Burning out on MMOs as a genre.

[Cæli]

never played any except wow, still have a lot to catch up, dark age of camelot, anarchy online, star wars galaxies on PS, ff11, aion, tera, guild wars, conan, and dozens others, feels great despite being well into my 30s, very excited for the future

[Itori]

Im starting to get burnt out, theres no new blood to stimulate the market and if there is its the same casual mess as the rest, FFXIV satisfies my aesthetics and lets me play dress up on my character, and i play WoW for the pvp, but theres nothing for a challenging experience.

Classic is "challenging" but its old, i no lifed it when it was fresh so the experience now is bum rush and pvp, and theres no guarantee its going to go anywhere especially with how blizzard spaces their content, and phases. Heres to hoping pantheon is successful because an oldschool mechanic, dnd style mmo would be great for this stale market.

[Texan Penguin]

Whenever someone asks "Am I alone in this" whilst living in a world with 7.7 billion people, I'm forced to wonder if they're serious...

Of course you're not alone. And it's not just MMOs. Hell, I know a number of people having burnt out on a specific MMO, so they tried another... and another... and in the end they simply lost the will to play altogether.

I have felt burnout during BfA, so I've spent far more time in RDR2 (Story), Breath of the Wild and Anno 1800 than I have in WoW for the past... year or so? I expect to fully lose my interest in WoW as I grow older, especially as the design philosophies edge ever closer to FOMO tactics and predatory, cynical systems meant to force you to keep playing to play the way you want, rather than allowing you to play the way you want out of the gate. Unlike so many on these forums, I won't stick with a title I no longer enjoy.

TLDR: No you are not alone, and I hope you find many other games that suit you instead of the MMO genre.

https://backloggery.com/penguin_zeppelin

I did, actually. I neglected a lot of single-player stuff when MMOs dominated my time, although that was partially due to my PC quickly becoming unable to play newer games because 15 year old me was dumb enough to put a single core in a PC in 2007. I gradually got into single-player after my mom bought me a 360 2011 and I spent gradually less time in WoW. Then I got a modern rig in 2015 (and another last February), but by that point I was working full-time, so I managed to accumulate a lot of games but lacked a lot of time to play them.

I've played most of them and even finished some of them, but I decided to start over as of today and try to wipe out all 600. I am learning to love single-player again and that list is a reflection of that.

[Katchii]

I'm thirsty for new blood here and look forward to the coming year(s) to see what it brings. I've actually been actively looking for MMO's I haven't played or heard of before and checking them out just to find SOMETHING that can hold my attention for more than a few days, which is typically how long a single player game takes me to complete.

I've found a few F2P ones on Steam, but nothing that has kept my attention for long. Will be checking out Tree of Savior today and over the weekend as it seems to have a lot going on that might keep me interested.

[Fkiolaris]

I haven't burnt out of MMOs as a genre/gamestyle, but I am finding myself increasingly disinterested in some ways because eventually they make some fundamental changes to the game that really kills my joy of them (ie current gearing in WoW, removal of old achievements system in GW2, butchering classes/specs left right and centre in most MMOs etc). This is the number one reason by far why I am actually enjoying Classic, a game that I fully acknowledge has a lot of faults and limitations but IT IS NOT CHANGING.

On the other hand, retail WoW, GW2, SWTOR, TSW, ESO and Wildstar were the main ones that I tried that I found that unfortunately they were bastardised (sorry, I can't think of a better word right now) too much for my liking or abandoned by their companies. When I tried Rift it was already dead (so not much point as an MMO) and FF:ARR didn't really grab me enough, but I might give it another go at some stage.

So apologies OP, but I feel different atm on the topic. I do hope you find games/hobbies to give you entertained and happy

[korijenkins]

I think it's more of an issue that every game wants you to devote 100% or damn near 100% of your gaming time to it, including MMOs.

It used to not be that way, but think about how many games have introduced weekly challenges, daily quests, etc. In times past, WoW wasn't a game that demanded so much of your time, nor were MMOs at large, and certainly not games outside of the genre.

And why would anyone want to be confined to just one game of one genre? It's much more enjoyable and refreshing to have 5-6 games to bounce between and not care if you accomplish every single thing you were asked to.

[Texan Penguin]

I haven't burnt out of MMOs as a genre/gamestyle, but I am finding myself increasingly disinterested in some ways because eventually they make some fundamental changes to the game that really kills my joy of them (ie current gearing in WoW, removal of old achievements system in GW2, butchering classes/specs left right and centre in most MMOs etc). This is the number one reason by far why I am actually enjoying Classic, a game that I fully acknowledge has a lot of faults and limitations but IT IS NOT CHANGING.

On the other hand, retail WoW, GW2, SWTOR, TSW, ESO and Wildstar were the main ones that I tried that I found that unfortunately they were bastardised (sorry, I can't think of a better word right now) too much for my liking or abandoned by their companies. When I tried Rift it was already dead (so not much point as an MMO) and FF:ARR didn't really grab me enough, but I might give it another go at some stage.

So apologies OP, but I feel different atm on the topic. I do hope you find games/hobbies to give you entertained and happy

Got plenty of games on my list- honestly. My queue is packed with open-world stuff- between all the Fallout games, Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind, BotW, all three Witcher games and both RDRs I could be occupied for ages. But I like to balance that out with other types of games too- even "dudebro" stuff like NBA2K and Madden.

As far as other hobbies, I've been on an anime kick for the last year or two, started watching more subbed stuff even though I prefer dub- I just got impatient. Got into baking/cooking- made a kickass peppermint/chocolate pudding for Thanksgiving, and I'm going to try and bake a batch of pumpkin snickerdoodles or pumpkin oatmeal cookies this week to burn off some of our canned pumpkin surplus. I want to learn Spanish for work, Japanese for fun. Got books to read- on the LOTR books right now, which I have never read. And one of my goals is to relearn algebra and work my way up to precalc/trig, maybe catch up on physics/chem; if not to go back to school for engineering, which is a goal of mine but pretty unrealistic, then it's to learn something new and conquer a subject I never grasped in school.

So uh, yeah. Plenty of stuff to keep me busy. Never bored.

[Usernameforforums]

ive switched to monster hunter. Great series. Try it out

[Akasha64]

No, you aren't alone. I also get burned out playing with other people in MMOs, which is why single-player games can be a breath of fresh air for me. And especially retro games can be a good escape, like games from the late 80s, 90s and early 2000s. I still have a few years of the MMO genre left in me, so I still am interested in it, but I do take breaks from the genre cause of burnouts. Past few weeks for instance for entertainment I've been mostly watching animes and TV shows, and not playing any video-games.

I'm approaching like 20k hours in MMORPG experience. I think once I reach like 30-40k hours I'll be burned out enough to quit the genre forever, but until that happens I still have some fight left in me. My time with the genre might be extended though if we get some amazing, creative new releases in the next 10-15 years, but I somehow doubt that's going to happen all too much.