Changing tastes

[MrSteve]

Hey all,

I've been gaming now for about 25 years (31 now) and I've noticed that the older I've got, the more my tastes have changed from First person shooters to story based titles.

I used to be able to play the likes of Halo and love it, but now I find first persons boring after a while, and have lost most interest.

It's why I was so attracted to games like Amnesia and SOMA. They just have more substance.

Has anyone else noticed a change in their tastes, over the years? Do you think it's a thing with people getting older, the meaning of entertainment changes?

I'd love someone from Frictional to actually comment on this, as well. Would be interesting to hear their views.

[Yuhaney]

I am talking in general right now but, yes, I have noticed that the entertainment I enjoy changes based on age. I am now 25 and things I found best ever when I was 19-21 no longer give me anything or very little to mediocre satisfaction. I think I simply grew out of it and therefore it no longer gives me the same vibes it used to. It's like looking yourself but this time outside the fish bowl... Sure, some things may still stay that others may find either weird or "inappropriate" for my age but still I like it. Maybe I'm just fucked up or plain weird, who knows, but at least I am not taking life too seriously anymore.

[Froge]

If you're exposed to too much of one thing, whether it's a game or a genre or any other type of media, you're going to grow bored of it. You become numb to the feelings that made you like it in the first place. Your tastes will never be constant while you're alive. Just keep trying new things and remember the ones that you enjoyed the most so that you can share them with others, but don't hold onto them as if they're the only things you like.

[GrAVit]

Back when I was a young teenager, like 6-7 years ago I guess, I was really crazy about all kinds of FPS games - downloaded all the demos and played anything I could find. Then I learned about Counter Strike and got hooked on that for a while. I also played a lot of Doom deathmatch with friends and made multiplayer maps for it and stuff like that, back when we always hanged around on quakenet IRC, good times. Then I got into Half Life 2 and that might've been my first experience with horror, Ravenholm got me good back then. Played a lot of multiplayer mods including Garry's Mod at the time. Then got into Modern Warfare 2 in like 2010.

I actually jumped on the Amnesia bandwagon sometime in early 2011 I think, after my friend recommended it to me, and I took it sort of as a challenge to see how scary it could possibly be.
I hadn't had much experience in horror games until that point, so naturally, I was scared shitless. I remember pausing the game every 10 seconds or something in the Archives just because of all the atmospheric noises. lol
I loved every second of it though. After I finished it, I couldn't get enough, fear was like a drug for me or something, so I played like every custom story that was available at the time on ModDB. After that I also played the Penumbra series and loved it too.

Then I got into League of Legends in late 2012, played that for a couple years, then got into music rhythm games like osu! since I thought they would be nice to play at the same time to improve my dexterity in League. Eventually I kind of abandoned League though and became a full-time osu! player at around midway through 2014 because it's just too much fun, and the community keeps me around as well. That was also the time I got into stuff like anime and reading visual novels, been mainly doing that ever since. lol

O and sorry for the long post~, though I guess it's nice to sometimes revise your past

[CarnivorousJelly]

Gravit! Try out Crypt of the Necrodancer; it's great think rogue-lite, rhythm game that somehow makes all that work brilliantly together. Not to mention you can add your own music instead of the OST (the OST's brilliant too, though).

On topic: I found my taste actually hasn't changed that much over the years. It's matured, but it hasn't really switched genres. My fondest memories of childhood gaming involve kicking my dad's butt at MarioKart - and I still enjoy that game more than anything else.

The biggest difference I noticed is that I've become more picky about my games. As a kid, even the games in the bottom of cereal boxes seemed incredible. Some examples of games I played/owned:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (GBA), MarioKart Double Dash, Deer Hunting (PC, 2001-ish), Bass Fishing Pro (PC, 2001-ish), Nintendogs (DS), Horsez (Wii), Luigi's Mansion (GC), SIMS (PC, original release), and Supermario Sunshine (GC)

Then there was a weird middle phase where I played F2P mmorpgs, Aion Online, Fiesta, Dragons' Nest, etc..

And now we're at: Spec Ops, Amnesia, SOMA, Mario Kart (Double Dash is still the best and I will fight you on that), Crypt of the NecroDancer, Bastion, Transistor, Dark Souls, Bioshock (whole series), System Shock, One Way Heroics, Tetris... (who doesn't play Tetris?)

If anything, the concentration of narrative focussed games has increased a ton and my less "deep-thought" games are much more bite-size when it comes to the time commitment per play session. Definitely more conscious about the quality of games I'm playing now though.

[GrAVit]

Gravit! Try out Crypt of the Necrodancer; it's great think rogue-lite, rhythm game that somehow makes all that work brilliantly together. Not to mention you can add your own music instead of the OST (the OST's brilliant too, though).

I actually have it on Steam, haven't had time to try it out yet but it certainly seems fun, and I'm also into roguelikes and used to play those a lot like DoomRL back in 2012/2013. lol

And yeah I also had that period where I was into mmorpgs like RuneScape and later WoW, don't really play those anymore though, might wanna revisit them some day.

[MrSteve]

Gravit! Try out Crypt of the Necrodancer; it's great think rogue-lite, rhythm game that somehow makes all that work brilliantly together. Not to mention you can add your own music instead of the OST (the OST's brilliant too, though).

On topic: I found my taste actually hasn't changed that much over the years. It's matured, but it hasn't really switched genres. My fondest memories of childhood gaming involve kicking my dad's butt at MarioKart - and I still enjoy that game more than anything else.

The biggest difference I noticed is that I've become more picky about my games. As a kid, even the games in the bottom of cereal boxes seemed incredible. Some examples of games I played/owned:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (GBA), MarioKart Double Dash, Deer Hunting (PC, 2001-ish), Bass Fishing Pro (PC, 2001-ish), Nintendogs (DS), Horsez (Wii), Luigi's Mansion (GC), SIMS (PC, original release), and Supermario Sunshine (GC)

Then there was a weird middle phase where I played F2P mmorpgs, Aion Online, Fiesta, Dragons' Nest, etc..

And now we're at: Spec Ops, Amnesia, SOMA, Mario Kart (Double Dash is still the best and I will fight you on that), Crypt of the NecroDancer, Bastion, Transistor, Dark Souls, Bioshock (whole series), System Shock, One Way Heroics, Tetris... (who doesn't play Tetris?)

If anything, the concentration of narrative focussed games has increased a ton and my less "deep-thought" games are much more bite-size when it comes to the time commitment per play session. Definitely more conscious about the quality of games I'm playing now though.

Some great games listed there

I wanted to try Necrodancer, so thanks for the recommendation.

I've also noticed lately, that I'm actually preferring the story or game to drive me in a direction. The thought of a massive open world just comes across as exhausting now. I know it may sound lazy, but it's like I enjoy being told a story, not having to write it yourself

[CarnivorousJelly]

I find the issue with open-worlds is they have trouble creating that same sense of urgency in their narrative. Take Skyrim for example: you're supposed to be fighting off some kind of dragon apocalypse, but there's no consequence for spending 100 hours in the starting town stealing some old man's breadsticks. It's hard to feel immersed in the story (the part that we are actually interest).