When do you know you've hit that point...

There comes a point in a person's life when you know that he is becoming too old to play video games. I hope I haven't reached this point. But when I find that Resistance Fall of Man is irritatingly difficult to play so much so that I don't play it for weeks at a time I wonder: is this my cut off point... should I reduce the difficulty?

At what point do you feel it is time to hang up the 360 and display it as a quaint trophy to what your skills used to be?

I love games. But really hard games turn me off because I game for fun, not a scorching challenge. Some people see games like a sport. If it's not challenging, they don't like it. I play for entertainment.brianpoetzel

Skill isn't my problem,the realization that I've treated a hobby more like an obsession is. I have no problem playing games, quite the opposite in fact -- I play them too much. And too much of anything is bad.

I now plan on moderating my game time, and spending more time doing things with tangible benefits. It's not that I love playing games any less, only that I realize that in order to eventually let go, I'll need to first get down to tolerable levels -- no more 8 hour nights and going to bed for a couple hours before getting up to go to work. An hour a day on weeknights, and perhaps four or five hours a day on weekends.

As for when you know you've hit that point, there isn't a hard and fast rule. Hell, there isn't any rule at all -- play until your very last day as far as I'm concerned, assuming it makes you happy and other parts of your life aren't being neglected or left unfulfilled as a result. Everyone has to answer that questionon their own.

That whole "Too old to play video games" stigma is a pile of crap. If this is your hobby of choice then stand by it, end of story.

I'm 35 and I have a daughter. We play games together all the time. And I still have friends who game as well. There's no need to hang up the controllers unless you genuinely have lost interest in the hobby. Any reason other than that is nonsense.

I've been a gamer since I was 5 years old and I plan to be one until the arthritis has twisted my hands backwards. Sure, as time goes on I'm not as sharp on "mad skillzez" as I once was. But so what, I still have fun with it and isn't that what this, or any other, hobby is supposed to be about?

You are planning to eventually stop, Shame?Felix-Legions

Aye. Not right away or anything, but definitely by the time the generation is over.

All great points. I never meant to say that I plan on quitting gaming. Far from it. I just noticed that the games I thought I was good at seem to be ramping up the difficulty and kicking my butt and I'm having problems adapting to these changes. I do find that I buy so many games and only devote about an hour per week on all of them and am making very little progress. I'm trying to change this.

Still... Guitar Hero 2 seems to be my poison of choice right now and I can't wait for all the games to come out this fall. Just because I'm not great at certain games doesn't mean I'm not gonna shell out the 60 bucks to play them!

If you aren't having fun than STOP playing it.

You will lose in any game no doubt. If you can lose and still have a good time, then that's for you.

Video gaming well some of the games have taken a lot of my time. I then asked myself why am I playing if it does piss me off. So I quit a lot of them.

My new hobby is board games. Not electronic yes, but still gaming. It's got a more social aspect to it, rather than staring at a screen with your mouth wide open.

Remember you are playing a game for entertainment and the main perpose is to enjoy the experiance. Who cares if you can not beat it on the highest difficulty setting.

I personally like challenging games, but only if the difficulty has a purpose instead of being a excuse for poor game design...like Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins for example...I like it, it's just the difficulty is from a weak design, not because of a carefully planned out one.

Sometimes when I see myself losing interest in games, there's always something new and fresh that brings me back to it again. For example, I've been getting tired of playing the same JRPG or action/adventure game, but then I got into PC gaming and found myself enjoying games again like RTSs and FPSs. I think maturing as a gamer is causing me to like games that have more mature content like WWII shooters, or puzzlers. The anime-styled JRPGs are getting childish now, for example.

I think if you love games, you'll always find a way to come back to it even after a long absence. It's like every other hobby...something will trigger your innate longing and will draw you back in. I think you just have to find that excitement again...just don't give up because a game is getting hard.

Remember you are playing a game for entertainment and the main perpose is to enjoy the experiance. Who cares if you can not beat it on the highest difficulty setting.

SWIFFT

Good point... but I usually play Medium. I'd hate to reduce that, just on the fact that some games remove things that I might want to experience.