Relative to what, you ask? Good question! Rate your CURRENT level of gaming fandom, compared to your lifetime MAXIMUM level of gaming fandom. So, if you're enjoying games more than you ever have, you would say 10. On the other hand, if you used to loooove games, but barely play them anymore... maybe a 1 or 2?

And after you vote, post about why. Is it a reflection of the current gaming scene? Or just a shift in the role that gaming plays in your life?

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Voted 8.
I'm so excited about the Wii U line up and I don't even have one yet! Gaming takes up about a 3rd of my spare time.

In my teenage years it would have been 10, easily. Maybe 3 or 4 through my 20's, but since the 3DS XL I've been riding a gaming high again!

I'd say 7 or 8 at the moment.

I'd had a dramatic tonal shift in the types of games I've been playing over the past year and I've found it to be refreshing as heck. Looking over my GOTY 2013 candidates reveals that they're almost exclusively dominated by obscure, low-budget Eastern European vehicle sims (with a dash of grand strategy).

Putting down the virtual guns and magic wands in favor of real world educational tools (aeronautic engineering/piloting in Kerbal Space Program, agriculture development/management in Farming Simulator, global diplomacy in Europa Universalis IV) has been the most invigorating change of pace I've had in years.

I voted 8. Gaming is still fun and exciting for me, and my faith in humanity (at least for myself) has been restored by playing EarthBound for the first time ever.

It def. woulda been a 10 had you asked me in high school. It's all I really ever did.

3 or 4. I'm far less excited about gaming than I was back in High School. I probably spent 60% of my time with video games back then. Either playing local multiplayer with friends, playing my single player games, on forums talking about games, on gaming websites looking at games...you could probably ask me anything about anything game related in those days and I'd know all about it. Then I got my first real job, got a lot of extra cash flow, and went apeshit on gaming. Now I'm stuck looking at a (digital) mountain of games that I feel is impossible to climb and instead of just getting the first couple of steps under me and taking it one day at a time I just view it as impossible and walk away disinterested.

So to prevent further decline, I've decided to take it one step (game) at a time and just see how it goes. I've now decided that I need to beat at least 1 game (though aiming for 2-3) before buying anymore. I've cancelled my PS4 pre-order, I sold my Xbox 360, and I'm pretty close to selling this Vita that I got as a moving gift. Just trying to return to basics and get that spark of interest back.

I voted 6, but not because I'm not excited about the future of gaming simply because I don't have the same amount of time to game anymore. Console gaming is becoming harder and harder for me to squeeze into my schedule, my main gaming time now are like 20-30 minute 3DS or Vita sessions that I grab during my commute or before bed... when am I ever going to find the hundreds of hours I need to complete games like Skyrim or Ni No Kuni? Ugh. I want to play those games! But for now... it's Pokemon, and heck that's not so bad.

@New Forms
Those rad trucking sims are one of the main reasons I want a PC, although sadly I'll never get one because I cannot support Windows, it violates my core values.

C'mon Steam OS! Bring on the SteamMachines! Heck I want the SteamPad, something like a Surface Pro but of the Steam variety! Yeah!

@deathly_hallows

Euro Truck Simulator 2 is the game that pushed me over the edge to invest in a gaming laptop. I'd been wanting to get back in for a while (after a 10+ year break from the PC scene), and platform exclusive titles of interest were starting to pile up, but ETS2 was the one title I could no longer live without.

This video figuratively cost me over $1,000!



ETS2 in spite of being made by a team of less than 20 represents the higher end of vehicle simulator quality. The Train Simulator franchise is up there too. However, there's a decided amount of jank that comes with the territory as these teams and budgets are just so small. In spite of this the individual titles almost universally come off as incredibly earnest in design, warts and all.

Here's a hilarious video making fun of Farming Simulator.



And here's the juxtapose trailer for the recently launched expansion pack that paints the game in a more legitimate light.



The game has issues to be sure, yet it still somehow managed to earn my #2 GOTY 2013 (current-ranking), right behind ETS2.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg for the crazy crap I've been playing this year. :p

I'd say 9 right now. 10 would be when I first got into games with my NES, nothing can compare.

@New Forms

Bahahaha, that Farming Simulator video was amazing.

9 for me. I don't think I will ever be at 10 again; nothing can compare to the experience of playing Nintendo in my youth.

I can't pick less than a 9 because despite changes in my life and having less time for Nintendo, I am still very passionate about Nintendo and their games/ systems. There are simply too many great games on Nintendo systems, from past to present, that I'm pretty much set for life.

I must be missing something because EuroTruck Simulator looks boring as hell.

I'd say 9. Not because my love for it has diminished but, because I'm working a lot.

Compared to where I've been in the past, I'd say I'm currently hovering around a 7. Still love the hobby, but more willing to wait for bargains to come around rather than waiting in line for a midnight launch.

This is kind of tough to say for me, 'cause I find myself enjoying the games I like almost as much as I did when I was at my most enthusiastic, but at the same time I've never been as fed up with gaming as a phenomenon, as an industry, as I am right now. Part of me wants it all to die and have something new rise from the ashes, while the other part of me still feels like a kid when playing Mario, savouring every moment.

I think I'm going to go with a 7...I'm really racking up the hours played, but my enjoyment is a bit hit and miss lately.

A fucking 11.

@Pokefreak911

Yep, so enjoy it while it lasts! :)

Soak up every moment and don't forget to log them in your permanent memories.

I think my gaming enthusiasm has remained pretty consistent throughout my life. At least if you take each generation as a whole, there certainly have been times at the end of generations, on in the case of PC adventure games, the dark times in the mid to late 90s, where I haven't paid as much attention, but I don't think that was because of a change in my enthusiasm, just a change in what is available to interface with that enthusiasm.

So I think overall video games has always been a decently sized part of my life, but never has been the biggest. So if it's steady I suppose a 10 would be appropriate.

@carlosrox
Haha, I knew you'd be one of the highest. You don't seem to exhibit any traces of gaming burnout/exhaustion, whatsoever.

@missypissy
That's pretty interesting. Which consoles did you keep?

I did the exact same thing a couple of years back to cure my gaming malaise. Rather than play 100 different games for an hour each, I decided to stick with one until I beat it, and then move on to the next one. I think that it HAS been more fulfilling.

It's definitely cheaper.

Probably a 9. I was in a pretty bad funk a few years ago where I seemed to be losing interest, but I've really gotten back into gaming big time over the past couple of years, and my enthusiasm is about as high as it's been in a very long time.

I would say that this ranking is my fandom for playing video games at the moment, and not as much about my enthusiasm for new games that have come out in recent years, or are coming out over the next year or so. I'm pretty down on the direction that games are headed in, in general, but I still have a lot of older games to play.

Hm, this is a tough one. I have plenty of time to play games due to my insomnia, so if I were rating based on time then it would be a 9 or 10. But if I were rating the state of the industry, it'd be pretty low, since I don't like the direction most companies and games take these days, and even Nintendo doesn't seem as good. I wouldn't pick a 1 or 2 yet though since I think things can and probably will get even worse. I s'pose I could choose something in the middle to balance the two extremes, but, I'm not sure that's entirely accurate either.

Hm...