Gacha.

For most anything else, I can simply chalk it up as a difference in tastes when I don’t like the gameplay, or art style, or whatever. Even those shitty horror games for babies I despise are perhaps fun if you dive into the lore at the right age, who knows. I certainly have obsessed for less than mediocre games.

But no one likes gacha, or at least should like it. It’s gambling marketed to kids, preying on the people without impulse control. No “you can spend 2 hours of your life every day on this and save up 2$ in currency” is changing that, in fact that is even worse.

And yet they give hoyoverse a pass for their series, because everything around it is so high quality. Open your fucking eyes! Games are not supposed to punish you for not playing!

But of course, no accusation without confession, I am quite fond of the yugioh simulator, and used to defend it the same way. I try to resolve this double standard by doing what I feel they should do: Never gush about it, only mention it in shame, and always warn people to not pick it up.

FIFA and Madden NFL

Dark Souls type games that are just pure grinding wasting time.

I bought this shadow game that look awesome gameplay was fun at first… Then something felt off… Things were just ridiculously hard for no reason I kept dying on level one…

I was like… Wtf is this shit? Little googling and the game is made by the dark souls people and apparently this grinding over hard shit IS the appeal…

Na man, I got a job and kids and responsibilities and my one hour of playtime better be fun… And dieing and grinding ain’t it.

Souls. I’ve tried em and find them repetitive and cheesy in their lack of little details that make games fun for me.

I tried Elden ring and thought it was the ugliest, most repetitive game I’ve ever played. I don’t get the hype for the souls series, it’s just making a game repetitive and difficult to justify its lack of substance

Sports games.

No Man’s Sky: I’ve tried playing it and just end up getting bored. Every once in a while I’ll go back and check it out again, feeling like I somehow didn’t give it a fair shake, but remain underwhelmed.

Maybe next time…

Soulslikes. I am so fucking sick of hearing about them. Elden Ring and it’s jank ass UI did not deserve GOTY.

For me its Metroid, and really the whole Metroidvania genre. I can never tell when a challenge is supposed to be possible, or if I’m supposed to come back later, and and up wasting hours trying to do something only for it to be trivial later. I don’t find this at all rewarding.

That said Tunic was a fantastic game, and I love the concept of the ‘Metroid-Brainia’, purely because of the concept that every challenge is theoretically possible from the start, you just need to learn how to do it.

The Total War series should theoretically be right up my alley, since I’m a history nerd and I put a LOT of time into Paradox games (EU4, CK2, HOI4, Stellaris, and Surviving Mars are all high on my hours played chart).

But for whatever reason, I’ve just never clicked with the Total War versions of the same thing. For old school, I played Empire and Medeival. For new school, I dipped into Atilla because it was on a sale. I figured old mechanics/new mechanics, maybe one will work better than the other. But while I did somewhat enjoy Empire, the Total War series in general just has never grabbed me.

I have the same issue with the Assassin’s Creed series. History Nerd…should be right up my street. But just have never clicked with me despite trying multiple games. THOSE however are much more clearer to me as to why. It’s the cut and paste gameplay loop that Ubisoft has in ALL of their series.

Unlock an area, do random missions based on a number system for difficulty, interspersed with main plot missions. Move to another area, repeat. Some missions encourage you to team up with other people and go online. Others can be bypassed by micro-transactions. They literally haven’t changed their core loop in years, whether that’s Assassins Creed, Watchdogs, Shadow of War/Mordor, The Division, Far Cry…the list goes on and on.

I don’t have much against any particular game since I can see something that someone would enjoy.

However there are sone things that I actually don’t understand how someone would enjoy;

Always Online: all of your time, money, and love could just vanish underneath you

P2W / P2S: Ah yes, let me make the gameplay loop doing a 9-5

Gacha: Gambling is 80% of the gameplay but somehow they make it unfun

Live Service: By itself not bad. However it enables games to be released completely broken.

Everyone is going gaga for Peak rn (including my BF) and I don’t see the appeal at all other than maybe the social aspect. The game itself looks boring AF.

I also haven’t liked many AAA games since graduating high school. All these things that are cultural phenomena like The Last of Us just… Didnt like 'em. I feel like most of the AAA games that blow up in popularity are only applauded for the story and dialogue, because the game itself tends to be generic and mid and does nothing special, unique or interesting at all.

I want to see a shift from focusing on telling a story or trying to be High Art and just make a thing that is fun to play as a game that also isn’t loaded with MTX and is only fun to play because it psychologically addicts you.

Hero Shooters, specifically Overwatch and R6 Seige. Really any sort of MOBA too. I dont really get the point of having unique characters with loads of lore and an underlying story if you aren’t going to get to experience any of it in gameplay. TF2 gets away with it because the classes arent really characters, they are more like an archetype of that class and the story is just supplemental stuff.

Balatro. There’s just no motivation to keep playing. It’s just uninteresting. Love me some Slay the Spire, though.

Final fantasy, FIFA, GTA, CoD, Modern warfare and Persona are the ones that spring to mind for me.

I think I’m past being mystified by there being a market for stupid, terrible games. I used to find it confusing but the answer for so many confusing things in life is just ‘idiots exist.’