Quitting a game after 900+ hours spent

[KingFrost92]

Tonight, I had an epiphany while playing Final Fantasy XIV. I've spent around 900 hours in that game since 2014. To some, that may seem modest for a nine year old account. For me, that's a lot of time when I also want to play other games, work 40-50 hours a week, perform music, help with my partner's business, and do most of the management/upkeep work for our household.

Sadly, I realized the hours I spend on it most weeks are now being spent purely out of habit: I am just not having fun playing it anymore, and the time spent to "keep up" is stressing me out. I know that no matter what I do, it's never going to end. There's always going to be something added in a new patch or some class I haven't leveled yet. I think I've come to realization that any game that feels designed to just spend my time without handing me totally new experiences doesn't feel worth it. And honestly, I question why I was okay with a game designed like that in the first place?

I was just sitting thinking while running Syrcus Tower and leveling a Paladin: I've probably done that raid 200 times over the years between artifact grinds and daily alliance queues. 200 times. Somewhere around ~67 hours spent running one alliance raid to level up alts or get a glowy sword or two that don't even do anything anymore but look pretty.

Obviously, the solution here is "Stop forcing yourself to play this thing that's not bringing you joy," so I unsubbed and uninstalled tonight. It feels really bittersweet. I'm happy to potentially have more time back and catch up on games I've missed, but there are several of my friends that still pretty actively play and we probably won't have that common bond anymore. Maybe we could move on to something more healthy and social, like regular nights out and board game stuff to keep that connection up since we live somewhat close to each other.

Anyway, have y'all ever quit a game you were playing out of habit after almost a decade of invested time? Did you have similar feelings? Is there anything you want to quit but haven't yet for some reason?

 

[Quinton]

I play FFXIV without thinking about keeping up at all. I'm there for the story, the world, the soundtrack, the vibe. I don't do artifact grinds or dailies. It helps a lot.

It sounds like leaving might be the right choice for you. For sure. But is there any way you can try to do things as I do them? See if that works out for you? Maybe you don't have to say goodbye to the game outright, just the impulse to play it 'the way you're supposed to.'

 

[IMCaprica]

I've quit many games after realizing I was doing it less for fun and more out of habit. I've gotten better about being okay with hard quitting games like that.

 

[John Rabbit]

Is there anything you want to quit but haven't yet for some reason?

Click to shrink...

I have around 2300 hours in Destiny 2 and the second one of my raid group decides to quit the game, I'm probably done. I think a few others feel the same. At this point we're all slowly getting into a bit of a Mexican standoff on it. Nobody wants to be first but nobody would be sad if it ended.

 

[DOOMleavy]

Don't think of it as 'quitting', think of it as 'finishing your time with'.

 

[Dakkon]

Not at the moment but that was me with Team Fortress 2 which I quit at about 8,000 hours.

 

[Cirrus]

I don't think of it as quitting, I just see it as taking a break. Eventually I may return, whether thats in a few months or a few years.

 

[lorddarkflare]

Quit. If the game is good and makes a solid value proposition, then you can come back later.

Games should not feel like a job.

 

[finally]

Even though I was having "fun" I quit playing League of legends after 3000 hours, weird how addicting that game is to me and I felt like it was destroying my life, especially how it makes me rage.

Now I only play single player games.

 

[Bauer91]

I feel you. Recently quit Apex Legends after a few thousand hours of playtime and having played since day one, for almost four years. Had to have been one of the very, very few players that unlocked pretty much everything (gameplay-wise), didn't skip any events, had every free skin + a lot of paid ones etc.

 

[KushalaDaora]

Anyway, have y'all ever quit a game you were playing out of habit after almost a decade of invested time? Did you have similar feelings? Is there anything you want to quit but haven't yet for some reason?

Click to shrink...

I have 3000+ hours in Destiny 2.

Took a break in November thinking to avoid burn out before Season 18 launch. When S18 arrived, the Steam update for the game breaks.

I take that as a sign to finally stop playing the game for good (or at least take another extended hiatus). Uninstalled the game ever since.

 

[SlickVic]

I play FFXIV without thinking about keeping up at all. I'm there for the story, the world, the soundtrack, the vibe. I don't do artifact grinds or dailies. It helps a lot.

It sounds like leaving might be the right choice for you. For sure. But is there any way you can try to do things as I do them? See if that works out for you? Maybe you don't have to say goodbye to the game outright, just the impulse to play it 'the way you're supposed to.'

Click to shrink...

Yeah that's how I try to approach XIV as well. It's probably the longest I've played a single game, but I try to avoid treating it like a job. I don't really feel compelled to level cap all the classes in the game, get all the relic weapons, etc, because a lot of that stuff just doesn't sound like fun to me (and to me at least, isn't necessary to enjoy the game). When a new patch comes out I'll run through the MSQ, any story based side content, run the raids to get some glam (which is probably the most grindy thing I do in the game, but overall I still have fun running those), and when I run out of things to do that I'm enjoying, I just take a break.

 

[CountAntonio]

Nearly 5 years and 5000 hours on rocket league. I was never a great player and ranked would stress me out too much so i would just sit and play casual mode all day long to kill time. But I always felt like I hit the wall of my growth and was no longer having fun. If i wanted to truly progress I needed to play just ranked and do some actual practice to get my mechanical skill better. At that point i just was over it and knew if i didnt put in that work for 5 years I just never would. I stopped playing and don't really miss it.

 

[KingFrost92]

Don't think of it as 'quitting', think of it as 'finishing your time with'.

Click to shrink...

That's probably a better way to think of it! I've had some amazing times in FFXIV, the story beats being the best of it, and great nights learning all the extremes fights with friends.

Maybe someday I'll return but right now I'm trying to make a concerted effort to not play it anymore.

 

[cyrribrae]

Big step. You can always see how you feel in a couple months, but making an active decision after self-reflection seems like an awesome thing in and of itself.

Congrats :)

 

[Alpheus]

Definitely cut back if you feel you need to. None of the drops in XIV are worth my time to do them when they're current content imo, but I do grade on a harsh curve on that front due to having played XI where meta gear would last you the better part of a decade or nearly 20 for some of them (D.Ring and Rajas Ring and Suppanomimi come to mind).

Even stuff like Garo collab is super long term so you'll have stuff waiting for ya should you ever return, no rush to get it all now/soon.

 

[thediamondage]

Thousands of hours in world of warcraft (launch), Destiny, Forza Horizon, Call of Duty, and even FF14 (relaunch).

After your first "ok, I quit" after spending hundreds of hours you never really feel the same way towards those kind of games again.

It is a bit insidious how well devs have become at implementing "the loop" that gets you to login every day and get a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of progression so you feel like you are "getting something done".

Twitch really has helped out, while I don't really have any desire to play WoW or Destiny again, when big releases come up its fun to watch them on twitch and see the community in action.

 

[Listai]

I always fall off XIV once I run out of MSQ or raids and the name of the game becomes dailies or grinding dungeons for things to trade in or whatever.

I pretty much just re-sub for each expansion and I've enjoyed my time with the game that way.

 

[Smash-It Stan]

Put 7-8k hours into Dota 2. Haven't played since November, Valve is imo quietly sunsetting the game after the nonsense they pulled for The International last year. No updates, ranked's been broken for years, cheating is getting more prevalent. The winter event was really really mid and the battle pass was the scummiest yet. Finally had enough and quit full stop and haven't had the urge since.

Problem is, I've felt a little aimless since quitting. I've consumed Dota 2 content nearly daily since 2012, it's all I've known. I'm really hoping Street Fighter 6 knocks it out of the park because I love fighting games but it doesn't idk what I'm gonna do. Play FF14 at that point?

 

[Celestial Descend]

This is why when people tell me FF14 is "just like single player Fianl Fantasy", I just laugh. MMORPG is fundementally a differernt thing from a single player game. It is designed to drain your time.

 

[fracas]

Play what makes you happy. This hobby is meant for entertainment, not a daily grind. And I wouldn't say you're quitting, if you ever feel like playing again just resub for a month and see how you feel.

 

[Deleted user 125633]

Endwalker ironically was the last ride for my WoL. Personally was getting fed up with how SE had treated multiple jobs I enjoyed, and I really loathe the over simplification that seems to be hitting jobs across the board. Monk, in particular, limped from expansion to expansion from Heavensward on, and the new Blitz system did absolutely nothing for me. I ended up maining SAM, SMN, and GNB, throughout my final months with XIV and never felt particularly engaged by any of them.

But as a story, I've never felt so satisfied walking away from a game. Despite my misgivings with FFXIV mechanically, as a story it was the emotional peak for my character's journey. Having struggled to get this far, having so many story threads tied up, and that amazing final duel followed up by the final conversations with the cast, it just felt right that in the end, my dragon chick would walk into the sunset to some other adventure far away from Eorzea... and I don't necessarily need to be there to see it for myself.

Something like 2000 hours of life "wasted" on FFXIV, but the friends I made in the game are still friends outside of the game, and honestly, I didn't really "waste" any time. I had fun, and eventually moved on when it felt right to do so.

 

[Muu]

I had thousands of Days worth of playtime on ff11 by the time I stopped playing. One of the chief reasons I hung on was to keep in touch w friends and LS members, by then either I was interacting with people through other means or friends had up and quit the game. These days w keeping in touch being so easy I don't see any reason to keep playing if you're tired of the gameplay loop.

 

[Warukyure]

I've pretty much quit FFXIV after patch 6.2. I've also taken long breaks and was able to catch up relatively easily. But for the life of me, I cannot quit FFXI. I barely even play between work and real life. But once or twice a week, I'll try to find the 2 hours to do Dynamis. Some of the friends I have in the game, I've known for 10+ years.

Almost 30,500 hours...

 

[Mechaplum]

I quit wow after 180 days played so...

It's fine. It shouldn't be an obligation unless it's work or fam.

This is why when people tell me FF14 is "just like single player Fianl Fantasy", I just laugh. MMORPG is fundementally a differernt thing from a single player game. It is designed to drain your time.

Click to shrink...

I've played many MMORPGs and this is not correct for FF14. You can literally just play the critical path on your own time and not engage with any other activities and still get to experience the main story.

 

[Tambini]

I plan on quitting OSRS once I max my account, which should be this year. It's taken me so long to max because a lot of my playtime is AFK training methods that let me do it in the background while I do other stuff.
Problem is there is a new skill thats going to be coming out this or next year, which might tempt me back into playing, I mean I won't be maxed anymore once it's out..

 

[EatChildren]

In cases like this I think it's less quitting, more retiring. There's no end to these types of games, like multiplayer games in general. Not really. There's no way to "win" them, pack them up, and consider them complete. They last as long or as little as you wish them to, and ultimately the only deciding factor should be how much personal enjoyment you get out of the experience of play. If you ever have to stop yourself and ask "Am I playing this out of obligation, or enjoyment?", it's probably the former, and that is a great starting point to consider retiring the energy and effort you put into the title and start looking elsewhere for the thrill and fun that got you hooked in the first place.

I've never put that much time in the game, but I've definitely put 100s of hours into others (Team Fortress 2, Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, Hunt: Showdown, PUBG, etc), and easily 1000+ hours accumulative across Battlefield games. And I've definitely had points in all of these titles where I stepped back and went "Man, am I enjoying this any more?". Often it's during an event or something. Hunt: Showdown, for example, is a game I still play and love. But I haven't liked some of the recent additions to the meta and my average playtime has dropped significantly. I also used to throw my all into every event to ensure during the limited period (eg: Christmas event, Easter event, Halloween event) I'd play enough hours and earn enough points to unlock the exclusive character skin. But I've long since stopped caring about it due to how difficult and skewered the event point collection meta has become. The game still rules, but unlocking shit is an obnoxious grind.

Team Fortress 2 I put 100s of hours into, but I just burned out as Valve kept adding more and more and more new weapons and gear and the simple elegancy of the original meta + first few updates just seemed lost to me. Still a great game, but I realised I wasn't really enjoying it as much as I used it.

Conversely, Battlefield has been a series that's been my go-to multiplayer time sink since the OG, but I hit a wall with both Battlefield V and 2042. Retrospectively, BFV was the worst; there's still a solid game in there and some fantastic ideas, but the post-launch update and balance supports were abhorrent, the game never felt polished or focused, and I distinctly remember a point after a couple hundred hours that I was actively disliking every second with the game and just uninstalled it to shift focus on other titles (like Hunt). Funnily enough, 2042 had the same impact, only worse, at launch: the worst I've ever felt playing as Battlefield game, and the quickest I hung it up and uninstalled. I was so disappointed. Then DICE put in a shitload of work, I reinstalled it, and it sits as a better experience to me than BFV, warts and all.

But yeah. I think you just always need to remember games shouldn't be jobs. They can be many things; social adventures, feelings of accomplishment, pure unadulterated silly fun. I think games can be challenging and have a sense that you "work" towards something and that's fine. Putting in effort, developing your skills, and being rewarded tickles a very specific part of our animal brain and it's totally okay. But when the entire experience feels like a painful obligation that you're forcing yourself to commit to, you need to realise your time is beholden to nobody but yourself. If there's no fun to be had, pack it up and move on. The good memories don't go anywhere. You can still reminisce on the amazing highs.

 

[MegaSackman]

Oh, I only resub when there's new content, I play that and then leave again until the next patch.

I'm done with repeating dungeons, trials, and raids over and over. Once or twice is enough fun for me.

 

[Lucentto]

I also decided to the pull the plug on FFXIV recently. I've spent around 5000 hours on it the past two years. My reasons though is I just wasn't having fun playing the game anymore. The changes they've made to the combat, even as a player that came in during last expansion, is what killed it for me.

 

[hydruxo]

I have thousands of hours into Destiny 2 and I've taken numerous breaks over the years for several months at a time. Last summer I didn't play at all for like 4 months. That was primarily due to work stuff but I was also feeling burnt out on the game too. I don't ever really plan to quit playing it nor would I want to, but I just don't let FOMO get to me anymore. I do what I want to do on there and run raids with friends and that's about it. Most weeks I only play it like once or twice. It's a lot more enjoyable doing that rather than grinding and wasting countless hours IMO. When it gets to the point where it feels like a job in and of itself to get on and play then there's no point really.

That being said, since FF14 is an MMO and has a sub I feel like I'd quit real fast if I played it and I wasn't feeling it anymore. No point in staying subbed so might as well just quit entirely at that point. There's more of a feeling of obligation when you're subbed to something that you need to keep using/playing it.

 

[Pliskin]

Yep, Destiny after thousands of hours. All my friends left, pvp is a mess and I have so many guns with god rolls there's no point of getting more. It was and endless cycle but it was fun, no regrets. Thank you Bungie and good luck.

 

[Faith]

I've got a stupid amount of hours in Destiny 2 but for quite some time was basically playing it only because I played with friends and also helped others with the harder content occasionally. Haven't actually had fun playing it for some time now and finally decided enough is enough and I'm super close to dropping it entirely, only reason I even have time in the game this season is because Bungie finally decided to lower the ridiculous gatekeeping regarding GM nightfalls so I did those and bailed.

Game just feels like a job and the pvp I would just fall back on when pve got stale is so bad now I don't want to play it. I think not getting Lightfall and finally dropping it entirely will actually help me mentally.

 

[KingFrost92]

Endwalker ironically was the last ride for my WoL. Personally was getting fed up with how SE had treated multiple jobs I enjoyed, and I really loathe the over simplification that seems to be hitting jobs across the board. Monk, in particular, limped from expansion to expansion from Heavensward on, and the new Blitz system did absolutely nothing for me. I ended up maining SAM, SMN, and GNB, throughout my final months with XIV and never felt particularly engaged by any of them.

But as a story, I've never felt so satisfied walking away from a game. Despite my misgivings with FFXIV mechanically, as a story it was the emotional peak for my character's journey. Having struggled to get this far, having so many story threads tied up, and that amazing final duel followed up by the final conversations with the cast, it just felt right that in the end, my dragon chick would walk into the sunset to some other adventure far away from Eorzea... and I don't necessarily need to be there to see it for myself..

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I feel this. I don't feel exactly like I "wasted" the time on the main story. I LOVED the MSQ through the end, and really liked reading and watching it all. It's the constant replaying of the content to make numbers go up that I loved for a long time, and now just can't vibe with anymore.

I was literally staring at Tataru tonight ready to start the new chapters of content and I just like, couldn't. It felt wrong. The closing stuff was too good!

 

[Soulymist]

I've been playing Genshin Impact since day one, Have probably 500+ hours on it (don't know the specific number) but might have to quit soon.

It has a pretty good story, beautiful world building and characters.
However, I'm getting so tired of opening chests, watching an unskippable dialogue for an hour and grinding artifacts.

Still a fun game tho but I've been doing this for 2 years now. No reason to have to continue doing the same thing for hundreds of hours.

 

[LiquidSolid]

Was wondering how you could spend that much time levelling but then you said you leveled alts and was like "oooohhh." I spend a lot of time playing XIV but all my effort goes into my main, I've got a few alts but they're all in ARR and if I ever do play them more, it'll only be for the story.

I've definitely done big FFXIV grinds (lvl every job to 90, all hunt mounts, bicolor gemstone mount, 50 CLLs, 50 Dals, all HW relics and all ShB relics) but most of those were spread out over a decent length of time. Recently I've been kinda burnt out, so I've cut back to just doing my basic weeklies/dailies, sometimes doing a treasure map group with friends and 3-5 Frontline wins a week. It's given me a lot more time to play other games.

 

[Stiletto]

Shadowbringers relic grind took me 2 months. I loved it.

 

[Yuntu]

If I notice a game is a habit and not fun I stop playing regardless how much time is spent. For example took a Genshin break while I played through XIV MSQ and raided in XIV - just no time for both.

 

[bushmonkey]

I always want to get into multiplayer that way and have that one game I daily on but I get bored of the same game too quickly. I tried with FF14, Destiny 2, Apex Legends, Division 2, R6: Siege and COD: Warzone. I enjoyed my time with them but after less than 100 hours with any of them I just had to move on. I couldn't fathom spending thousands of hours on 1 game.

 

[MayorSquirtle]

100 hours a year for 9 years is funny to me cause I racked up like 2000 or so in XIV in 2021 alone catching up on all the content (to be fair, I didn't have a lot going on that year!).

That said, unless you're a serious savage/ultimate raider, the game really doesn't offer that much reason to stay subbed between expansions aside from the social element. If you still love the game but can't deal with the grind, just don't deal with it and come back when 7.0 launches and then again when 8.0 launches. There's no need to leave it forever imo.

 

[Freezasaurus]

I've quit many games after realizing I was doing it less for fun and more out of habit. I've gotten better about being okay with hard quitting games like that.

Click to shrink...

100% me with Animal Crossing. It was a great game, but I was long past having a good time with it and was playing more out of a feeling of obligation. That's probably my biggest complaint about games using a realtime clock. I was able to finally delete it last week after not having played since Thanksgiving. It was time.

 

[KingFrost92]

100 hours a year for 9 years is funny to me cause I racked up like 2000 or so in XIV in 2021 alone catching up on all the content (to be fair, I didn't have a lot going on that year!).

That said, unless you're a serious savage/ultimate raider, the game really doesn't offer that much reason to stay subbed between expansions aside from the social element. If you still love the game but can't deal with the grind, just don't deal with it and come back when 7.0 launches and then again when 8.0 launches. There's no need to leave it forever imo.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, you're probably right. I will probably jump back for MSQ if the new expansion has hype around it, but maybe I'm just transitioning from the player that tries to do everything to a more casual one, and I'm reckoning with my social circle not being on the same page.

 

[Tsumami]

I have around 4k hours in tf2 playing from 2012 to now, still enjoy it so I still play it. I've never really had a problem just not playing something anymore when i no longer think its fun. Its not like money is wasted when you spent so much time in it anyway, you got your value back and then some imo

 

[Wrexis]

This is why when people tell me FF14 is "just like single player Fianl Fantasy", I just laugh. MMORPG is fundementally a differernt thing from a single player game. It is designed to drain your time.

Click to shrink...

I mean, you're right, but so are the single player ones.

 

[IMCaprica]

100% me with Animal Crossing. It was a great game, but I was long past having a good time with it and was playing more out of a feeling of obligation. That's probably my biggest complaint about games using a realtime clock. I was able to finally delete it last week after not having played since Thanksgiving. It was time.

Click to shrink...

That was one of them for me too. I eventually returned for the DLC, but I saw how deep that could go and I quit.

 

[Rodney McKay]

I have yet to find a game that I've been able to put more than 200 hours in before getting tired of it. Probably a good thing overall, but I've always wanted to find a game that I could enjoy for a long period of time.

Never found an MMO I think I'd like, no F2P games, mobile games, GAAS, or multiplayer games.

Weirdly, Avengers came close (I got 200 hours into it), despite having a lot of issues with l it, but once other games were coming out I wanted to play I pretty much stopped completely and had no urge to go back and play the new characters.
Could have played it longer had the game gotten more regular content updates or more interesting characters to play as.

Besides that, the games I've probably put the most hours in are Bioware games (Mass Effect series Dragon Age Origins+Inquisition), Borderlands 1+2,

 

[PKrockin]

Every hour you spend on games is another hour closer to a failing, helpless body and death. You should be getting something back for spending that time, not just playing something purely out of habit despite not enjoying it.

 

[Merchuriel]

I have played Animal Crossing New Horizons for hundreds of hours, but I no longer enjoy the game. I even tried restarting the island, but no, it's such a slog now. It was a relief to uninstall the game.
I haven't quit Minecraft, but I have quit playing on servers I spent many hundreds of hours in. At that point those servers were mostly abandoned anyway.

 

[Freezasaurus]

That was one of them for me too. I eventually returned for the DLC, but I saw how deep that could go and I quit.

Click to shrink...

Animal Crossing came out at the perfect time, right at the beginning of the pandemic. And it helped a lot of people get through some dark times. It's perfectly okay to put it down. It did what it was meant to do.

I'll still be back day one for the next AC game.

 

[Syinn]

Destiny and Destiny 2 was this game for me and I quit about a year ago. FOMO was getting annoying and with less time to play lately I found myself enjoying it less. Weapon crafting was the final carrot on the stick that did me in.

I never even realised until I quit the game that its the reason for my game backlog. D2 consumed my game time. I've finally gone back and enjoyed other games now and I think I have given up on high commitment GaaS games.

 

[Deleted member 3038]

I had over 3000 Hours in league, and I finally quit it 3 months ago when they showed off the new Jungle Changes. The new changes they did just felt like it was simplifying the game and ruining my favorite role, and I took it as a sign to stop playing. I have a friend who's still playing it and he keeps trying to get me to play it again, but every time I'm in discord and he's playing all he does is rage & complain about the game and he's always grinding for some battle pass, so I think I'm good.

Destiny 2 I got an insane number of hours in during Shadowkeep, but the game got insanely boring post Beyond Light when I started seeing all the FOMO & "New Content" was really just the same shit in a new skin.

FFXIV I have Something like ~400 Hours currently, and I'm up to date on all the content, but I just get on to do my weeklies then I hop off and do something else. I would love to do more in it, but I have no friends to do higher end content with.