Gaming session data

[G-type | 2,482]

I was thinking about the backlog challenge, and as someone who has only beat a handful of games in my lifetime, "beating the game" is not really how I measure if I've played a game to a degree that I'm satisfied with it and can say I "got my money's worth". My backlog is more about games that I've never gotten around to playing at all, or only played 1 or 2 quick sessions with. 

How long does a typical game session last for you? How many times per week? At what point do you feel satisfied with a game, that you could check it off your backlog (if the criteria is not "beat it" but rather "give it a solid try"?

I typically play for about 30 minutes, 2-3 times a week.

I feel I can check a game off my list if I've spent about 5 or more hours with it.

[Tanooki | 4,934]

These days I'm lucky to get 30-60min on stuff and it's not a nightly dedicated bit or I'd have to give up all other interests basically to do it.  I guess like you said 2-3x a week is about right.  I don't like it, but it is what it is, and it helps I've largely backed off buying anything gaming(domestic) on ebay as it's less distraction.

It's kind of working, I'm still playing Lufia2 at least twice a week for at least 30-60min if it's on the Nt or my SupaboyS it is getting worked and wow it's good, square and/or enix of the era quality good largely.

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

1lc or eat shit.

Edited February 10, 2023 by docile tapeworm

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

I think it's obvious where I stand.

I hate unfinished games.  It feels like reading half of a book or watching half of a movie.  I'd rather play one game through than half of four games.  But I also have to be sure I weed out the unnecessary stuff up front.

Obviously that's hard as a adult with our priorities, which is why I make the choice to be tired every morning from staying up later than most.

 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Ive probably finished 10% of thousands of games played in my life. 
 

5-10 hours of “entertainment” is worth it to me, and I value my time far more valuable as I age. So if I can get over 10 hrs out of a game now-a-days, I value that pretty high. 

[Gloves | 11,779]

I'm very strict with when I consider a game beaten. That said, I don't consider it the end of the world if I leave a game unfinished. It's a sorting and filtering mechanism in my mind. 

As for time to play, I'll be honest. I get a LOT of game time. I easily spend 4+ hours a day playing games during weekdays, and my entire weekend is basically all playing games. 

Please don't point out all of my half finished projects. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

I wouldn't worry about what other people think. If you feel you've completed a game, log it as such. The backlog thread is about as far from an actual competition as there is. It's just a fun way to track your own games.

[Brickman | 3,986]

You definitely have to do what works for you to consider a game as beat. If you’re time poor than I can see your approach. 

Personally for me I have to see credits or whatever is equal to that for a game. Otherwise it just feels similar to only watching half a movie or reading half a book.

I consider credits (or the equivalent) to be equal to beaten and then 100% a game is completing it.

I very rarely have time to 100% a game these days. The last was probably Persona 4 Golden.

 

[Sumez | 2,952]

9 hours ago, G-type said:

I was thinking about the backlog challenge, and as someone who has only beat a handful of games in my lifetime, "beating the game" is not really how I measure if I've played a game to a degree that I'm satisfied with it and can say I "got my money's worth". My backlog is more about games that I've never gotten around to playing at all, or only played 1 or 2 quick sessions with. 

Fwiw I think the "right way" to look at a backlog, even for the site's backlog challenge thread, is when have you played a game to your own satisfaction.

Some times that means just completely mastering a game you really love, 1LC, high score, whatever you think is cool.
Some times it means dragging your way through with 50 credits (if it's even the sort of game that has an ending and/or lives).
Some times it means playing every bit of DLC, extra content or user created mods and stages.
Some times it means you've played around with it a bit and felt like you've seen all it has to offer.
And some times it means you've played it for 30 minutes and decided you really don't enjoy it. Don't waste your time playing game you don't have fun with out of some sort of misplaced obligation to yourself (or your backlog challenge)

Edited February 10, 2023 by Sumez

[GPX | 1,369]

There seems to be overlapping themes from what I can see here. What makes a game complete? Well technically, at least when you see some end credits or some ending cut scene. 

When life becomes more demanding and there’s little spare time (currently applies to me), then the question becomes “what makes you satisfied that you’ve played it enough?” I don’t think it’s as easy as defining how many minutes or hours you’ve clocked up, but more to the issue of whether you feel the game still has more to offer if you keep persisting with it. Sometimes I play for a level or two and when the gameplay becomes samey, I might then move on to the next game. I don’t feel it to be important these days to complete every game I play. 

[fox | 1,667]

Having a sense of closure is important to me.  I like to see all the things and finish the story.  A half finished experience isn’t quite satisfactory.

On average I spend 1-2 hours playing a session.  I want to be able to fully engage and be immersed in the experience.  If I have much less time than that available, often will forgo gaming and do something else.  

I’ll give a new game a session or two to see if it vibes with me.  But if I’m not feeling it I have no issue retiring it and moving onto something else I will enjoy more.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

I often do short sessions.  Partially why I love the Switch.  In, 15 minutes, out.

I live close to my work so I will occasionally pop over for lunch, wolf it down, and get a quick 20 minutes.

[Splain | 2,570]

I can't remember the last time I sat and played for more than an hour. When I have like 15 minutes, it had better be a good 15 minutes! BotW and Odyssey did a good job of being fun and giving me something to accomplish for just short bursts at a time.

If that final push to beat a game makes those short bursts feel more like work than fun, day after day, then I'm probably not going to beat that game. Then I just live with the disappointment and regret, which saves a lot of time!

The Switch's portability and sleep function make all the difference. If Nintendo announces a new "home console" that isn't also portable, that will be a bad day for me.

[T-Pac | 7,548]

When I sit down with a new game, my goal is usually to get as far as I can with a solid effort on my part. Unfortunately with my skill level, that's usually around the halfway-point in most classic games.

I'm never entirely satisfied if I can't manage to roll the credits on a game, but I take some solace in having given it an honest effort at least.

I've been considering save-stating my way through to the end of several games that bested me through the years, but I don't know if that'll give me proper closure haha.

-CasualCart

[Gloves | 11,779]

4 minutes ago, CasualCart said:

When I sit down with a new game, my goal is usually to get as far as I can with a solid effort on my part. Unfortunately with my skill level, that's usually around the halfway-point in most classic games.

I'm never entirely satisfied if I can't manage to roll the credits on a game, but I take some solace in having given it an honest effort at least.

I've been considering save-stating my way through to the end of several games that bested me through the years, but I don't know if that'll give me proper closure haha.

-CasualCart

Plenty of folks literally don't even play games, they just watch others play via YouTube and that's their only interaction with gaming is watching others. Give save states a try, why not! 

[T-Pac | 7,548]

2 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Plenty of folks literally don't even play games, they just watch others play via YouTube and that's their only interaction with gaming is watching others. Give save states a try, why not! 

Gloves condones save-states for mediocre gamers!

My conscience is FREE!!!

(Joking aside, though - hearing that from someone like you is actually a big relief. I often feel like I can't even properly discuss games with people here given how much trouble I have completing them, and it's nice to know that giving myself a crutch here and there isn't universally shamed.)

-CasualCart

[Brickman | 3,986]

10 minutes ago, CasualCart said:

Gloves condones save-states for mediocre gamers!

My conscience is FREE!!!

(Joking aside, though - hearing that from someone like you is actually a big relief. I often feel like I can't even properly discuss games with people here given how much trouble I have completing them, and it's nice to know that giving myself a crutch here and there isn't universally shamed.)

-CasualCart

You shouldn’t feel bad using save states. Unless you’re doing a competition or beating the NES/N64 challenge then why not? Time is a limited thing when you get older, not many people have the luxury of playing a game over and over to master it.

You could always beat it using save states and if you really loved the game work on it without using them.

[Sumez | 2,952]

On 2/11/2023 at 9:42 PM, Brickman said:

Time is a limited thing when you get older, not many people have the luxury of playing a game over and over to master it.

If you feel your time with a game is wasted if you aren't able to make it to the end, even if you're just using "cheats" like save states to reach it, I think your priorities are only betraying yourself. Playing a game should never be a responsibility, you're doing it for the sake of your own recreation.

Everyone is free to use save states as much as they like, but just remember doing so aren't going to actually change things. If your goal is being able to beat a game, getting through it with savestates doesn't change the fact that you still aren't able to beat it, and relying on savestates might easily result in you not ever getting any better, too.
You can see the credits, but like Gloves also said - you can do that on YouTube.

That's not saying savestates can't help you get better. It's a good way to create specific points you can choose to start from whenever in order to repeatedly practice just the sections that you are having trouble with, so you don't "waste your time" replaying the parts that you already have no problems with.
I also don't think there is any shame in using savestates to manually "hack" the difficulty of a game to your own liking, if you don't like how the game is already balanced. Put a single savestate checkpoint halfway through the game, or before the final stage, so you can see if you can beat just that segment on its own. Or savestate through a single really bad part of a game, and play the remaining parts of it traditionally.

But if you're at the point where you're saying "just use savestates so you can beat a game you aren't able to beat" that can make it way too much of a crutch that you in frequent moments of weakness end up leaning on when you maybe didn't really need to. I've absolutely relied on savestates in the past and for that reason completely overlooked how good certain action games are because I'd just hurry through challenging segments and never really got to experience what learning to play them was like.

I realise this is a much discussed subject that always leads to heated arguments, better fitting for other threads, but I think my points here are being reasonable. Especially with the types of games @CasualCart likes to play - if someone is relying on save state because "you don't have the luxury of playing a game multiple times" why do they even want to play the game in the first place?
In an action game designed to be a challenge to overcome, you want to at least try to overcome some of that challenge. And for that matter, not being able to beat the entire game is a perfectly fine thing that shouldn't make anyone feel bad. It's not like you can't have fun with it, you're only playing for your own enjoyment.

[Brickman | 3,986]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

If you feel your time with a game is wasted if you aren't able to make it to the end, even if you're just using "cheats" like save states to reach it, I think your priorities are only betraying yourself. Playing a game should never be a responsibility, you're doing it for the sake of your own recreation.

Everyone is free to use save states as much as they like, but just remember doing so aren't going to actually change things. If your goal is being able to beat a game, getting through it with savestates doesn't change the fact that you still aren't able to beat it, and relying on savestates might easily result in you not ever getting any better, too.
You can see the credits, but like Gloves also said - you can do that on YouTube.

That's not saying savestates can't help you get better. It's a good way to create specific points you can choose to start from whenever in order to repeatedly practice just the sections that you are having trouble with, so you don't "waste your time" replaying the parts that you already have no problems with.
I also don't think there is any shame in using savestates to manually "hack" the difficulty of a game to your own liking, if you don't like how the game is already balanced. Put a single savestate checkpoint halfway through the game, or before the final stage, so you can see if you can beat just that segment on its own. Or savestate through a single really bad part of a game, and play the remaining parts of it traditionally.

But if you're at the point where you're saying "just use savestates so you can beat a game you aren't able to beat" that can make it way too much of a crutch that you in frequent moments of weakness end up leaning on when you maybe didn't really need to. I've absolutely relied on savestates in the past and for that reason completely overlooked how good certain action games are because I'd just hurry through challenging segments and never really got to experience what learning to play them was like.

I realise this is a much discussed subject that always leads to heated arguments, better fitting for other threads, but I think my points here are being reasonable. Especially with the types of games @CasualCart likes to play - if someone is relying on save state because "you don't have the luxury of playing a game multiple times" why do they even want to play the game in the first place?
In an action game designed to be a challenge to overcome, you want to at least try to overcome some of that challenge. And for that matter, not being able to beat the entire game is a perfectly fine thing that shouldn't make anyone feel bad. It's not like you can't have fun with it, you're only playing for your own enjoyment.

Everyone has a different scale of what they find fun in a game. To you this might sound fun and to someone else it might not. What gives us the right to judge how someone else enjoys a game? Whether it is with save states or not.

To some people having to finish a game in one go because saving wasn’t a feature back in the 80’s is annoying.

Save states aren’t always about cheating they can be used as a quality of life function as well.

I personally don’t use them very often except on older RPGs but I definitely wouldn’t care if someone said they used them to beat a game and had a lot of fun doing it. 

Games can be played in many different ways, I’m always going to support someone who plays to have fun. 

[Sumez | 2,952]

1 hour ago, Brickman said:

Everyone has a different scale of what they find fun in a game. To you this might sound fun and to someone else it might not. What gives us the right to judge how someone else enjoys a game? Whether it is with save states or not.

This is... exactly the kind of thing I'm addressing in what you just quoted 

[T-Pac | 7,548]

6 hours ago, Sumez said:

If you feel your time with a game is wasted if you aren't able to make it to the end, even if you're just using "cheats" like save states to reach it, I think your priorities are only betraying yourself. Playing a game should never be a responsibility, you're doing it for the sake of your own recreation.

Everyone is free to use save states as much as they like, but just remember doing so aren't going to actually change things. If your goal is being able to beat a game, getting through it with savestates doesn't change the fact that you still aren't able to beat it, and relying on savestates might easily result in you not ever getting any better, too.
You can see the credits, but like Gloves also said - you can do that on YouTube.

That's not saying savestates can't help you get better. It's a good way to create specific points you can choose to start from whenever in order to repeatedly practice just the sections that you are having trouble with, so you don't "waste your time" replaying the parts that you already have no problems with.
I also don't think there is any shame in using savestates to manually "hack" the difficulty of a game to your own liking, if you don't like how the game is already balanced. Put a single savestate checkpoint halfway through the game, or before the final stage, so you can see if you can beat just that segment on its own. Or savestate through a single really bad part of a game, and play the remaining parts of it traditionally.

But if you're at the point where you're saying "just use savestates so you can beat a game you aren't able to beat" that can make it way too much of a crutch that you in frequent moments of weakness end up leaning on when you maybe didn't really need to. I've absolutely relied on savestates in the past and for that reason completely overlooked how good certain action games are because I'd just hurry through challenging segments and never really got to experience what learning to play them was like.

I realise this is a much discussed subject that always leads to heated arguments, better fitting for other threads, but I think my points here are being reasonable. Especially with the types of games @CasualCart likes to play - if someone is relying on save state because "you don't have the luxury of playing a game multiple times" why do they even want to play the game in the first place?
In an action game designed to be a challenge to overcome, you want to at least try to overcome some of that challenge. And for that matter, not being able to beat the entire game is a perfectly fine thing that shouldn't make anyone feel bad. It's not like you can't have fun with it, you're only playing for your own enjoyment.

Yeah - I definitely agree that save-stating to the credits wouldn't satisfy my desire to beat a game through a trial of my own skill.

But my impetus to play a game is usually to experience it much like a book or a film - I just want to see the content through to the end so I can get a taste of all the game has to offer, rather than chasing a challenge or increasing my skill (with the exception of arcade-style high-score games).

Hitting my skill-ceiling halfway through a title keeps me from experiencing a lot of iconic levels, bosses, and elements that I'd love to encounter, and I'm left without a wholistic sense of the game. It feels like getting stuck in a Shakespeare play because the old-English gets too difficult for me to decipher - I want to read the rest of the story, and maybe a modern translation (or for video games, a crutch like save-states), could satisfy the itch to a degree.

It's a tough proposal sometimes, which really depends on what I want to get out of a game and what will give me the most satisfaction when I look back on it.

-CasualCart

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

A couple hours I guess. I can only do short sessions for games I'm already good at. For something new, 30 minutes isn't enough to really feel like I've gotten anywhere.

I've tried the whole play until I'm satisfied thing, but I'm never satisfied unless I beat a game. There are too many games that I never "got" until I sat down and got good at it. Like, I am positive that ABBAing my way through Ikari Warriors does not give me any of the real Ikari Warriors experience. I'm sure there are paths to find and patterns to recognize, the real game to discover within the game that I'd just skip if I was playing through with infinite lives.

The knowledge that some maniacs have sat down for 100 hours with Ikari Warriors and figured every screen of that trash out gives me motivation to spend more time with games. It really takes way, way less than 100 hours to get good at almost any game, even a very difficult one. With all the mindless 100s of hours I've wasted in Diablo or Divinity or whatever, I can spend 20 hours figuring out Battletoads.

[AirVillain | 489]

It depends on the game and how much I like it. Tough to quantify with # of hours.

If I really like the game I will play it over and over again. Contra, Double Dragon 2, SMB3.... Play, and beat, those ALL the time.

If I like the game and there's any chance in hell I can beat it, I'll try to beat it and play as many hours until I do. Double Dragon, Double Dragon 3... But I won't play them AS OFTEN to beat as others. I'll play and be content with as far as I get. 

If I like a game and there's no chance in hell I can beat then then I'll whip out the 'ol Game Genie, or put some random code in. I did this with Amagon and absolutely LOVED it. 

I usually get stuck on the 4th (5th?) world of Amagon and can't get past it. Well fuck that... I like the game, and as others like Casual Cart mentioned... I want to EXPERIENCE the entire game. So I'll "cheat" in order to see the latter levels and experience the entire game. It's awesome.

I look forward to doing that with Abadox since that game absolutely CRUSHES me every-time I play it. 

 

[Tulpa | 3,501]

On 2/9/2023 at 4:37 PM, docile tapeworm said:

1lc or eat shit.

*Skinny never completes Kevin Costner's Waterworld*

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

19 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

*Skinny never completes Kevin Costner's Waterworld*

BS I love that movie