Original screenshot by Berduu

In light of recent talk about No Man’s Sky and people seeking refunds after 50+ hours of playtime, I’ve been wondering: have you ever spent way too long with a game that just wasn’t for you?




It’s definitely not an isolated phenomenon. I see it a lot on Steam, with people giving negative reviews to games they’ve played for hundreds of hours. Heck, a guy even made a Google Chrome extension that changes those people’s review text to “I do not know what I want.”

Of course, it’s not always so simple. This God-Damned, Mother-Definitely-Not-Approved year of 2016 is a tumultuous one, and games are no longer static creations. They change over time, not always for the better. There are sometimes very good reasons to suddenly despise the former object of your affection. And in video games, too!


I’ve been trying to think of games, though, that it took me time to realize I disliked. It wasn’t that they changed; I did. In terms of recent games, I’d say Fallout 4 fits the bill. I played for around 40 hours before realizing it was never gonna morph into the Fallout: New Vegas-like game I wanted it to be. Haven’t really looked back since. I had a similar experience with Zeno Clash 2 relative to Zeno Clash 1, except I beat Zeno Clash 2 and then felt empty inside. I also got hooked on Clicker Heroes for a while, and now I despise all clicker games with a passion. In hindsight, it was all so tedious. I never need to have that experience again.

I’ve also spent way too much time with Pokemon Go, which I recognize is a very poorly designed game. I’m not sure if I hate it (yet), but I don’t think I really love it anymore either.

By and large, though, I don’t think I spend much time with games I’m likely to dislike these days. Thinking back on it, it’s something I did a little more as a kid, if only because my options were more limited, I had time on my hands, and my tastes weren’t exactly discerning. Like, I remember playing a Bubsy game on Super Nintendo, and I don’t think I liked it, but that didn’t stop me from keeping at it for days and days. And oh man, has anybody else played Radical Rex, also for the SNES? That game was a mountain of skateboarding dinosaur doo-doo, and you’d better believe I played it on and off for two years as a kid. Now I’m a lonely, emotionally-stunted adult, and I think the reason why is pretty clear.

But OK, enough about me. What games have you played for hours, days, weeks, months, years, or eons, only to realize that you kinda hated them?