For me, ARK: Survival Evolved, aside from frennds. The games Expects the world from you if you play online, more so if you play pvp. However what keeps me going back is the game is more or less a breeding ground for primal reactions. Don't get me wrong Toxic players still sucks but when you take into account that all the work you built up over hours or days (if your in a tribe or not) can be lossed in less then 30 minutes. It does get a primal reaction out of players, along with the fact that the game has people who more or less could likely start doing well in politics (thanks to how pvp has changed over the years). Some times the death of a whole sever can be stopped just buy coming to an agreemnt.

It may sound dumb but I think that's the core strength of that game.

Really just games in general. They're empty distractions from what I want to be doing but also they are distracting from the relentless crush of existance.

GTA V a couple of thousand hours. I had one account with a 300-ish character, that was hacked. So I made a new one that's currently at level 399... I spent too much time on this... I should play it a gain 🤔

Life.

cribbage, my parents love it and want to play it everytime I visit them.

Chess. You either play a bullet game (i.e. only a few seconds to make your moves) and it feels like a bullshit game of chance, or you play with a longer time control and it becomes a massive time sink. Why do I keep playing? Escapism (see also: LonelyLupine's comment), sunk cost, and a vague hope I can "git gud" some day to feed my ego.

Elden Ring, sadly. I feel like the open world aspect of the game makes so much content so easy to miss and it makes it difficult to tell if I'm going in the right direction at the right time. And due how large the world is, the dungeons and forts start to feel like copy-pastes of each other, which is to be expected from such a large project, but it takes me out of the experience.

It's a wonderful game that I've clocked around 40 hours in so far, and everything about it is great, but it's really not my favorite. I think I just prefer the more linear gameplay of other Soulsborne games. But awe-striking areas like Leyndell and Dominula are what make up for it!

Yu-gi-oh, specifically master duel.

Because i still cope for more tri brigade support...

Europa Universalis IV, or most (non-Koei) grand strategy games for that matter. For me, I go in with the hopes of reforming the Kingdom of Armenia or the Mongol Empire or something... how cool, right?! Three hours later, though, it is evident that, no, the Mongol Empire was not actually reformed, just a bunch of numbers that were crunched from the hypothetical formation of it by an even more cracked out Chinggis Khagan who is the head of every aspect of the state.

Why, oh, why...?

Edit: Also attracted to it for the same reason as you are ARK... slow PvP FTW.

league of legends, i hate it so much and it's so painful to play yet there are invisible chains that attach to my brain and i go insane when i'm not playing this game daily. i don't know why i can't stop playing because i know i don't like the game at all in anyway and yet i sit here, hours a day playing it.

also yuumi is hot.

hearthstone

It's not that I dislike it actually but I've gotten bored of it(partially due to no updates for duels) plus I don't like denathrius.
It's something to do while I eat though, so I play it.

Uma Musume, because goddamnit I don't care if it's a gatcha, HORSE GIRLS GIVE ME LIFE--

popoto said:
hearthstone

It's not that I dislike it actually but I've gotten bored of it(partially due to no updates for duels) plus I don't like denathrius.
It's something to do while I eat though, so I play it.

I know that feel, a lot of games have started to feel boring to me 'cause of a lack of substantial updates and/or a lack of friends to play them with (they're all too busy or got absorbed by other video games...). What helps me with this is playing some sort of background noise, such as music, LPs, analysis videos, and et cetera; it gives me other things to focus on than just the one game. This doesn't help when playing with any sort of competition, like PvP in WoW or self-imposed "competition" like achievement hunting, but with the former it always helps to play with others and with the latter, it depends on how much self motivation I'm feeling at that moment.

azero said:
Life.

Board games can be quite addictive...

Most mobile games.

Guilty Gear Stive, Dood

Ever since the big patch to gameplay, You just can't make Creative combos anymore.
and without that layer of creativity that comes from making your own combos,
The gameplay is pretty stale. =P (and at worst just not fun.)

Though I keep on playing since:

I'm kinda outta games play between doodles.
◠‿╹;)

Anji's fan dance fighting style resonates with me ╹‿╹)
post #3471997
(I like Anji more than I like the game in general, Dood ◠‿◠)

And I'm REALLY Holding out that Zappa and A.B.A
come back as playable characters, Dood ╹‿╹)~★

Kinda does not apply at the moment.
But recently I was often up to play Stellaris.. mostly because my friends would play it and I wished to play with friends.
But I also despised the games balance, mostly because egalitarian faction can stack up specialist population output (to get advanced resources that are actually useful), while playing others tends to give bonuses to raw materials (which is rather useless, you can't build a starship out of iron ore).
And it lasted like so for some 200 hours? Which is maybe 20 full games.
Until I got around to play all sides I considered to be 'broken', found out how painful it is to play egalitarian without the influence bonus authoritarian gives and then started to like it more.
...
Anyone wanna play stewawis with me?

Starlink: Battle for Atlas. Every six months or so, I'll be reminded that an alright looking game with the StarFox crew exists, and I'll play it for a bit and wonder why I don't play it more. Then battle starts, and am reminded why. Strange flight controls, awkward dog fighting, tied with absurdly essential type advantage mechanics to force toy sales (which failed hard) in a game that's already Ubisoft-grindy.

Not to mention that the StarFox stuff is effectively an addon to a game with no soul, so whenever I have to interface with the actual game it just feels like I'm partaking in a templated OC plot.

It all renders a game teeming with potential a horrendous slog to sit through.

for some reason, roblox. It probably helps that I've grown up with it but I generally really hate roblox. Still probably up there with some of my most played games tho

siral_exan said:
I know that feel, a lot of games have started to feel boring to me 'cause of a lack of substantial updates and/or a lack of friends to play them with' ...

There is a gaping hole where single player games used to be ... go fuck yourself origin; I know none of my friends play this game ... I have no goddamned friends anymore because they all had kids and became even more boring than they were to begin with :P

Animal Crossing New Horizons

war thunder

I enjoy the vehicular combat, particularly the aircraft.

I abhor the balance decisions and obvious cash grabs, especially with top tier vehicles.

League of Legends, been a support since 2013 because I like to feel that I'm helping someone else feel better. Playing doesn't help depression at all but I keep coming back a few times every week.

1. Ninja Kiwi and Supercell games. I have a lot of different game accounts with some big "rushed" and some small "maxed" ones. First I liked the gameplay, the calm/entertaining music, and some updates, but with the newest updates, I'm just a support guy who could donate high-level troops or defense tactics. Just the support guy.
2. Every title what has science fiction, 3rd person shooting games, and puzzle games. Puzzle games like Portal 1 & 2 from VALVe
[Edited]

The Binding of Isaac. I've already gotten Dead God once and so many things in the game are just needlessly tedious and a lot of things in the game are determined completely by RNG and a lot of things can happen that just feel like complete BS.
I play on Switch so I can't even mod it!

This first one is a "it's a guilty pleasure" sense; I like it, but I have no idea why when I can only think of negative things to say about it.

• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Forbidden Memories (PS1). It's an objectively terrible game, and it's an exercise in frustration with its being one of the most grindy, luck-based games ever made. But it's just addictive for some reason, enough to have gotten me into the YGO series as a whole as an adult after passing on it in my childhood. This video breaks down a lot of things about it SOMEHOW still having a relatively active fandom: https://youtu.be/-f5xLVvvbFU

This next one probably fits the topic more, though:

• Space Engine (PC). I don't just dislike it; I kinda hate it because it's so, so empty. The procedural generation of planets is terrible; for a simulation that tries to aim for realism, the environments it generates are just unrealistically uniform. Like... even real dead space rocks have, like, interestingly-shaped wrinkles or something. Every single Space Engine planet feels exactly the same. And yet, I keep coming back to it, hanging onto some faint hope that I'll see an exception, a unique environment that inspires me.