How long do you play a boring game before abandoning it?

[VictorViper]

The Last of Us is the last game I can recall truly abandoning.

Did you abandon it after 15-30 minutes?

Heheh, no, I made an exception because I knew I wouldn't care for the gameplay going into it. I really just wanted to experience the story everyone was flipping out over. People need to read more books. Zzzzz

[Sharecrow]

It's an irritatingly vague answer, but it depends. If I'm having fun I generally won't bail. If I determine I'm experiencing more irritation than fun I'll consider bailing unless it's a game that I really want to go through. I bailed on Gradius III after maybe five hours. Also on Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes in about the same. But I'm usually mindful enough of what I'll like to preempt putting myself in that position by not getting games that don't look and sound fun to me.

[Claytone]

Heheh, no, I made an exception because I knew I wouldn't care for the gameplay going into it. I really just wanted to experience the story everyone was flipping out over. People need to read more books. Zzzzz

I get this feeling too. I am by no means a literature buff (I read maybe 1 novel every three years; it's bad), but I have my favorite books, and there's no game whose story comes close to the thoughtfulness of those works.

Don't get me wrong. I've spent hours digging up bits of lore on the wikis of my favorite series, but I recognize that they're not of any particularly intellectual merit.

My favorite series that has any focus on story is Metal Gear. I actually think it does have its moments of interesting rhetoric, but it's very spoon-fed; Hideo Kojima is not a master of subtlety. What's more, it's unlikely that he's breaking any ground that wasn't covered by literature or film half a century or more ago. Still, that he puts any effort into analyzing technological and political trends is appreciated. I hope that the games industry can eventually provide stories that can be considered intellectually classic, but the medium has its roadblocks.

I should point out that abandoning a game is really rare for me, because I know my tastes well enough to keep bad purchases to a minimum. More commonly, I'll let myself get distracted and leave a game for long enough that I'm compelled to restart (most common with RPGs), but I do/will get back to those.

The Last of Us is the last game I can recall truly abandoning.

This pretty much describes me exactly (except I haven't played TLOU). I don't have a very good track record of getting back to games, though. If I feel like I'd have to restart, I usually just abandon the game for good.

That's why I usually will minimize my focus to exactly one game if I begin an RPG I intend to finish. I've made hardly any progress on my backlog since I began focusing Persona 4 because I was determined to finish it. Now that I'm returning to games that are my bread and butter (relatively short, minimal story), I'm free once again to multi-thread 5 or 6 games at a time. Feels nice.

[TheGreatNads]

It is out of the ordinary for me to "finish" games. I rarely feel compelled to beat games and I'm also the type of person who will stop playing a game for no particular reason and then come back to it years later and have no problem picking back up where I left off with no thought of starting over. And going back to old games, whether I have beaten them or not, is normal for me. So it's not clear when a game is either abandoned or finished with me.

As far as games I generally dislike, I think it really varies a lot to tell how quickly I will dislike them and stop playing them forever. Some types of games have a lot of downtime so I can put several hours into them before quitting. Most open world games are like that. Dead Island, Infamous, Prototype, were all games I thought were pretty miserable experiences(Infamous being the worst of the lot) but I probably put a good 5-10 hours into each one of them. Whereas some platformer that is probably better than those games I could put down forever after five minutes because I'm just not interested. So it varies based on what type of game it is.

But I think the main thing, which someone brought up earlier, is that one tends to get a better sense of one's taste and naturally filters out certain games. As a result I would say I do not that often have experiences where I put a game down forever after a very brief time. It's more often that I would opt out of playing that type of game in the first place. On the other hand, when I'm trying to get into a game genre or whatever that I'm less familiar with, I'm more likely to put a larger amount of time into it just trying to familiarize myself with it. So I would say nowadays most games that I abandon are after a couple hours or more because I'm less familiar with what they're doing and want to give them a chance. But there aren't very many of those games because I mostly stick to what I like.

I wouldn't care for the gameplay going into it. I really just wanted to experience the story everyone was flipping out over. People need to read more books. Zzzzz

What if they read less books? If they were illiterate they could not be producing all of these glowing reviews.

[MerlinDrazziw]

Had to think about what games I find really boring. There are genres I avoid, but not because I find them boring. Really boring games I quit playing within 5 - 15 min., unless it is some kind of 'multiplayer' game and it's easy to play with friends. RPG is a genre I usually avoid (but still admire), they tend to be too demanding for me. Sports games aren't on the top of my list of games to play and I will never play the majority of them. Only a few sports I find interesting or fun to play: golf and bowling (and maybe a few others that feature on the Resort games).

When I 'abandon' a game, it's mostly because I'm stuck somewhere in the game and I can't continue (even with online help). At some point I might pick them up again to start over or try getting on.

[Starmancer]

Depends on the game. If it's an RPG, I'll stick with it for a few hours. Recently I spent 6+ hours with Baldur's Gate even though it bored me out of my skull. If it's an action game, usually I'll give it about 30 minutes tops, unless it's Action-Adventure, which I'll give a little more time to get going. Can't rember the last time I honestly thought an action game was boring, though...

[slangman]

Depends on the type of game. I gave myself 30mins - 2 hours max, esp with RPGs. Haven't played any game I find boring as such, but I do have a bad habit of sometimes abandoning games and then going for other games that I want to try next. I do end up finishing my games eventually though.

[The Shoemaker]

If I abandon a game it's usually not because I find it too boring or anything, just something better or newer pops up and I end up playing that. I have the intention to return to the game but the longer apart the less I care to go back. That happened to me with The Wonderful 101, I was playing and enjoying it but then Wind Waker HD came and I haven't played it since.

[A Beta Fu7ure]

Interesting topic.

I'm struggling to think of a game I last classifed as "boring".

There are numerous bad games that I've abandoned or ones that I've become annoyed by or frustrated with but "boring"....hmm. I'm not sure it's a term I apply to games. I am one of those people who enjoyed waiting for the bus in Shenmue though....you could listen to Ryo's cassette tapes on his walkman.

[The Shoemaker]

Throughout this summer I've been making it a mission of mine to complete as many backlogued games as I could before school starts again. I've been trying to get back into some games, but I've realized that once you've abandoned a game, it's very hard to get back to it. The main reason I'm sure is that there's usually a reason for you abandoning it, so why go back? Like I said before I usually leave a game because some other game or event will come out, taking my focus away from the original game. So even though I may have enjoyed a game when I was playing it, it's tough getting back to it after months.

One example is Zelda Links Awakening DX. I`ve had the game since it came out on the 3DS, which was probably back in 2011. The game is solid, I`m probably only a couple dungeons away, but every time I play it I give up. I think the main thing is that I can`t remember what I was doing in the game - and in older games like these there`s very littler help to pull you back onto the right path. When I was playing it back in the day I had a grasp of where I was, I knew the overworld decently, but now it almost feels like I`m starting the game all over again, except without the tutorial and intial story to guide me on my way. I also find that with games I go back to, I`m not exactly going back for the enjoyment, but for the completion status, which can suck the life out of a game even faster.

So I can`t say for sure how long a spend on a game before I adandon it, as it sort of varies on circumstances, but I do think there`s a link between the amount of time spent away from a game and the liklihood of you completing said game. This might just mean that I shouldn`t buy games until I`m ready to start them, and shouldn`t start them unless I plan on sticking with them.