I tried picking up Persona 4 Golden at the beginning of this summer. I played it for a couple hours, getting through the beginning of the story. I absolutely loved it. I’ve always loved the Persona franchise, as I previously played and finished Persona 5 Royal a few years back in grade 9.
But there’s a problem here. I used the word “tried.” I tried picking the game up. It’s been sitting in my Steam library with 5.1 hours for about the past 3 weeks now. What happened? I ask myself that question too. This is just something that happens to me whenever I try to pick up a story-driven game longer than 10 hours.
Surprisingly, this hasn’t just happened to one or two games. Yakuza 0, Horizon Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk 2077, Disco Elysium. These are all games that I tried to commit to playing, but I guess I just didn’t feel immersed enough in them.
One might think “What if you just didn’t enjoy them?” Well… maybe. I played Yakuza 0 as my first beat-em-up game. Wasn’t really used to any of the controls yet, nor was I super interested in the gameplay. But I was pretty excited to play the other three games, and even enjoyed the first few hours of gameplay.
Yet, over time I began to stop playing these games and eventually abandoned them. Surely this wasn’t an issue with time. I had as much time as I could’ve ever wanted, as I hadn’t even entered grade 11 yet.
Nowadays I realize that I certainly wasn’t the same person I was back in grade 9. I mentioned earlier that I previously finished Persona 5 Royal, which happens to be an 100 hour game, the longest mainstream title out there. Back then I also had enough commitment to play Red Dead Redemption 2, which is also quite a long title to beat, taking roughly 50 hours. It still remains my favourite video game.
I recognize now that the main problem I have is commitment. I find it so ridiculously difficult to commit myself to something fun or entertaining now. When I was big into video games in grade 9, I’d often be itching to play a specific game, just because I was into it so much. I could spend weeks or even months on just one game. I find it hard to even fathom that happening anymore.
I like to think that it’s all simply a consequence of my goals as a person. When I was 13-15, all I really wanted to do was have fun. I’ve gradually become more self-conscious over the years, subconsciously creating new goals, which are really just to take care of myself and to get a good career. This comes at a price—it becomes harder to go back to that life of fun you had before. This relatively satisfying answer reveals an unfortunate truth: Maybe I’ve just grown up.