Topic: Do You Still Get Excited By New Games?

For the past couple of years, I've been buying more games on release day because I wanted to experience the feeling of playing something new along with everyone else. Back in 2017, I bought Horizon Zero Dawn, NieR: Automata and Persona 5 on day one and I was very stoked to play all those games. Got God of War in 2018, Death Stranding in 2019 (just to name a few examples) and I felt pretty excited for those games as well. But when 2020 came around and games like Final Fantasy VII Remake, Persona 5 Royal and Trails of Cold Steel IV came out, I wasn't that excited to play them. I eventually finished the later two titles but I never felt that I needed to play through them when they were still new. It's the same thing when I pre-ordered Metroid Dread this week. Played it for a bit on Friday and then I went back to play other games instead.

I don't know if it's the games that don't excite me or that playing something new doesn't feel exciting anymore. Because series like Persona and Trails should make me excited since they are some of my favourite franchises. And I do know that I can still get excited to play certain games, such as Steins;Gate or Mass Effect. Maybe I'm just becoming desensitised to video games after having played so many of them, lol.

Are you the same as me or do you still get excited by new games?

When Breath of the Wild was released in 2017, I was more excited for that than any game I can remember. And, frankly, I'm more excited for Shin Megami Tensei V than I was for BotW.

In general, I'm more actively invested in the medium now than I ever was at any point in the past. Which isn't totally a good thing: like, I've spent more on gaming this year than at any point I can remember because of the sheer number of releases I've been interested in. Too much, honestly. I'll probably be restricting myself to five games or less next year to help even out the impact of my buying spree this year. Also, being an adult, I simply don't have as much free time to enjoy games as when I was a kid.

But, for the moment, times are good for me.

I haven't had nearly as much time to play games for the last few years due to college but I definitely don't have as much launch hype as I used to. I look forward to some games, I got Half Life Alyx, Psychonauts 2, Yakuza Like a Dragon, and Lost Judgment day 1. But those are existing franchises, 2 of which had not gotten sequels in over a decade. Not every game launches like Cyberpunk 2077, but it's not lost on me publishers have gotten increasingly prone to release it in beta. I also have seen a trend towards big install sizes. This consolidates what games I play. I installed Horizon Zero Dawn recently, but uninstalled it to get SSD space back. I'll install it again later, and I might put a big 2.5" hard drive in my desktop sometime soonish. But for the time being I can't justify installing 50+ GB for a game I won't be finishing anytime soon. I liked Horizon Zero Dawn and definitely believe it was worth buying, but I'll get to it once I finish games I am further into.

I don’t often get that excited anymore. Even Metroid which I got I’ve just been too busy to really play it. Honestly so swamped that I can’t appreciate these things and i’ll play a couple games of NBA instead. Should really make a little progress at a time.

It’s a fair question, because we all go through different phases of life. Furthermore, the games industry has evolved as well and isn’t the same landscape that was present even 5 years ago.

For example, one aspect that affects release hype is that there is a gradual increase year-by-year of the cumulative global gaming library. The number of good games now far exceeds the time to play them. This is especially true when considering every console, both legacy PlayStation ones and the other options like Xbox, Nintendo, and PC. Even when I try to limit to just the PlayStation ecosystem, it is an embarrassment of riches when you consider what games we have access to.

So one of the side effects of having so many options is that new releases over time become less critical to adopt day 1. The universal backlog, so to speak, dampens the potential hype for something new. Each new game has to do something so outrageous to attract as much attention as games used to.

Of course this phenomenon is countered by the general increase in the popularity of gaming in the last 10-15 years. I’m not sure if the growth of the gaming market is proportional to the increase of number of games, but I think the fact that the companies make lots of profit would suggest yes.

On a personal level, as I grow further into the adulthood phase of life, conflicting priorities do get in the way, as others have said. So I simply have less discretionary time than when I was a youth. In the grand irony of life, I’ve reached a juncture where I have more extra funds to buy games but less time to play them. That coupled with the issue above about larger numbers of games available combines to create the resultant backlog I carry around my neck like an albatross.

So, with all this said, it would make sense that I don’t have as much excitement for new releases as I used to. Nevertheless, I find myself still getting hyped for new announcements and the companies do a good job marketing them usually. Plus I get excited to see the new technology and what can be accomplished with the newer hardware. Still, despite my excitement and my better financial situation, I find myself buying fewer games on day 1. I think I only got 2 or 3 this last year at release. Usually I would have preordered at least 5 or 6.

@Th3solution You bring up a lot of interesting points. I was actually thinking about the "cumulative global gaming library" aspect a couple of days ago, i.e. that as more time passes by, the more time-consuming it will get to play all games that have come out. Not to say that you would want to play every single game in existence, but you will have a much harder time playing everything you want to play the longer you wait since new games are continuously released. Imagine if we were living in the early 90s, video games were still a relatively new thing back then and not many had come out. Let's say the beginning of video games was with the NES just to simplify things, you would have had only 4-5 years of games to catch up to at the time. Fast forward to 2021 and now you have roughly 35 years of games to catch up to. If a person is born today and starts playing video games when they are 20 years old, then they would have over 50 years of gaming to catch up to. So I do agree that the more games that are out there and that you play, the less of an impact each new release is going to have.

Kind of a long explanation for what I basically said in my first post regarding being desensisited to games due to having played so many, lol. But I think it's interesting to further analyse these things.

Another interesting point you bring up is being excited for announcements rather than the actual games. Whenever a company announces a new game, I'll get rather excited for it but I know that I don't want to actually buy it when it comes out. Once again, there are just so many games to play and none of the new releases feel like they should get priority over the ones I'm currently playing because they are just more of the same games that will be added to my future backlog. At that point I'd rather just wait for the games to go down in price and then buy them. But yeah, right now for me it's always way more exciting to discuss announcements.

@LtSarge What you say is so true in my personal experience — I get hyped by announcements, but lately ‘when push comes to shove’ and it’s time to buy the game, I end up just waiting since I’ve got plenty of other games taking my time. Kena was the most recent victim of this phenomenon. I was (and am) really excited to play the game and it’s well received by critics and fans, but I am knee deep in a few other games like FF7R, I have Ratchet, Miles Morales, and The Pathless sitting on the shelf untouched (just considering recent Ps5 only, not to mention oodles of PS4 games), and just couldn’t justify buying the game day 1. I hope to play it in a few months though.

The upcoming games are the same — HFW, GT7, GoWR look exciting of course, but also I feel the hype for FFXVI, Elden Ring, Forspoken, Ghostwire Tokyo, Project Eve, Spidey 2, etc, etc. but there is simply no way I can buy and play all those at release.

Within the last year I dropped everything to play Returnal within its release window, and also Ghost of Tsushima. And it did make for a special experience to be caught up in the Zeitgeist of a new game. I think it’s an experience worth having once or twice a year, just to be able to be in the collective excitement of the day 1 crowd. So I recommend finding one or two franchises that you’re really the most hyped about and try to set aside the time to experience it in the release window. There is an added layer of fun when you’re in the that group of people to be the first to play something.
But for most games, it’s better to wait and get them cheaper (and patched)

Yes. Whilst there is nothing I’m really excited for the moment. The have been 2 games this year I got really hyped about. They were Scarlett Nexus and Bridge of Spirits. I’m happy to report I really enjoyed both of them.

Back when Scarlett Nexus was only announced for Xbox I would’ve bought an Xbox to play it.

I wouldn’t consider not being hyped to be a problem. I’m still enjoying Ninja Gaiden Sigma even though it’s something I started playing out of curiosity rather than hype.

For me I have just often been wrong with what games I'm excited for. I was hyped for Breath of the Wild and found it a boring grind, I thought I'd hate Days Gone and loved it, expected Ratchet & Clank to become my favorite game of the year and it didn't, thought Hades looked just decent upon release and it's been one of my favorite discoveries this year.

So uh, hopefully you'll find something great soon in a place you might not expect?

@Kidfried That’s a good point. The misplaced hype is something I’ve seen happen with me too. If someone asked me 4-5 years ago what game I’m most excited about I might have said Cyberpunk 2077. And now it’s almost laughable and how little I even think about that game. If the PS5 version comes out at a steep discount and has multiple confirmations to be relatively bug-free, then maybe I’ll feel the hype again. But honestly, the game just doesn’t look like what I thought it was going to be when the announcements were made back in 2018, technical shortcomings aside.

Some of my favorite games the last year or two were purchased and played far after release, and in the case of Control it was given on Plus

Oh yes. There are of course different levels of hype depending on the game. There is no way I don’t get Elden Ring and GT7 day one.
There are other games I’d like but there is no rush and it could be months or even years after their release. Sometimes it’s just nice to know they are out there and you ll get around to playing them at some point especially if you favour retail discs. Nothing wrong with waiting.
I think the main point obviously as often is everyone is different and has different expectation.

@Th3solution - your comment here is very true:

"On a personal level, as I grow further into the adulthood phase of life, conflicting priorities do get in the way, as others have said. So I simply have less discretionary time than when I was a youth. "

I feel your pain, in that as adults we inevitably have more 'disposable' income for hobbies and such - but less discretionary time to allocate to said pursuits!

This is why I do not mind the occasional shorter game... Recent case-in-point Metroid Dread. I am yet to start, but understand main campaign is 7-9hrs ish. This has been hugely divisive for many, but personally I am relieved I can accomplish completion pretty quickly and then keep digging through the backlog!

Since 2015 there's only been five games where I've been so excited that I've bought them on release day.

Star Wars Battlefront
Uncharted 4
No Man's Sky
The Last of Us 2
Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Luckily enough this list was a 100% hit rate for me, loved every bit of them. Unfortunately there's nothing in development that I know of that I'd be this excited about anymore. Maybe it's mid-30s gaming blues or something.

Hyped for new games? Yeah, sure. Hyped enough to risk wrestling with a broken, unfinished mess for a couple weeks after launch, wishing I'd waited for a patch or three? That's a trickier question to answer, and one which very much depends on the individual game.

As a result, I'm playing less and less at launch. I used to have six or seven pre-orders running per year, but that's been reduced down to two or three, if I'm lucky. Not even games from my favourite franchises are a guaranteed lock any more, because my subsequent frustration and disappointment ends up outweighing any joy I might've glean from the experience (perhaps even moreso when I'm passionate about something, and want the best for it). Yeah, I know I'm writing this whilst sporting a fresh injury and yeah, give it a couple months and I'll have forgotten all about it but, on reflection, most of my gaming highlights from this year have involved coming months or even years late to certain games.

And, thinking about it now, I can count the amount of forthcoming releases I might pre-order on one hand, with strong emphasis on the word "might" there.

Still love gaming with a passionate intensity but yeah, things have certainly changed for me.

@BowTiesAreCool 4 out of your 5 were release window purchases for me too (Either day 1 pre-orders or bought within the first couple weeks). Ultimately I was disappointed in Battlefront, so much that I waited on BF II until it was given out on Plus. Also disappointed by No Man’s Sky, but not to the degree that most people were. I got 10-12 hours of enjoyment out of it until I jumped ship. …Always meant to go back since the game is like a new game at this point. But Uncharted 4 absolutely lived up to the hype for me, and FF7R got pushed down so far by other conflicts that I’m just now playing it, but so far it’s really good. I probably would have played FF7R sooner but as soon as the free PS5 upgrade was announced, I waited to start it until that was released.

@Th3solution Yeah I wish I'd have waited on FF7R. The 60FPS is a game changer for me.

not as much as i used to when i was younger plus i'm a busy girl these days i don't have as much time to game anymore, not sad about it as i do follow gaming news still and interested in a few games announced this year just not day 1 and full price lol, that would be a real waste in my situation

@RogerRoger this too, games are too much of a waste and mess to buy day one at full price anymore, just nope.

Very much this! I still get massively excited for new and upcoming games but it is EXTREMELY rare that I'll play them at release. There is always the obvious predicament of having more than enough to play as it is... but then it is so nice to play a game that has had all of its wrinkles ironed out.

I only buy ones I'm really looking forward to on release day (Kena, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 when we're all old and gray, Horizon Forbidden West, Forspoken, etc.), so I suppose the answer would still be yes. Like others have said, between just the sheer number of games to play (both new and then old from my backlog), I don't have to rely on brand new games to fill my gaming time. Also, like others, I don't have as much time as I used to, but that doesn't change whether I still get excited to play a game. Sure, maybe not quite as much as when I was younger, but I wouldn't still be gaming if the "magic" wasn't still there so to speak.