Have you stopped being a hardcore gamer?

[JEDI]

I used to play Total Annihilation/Doom/Age of Empires II/Diablo II/Civ III/Serious Sam for 40hrs a week. This was on top of working 50+ hrs/week.

then i stopped. i never got into the expansion packs (except for TA), nor the sequels like AOE III/Civ IV/SS 2.

it's just the same things over and over again.

Ironically, i was happier back then when i was making less, had less time, and had no $. LINK My post should be on the 1st page.

Anyway, i've been out of the gaming arena for 2yrs now. but looks like i'll be back next year when Supreme Commander is released.

If you were hardcore and quit, WHY?

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: JEDI
If you were hardcore and quit, WHY?

Wife, kids, life

 

[pontifex]

im not sure. i don't think i play as much as i used to.

sometimes it just gets boring, especially since most games lately have been crap.

 

[tfinch2]

Yeah, I stopped. Why did I quit? Cause I have a life now.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Wife and kids and other more worthwhile hobbies.

I'll pick it up again when the kids get older and don't want to spend any time around me, but, for now, everything takes a backseat to spending time with them.

 

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: JEDI
I used to play Total Annihilation/Doom/Age of Empires II/Diablo II/Civ III/Serious Sam for 40hrs a week. This was on top of working 50+ hrs/week.

then i stopped. i never got into the expansion packs (except for TA), nor the sequels like AOE III/Civ IV/SS 2.

it's just the same things over and over again.

Ironically, i was happier back then when i was making less, had less time, and had no $. LINK My post should be on the 1st page.

Anyway, i've been out of the gaming arena for 2yrs now. but looks like i'll be back next year when Supreme Commander is released.

If you were hardcore and quit, WHY?

Largely due to my family. I have two kids now and they take a good portion of my free time.

I still play games, but I normally set the difficultly to medium or low and finish as quickly as I can since my available time is much more restricted.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I am no longer a hardcore gamer because I find myself doing other things a lot. Also, I decided after quitting WoW that I didn't want to be a hardcore gamer.

That being said Total Annihilation frickin ROCKED the house.
I too am looking forward to Supreme Commander.
Have you played TA: Spring?

 

[xanis]

Mainly because I got a life and started being more outgoing. I hang out with friends pretty much every Friday and Saturday nights, and I just don't feel a need to hardcore game for entertainment. Also, I don't think I've seen a game in LONG time that has interested me enough to get to buy and play it.

 

[Czar]

work, girlfriend and only a few games are interesting anymore

 

[krunchykrome]

I stopped being a hardcore gamer when Mortal Kombat 4 came out.

 

[MaxDepth]

Yes. Other hobbies required my hands be elsewhere.

 

[SirChadwick]

Originally posted by: krunchykrome
I stopped being a hardcore gamer when Mortal Kombat 4 came out.

Same here. The crazy 3d rendering stuff just got out of control and took away from the fun of the game. MKII is still my fav of the series. I'm still curious as to what the new one will be like on the Wii. MK owns about 5 years of my life.

 

[sourceninja]

I finally stopped pretending to be who I wanted to be, and went out and became that man.

 

[ElFenix]

wtf does 'hardcore gamer' mean? that i refer to gamecubes, DSes, and wiies as 'kiddie'? that i ignore fun games that don't have a minimum level of violence, blood, and gore? if i play madden all the time, am i not hardcore?

 

[jhayx7]

I was a hardcore gamer as well. It all started with Action Quake 2, our clan was #1 on the ladder rankings, moved out of the house and started life on my own but was still into gaming pretty hardcore.

We would have LAN parties, and a "guys night" every Tuesday. Then something happend with our entire group, each time we got together it was kinda boring, no great games, nobody could decide on what to play etc...

Now I only have a PS2 and play FFX, I sold my gaming rig and purchased a MacBook. I see games out there that are fun (esp. COD, that was the last game we played alot) and I miss getting together with the guys, playing, talking smack..

 

[Electric Amish]

I still play as much as I ever have. I never played huge amounts compared to others.

I still play an hour or two on Mondays and Wednesdays. I play a lot (3-4 hours at least) on Friday-night, Saturday and Sundays.

 

[Danman]

I used to run my own CS clan and local server. Played more than 50 hours a week and was in CAL.

Then, all of a sudden, I started dating, got a real job, and other grown-up activities. For the past few years, I rarely ever even touched a game. I've only started playing every now and then in the past few months since I have more time. Yet, I really only like "fun" games that I can enjoy with a group of people. That's why I bought a Wii.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Game quality. Nothing is new and interesting anymore. Newer games just aren't fun, and that's devastating when you're spending $40-$50 a pop on a highly anticipated game only to have it be very disappointing.

I was really looking to Dark Messiah. It turned out to be too short, too many dark dungeons for my taste, horrible ending, and in the end it got too easy because the end weapons are so powerful. Kept me occupied for three days. I want my money back. There's no replay value.

 

[moshquerade]

I don't know that I was hardcore, but I was overdoing it, and I realized it so I just up and stopped.
I don't play video games at all anymore. nada.

 

[Aftermath]

Life, wife, kid. (In that order.)

I also agree that the games seem to be crap anymore. Maybe my standards are getting too high. Something like HL2, sure it's a great first person shooter, but I don't seriously consider it innovative. Compared to so many other things in life, it's still sitting in front of my computer running around with the keyboard and mouse shooting and zombies or aliens or alien zombies for the umpteen trillionth time since Doom. And I'm getting a little tired of dumping out hundreds of dollars in upgrades to try to keep up because each sequal in every franchise is powered by the hype of its even more bloated and ungodly graphics engine that requires even more computing power just to make it prettier than the last version.

 

[txrandom]

In the hopes to focus more on school, social life, and getting a girlfriend, everything has stayed about the same though!

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: JEDI
If you were hardcore and quit, WHY?

Wife, kids, life

As time has gone on:

____________|_Gaming hours/wk
Single_______|_____30+
Dating_______|_____25
Married______|_____20
Kid 1________|_____5-10
New house___|_____3-5
Kid 2 on the way|___TBD

 

[punjabiplaya]

After quitting WoW (2-6hrs a day), I noticed my grades go up. After getting the internship I'm at now (Radiation Physics at the nation's top cancer institute) I realized there are much more important things in life than games. I still manage to play about 1-3 hrs a night if I play at all.
Also, game quality has been severly lacking. It's sad that at LANs, we resort to playing older games because they were so much fun instead of the newer games, which boast awesome graphics - and that's it.
Although, FFXII is eating away a lot of time now (godly game). It's nice to still see a game that focuses on innovative gameplay and a really involving plot rather than pretty graphics and breast physics.

 

[Rogueverve]

it stopped being a hobby and became a habit. soon as that happened I got so angry at myself for just sitting there and playing that I've quit pretty much altogether.

 

[astrosfan90]

I find the comments along the lines of "I got a life" interesting. I frequently spend my weekends hanging out (yes, in real life) with members of my WoW guild and partying with them. This weekend I'm flying down to Texas to meet up with a bunch of them and party it up, which means a keg, going out to bars, etc.

The two aren't always contradictory. In any case, I've stopped being as hardcore as I used to be--there was a time when I would play 8 hours a day on top of my full-time job, but it was just plain unhealthy. At the time though I was coming out of a long, very serious relationship that didn't end the way I wanted it to, so I retreated into the game for a while. Now I'd say I probably play 2-3 hours a night when I'm not going out for happy hours or other events, and on weekends probably 4-5 hours a day, again, when I'm not going out with friends, going to sporting events, or otherwise running errands. In total I'd estimate I game 15-20 hours a week on most weeks.