OH FUCKING HELL I NEEDED THIS TODAY [citation needed] You know what you used to do in No Man's Sky? You used to shoot rocks and buy shit and fly to another solar system. You know what you do in No Man's Sky now? You shoot rocks and buy shit and build a shed and shoot rocks and plant lettuce and sell lettuce and buy shit and buy a skylight and grow red lettuce and sell two colors of lettuce and buy a spark plug so that you can start your fuckin' janky-ass busted-ass holds two quarters and a slurpee space ship. Lather-rinse-repeat until you've got an impressive lettuce farm. Also take pictures of bugs for some reason. You know what I'm doing with my evenings right now? SPREADSHEETS. You know what Bungie would like me doing? Playing Destiny 2. Know why I'm not playing Destiny 2? Because I have to do two weeks of multi-player bullshit so that I can earn the armor upgrades so that I can defeat the undefeatable chore that made everyone stop playing two months ago because unless you have ten hours a week to go raiding with your five closest friends, your season pass is worthless because you can't level up enough to actually play the content you bought. Thing about fuckin' spreadsheets? They're done someday. And then you have information in an organized format. I bought the last Final Fantasy. Know what that game is about? Waking up, tripping over a dozen side quests, driving for some reason, buying groceries, camping and taking selfies. I guess if your principle market is shut-ins who can afford to kill 60 hours a week grinding, you want the grinders to get their money's worth. Me? I wanna play a game. And I realized the last time Bungie had some "days of pudwhacking" special event that the time I have invested in the game is two orders of magnitude too little to get the brass ring.This is the standard experience of playing a so-called Real World Game, which other than RDR2 includes games like Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), and No Man’s Sky (2016) before the developers actually made it interesting.
Maybe this is why I've only ever connected with Fallout (3/NV/4) and Borderlands 2... you just jump in and start doing shit. Maybe you follow a quest... maybe you go run over to that mountain to see what's there. When I got bored in NV, I went into the casinos and played blackjack. When I got bored in FO4, I built shit, and found the settlement size limits. When I got bored in Borderlands 2, I went and took another crack at the fucking worm you apparently aren't able to kill without a team. Or jumped in a car and just blasted around the landscape like it was a race track. When I got bored with Fallout 76, I went back to FO4. I can't imagine grinding away in new games. Why is that fun? I play games maybe 2 hours a week, spread over 2 or 3 sessions... and some weeks don't play at all.
I always spend way more time tinkering with games than I do playing them. I never got around to doing the main quest in Skyrim, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing with the AI so I'd be able to send zombies to clear out all the monsters and traps in dungeons and gather crafting supplies for me. Out of the box they were too dumb and that annoyed me, by the time I was finished they were smart enough to play the game for me and there wasn't anything left to do.
I think the last Final Fantasy I bought was X. The more I see come out the less I think I'm missing out on. Took me like 50 hours playtime as a kid to beat Final Fantasty VII (5 hours on 3-phase Hojo, that fuck) and it remains one of my fondest gaming memories, now if I were to put that many hours into a game it's probably because I'm grinding just to play the fucking game. Notable current exceptions are Stardew Valley and Breath of the Wild.
Yeah, once again Nintendo seems to have created a video game ecosystem for people who don't want to surrender their lives. I dunno. I guess the fact that there aren't any console games that don't end up dominated by Tryhards indicates that the console sphere belongs to the Tryhards. I thought they lived in the PC ecosystem but I mean ...that's a guy who brought his PS4, his shitty monitor and his generic-ass Sunny D to the goddamn library on a Monday afternoon.