As many others here, I have accumulated a bit of a "backlog" over the years, consisting of games that were cheap to pick up on sale, games that I have/had general interest in, or new game releases. Whenever a new game came out, I felt kind of urged to play the new game, drop everything else, and quite often end up not picking up the "abandoned" games again.
Sometime last year, when money was a bit tight, I just started playing games I already had instead of worrying about keeping up with new game releases, and it's been really liberating. I finished Mass Effect 1-3 over a combined ~100h, I platinumed Sekiro, Bloodborne, and started Dark Souls and Elden Ring, I found my love for Frostpunk and have been blasting that for the past months. I'm just having a great time overall.
I think a good help in that regard was a comment I read on the rexxit equivalent of this community where they proposed to see games as countries and giving them a shot is like coming there to visit: visiting a country is cool, but you don't have stay there indefinitely to have a good time; it's always fine to leave the country and go visit another, and not seeing everything the country has to offer does not worsen your experience there.
I don't stress about picking something back up again after having a good time with it and looking for something else to play. I don't stress about new releases (too much - Diablo 4 is currently pretty difficult to stay away from for me lol) because the game won't vanish magically if I check it out a week later, several months later, a year later. I just play whatever I feel like playing and whenever I feel like playing it. If I end up deleting something off the console - that's fine. There's always something else to play.
Not really sure what my point is, really, but felt inclined to get the ball rolling in this community. I like the idea of being a patient gamer a lot, and it's helped me enjoy games a lot more than I used to, so I wanted to contribute too and be a more active part of the "movement".
Thanks to everyone who's part of the community and who's been promoting good vibes!
I have zero stress about new releases, all the hype is lost on me.
I find that I keep returning to games because they are fun, engaging, or simply because they allow me to abstract the reality away. That is why I keep returning to Torchlight, Portal, Half-Life, Doom, Soma, Valley and so many others. They are old, the graphics are dated, but they feel like home.
I've bought Skyrim 10 years after the original release. I guess it will be a while until I buy Diablo 4 :-)
Same, new releases seem much more focused on being slot machines instead of actual games fun to play.
Do you watch any gaming-related media, like YouTube or Twitch? It's quite an accomplishment to not get sucked into the hype of a new release - it used to be for me, anyway. Recent bad game releases have made me a little more sceptical.
Comfort games are the best. You just always know you'll enjoy them - no matter what. And again, it doesn't feel bad at all to drop them on a whim if you've had your fill.
I was glued to the screen for the whole "E3 but not-E3" week we just had. Watched all the events and some analysis videos of all the trailers we saw. Still have no desire to ever spend more than $15 on a video game.
I feel that!
I tend to follow indie studios or individual developers, so I ignore most of the hype.
I agree with you regarding comfort games. If I'd pay 60€+ for a AAA game, I'd be unconsciously forcing myself to like it even if it was crap.
I really don't get hype. I do look forward to new releases but I always sit back, wait for reviews, and if they're good, add them to wishlist and then wait for a sale (I'm cheap that way).
What really boggles me is all the people who watch a trailer or similar and go HYPE HYPE HYPE, er, people, you all know this is marketing right? All that hype is just asking for disappointment later.