Have your gaming tastes changed over time?

Yeah, my reflexes suck now and my eyes can't follow fast-paced gameplay, so anything real-time or a kaleidoscope of colors is a no-go for me.

In the 80s and 90s. I would have killed to have a game that had 80+ hours of content. Dagger fall was the closest to that I ever got.

Now a days. If someone tells me a game take 100+ hours to beat - let alone 100% it. I'm definitely not playing it.

When I was younger it was hard mode all the way! I could save and load and die again for weeks.

Now. I play for the story. If that gets to boring. I'll turn it up to normal or hard. Game won't let me do that mid game? Guess I'm not finishing it then.

All games were playable. No matter how bad.

Now. I won't even play AAA games until the been out for 6 months and had all the bugs fixed and at least 100 mods made.

Online play was free.

Don't have the dedication to play online. I'm never available at the same time. And I don't want to make 'friends' with random people online. Let alone cooperative with them.

All games costed money.

Most games can be acquired for single player offline mode without money.

I used to be into rpgs and fps games. But now I crave games where I can mindlessly play while listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Rogue games like binding of isaac, gungeon, children of morta, ect.

More, they stopped in time. Late 30s and zero interest in the "new hot thing", fancy graphics, etc.

I've moved away from caring about the story and just want things that are fun to play. I used to like Final Fantasy, for example, just for the story (because the gameplay kinda sucks) but as I get older I find the stories kinda cringe. Even the shit I loved growing up is mostly awful.

I've always gone through games and genres as phases, and what I'm playing has always reflected something about the amount of time/energy I have for games. I used to play a lot of souls games, but played them so much that the charm is completely gone for me now. They're intense and require a lot of focus, focus I used to have a lot more of when I wasn't working so much. As a teen I played a lot of multiplayer shooters like COD or Battlefield, then during college I was playing CSGO, later on I even dabbled in valorant. But, again, I don't have time for that anymore. If you can't grind and practice for hours every day, you fall behind and can't compete, so I play a lot more singleplayer stuff now, like Ace Attorney, Baldur's Gate 3, Genshin Impact, stuff like that.

Biggest change is having no patience for anything that feels like busywork for the sake of busywork. If I have to walk from A to B, and it's not an enjoyable experience in of itself, then I usually just quit the game, start something else, typically a rogue like, and play that.

I could not get past the second boss (I think) in the Demon Souls remake. The huge guy with a even bigger shield. That you have to get to on some long bridge with a dragon flying over. Struggling with a boss is so much fun. So, you had fun with the fight that lasted 2 minutes, even though you died? How about you spend 10 minutes every time you want to give that another go? The feeling of achievement and "high stakes" is strengthened by having you engage in tedium if you fail. Uninstalled the game after the second attempt.

Loaded post incoming:

My tastes I think have "adjusted" with my age.

Always have had a thing for "tactics" games, was mostly into shooters (1st and 3rd person), jrpgs and strategy games.

I have moved onto liking but being terrible at metrovanias ( thoroughly enjoyed Ori and the Blind Forest) and Hollow Knight ( some gamer pstd inducing platforming for me that is horrible at it but otherwise is a great game)

I feel I enjoy more lore heavy or story focused games which push heavily into DnD type games like Pathfinder, Pillars, Baldur's Gate, Planetscape Torment, etc

It was Undertale that really helped pin down what I enjoy about gaming. I have always enjoyed a good roleplay like joys and freedom of Fallout 2 for example.

It was only untiI was confronted with the thought that I might have made a mistake buying Undertale and judging it on graphics but then, pleasantly, being proven wrong; did I really realise the value of good game comes not from graphics alone, but how well it can express and execute the core of what it is trying to do in a way that I feel respects who I am as a player

That is incredibly broad, but I suppose if I had to try condensing it into something shorter :

"Is this game fun, engaging and/or can I see a passion in what I am playing"

I go through phases all the time, back and forth into and out of FPS/RPG/Rogue likes... But the main change since I was younger is I used to have real patience for strategy and MMO games and these days I just don't have the time.

Less patience for turn based games. I used to love the old school turn based RPGs, Bard's Tale, the SSI Gold Boxes, Wasteland, Neuromancer. Even newer stuff like enabling turns in the Old Republic games.

Tried the new version of Wasteland and Baldur's Gate 3 and just found them tedious.

I used to be super not into metroidvanias either, so much so just hearing it's a metroidvanias meant I wouldn't play it. then a coworker showed me Super Metroid on 3ds and absolutely loved it!

I think another one for me was picross, and picross 3d. No idea why I ended up sinking hours into a puzzle game as I'm usually not so into puzzle genre.

I also have random spurts of racing games, I go from hating them to "hay let's try how need for speed is right now"

When I was in high school and college, I enjoyed games that had a slower burn, like MMOs and JRPGs. I didn't mind grinding as long as I had friends to talk to or something interesting on in the background. I also didn't have much money to spend on games, so I was mostly F2P or using roms and emulators.

Now, I'm working full time and have a lot more responsibilities in my home life. These days I prefer games that I can jump right into and get a lot of fun/excitement out of with minimal setup or grinding, big bonus points if I can just pause or stop the game at the drop of a hat when my family needs me. I'm budgeting in an allowance for games now too, so I have access to a much wider range of games than I used to.

The primary shift for me has been away from multiplayer games, particularly competitive ones. As someone who used to play both MMOs as well as games like DotA and TF2 I find myself completely uninterested in the hustle and stress of competition these days.

I used to enjoy RPGS/JRPGS like Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy and loved games like Overwatch, but lately have loved games that are visual novels or pixel style. Stardew Valley, Turnip Boy and Coffee Talk 1 and 2 are my favs at the moment.

I'm really into adventure puzzle games now and I dont think I would have enjoyed them when I was younger