Jeff Hoy, American

Over the last couple years I’ve lost interest in video games. Not all video games, just new ones. I still play games quite a bit, sometimes up to four hours a day are dedicated to playing various games of past generations. I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m not in to new games, but I’m at a loss.

Some people would say that video games today just aren’t as good as they used to be. I’m not one of those people. I generally keep up with the happenings in the industry, well the PC side of things anyway, but there have been a lot of good games in recent years. The Splinter Cell series, Half-Life 2, Battlefield 2, and World of Warcraft, are just a few of the great games released in the past couple years on the PC side. I haven’t played them all but I keep in touch with fellow gamers through blogs and forums and whatnot. Those games have all been talked up to no end. Not to mention all the games for consoles. I have an Xbox, but only five games for it, none of which were released within the past three years. The game I’ve been playing the most has been Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (1 and 2) for the PS1. I also spend a lot of time playing some games from the 8 and 16 bit generations through emulation. On occasion I’ll play Counter-Strike (not Source), Day of Defeat (again, not Source), or Rise of Nations.

I don’t buy nearly as many games as I used to. When I was younger I would buy sometimes three or four new games a month, depending on what was out there. Now I buy only two or three games a year. I have no intention of buying a next-gen game console, and I have no desire to upgrade my rather dated PC.

I have to say that the Splinter Cell series has been one of the best series of all time, it’s the only new game that I actually look forward to. But the question still remains, why don’t I have the same interest in video games that I used to. I just don’t know. But then again, I guess I’m not the only one.