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How has your gaming tastes changed over the years?

I'm less patient than I used to be. There was not enough fuel in the toy airplane in the "Supply Lines" mission from GTA: San Andreas. At least not in the initial release. Rockstar actually patched it for the "Greatest Hits" release.

I can't believe how much time I spent getting that thing perfect. Pretty sure I wouldn't bother with a thing like that now.

Other than that, I don't think much has changed. I think gaming is changing... in some ways better, in some ways worse. That's how it's always been though.

I guess I'll say that I used to enjoy PvP long, long ago (the nineties) and I give zero fucks about that, today.
 
I keep going for more and more casual experiences. I still enjoy the Souls series and the odd competitive shooter, but pretty much anything that's going to end up needing a lot of dedication, I've been passing on. While I've never disliked narrative-driven games, I've begun to really enjoy them recently, although that may have more to do with higher quality games than anything else. Bloodborne, Splatoon, Life is Strange, Until Dawn and Fallout 4 have been my favorite games this year, while something like The Witcher 3, left a sour taste in my mouth for just going on too long. The last JRPG I played to completion was Persona 4 Golden and that's mainly only because it was on a portable system so I could play it a little bit here and there to complete it, but that took me over a year from the point I started. I used to love the genre, but I just haven't liked it that much recently. I wanted to love Ni No Kuni, but I just couldn't stick with it.
 
It was pretty impossible for my tastes not to change...

I started gaming in the early 80s before some genres existed!

JRPGs hadn't been invented yet...
The FPS didn't exist...
The only fighting games were Kareteka and Karate Champ...

So I mean yeah, my tastes have been forced to evolve. (for the better I might add)
 
The majority of my time used to go towards JRPGs. I played other genres, but it was 90% JRPGs. These days I play a lot more Shooters/Western RPGs.
 
As a kid, played mostly platformers, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

pre-teens and teenager, added RPGS and racing.

As a bonafide adult, I pretty much play all genres except stuff like MOBAs and tower defense type games.

My bread and butter usually is RPGs and fighting, but I've fallen somewhat out of touch with fighting due to the amount of time needed to be able to compete and actually be good against an online opponent...just don't have hours to spend anymore like that.
 
I used to despise online gaming in general and online shooters in particular. I did a total 180 on that.
Uncharted 2 was my first competitive online experience and that got me hooked.
 
Slappers Only said:
Old days:

  • Endless summers
  • No job
  • Played games 4-6 hours per day
  • Loved a challenge in games
  • Played a ton of 60+ hour games, loved them

Now-a-days:

  • Job
  • Kid
  • Play games 1 hour a day if lucky
  • Can't be bothered by challenge
  • Exhausted all the time
  • Still get waaaay into a game every once-in-a-while
Click to expand...

Future:
  • Retirement
  • Grandkids occasionally
  • Large collection
  • Hobby with little physical requirements
  • Life well spent

Even with kids just off to college, you will start wondering where all this time/money is coming from? Just have to stick it out through your 30s.

Only thing that has really changed for me, is I am getting a little tired of Mario...I have never liked shooters for the most part. I am still all about the RPGs. I play them like my wife reads mystery novels, only I think the writing is about on the same level.
 
I used to like management games, simulators and strategy games(90's)
Then moved onto sports games(football, golf, hockey)
In the 2000s on the Xbox it was 3D platformers/adventure games.I struggled with first person shooters.
These days it's shooters(first person and third), RPG's, still sports games and arcade racers.Third person action games, 3D platformers when I can get them.
Anything really these days.
 
Back then unfortunately I did not appreciate arcade games as much. I thought they'd last forever!

I had the classic NES and Gameboy games that had a lot of genres, from platformers to adventure games like Maniac Mansion, though simplified.

After the NES I was more into PC gaming. Point and Click adventure games (pixel and FMV) , flight simulators, early FPS and sport games like isometric NBA and FIFA, platformers etc

Late 90s I got more into arcade games also through emulation and later Dreamcast.
I think I have more or less the same tastes as during that era, except that I know more about fighting games. Meaning I can beat the CPU much easier now!
 
My tastes have stayed basically the same my entire life. Around 14 or 15, I decided that the only reason I enjoyed gaming was to whip my friend's ass at anything we did, so I took up fighting games competitively. To this day, fighting games are the only genre I truly care about. I used to deeply love Bemani and rhythm games, but that genre is mostly dead.
 
I used to enjoy playing horror games as a teen. Now (early 30s) I really cant. They stress me too much and I feel uncomfortable. Guess I am getting old.
 
I didn't really play non Japanese games until PS3. Japanese devs were less prominent. Stuff like Uncharted really opened me up.

I started to play more genres. I'm not a huge indie fan but still enjoy some.

I still like rpgs but tend to play action games more and keep backlogging rpgs. :(
 
I stopped playing first-person shooters for the most part. The type of gameplay isn't as appealing as it used to be. Weird, since the likes of Doom, Quake, Half Life, and Goldeneye were staples of my younger gaming self.

I cut back heavily on RPGs and any games that take more than 20 hours to beat. I lost interest in long gaming sessions. It became harder to get engrossed in a world and dedicate myself to it for long periods of time.

I used to play racing games more often, or games with cars/vehicles in general. The original Need for Speed, Carmageddon, Motocross Madness, Stunt Race FX, GTA 1 and 2, Crazy Taxi, and even some F-Zero GX. Nowadays it's pretty much just Mario Kart. Rocket League is an anomaly though.

I can't really get into beat-em-ups anymore. Back in the day I was really into Ninja Turtles, Streets of Rage, and Two Crude Dudes.
 
I find I have less time for sprawling J/RPG's and the like, I have so many of them unfinished in my back lock. But I find the time to finish stuff like Tomb Raider (2013) and The Order: 1886 etc.

I also play stuff like Halo: MCC to get my quick gaming fix - just hop on and play a few multiplayer games.
 
Wouldn't say it has changed much at all, I've just come to terms with it.

I used to get hyped for pretty much anything big and pre-order all kinds of games but not anymore.
I know what I like now and I buy a lot less games.
 
Oh absolutely. I used to love both Mario Kart and Smash when I was younger and they were pretty much all I played but I can't really play either one for much anymore. More recently I'm not sure I like open-world games or RPGs as much as I used to since playing Life is Strange alongside Fallout 4 just made FO4 look so much worse by comparison because some 15 hour game I bought because of a sale totally focused on an interesting story and compelling characters had such a larger impact on me than my 90 hours of Fallout has ever had.
 
used to play a lot of 3D platformers, liked 2D platformers, liked shooters but didn't care if a game wasn't one. nowadays, there aren't that many 3D platformers, can barely stand 2D platformers, and i prefer shooters over most other games, I just enjoy them more.

I also really got into stealth a few years ago. In terms of JRPGs and the like, I didn't like them back then, and I still don't know--not a big fan of the Japanese style they bring in and the whole way they do RPG with a big focus on different subsystems and the like I just don't care for.

Oh, and I used to not stand RPGs at all. Nowadays I can get into Fallout or Skyrim or a handful of other more recent WRPGs that focus on accessability.
 
I've always been open to playing everything, that being said I've dropped off from playing RTS's for the past 5 years or more because there's barely anything decent coming out. They used to be my go-to genre of games.
 
I used to be JRPG exclusively when I was younger.

Now that I'm older, I have branched out into lots of other games so long as they are quality.
 
When I was young I refused to play FPS's because I couldn't see how cool my character looked, and I also enjoyed racing games. Now I play everything except racing games, they just bore me to death.
 
Pilgrimzero said:
I think my biggest switch is I used to LOVE JRPGs, but come about PS2 era I started to fall out of them.

I will give FFX props though for making me play it nonstop. Well I slept once.

Now-a-days I find it hard to go back to my favorites. FF4 and 6, 7 and 8 and X. Chrono Trigger. I need to pick up DQ8 again someday.

I'm even trying some I haven't tried before like the DQ5 Remake. Bravely Default was great but slowly lost interest.

I don't seem to have the patience for them anymore. Like currently messing around with DQ5 and I am amazed how much it annoys me that I have to actually explore.

I guess gaming linearity has ruined me. Perhaps I need to give FF13 another try.

Oh God i can't believe I just said that.
Click to expand...

Philippo said:
More like expanded.
Till my high-school years i was mostly a JRPG guy, but during the early PS3 days there was a massive shortage of those (and i was too young to be well informed on niche titles), so i went on and tried many Western titles where i found some amazing games (RDR, Bioshock, The Witcher etc.).
Now i play many genres, both japanese and western, and can enjoy much more titles than when i was younger.

But i'm still a JRPG guy at heart, and while i'm older i'm more than open to find time to play them, and oh boy can't wait for the next coming years.

fakeedit: oh lol looks like we're all in the same jrpg boat
Click to expand...

Very similar to my story. JRPG was my most favorite genre until last-gen, when I started primarily playing western stuff (Uncharted, RDR, Bioshock etc.). My favorite RPG series last-gen was Mass Effect - the first time a WRPG would take that spot for me after having given many of them a chance since my youth (maybe because it's not a generic, Tolkien-inspired and open-world/sandbox WRPG like Elder Scrolls/Skyrim, Gothic & Co.).

The only JRPGs I played last-gen were probably the FFXIII-saga (had an absolute blast with LR!), Lost Odyssey and The Last Story. I've just been "growing out" of the typical JRPG Anime-aesthetics and -writing and can only shake my head at most of the stuff coming out in the recent years (Vita's library... Jesus). At the beginning I didn't want to admit to myself that I fell out of love, though. I still followed the news about upcoming JRPGs, but after a while I just noticed a growing disconnect more and more.

My biggest gripe besides the aesthetics and the often bad writing is the time-factor. I just can't bring myself to spend 60+ hours on a game these days, especially with half of the time consisting of repetetive, boring and mindless battles, during which I can easily look away from the screen most of the time. Makes me feel stressed out and like I'm wasting my time. I don't like long games anymore in general, though. Hearing things like "played 80 hours of Xenoblade X and haven't even finished half of it" feels more like a threat to me. A few months ago I started playing The Last Remnant on PC. I quickly realized that battles were my least favorite part and I used cheats for the first time in my life in a JRPG to just skip through them and finish the story in a few hours. That experience just further cemented my feelings and now I accept that I will probably only ever play the A-listers of the genre in the future, if any at all (mainline FF and maybe DQ and Persona). As a huge FF fan the next few years are looking absolutly spectacular if everything works out for SE this gen.


tl;dr: Fell out of love JRPGs in the recent years and don't have the patience for long games anymore.
 
My tastes haven't changed that much. I still enjoy action/adventure games and action adventure-y RPGs, preferrably as little Japanese-y as possible (read: with as little anime tropes and stupid fanservice as possible, which means I avoid most jRPGs like the plague) with the a few platformers and rhythm games here and there. I also enjoy a good shooter, especially if it has an entertaining plot like BioShock/2.

What changed the most was my approach to gaming. For stance: I don't see myself buying any future new consoles or handhelds. PC is more than enough for me and I am not paying more than $30 for a game, with very few exceptions (Souls games, for starters). There is little reason to buy an expensive system like the PS4 (and I say this as someone who really wants to play Bloodborne) and I don't trust Nintendo enough to give them my money anymore.
 
I always have played a vast majority of titles except rpg and Jrpg games. Now i see myself playing more and more rpg's and the witcher 3 is my favorite game this gem besides Mabey titanfall. I still don't play Jrpg's but I would like to start so if anyone has some suggestions on ps4 or Xbox one(jk) I would be glad to hear some.
 
Nintendo games are so focused on 'fun' and basically are as mind-numbingly bland to me as watching kids cartoons. Can't stand the idea of spending money on another Mario game or Kirby or Donkey Kong. It's just so light and mild. Like they wouldn't even compete in the Best Animated Film category if Nintendo were a film studio. They do nothing for my thoughts or emotions as they are bland puzzles simply rehashing old formulas, except maybe Zelda.
 
I don't like FPS games anymore, but I think that's more attributable the the genre changing then my tastes changing.
 
RPGs and Point and click Adventure games replaced RTS and Local Multiplayer, haven't played an RTS since shogun 2, and had years without playing one when that one came out. Only regularly now I play games like Smash brothers, but only if there are people around, never by myself.

Now I actually play games for the story more than when I was younger because years ago I wasn't an English speaker.
 
Kinda done with FPS, quite the bore now. Shooter wise 3rd person is my jam.

I'm now heavy into fighting games, grew up with them but the passion and skill has only just hit me in the last 3 years ish.
 
It hasn't. When I was 6, I liked Zelda, Metroid, and Dragon Warrior on NES. Those types of games are still my favorite kind of games today.

RPGs have been my favorite genre since Final Fantasy 2 on SNES.
 
The genres I like really haven't changed that much except that I don't play sports games or fighting games. Basically, I still like the same types of games I liked as a teenager but I am more selective about which ones I play.
 
I am a fan of pretty much every game but some genres have just become less enjoyable to me.

I was/am a huge Final Fanasy fan but 2 things have turned me from the series and RPGs in general. Final Fantasy XII just didn't pull me in and I have yet to go back and finish it. Now that I am married and have a son time is very limited so I gravitate towards short games where I can put in maybe 10 to 12 hours for the story and move on.
 
I guess two things, I play a whole bunch of games nowadays than before, and I play way more japanese games than western games than I did a while ago.

I didn't play much games a few years ago, and if I did it'd be some shooter on my 360 or a quick run through a nintendo game, nothing too involved like an rpg. Nowadays I find myself a lot more lost in larger games, and spending lot more time into them.
 
My favorite genre has always been stealth since very early on. MGS/Tenchu/Syphon Filter then later on Splinter Cell. That has remained the same throughout the years.

Though back when GTA3 came out it just blew everything away for me. Any idea for a game I could ever possibly imagine would be an open world game based on that premise.

Today its pretty much the opposite. I still enjoy gta(because of rockstar) but open world is just so meh for me.

My idea of great games today is 2D side scrollers. Ori/Guacameele/Limbo/Braid and games along those lines make me feel like I did when I was younger and I was just discovering gaming.
 
I've become a lot more forgiving towards games. I'm older, I'm back in school, I'm extremely busy. Sometimes I'm grateful to have the time to just play ANYTHING. I used to criticize games for everything that they are not, now I appreciate many for everything that they are.
 
I cannot put up anymore with crappy writing in general and uninspired stories so I just value gameplay mechanics and the atmosphere nowadays. I was surprised one the few games where I actually liked the story was a puzzle game (The Talos Principle) instead of the many "cinematic" AAA games.
 
Basically my tastes didn't change that much.
Started gaming in the early 90s and literally played anything i could get my hands on. I used to enjoy LucasArts and Sierra adventures. Nowadays, there are (IMHO) not that many adventures that can even get close to the excitement and joy I had with those games.

For some time I only played MMORPGS (DAoC mostly) and before that mostly FPS.
Now I mostly go for single player only titles - but still wide spread over all genres.
 
I used to almost exclusively play sports games on console and FPS on PC growing up. I'm a PC gamer at the core and the first console I purchased myself was the PS2 (we had an NES and N64 in my house growing up).


Now that I'm in my early 30's, I barely play sports games (buy NHL and NBA each year and play them for a few weeks), and I play a ton of Western RPGs. I love a good story and RPG progression nowadays. My first RPG game every was Oblivion, which I totally took a chance on because I really had no interest in RPGs before that. Since then its been my main genre (Bethesda games, Witcher series).

Still love me some FPS though.
 
More disposable income, less time and patience for experiences I won't enjoy. I buy very few games at full price near release (none so far in 2015, I think? One or two in 2014.)

Multiplayer modes, especially quick sessions, are far more important to me. I still enjoy a good single player experience, but if I can knock out a quick 15 minute session in a multiplayer game and enjoy it, that goes a long way.

I don't really have any taste for hyper violent games, especially in realistic settings. I tend to find them in poor taste, when 10 years ago I wouldn't have given it a second thought. There are some exceptions, but overall they don't appeal to me.
 
I used to be big on platformers, adventure games, and fighting games... and I still am, lol. I used to dislike turned-based RPGs when I was younger (I had a stupid, rigid bias against anything that wasn't real-time -- I was an idiot).

The biggest change is the amount of time I can sink into the hobby (very little) which often determines the types of games I enjoy. Nowadays, my gaming time is pretty much restricted to certain games that I play primarily for the joy of mastery and competition (Smash, Splatoon, Bloodborne, Rocket League) and smaller games that are interesting either mechanically or narratively (just got into The Swapper, for example). Oh, and platformers, always platformers (preferably played co-op with my girl :)

Modern AAA games leave me mostly cold. I don't find the stories they tell interesting, and they're just too time-sinky for me at this stage of my life. For the most part, I don't feel like I'm missing much.
 
I find the past few years I've really gotten out of playing new games. I thought I was done with gaming but it turns out I just don't like modern games anymore.

There are exceptions of course. This year I really enjoyed bloodborne, witcher 3 and transformers devastation and I have xenoblade cX waiting for me.

I grew up without giving 2 shits about Nintendo. I was a PC gamer my whole life. I never played any Nintendo games other then smash/mario kart with friends. Now I'm a huge Nintendo fanboy.

I'm having a blast playing through all of the "classics" I missed over the years and it's really re kindled my love of gaming.
 
I think the only real difference is: I don't get swept up in whatever's popular anymore. Probably all the way through high school I spent too much money on whatever the Big Game was that month, regardless of my level of enthusiasm for it. I don't think it was conscious on my part but I think I sorta thought "well, this is a game I should play" - the same way you might see a movie because everyone is talking about it, or listen to an album because if you know music, you should know this album.

I don't care about that anymore. I'm perfectly content skipping huge games if they don't sound interesting to me.
 
I play a lot less rpgs in general. I constantly psyche myself out on thinking i dont have the time, and the handful of times where i decided to play one anyways i always wind up getting distracted halfway through. its weird because i know i have the time because there will be times where i spend a month going through an entire series of games, but i guess i get antsy sticking with one specific game for too long.

I liked collectathon 3d platformers over games like crash bandicoot as a kid, but i prefer linear obstacle course focused ones now.

in the ps2 era i thought i hated dmc-style action games. i just thought they were all depthless button mashy repetitive games, probably because i played a mediocre game that was depthless and button mashy. i think around when bayonetta came out was when the switch flipped and i realized these types of games were fun.
 
Horror was probably one of, if not my my favorite game genre from when I started playing. Around the time first person horror titles started to become 80% of the released games and a string of disappointments from other major genre series I started to lose interest. I still love the genre and find games I like here and there but I'm not in a huge rush to play every title I come across like I used to.
 
I still love RPGs, I just find it hard to justify giving them the time they require. It also didn't help that the quality of RPGs dipped so dramatically last gen.
 
I like shorter experiences now moreso, usually plot driven exploration focused indie types. I love the spectacle of AAA but don't have the patience to wade through most campaigns unless they have truly fantastic world building and/or story. Was surprised I had the energy for the amount of hours I put into W3, ditto for GTAV, then realized it was due to all the care put into the worlds. MGSV being an exception cause of just how fantastic it played and how satisfying the gameplay loop was, but that one is certainly an outlier.
 
I used to play a lot of racers back in the PS1/PS2 days like Gran Turismo, Ridge Racer, Wipeout, Destruction Derby etc.

Not sure why I stopped to be honest
 
My gaming tastes have more or less expanded, I used to be extremely impatient and blew through games really fast with little to no regard for side content, now that I'm a little older I can appreciate more of the extra things in games I guess, and I used to hate rhythm games (because I always felt terribad when I tried playing Guitar Hero and the like) until I played Taiko for the first time, now I've gotten into the Project Diva series and I really appreciate rhythm games now.
 
Ferrio said:
Xenoblade X (which I'm enjoying a lot) has shown me that I can't take that cliche JRPG dialogue/story anymore, it's like nails on chalkboard. This stuff has always been pretty vapid to me, but I was able to tolerate it in my younger years. Now I'm skipping cutscenes like crazy.
Click to expand...
Whenever Tatsu opens his fucking mouth, the cutscene is officially over for me. I don't care if I miss the important second part of it, the mission screen will have a summary anyway.

Absolutely intolerable.
 
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