Out of curiosity, what line of work did you get in to after you graduated from college?

Gaming is what sick days and retirement were made for, folks.

Mr.S, I've had a full time job for the last seven years. I have a position of responsibility to the point where it does not matter who messed up what at work - if something goes wrong or a client is not happy, I answer for that. On top of that I write screenplays in my spare time. Sometimes I write music (though it's pretty bad). I have made several short films outside of work hours in the last couple of years. I have a wife and a dog.

And (here's the important part) -  I play games.

What part of that is not working?

This coming from a man whose avatar is a character from one of the longest games of last year...

What's the game?

His avatar is Yangus from Dragon Quest VIII.

Ah okay. Thanks!

Jay, like I said, I'll always play games, you'll always play games, most here will always play games.  As my original post stated "I expect to play games here and there, but nothing like the past." Meaning, I'll pick up maybe two games this year, compared to when I played about 2-3 different titles a week.

So, though the title of this thread is how old will you be when you quit playing games, it should have been understood, at what age will your game playing habbits change? Either, playing less games, no games, or no change at all in play. My expectations weren't for everyone here to say, 25, 33, 41, 17...Get real here..I set this thread up because I knew there would be some diversity because we all do things differently. Very few of us are in the same profession, so that makes it even more interesting to hear how much game playing time people are able to put in either while having professional jobs, being college students, or living at home with their parents. 

Most of the responses were expected, after all, this is a game music forum. Had I went to a video game site like the-nextlevel or videogameforums.com I would probably only have about 1 percent or less say they will or have changed their gaming habbits. Now if I visit Better Home and Gardens and start the same thread, I'll probably get ignored entirely. hmm This would actually make an interesting project for my statistics class.

So anyway, I'm not knocking you because you play games. Sounds like you have your schedule all setup to enjoy every apsects of life. Unfortunately, I can't enjoy the same type of games I used to because of how time consuming they are. Also, the majority of the RPG's I played were with friends as we liked to enjoy the experience together. There's nothing but scheduling conflicts now, so it's next to impossible to even get one of my dedicated gamer friends to come over for some game time. My best bet to squeeze in some game time would be a Mame shooter like Galaga, God knows I spent enough quarters on that in the day.

Well, yes, definitely I agree that game habits will change. If not simply for time reasons, then simply growing older. One of the great things about games, unlike say golf, is that they have grown up with me. They have changed, evolved. There are games out  there that appeal to me now, that probably wouldn't have appealed to me ten years ago.

On a side note, my mom got a replacement PS2 yesterday and has started playing Grand Theft Auto. She says her favourite thing so far is 'shooting the police and stealing their guns'. She likes it all except 'some annoying woman on the radio'. I wonder if they had people like my mom in mind when developing the game...

*blink*

Can I have your mom?

I found myself recently in the position where I was buying games because I 'should.'  I bought the new Kingdom Hearts because it seemed like I had to...but, really, I'm not that enthused with it.  I find myself selling off a lot of my games and not playing as much.  But, if I find a game I really like (recent examples have been the new Onimusha, Black, and Advance Wars DS) then I will sit and play like I did in the old days.  But now, I find myself just mostly selling games I don't play anymore.

I'll be 31 this year, and basically my videogaming interests have boiled down to a handful of titles. I really just play SRPGs and a couple of online games now. EVE Online for 'serious' gaming (though I never take it terribly seriously), and good old Nippon Ichi for most other things, with a nice sideline in more serious stuff like Tactics Ogre. Phantasy Star Universe will keep me occupied for the next few years if it's even a patch on PSO. I don't need a lot of games to keep me entertained... at a guess I only own about 30 titles now - including some old PC games - when in the past I've owned hundreds at any one time.

My tastes have definitely changed too. I was always quite an 'across the board' gamer, into pretty much everything from platformers to RPGs. These days I settle for slower games, ones you could argue don't even require any dexterity. I like to take my time over them, and I no longer have the patience to apply myself to learning a tough arcade game through repetition and trial-and-error. Even just a couple of years ago I was still massively into shmups, but those have trickled out of my collection until now I'm left with just a small selection I'd really rather not part with and would like to master one day.

The way I see it, why should I dally about with average stuff (in my opinion), when I can just play my favourites till the cows come home? I have friends who still blaze through several new games every month and at least try the vast majority of things, but I'm thinking why would you even bother trying Burnout 4, or Tony Hawks Number Whatever? Working in a games shop tends to help that - I don't have to buy things to check them out, but the last time I was genuinely excited about a new game coming into the shop was Gradius V, and the next one I'm bothered about that we'll be getting in the UK will be PSU. I won't count FFXII and Valkyrie Profile 2 because I'll be getting them from the US anyway.

I really don't count videogaming as a hobby any more even though some of the games I play can take up a huge amount of time.

Ironically, I would have to say the Burnout series has me more excited for a non-RPG series than pretty much anything else this generation. BO3 Road Rage mode is the ultimate time waster. The crash challenges are some of the better puzzles I've seen in all of gaming. And the racing is actually fun, since it basically handles like the original Ridge Racer (except for the occasional need to brake). Only reason I haven't touched Revenge yet is I have so much to unlock in 3 and I waste so much time in Road Rage mode.

But yeah...I tend to find sticking with the favorites (good thing so many older games are high in replay value) and slowly absorbing new things (and hoping they stick) is the best approach. Never dreamed I'd call Burnout 3 one of my favorite games of all-time, but it kind of worked out that way.

Absolutely. I mean, I loved Burnout 2 - it was the only racer since the original Gran Turismo that I bothered to finish 100% and replay extensively. Burnout 3 added the fantastic Road Rage mode and the refined crash mode (not as much fun as 2's but still good). But Burnout 4 falls right into the old trap of a yearly update that adds little new other than a few tweaks. I can't get excited about that kind of thing. I'm just using the BO series as an example of something that is rapidly in danger of becoming another franchise devoid of any appeal to me thanks to over-familiarity.

It's different with SRPGs - partly because of my own bias, but mainly because to me SRPGs aren't about the stories really, they're about fiddling with stats and working out systems. As long as there's a new way of doing that I'll be happily immersed. Progression through the FF Tactics story on PS1 came to a grinding halt for me while I spent 10+ hours obsessively levelling characters on the same couple of maps to Ninja or Dancer jobs, for example.

Even with traditional RPGs I'll only be interested in ones which play in an interesting way. The vast majority of them merge into a hazy whole, but my favourites are the ones that stick out for doing something different. Valkyrie Profile for it's combat system, Vagrant Story for it's deep customization. Apart from those, Final Fantasy VII is still the best 'traditional' RPG I've played, simply because almost everything since has just been a retread of the same essential ideas, only with less involving game mechanics. Kingdom Hearts? Why would I bother? RPG stories aren't compelling enough to me to be the main factor in playing. That's why I gave up on Dragon Quest VIII. The game was too simple to play and didn't offer enough in terms of character and plot to keep me hooked. I found myself completely uninvolved with the action, just wandering about, glassy-eyed. Like Marcel I sometimes feel I ought to be more interested, that it feels a pity that I'm not any more after so many years of playing.

I'm kind of wandering myself here (from the point), but I've woken up with toothache and I'm a bit groggy

why is there no delete feature

The edit feature works well enough, I think.

What the hey, let's weigh in on this. My so-called gaming days were over long ago. I'm like Mr. S -- I expect to play games here and there, but not devote as much time to them as I did in the past. And even then, due to few finances, I didn't really "game" -- it's more like I stuck to my tried-and-true series, like FF and Zelda, with smatterings in between of games that caught my attention for some reason. Heh, in my glory days of gaming, I missed the school bus because I was enraptured leveling up in FF1 and used to spend 4 hours every morning playing FF6....

Those were the days, Schala. I remember getting up at 6AM every morning to play Secret of Mana, which was a big deal for a 10-year-old who couldn't yet govern his own bed time.

My gaming days aren't over, but they certainly are ending. I find myself becoming less and less attracted to new titles, unless they're of an old school design (which is why my interest in current games lies almost exclusively in handheld titles). I also find that, more often than not, I'd rather do a quick run through an old favorite than start something new. RPGs used to be my cup of tea, and I still like them, but I find it harder to get into them and stick with them--I get exhausted just thinking of how much time it will take to complete them, and thus never do.

I've tried starting several games over the past few months, and the interest level just doesn't keep, even if the game seems promising. Instead of longwinded, story driven games, I'm starting to prefer simple pick-up-and-play games like Super Monkey Ball or Katamari Damacy. My mind is on 24/7, so I appreciate games where I can turn my mind OFF for a bit. It's kind of sad, considering I amassed quite a backlog of games during my college years, assuming I'd have the time and interest to play them after I'd graduated. I have a feeling a lot of the games I own will ultimately never be played.

The only exception to the rules is Pokémon, but I suspect that's because it appeals to my collect-them-all nature, the turn-off-your-mind simplicity of training, and minimal storyline. I can put the game down for a week (or, as has been the case, a few months) and pick it up again without missing a beat.

A big way to help gamers in their late-20s/early-30s is games that have easily accessible save systems where you can play in short bursts and quickly save/exit when life steps in and you have to step out.   

Short-term play is what lets older gamers enjoy their sparse moments of free time.  This notion has been supported by the growing popularity of MOBILE Phone games in past years, so they have already been capitalizing on this as a solution!

I think that's the biggest contribution to help ease the time-management issues that come up with CONSOLE games - since not everyone has time to explore a whole dungeon before they can get into the next town to be "rewarded" with access to a save spot.   Saving should be accessable at all times!

Also, games that have been the most multi-generational in the past (think Tetris) are the ones that are both quick-to-pick-up and also quick-to-put-down.

Wow...well I certainly play games far less than I used too. It's practically like I'm searching for a game that will rekindle the interest I had as a kid and a teenager but nothing can do it. I did finish Shadow of the Colossus which was pretty cool. But I also have a 360 that has yet to enthrall me with a single game. Oblivion is so long and so incredibly boring to me that I'm getting rid of it. I just can't get into spending 100 hours to explore a world and at the end of it all pretty much have nothing. If I spend that same amount of time on one of my personal projects I'll be much more fulfilled and pleased with how I spent my time.

I know someone said not playing games isn't a rite into maturity but I'm not so sure. There is just so much more to life as you get older that games seem increasingly like a frivolous usage of time. If the goal is to have fun with them, there are many more activities you can do with other people that are fun as well as a good investment of time. Just a thought. It seems the more I grow and change, the more games are just staying the same. I don't need to continually play the same thing for 10 or 15 years. I think what keeps me playing so far is the great memories I have of playing. With each game I try I try to rekindle the feelings I had playing games in my past and it just hasn't happened for years now. I sort of wonder if I would ever stop completely, who knows.

My gaming days started to diminish around age 25. I completed Silent Hill 2 at 25; Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance at age 27; Resident Evil 4 at age 28. Before age 25, it was game after game after game. I was like a chain smoker, except I was smokin' games.

I'll be 30 in a few months and I haven't played any video games while at age 29. I was planning to play the new Zelda game, but they keep delaying the damned thing.