid I expected this video to tell me nothing new from similar “how to complete your backlog” essays, so I was pleasantly surprised.
Especially the idea of journaling! I have to do that for lots of other things in my life, so the idea of doing voice memos at night is 100% something I’m going to start doing, especially for big open world experiences!
I can personally attest to the two minute rule too! I noticed that around a year ago and started applying a “just try it” mentality since. I feel very reluctant to get back into games like Fallout or Red Dead Redemption 2, but as soon as I start, I get pretty caught up and immersed once again!
Played totk for 10mins just to see if I can get back into my save and am slowly starting to pick things up again. The performance is so much better than on launch imo, and there is so much to do. Great video man keep up the good work
if you Watching this there is no need to get back into a game you dont want to play
My problem is that I need to be fully into a game to play it. I cannot just play a game for an hour or two. I need to sit down and play a game for a while. With work and all the things going on in my life, it is hard to find times to be able to do that
The journal strategy is actually something tha help me continue to play stardew valley, it was very hard to me remembering what I was gonna do each day when I spent smth like 4 days without playing, the journal really helped me to know what I just did n what I should do at least on the first day when I rentered the game
Many of the games you show in your video are "endless treadmill" games. Too much content designed to waste your time. I tend to bounce off these because once you understand the basic loop it rarely offers any additional challenge because open world games have no way to increase the difficulty except inflating damage numbers.
real.
Disagree, examples of games that are "endless treadmills" are gachas for sure, and it is a big reason I dropped like 3 of them whilst playing 4 at a time.
Those games that he mentions are a bad example of "endless treadmill" games imho
It’s sad but TikTok and reels have really ruined my attention span for more things.
Saaaame. I think it's time to delete tiktok again and try and regain some of it
@@jessierine3981❤
Use shortcuts, read the pamphlet, use cheats, mods, dont be afraid to choose easy mode, youre not a streamer or trying to impress anyone, games should be fun, not an obligation 😊
2:27 bro giving slots players waaay too much credit 💀
I was nodding my head in understanding and empathy the whole time. I have so many great unfinished games that i want to go back to. God of war, baldurs gate 3, destiny 2, ff7 rebirth, and many many more. I thought it was just having to learn the controls again that was stopping me but this video showed me its much more than that. Thanks
You dint have to finish a game. Its a sunk cost fallacy. What you need to learn - is letting it go, and bot how to return.
I didn't want to beat BOTW because I knew i wouldn't be motivated to continue exploring.
I'm 13:11 in and I believe that bonus strategy at the end of the video will be Adderall
I'm so glad this vid popped up in my recommended tab; the middle part about losing competence made me feel so understood. I've been meaning to get back into Star Ocean 2 (JRPG) on switch because it's a really cool game that I haven't touched for months sadly, but it's also pretty complex in terms of character progression/party optimization, so the thought of being overwhelmed by all those systems has been keeping from diving into the game again :(
hopefully I'll able to use the tips from this video to get back into Star Ocean 2 (and other games eventually)
My brainrot has gotten so bad that not only can I no longer finish books or movies, but I can't even finish games anymore. I literally don't even have the attention span for the kinds of activities that shorten your attention span.
Same for me. What have been helping a bit is what have been stated on the video though. I can't interact with most active activities, but more passive and less important stuff seems easy, like youtube videos. So what I do is watch experiences about video games. Essays, reviews, analysis. That gets me fired up to boot up the games mentioned or try something new. If I dont do the same to other games while playing the current one, I'm mostly able to finish it, but if I excited about another game, I always abandon it. Another thing that helps with games is trying to play everyday, even if it is for 15 minutes. The longer I dont play it, the more likely it is to not even boot it up later.
For TV shows and movies I subscribe to a few good reaction channels and when they post a reaction to a movie or show that I havent watched, I skip the video. If I like the personality of the reactor that can be enough to make me seek out that title to watch, so I can engage later.
Havent found a good one for books yet though. I try audiobooks while doing chores sometimes but it's not the same
I think when it gets this bad, a multi-day stimulation detox is needed where you just allow yourself to be bored and to tolerate that discomfort for a while and ground yourself until it no longer feels uncomfortable. Moving your body in some way helps too, as your body might be holding on to excess energy that make it hard to settle into passive activities.
Time to de-escalate my friend. Give yourself five minutes of silent contemplation without touching your phone when you wake up or before you go to bed, or avoid using two different devices at the same time. Slowly ween away from the constant influx of information and you'll see a slow but sure progress towards longer attention span. I suffer from the brain rot content too.
I can’t even finish writing comments on TH-cam.
…
Games and movies DONT shorten attention span tho lol
What game is this? 0:06
Valheim :)
Valheim it’s very fun
Valheim one of the most underrated games in the last few years . If you love open world/ base building with a splash of magic . Then you'll love it also
I actually accidentally did a few of these strategies before watching this, I was watching TH-cam videos, then I decided to try picking up totk for 5 minutes again, now I'm re-engaged in it and having fun again
Good video! I like to apply these strategies with personal projects or with work, however, here comes the question - is it worth returning to the game if it really doesn't feel like finish it? Maybe perhaps is better to let it go? 😅
If your heart tells you it’s not worth it, then it probably isn’t :) I would only use these strategies for games that you really believe have more to offer you. Thanks for watching!
@@markmaxwelljr fair point! =) I'm looking forward for the next video
Underrated channel
Love this! Journaling, positive exposure, and the two-minute rule are excellent strategies for staying in/getting back into a video game. I can also apply these strategies for reading a girthy book, working out, and keeping my wife happy. Keep 'em coming, MM!!