I'm quite the opposite. I have a lot less time to play than when I was younger, so I prefer streamlines games, and modern games usually do that better. I have a harder time trying to play very old games (especially games I haven't played before) than newer ones.

While not that old I do find myself reluctant to try new complex games like some 4X titles or RPGs that require a lot of time, although those genres are my absolute favorites. At the moment I'm sure it's because a lot of work, so hoping that changes soon.

On the other hand I'm really fed up with the mainstream AAA titles that come from the likes of EA, Ubisoft or other big ones.
The other thing is that I have a feeling that the best games are already made - the Infinity engine games, CivIV, Heroes 3, StarCraft, the first two Diablo games, shooters like Doom and Quake.

The new retro stuff like Eschalon or Hard Reset just remind me of all the problems and nuances of the time, but without the charm or "that something" that made it special. Not to mention reboots of older franchises like Syndicate or the new Shadow Warrior.

To end on a more optimistic note, it's not all gloom and doom as there are games that glue me to the computer, some of those would be the new King's Bounty series, New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2 complete, Warlock Master of the Arcane, the Trine games, Supreme Commander games and many more, although they might be less frequent and far between.

No, I wouldn't say that I am more reluctant to buy games in general. I just got more patient with age and I don't have to have games on day one. Especially since almost all AAA titles are released with some sort of invasive DRM. So I just wait until they are re-released without DRM (preferably here) and buy them then. The added benefit is, that I save lots of money because the re-releases are much cheaper. And if some game isn't released without DRM at all, then the logical conclusion is that the company doesn't want my money.

However, if some interesting game from a good developer is released on day one without DRM, I will buy it without thinking twice like in the old, immature days. :-) (For example The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 will be bought the day they are released on GoG)

Thank you, everyone, for the great feedback and responses. It's encouraging to see that it's not just a cae of me being, well, me.

After reading the responses and thinking more on it, I think a major contributor to my reluctance is time. Money is something of a factor insofar as I am more discerning in finding value than I was, say, even ten years ago. But time, more than anything, is the issue. I have less of it for gaming so I'm almost hyper-concious of the way I spend it. So, I find myself worrying that I'll spend several hours on a game only to discover that I don't really like it after all. In the days when I could literally spend thirty hours gaming in a weekend, it wasn't that big of a deal. But now, when I have maybe ten hours a week at most, it stings.

That said, I guess it's not strictly an age related issue, but rather one of environment and context.

Sure i have the same feelings.
New games = better graphics, sometimes better sound. But thats it. A wow experience is rare these days.
After the x (insert category) game of the same type my reaction is *do i need this?*

If I spend a few hours on a game it means that I enjoyed it enough. If at some point I stop enjoying it, I'll stop, but I won't feel like it was a waste of time.

I think it's a matter of what you're looking for in a game. I tried hidden object adventures and found out I like them. Since these games are typically short and simple to play, I find them less intimidating time-wise and have no problem getting into them.

I'm not really looking out for new games, but trying to buy the "good old games" from GOG, to see what I've missed (mostly because I was too young in the 90's).

And the reason why I'm not really buying new games is...that I suck at gaming. Well, at shooters in particular. Mass Effect is what really brought me in, so to say (actually, it was PoP:Sands of Time, but I only managed to finish it with cheats, lol). And I love that trilogy.

For that reason, I'm really only looking out for RPGs (or Action RPGs, if you're nitpicking). And seeing how I've backed both Torment and Divinity on KS, I've already got the two of the most prolific (and hopefully best) RPGs coming out this and next year. (Looking out for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, but those won't work on my laptop anymore, sadly - and it's still some time till they come out :D)

Of course, I'll try out some adventure and horror games I've bought, but for the moment, as Homer has already said, I don't have time =( Should have spent more time on gaming during my school days, dammit, why didn't I find GOG back then?!!?!

44 now, 45 next month.

Same thing for me.

And also, it isn't so much that a title is new and that I've seen everything under the sun (ha!) but instead it's that I've learned so many control schemes, so many crafting formulae, so many tricks of the game economy, etc., over the past 27 years of gaming that it seems like ANY game is just piling on to the crap I've already done, or that I nitpick the details, or confuse the controls with another title.

So instead I fire up Alien Shooter or SPAZ and simply blast the hell out of whatever bad guys come my way.

I dunno. Maybe it also has something to do with the volume of games out there, sort of a parallel to what DieRuhe posted earlier. Back when the selection was limited to whatever happened to be in the local store, you paid your $30-40 and by gawd read that manual and learned the game because that was the one new title you were going to buy for the next few months. You can bet that if I paid $40 for Freespace, I'd have played the living hell out of it by now - I sure did the same with the Wing Commander games and others of those early years. But I have Freespace 1 and 2 now, plus a bajillion other games, for cheap so there isn't that push to dig into it and get my money's worth. Meh - it was only $6 so what's the big deal if I never actually get around to playing it?

Pretty sad, but there it is.

At least you don't buy as many games. I on the other hand buy everything that looks remotely interesting, to exclude "nah, I have yet to buy it" as a potential obstacle to starting a new game.

I don't remember that ever being the case. I remember buying quite a few of cheap $3 C64 games and occasionally a full price $15 one, and I don't remember feeling that there was a dearth of games. Sure I finished most of them, but even then I quit Sentinel at around level 5000.

For PC games I had a few I paid full price for and never played. Baldur's Gate was one (couldn't get into it, and found the screen door transparency really grating), and Star Control 3 (it came with Star Control 2, and I just played that until I got stuck).

31 here.

I do play a lot of emulated stuff, and to be honest my tastes haven't really changed that much. I had an Atari 2600, a C64 and a ZX Spectrum in my youngest days, and at the age of 10-11 I never really had much time or patience for games like Might and Magic. I was more a fan of simpler games back then. I didn't really know anyone who felt any different at the time, which is why it astonishes me when I see 11-year-olds playing stuff like Drakensang with ease nowadays.

When I reached my early teens though, I started to appreciate the virtues of more complex games, starting with console RPGs and moving on to full-blown CRPGs on the Amiga and PC.

If anything bothers me about kids these days, it's how reluctant they are to try anything new. There's far too much brand loyalty, far too much genre adherence, far too much worship of violence. I've heard kids disparaging platformers and RPGs as being "gay" in favour of CoD and GoW. I've heard kids worshipping blood and gore as "cool" for violence's sake, not because violence is an inherent part of the subject matter. Having R-rated/18-rated games has become a status symbol, and you're not one of the cool kids if you don't play them.

I'm not talking about platform fanboyism among kids - we had that even back in our day (Sega vs. Nintendo anyone?), although I do find it rather pathetic that adults see fit to carry this perpetual war into their adult lives (a phenomenon witnessed sadly all too often here in particular with the PC master race attitude that crops up a lot).

I did find watching my goddaughter's 5-year-old brother playing Wonder Boy in Monster Land on my PS3 oddly moving though. He's become a bit of a retro addict in the meantime. Plays games that are over 20 years older than he is.

Jaded from too many bundles and sales to be honest.Learned early on to stop buying games at full price , although have caved in once or twice. Having said that, getting older, other things become more important & less time to play games.......

I feel the same way, especially about FPS's and sports titles and I'm just about to turn 30.

I think its not an age problem as much of a been there done that problem. Other than the indie game scene, not much innovation from the major game publishers, sequelitis over and over again.

The most interesting thing is that old dead genres are feeling fresh again when I play them. Playing space sims and point and click adventure games feel fun to play while fps or first person games feel boring and shallow unless they have a mechanic that changes the way the game is played that normal run and gun shooters play like, like Borderlands or say Dishonored and Deus ex.

I think a lot of it comes down to time allowed....I'm 43 now, and as the years go by I have many other things impinging on my gaming time. So therefore I now tend to find less attention spent on the deep and involving RPG type, and more often a quick thrash on a driving game or an FPS is in order, due to time restraints....

Plus - i also find as I get older Im getting less skilled, so hit the difficulty wall a lot earlier than I used to. Usually that means I'll find another game to play....

I remember when Mortal Kombat came out in the arcades. Trying to actually play that game you had to wait in line. I think it was months before the lines finally died down. I turned to all the other games in the arcade where I no longer had to wait for someone to finish. The violent games even back 20-30 years ago when I was a teen playing in arcades were still the most popular.