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Too old to enjoy hardcore gaming anymore? :(

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Just sharing some thoughts with you guys, concerning our hobby. Rant follows...

Just a little background, I was born and raised playing video games, they have been an integral part of my life since my dad introduced me to them with the Atari 2600 and Coleco vision.

I've had all major consoles and PCs from the 8088 all the way to more current systems, but lately, I find it so hard to dedicate any time to my favorite hobby.

Between work and family, I can only game late at night, and it's getting so frustrating I'm actually finding it really hard to support this habit, like today for example, I had 45 minutes to game while the wife and my son were asleep and before I had to show up for work.

I booted my PC, double clicked on the Battlefield V icon, and was greeted by a message on Origin telling me I couldn't start the game cuz it needs a mandatory patch...

Okay, I let Origin do its thing and try to start Shadow of the Tomb Raider, only to get the same exact results, only this time it was Steam that wouldn't let me start the game until it was patched.

I cursed under my breath, and remembered I had a mint copy of Ace Combat 7 for the PS4 that I had not tried before, I inserted the disk in my console, grabbed a controller and seated on my couch, I looked at my watch, only 27 minutes before I have to leave for work, we can do this!

Well, not quite, the full game has install on the HDD and then download a patch...

That's when I gave up, grabbed my Switch and picked up exactly where I had left off in Diablo 3, I was playing in less than 3 seconds.

That's when it dawned on me that I have invested all this time and money on building PC systems and getting the latest "grown up" consoles, only to spend 90% of my time gaming on my Switch. I really miss my hardcore gaming sessions, but today, I realized it may all be in the past... That makes me so sad.

I'm sorry about the long rant, I just wanted to share this experience, and see if there are any other "old" gamers out there who feel left out by the way supporting this hobby has become so tedious.

I know it's not like this all the time, and people will probably say this is my fault because I don't keep my games patched up to date, but I do! I made sure everything was patched up last week when this same thing happened!

I don't know, if you guys find yourselves in this same spot, this is the thread to share your experience, or if you don't, this is where you can tell an "old" man he's too old for hardcore gaming and it's finally time to hang the keyboard, mouse, and controller :(
 

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Hey bud, I feel your pain. Yeah, things aren't the same as they used to be.
 

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The patches are one of the reasons I leave Steam open 24/7 on the two main computers I play games on. I've given up on console gaming, so I can't say much about that.

But I feel your pain, while I still play games pretty much daily, adulting has definitely cut the amount of time I play games down to a small trickle every week...
 

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Same my friend. I used to dump so many hours into gaming and loved it. Today is my day off, and I have sat here for almost 4 hours, and done nothing except read tech articles, pay bills and check email. I even told myself "you should boot up something on steam" but everytime I get close to launching it I just cant bring myself too it. "what if something comes up?" "what if I can spend my time doing something else?" "does anything in the house need to be done first?" "Do I need to do my oil this weekend or next?"

I miss it. But I work in IT so alot of stuff is jaded for me now.
 
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Awesome post, I recognize quite a few emotions you've gone through up there. My gaming 'career' started with the NES and shortly after, SNES and quickly evolved to some PC gaming as well. From the very beginning, screwing with Windows 3.1 and 95, I felt more attracted to the PC. This immediately brings me to your installation/updating woes... If I think back, with my Windows 95 laptop (an ancient Toshiba Satellite, you could kill someone with it, it was that bulky) the amount of issues I ran into with games was so rampant, if that was anything like this today, I'd be sending out angry emails to a few dozen companies, asking for refunds, etc etc.

Times have changed. But is gaming more of a hassle today? I don't know. You mention 'hardcore gaming'... but you also mention having to update literally everything you were about to touch. If you're actually hardcore gaming, that doesn't happen. Your stuff IS up to date, because launchers simply start with the OS and auto update their stuff while you do something else. Leaving a PC idling a few hours per day, in my book, is a great measure to prevent having to wait when you actually want to do something.

The thing is, gaming has become fully commercial and mainstream. Even consoles weren't always like that. Not only is it more mainstream now, gaming is also well past its pioneering days. Every type of game exists, every genre has been beaten to death. The novelty simply wears off. I have no grasp on how a young gamer in this age grows up with gaming, but it sure as hell isn't the same. What we do have now, is a much lower fail rate on both gaming rigs and the games themselves. Again: if I compare what you have to do today to get going, compared to back then... things have certainly improved. But along with that improvement, we have lost equally as much control over our content, how we use it, when we use it.

I think much more than a problem with gaming, is that you have a problem with the way development cycles are these days. Development in IT these days is Agile. Rolling & continuous releases, weekly or even daily are no exception. Smaller chunks and patches get served on a much more regular basis. Incidents and problems are classified rigorously. And if it isn't a 'blocker' that means you get it served and get to deal with it. There may sometimes be more issues, but they're also solved much faster. Again, times have changed.

This is an interesting read, if you're not familiar. Put it in the perspective of todays' online content and it all falls into place.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/12-agile-manifesto-principles-simply-explained-jacob-aliet-ondiek/

Last, a very interesting point you raise, and perhaps not realize, is time. Your whole premise was 'a quick game before going to work'... let's face it, in our younger days, those time constraints either weren't there or you didn't care (as much) about them. As adults we have a lot more on our minds, and our RAM memory is chock full of things we still need to do. I don't remember that pressure from my young gaming days at all - and it is an immersion killer. Back then slowly watching an installation bar creep to 100%, sometimes taking an easy 20 minutes to get there was no exception, but I really didn't care.
 
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Hey bud, I feel your pain. Yeah, things aren't the same as they used to be.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, yes, things have gotten more complicated nowadays, I mean, it's a good thing games get patched and whatnot, but it seems like keeping up with that and driver updates, consoles that need to update, new windows versions just to be able to enjoy the latest features in games, gaming has almost become a chore :(

The patches are one of the reasons I leave Steam open 24/7 on the two main computers I play games on. I've given up on console gaming, so I can't say much about that.

But I feel your pain, while I still play games pretty much daily, adulting has definitely cut the amount of time I play games down to a small trickle every week...

Thank you, yes, growing up sucks, doesn't it? lol

I might just do that, so at least, when there's a few minutes available to play everything is ready to go. I just hate to waste energy leaving my PC on all day haha.
 

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Don't take it for granted, I haven't been able to game with my sigrig since early 2017, due to life circumstances, it has been in a bag sitting in storage since then...

Game Size used to be Measured in MB now it's in GB...
 
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Same my friend. I used to dump so many hours into gaming and loved it. Today is my day off, and I have sat here for almost 4 hours, and done nothing except read tech articles, pay bills and check email. I even told myself "you should boot up something on steam" but everytime I get close to launching it I just cant bring myself too it. "what if something comes up?" "what if I can spend my time doing something else?" "does anything in the house need to be done first?" "Do I need to do my oil this weekend or next?"

I miss it. But I work in IT so alot of stuff is jaded for me now.

Welcome to the club haha:toast:

Yes, having all those responsibilities in your mind definitely makes enjoying disconnecting from everything to immerse in any given game world, so difficult. And yet, that's the part I love the most about gaming.

Sorry to hear it's harder for you to find time to game, I don't feel so lonely anymore, thanks for sharing.

Awesome post, I recognize quite a few emotions you've gone through up there. My gaming 'career' started with the NES and shortly after, SNES and quickly evolved to some PC gaming as well. From the very beginning, screwing with Windows 3.1 and 95, I felt more attracted to the PC. This immediately brings me to your installation/updating woes... If I think back, with my Windows 95 laptop (an ancient Toshiba Satellite, you could kill someone with it, it was that bulky) the amount of issues I ran into with games was so rampant, if that was anything like this today, I'd be sending out angry emails to a few dozen companies, asking for refunds, etc etc.

Times have changed. But is gaming more of a hassle today? I don't know. You mention 'hardcore gaming'... but you also mention having to update literally everything you were about to touch. If you're actually hardcore gaming, that doesn't happen. Your stuff IS up to date, because launchers simply start with the OS and auto update their stuff while you do something else. Leaving a PC idling a few hours per day, in my book, is a great measure to prevent having to wait when you actually want to do something.

The thing is, gaming has become fully commercial and mainstream. Even consoles weren't always like that. Not only is it more mainstream now, gaming is also well past its pioneering days. Every type of game exists, every genre has been beaten to death. The novelty simply wears off. I have no grasp on how a young gamer in this age grows up with gaming, but it sure as hell isn't the same. What we do have now, is a much lower fail rate on both gaming rigs and the games themselves. Again: if I compare what you have to do today to get going, compared to back then... things have certainly improved. But along with that improvement, we have lost equally as much control over our content, how we use it, when we use it.

I think much more than a problem with gaming, is that you have a problem with the way development cycles are these days. Development in IT these days is Agile. Rolling releases, weekly or even daily are no exception. Smaller chunks and patches get served on a much more regular basis. Incidents and problems are classified rigorously. And if it isn't a 'blocker' that means you get it served and get to deal with it. There may sometimes be more issues, but they're also solved much faster. Again, times have changed.

This is an interesting read, if you're not familiar. Put it in the perspective of todays' online content and it all falls into place.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/12-agile-manifesto-principles-simply-explained-jacob-aliet-ondiek/

Last, a very interesting point you raise, and perhaps not realize, is time. Your whole premise was 'a quick game before going to work'... let's face it, in our younger days, those time constraints either weren't there or you didn't care (as much) about them. As adults we have a lot more on our minds, and our RAM memory is chock full of things we still need to do. I don't remember that pressure from my young gaming days at all - and it is an immersion killer. Back then slowly watching an installation bar creep to 100%, sometimes taking an easy 20 minutes to get there was no exception, but I really didn't care.

Yes, you hit the proverbial nail in the head, there are so many things that will distract you from that immersion we enjoy so much in our hobby.

Thanks so much for that link, yes, software development has grown so complex, making a game has become a titanic endeavor.

I think you're right, like Solaris mentioned, this could be avoided by keeping my system running and games up to date, thank you guys for the suggestion.

I didn't expect so many responses so fast, there's still hope, I mean, we live in a golden age of gaming, when world's we could only imagine when we were little and playing a text adventure, are a daily reality in gaming.

I don't wanna Miss out on any of that, that's why it was so sad to come to the realization I mentioned in the original post.

As I type this from work, I can't wait to get back home, and just turn on my PC, and let it update a few hours, who knows, maybe there's hope for a little gaming later tonight...

Don't take it for granted, I haven't been able to game with my sigrig since early 2017, due to life circumstances, it has been in a bag sitting in storage since then...

Game Size used to be Measured in MB now it's in GB...

I'm sorry to hear you haven't been able to game for such a long time, I hope the circumstances preventing you from doing so change soon.

I saw you helping a fellow gamer with his issues flashing a video card, you had a lot of patience explaining to him what to do every step of the game, I can see you love this hobby too.

Hope you can start gaming again soon, you're absolutely right, we should never take anything for granted.
 
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I didn't expect so many responses so fast, there's still hope, I mean, we live in a golden age of gaming, when world's we could only imagine when we were little and playing a text adventure, are a daily reality in gaming.

I don't wanna Miss out on any of that, that's why it was so sad to come to the realization I mentioned in the original post.

As I type this from work, I can't wait to get back home, and just turn on my PC, and let it update a few hours, who knows, maybe there's hope for a little gaming later tonight...

Oh yes, those worlds are what keep me into gaming. So many fantasies I had back then have come to life, its amazing. The most fantastic one for me, was this; I used to play Warhammer tabletop games, and in my early PC gaming at some point I installed Shogun: Total War. I loved it, and my fantasy ran wild about a Warhammer installment for that game... and look where we are today. And it is 100%, exactly as I imagined it to be. Straight up awesome.

Great to hear you've found some fire left in there for gaming :) Its good to reflect on these things. If you can pinpoint the why, you can also avoid it ;)

By the way, you mentioned Diablo 3... if you want a refreshing, inspiring title that is also a homage to the series... Book of Demons. Its weird, it has simplicity and is great to pick up for a half hour, and yet is easy to learn/hard to master. AND: its on GOG, giving you control over your updates :D
 
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the times a changing or so thay say, i when through the same in my late 40s, i didnt do any gaming for quite a while, all the games seamed the same and then i got into VR and its a whole different ball game, it gave me a whole new lease of life theres something about being in the game from watching on a flat screen to have a whole world stretching out in all directions is really cool, im 57 this year and play the games with more viggor than ive ever had. charl.
 
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, yes, things have gotten more complicated nowadays, I mean, it's a good thing games get patched and whatnot, but it seems like keeping up with that and driver updates, consoles that need to update, new windows versions just to be able to enjoy the latest features in games, gaming has almost become a chore :(



Thank you, yes, growing up sucks, doesn't it? lol

I might just do that, so at least, when there's a few minutes available to play everything is ready to go. I just hate to waste energy leaving my PC on all day haha.
That's a part of why i fold and crunch, just crunch though and the useage is not extreme and steam can be left on then , ps4 nearly always needs to update pre play and it really grates.
I like you have stared at the start button before for hours while staring at Tpu forums, mate your not alone.
For me ,now i have not got the patience , some games truly are beyond me because the tickle my raye spuds(phones ,i like yhat tho it's rage spuds) like nothing else even shadows of the tombraider has forced me to run off to the tv a few times with it's dificulty , and I don't think it's known for difficulty, must be me.
 

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With the way PC games are poorly made these days, Its a given that games need patch after patch after patch to fix a lot of things (or break a lot of things as far as Bethesda are concerned...) and that is something thats not going to change any time soon. Best thing you can do is pre-load games and leave it downloading updates for the next day if you have a slow connection.

Some games even have day one patches for fixes that didnt make the final cut in time. Everything is rushed out the door in whatever half finished form they are it. Battlefield 3 had the same problem. The game was just so badly broken when it was initially released.

I have 87mbps DL speed so even potentially huge updates that span a few gigs takes me very little time at full throttle. Set the app to use all available bandwidth the go make a coffee and read a book for a while.

They dont make games like they used to.
 

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Same my friend. I used to dump so many hours into gaming and loved it. Today is my day off, and I have sat here for almost 4 hours, and done nothing except read tech articles, pay bills and check email. I even told myself "you should boot up something on steam" but everytime I get close to launching it I just cant bring myself too it. "what if something comes up?" "what if I can spend my time doing something else?" "does anything in the house need to be done first?" "Do I need to do my oil this weekend or next?"

I miss it. But I work in IT so alot of stuff is jaded for me now.

Get out of my life! Lol. Same thing here between raising a family and an IT career, gaming isn't the same and I usually end up finding something useful to do lol. My wife gives me flak over it, she knows when I say I might fire up a game that means more work.
 
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Warlock, if you have time constraints and just need to game, if it's singleplayer just disable the network card.
I wouldn't let some updates eat up my gaming time and go to work with that feeling.
 
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Old games were simplistic and new ones are much complex and human intelligence is limited so until we have superior AI to create games for limited humanity expect things to get only worse.
 

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Get out of my life! Lol. Same thing here between raising a family and an IT career, gaming isn't the same and I usually end up finding something useful to do lol. My wife gives me flak over it, she knows when I say I might fire up a game that means more work.

I just finished opening another store, and my wife had the "talk" w/ me thursday night while I was installing a new ceiling fan in the guest room. she told me to not vpn in this weekend and told me I had to do things I wanted to do this weekend because my attitude changed in Jan and she wasnt happy about it.

(in jan I took 2 days off only.)

We have alot in common.
 

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Old games were simplistic and new ones are much complex and human intelligence is limited so until we have superior AI to create games for limited humanity expect things to get only worse.

I think we're doing alright. Its just that publishers and developers tend to make questionable decisions.
 

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Welcome to the club haha:toast:

Yes, having all those responsibilities in your mind definitely makes enjoying disconnecting from everything to immerse in any given game world, so difficult. And yet, that's the part I love the most about gaming.

Sorry to hear it's harder for you to find time to game, I don't feel so lonely anymore, thanks for sharing.



Yes, you hit the proverbial nail in the head, there are so many things that will distract you from that immersion we enjoy so much in our hobby.

Thanks so much for that link, yes, software development has grown so complex, making a game has become a titanic endeavor.

I think you're right, like Solaris mentioned, this could be avoided by keeping my system running and games up to date, thank you guys for the suggestion.

I didn't expect so many responses so fast, there's still hope, I mean, we live in a golden age of gaming, when world's we could only imagine when we were little and playing a text adventure, are a daily reality in gaming.

I don't wanna Miss out on any of that, that's why it was so sad to come to the realization I mentioned in the original post.

As I type this from work, I can't wait to get back home, and just turn on my PC, and let it update a few hours, who knows, maybe there's hope for a little gaming later tonight...



I'm sorry to hear you haven't been able to game for such a long time, I hope the circumstances preventing you from doing so change soon.

I saw you helping a fellow gamer with his issues flashing a video card, you had a lot of patience explaining to him what to do every step of the game, I can see you love this hobby too.

Hope you can start gaming again soon, you're absolutely right, we should never take anything for granted.

Yeah it's primarily where I stay at anymore is you know bios restoring I hope someday to start modding them maybe finally Crack the Code of nvidia's BIOS lock same with AMD on vega cards.

Just about every thread that relates to a bios fail on a video card I'm there.

But there is only so much you can do without physically having the card in hand to force flash it weather With software or with a flash tool.

At this rate my rig is pretty much mint condition
 
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Ahh, back in the day when I had to put a quarter into it. :D

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Oh yes, those worlds are what keep me into gaming. So many fantasies I had back then have come to life, its amazing. The most fantastic one for me, was this; I used to play Warhammer tabletop games, and in my early PC gaming at some point I installed Shogun: Total War. I loved it, and my fantasy ran wild about a Warhammer installment for that game... and look where we are today. And it is 100%, exactly as I imagined it to be. Straight up awesome.

Great to hear you've found some fire left in there for gaming :) Its good to reflect on these things. If you can pinpoint the why, you can also avoid it ;)

By the way, you mentioned Diablo 3... if you want a refreshing, inspiring title that is also a homage to the series... Book of Demons. Its weird, it has simplicity and is great to pick up for a half hour, and yet is easy to learn/hard to master. AND: its on GOG, giving you control over your updates :D

Yes, that's precisely what I was referring to, this may sound cliched, but I remember sitting at a table with friends when I was in high school, playing dungeons and dragons, and using our imagination to try and picture the worlds the dungeon master would describe for us, then, a decade or so later, sitting in awe in front of a screen watching these fantasy worlds come to life in games like Oblivion or Skyrim.

I've been playing a lot of Diablo 3 on the go in my Switch, I will give book of demons a try, thanks for the suggestion!

Yes, the comments in this thread have giving me hope there's a way to make going back to gaming feel less like a chore, I will definitely make sure to keep my PC running more often to keep up to date, or, like Lightning suggests:

Warlock, if you have time constraints and just need to game, if it's singleplayer just disable the network card.
I wouldn't let some updates eat up my gaming time and go to work with that feeling.

Just freaking unplugging my network cable, that's genius! Don't know what I didn't think of it before.

the times a changing or so thay say, i when through the same in my late 40s, i didnt do any gaming for quite a while, all the games seamed the same and then i got into VR and its a whole different ball game, it gave me a whole new lease of life theres something about being in the game from watching on a flat screen to have a whole world stretching out in all directions is really cool, im 57 this year and play the games with more viggor than ive ever had. charl.

I'm happy to hear VR has brought new life to your gaming experience, here's hoping VR doesn't fall into obscurity like it did before, it really is the next thing when it comes to immersion when gaming.

That's a part of why i fold and crunch, just crunch though and the useage is not extreme and steam can be left on then , ps4 nearly always needs to update pre play and it really grates.
I like you have stared at the start button before for hours while staring at Tpu forums, mate your not alone.
For me ,now i have not got the patience , some games truly are beyond me because the tickle my raye spuds(phones ,i like yhat tho it's rage spuds) like nothing else even shadows of the tombraider has forced me to run off to the tv a few times with it's dificulty , and I don't think it's known for difficulty, must be me.

I used to crunch too, but the electricity bills here in California killed that for me, it would easily add a hundred dollars or more to my monthly bill to keep my rigs running.

We installed solar last year, and that cut my bills almost in half, I haven't tried to go back to crunching again, but I might give it a try now that we generate most of our own power.

And I feel you, shadow of the tomb raider can be punishing at times! I have a feeling some people actually enjoy the death animations in the reboot tomb raider games, and developers are more than happy to cater to that audience haha

Edit: sorry about the typos and grammar errors, I started and have been keeping up with this thread entirely from my cell phone hahaha
 
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rtwjunkie

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I had a lot of the same issues with time to game being minimal as the kids got more active. But then....

They grew up and moved out. Now nearing a fairly early retirement I don’t put as much time into work either, and now I have plenty of gaming time. But some of the same things that happen to @Kursah happened all week.

Last Sunday I finally, after 10 tries was successful in upgrading 1709 to 1803 (W10) because I refuse to let MS bully me and force me to do a fresh install every 6 months. However, I ended up with a product that freezes randomly. Every night I’ve told my wife I am going to play, but end up working on the mess, trying to pinpoint the problem. I’ll end up fresh installing anyway.

Anyway, the point is other than this week, time has advanced enough that gaming is a daily possibility again, and I predict the same for you one day.
 

eidairaman1

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I had a lot of the same issues with time to game being minimal as the kids got more active. But then....

They grew up and moved out. Now nearing a fairly early retirement I don’t put as much time into work either, and now I have plenty of gaming time. But some of the same things that happen to @Kursah happened all week.

Last Sunday I finally, after 10 tries was successful in upgrading 1709 to 1803 (W10) because I refuse to let MS bully me and force me to do a fresh install every 6 months. However, I ended up with a product that freezes randomly. Every night I’ve told my wife I am going to play, but end up working on the mess, trying to pinpoint the problem. I’ll end up fresh installing anyway.

Anyway, the point is other than this week, time has advanced enough that gaming is a daily possibility again, and I predict the same for you one day.

Another reason why I havent jumped on 10, 7 I don't have to do that.

Now only if ReactOS were out of alpha testing...
 

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The first gaming console that I owned was the Atari 2600 and even though younger gamers would consider it garbage these days it was a lot of fun for me. Later I got a C-64 and after that the IBM compatibles. I have thoroughly enjoyed gaming over the years but there were times when family and job commitments very much limited my leisure activities and I couldn't game at all.

I have more time now but there are still some times when I sit and stare at the hundreds of game icons on my monitor and nothing hits me that I want to play so I go and do something else like pick up my Kindle and read a book but I always return to gaming eventually. For me gaming is my favorite hobby to enjoy but it can't be forced.

At the end of the day, follow your heart.
 
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I had a lot of the same issues with time to game being minimal as the kids got more active. But then....

They grew up and moved out. Now nearing a fairly early retirement I don’t put as much time into work either, and now I have plenty of gaming time. But some of the same things that happen to @Kursah happened all week.

Last Sunday I finally, after 10 tries was successful in upgrading 1709 to 1803 (W10) because I refuse to let MS bully me and force me to do a fresh install every 6 months. However, I ended up with a product that freezes randomly. Every night I’ve told my wife I am going to play, but end up working on the mess, trying to pinpoint the problem. I’ll end up fresh installing anyway.

Anyway, the point is other than this week, time has advanced enough that gaming is a daily possibility again, and I predict the same for you one day.

I feel you! I updated windows 10 in one of my computers after installing a new video card, just to boot and find out MS no longer considered my copy to be activated!

I had to spend over 20 minutes between phone calls and entering a new long ass activation code in my PC just to make things "normal" again.

By the time I was done, I wasn't even interested in trying games on this system anymore.

Please don't think the reason I started this thread was to pick on PC gaming in particular, trying to run a game on a console will be almost the same experience as it is on PC nowadays.

I think my point is, with so many responsibilities in life as you grow older, gaming in general becomes a harder proposition, and anything that gets in the way of reaching that point where you can finally sit down and enjoy a game, further detracts from the experience.

I'm so glad to see I'm not the only one who feels this way, and not only that, but also to see how many of you guys are willing to do whatever it takes to keep your gaming hobby alive, it makes me feel better about this particular bad experience I had this morning, I hope it does the same for some of you reading this thread :lovetpu:
 
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