My problem isn't quite like yours, but maybe it will help.

a couple years back I started streaming because I thought it would be fun. But then I stopped playing games because it felt like a job. So I stopped streaming but I still couldn't just sit down and play like I wanted to. So I've started streaming again, and I try to get my friends to hang out in voice call while I'm streaming so there's the added benefit of actually hanging out with my friends.

I have maybe a dozen subscribers and regularly get one or two views per stream, but I don't care about that. I just want to enjoy some video games, and this framing helps.

I have this with lots of other things currently. Whenever I cannot do one of my hobbies, I will fantasize about them and come up with all kinds of ideas of what to do, but when the time comes to do them I just cannot get going and sometimes even get stressed. My brain would rather just stare at YouTube videos all day. I believe it's our dopamine systems being completely fried due to all the easily accessible instant gratification online.

I recently read a book again for the first time in years, Dune, and I was struggling so hard in the beginning. My brain just wanted to scroll. I enjoyed the book, but nevertheless my brain wanted instant gratification and I had to resist the urge to grab my phone while reading the book. Luckily this subsided after getting a bit further.

I don't often have this for games yet luckily. I'm currently absorbed in Hades II and no amount of brain rot can get me out of it. But it's one of the last sacred places, and even gaming sometimes suffers this fate. There are so many gun things to do that it's just overwhelming, whenever you do something your brain always has something else it wants to do more. Not because it actually wants it, but just because it likes the idea of it. As a kid I didn't have all this stuff, and didn't experience all these things, so everything I did felt special.

This sounds like a dopamine issue.

For me, I just accept it. I ride the wave of motivation whether it takes me to the epic gaming session I'd hoped for or a bunch of menial tasks and low impact internet comments.

Sometimes what I think I want to do isn't what my body is going to end up doing, and that's just how life be.

A tip I've seen online is to keep a gaming journal. After you finish a session, write what you accomplished and what you want to do the next time. Then every time you are a bit bored or have time to kill, look at your journal and flip through your started games. Works like a charm for mr at least.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

-Henry David Thoreau

We didn't evolve for lives like this.

It sounds like you don't wana play games tbh. That's OK it comes and goes for me too. After I wore out armored core 6 I didn't play any games until recently, firing up stardew valley. Do something else in the mean time and eventually you'll get the urge to fire up a game and enjoy yourself

Sometimes the idea of doing something is more appealing than actually doing something.

Usually I just let go of the desire as daydreaming isn't something I want to spend my time doing.

Much like life, have a series of achievable goals. That is how I manage several 100+ runs of factorio and other Bethesda rpgs

I mean, skyrim is like Linux; you spend more time modding it to get the perfect mix and then never play it. I've done it.

There's a ton of other games that have come out more recently that are more entertaining.

I'm currently in this rut. I want to play tons of games, but every time I sit at my computer, I end up staring at my Steam library and not committing to anything. I might boot up a game, play for maybe 30 minutes, then log out because I'm just not feeling it.

I started a game review blog here on Lemmy, but I'm having trouble finding games I want to discuss lately. It's been about 2 months since I last posted. Fortunately, I'm doing it as an unpaid hobby so there's no pressure to write, but I just can't get started lately.

Even worse, this is my favorite season so I really want to play some good horror games and discuss them. But we're a week into October and I still haven't played anything worthwhile yet.

I think I'm just in a slump right now. Life's been exhausting lately and I've just been going through the motions. Eventually, things will pick up and I'll be motivated again. Until then, I just need to ride it out.

Sounds like you have not yet found your ideal game. Maybe an entirely different game from an entirely different genre Of gaming would be as fun as you expect these games to be.

For me a lot of it is just weird motivations. I have a laundry list of games that sound interesting to me - really good in fact! And that I absolutely want to play, but sometimes that particular game just isn't clicking for me, so I put it back on the list and I'll try it later. Don't be afraid to shuffle things around and try out different things until something sticks.

Lately I've been trying a lot of different genres that I never thought would appeal to me. I hate the actual sport and concept of playing golf but I will totally obsess over Hotshots. Same with racing. Was never a huge racing fan but something about the simplicity and focus of Trackmania really clicks for me. And bullet hells. Thought I'd find them waaay too difficult for my tastes, but it turns out memorizing patterns and getting into a flow state while some of the best 00's electro you've ever heard fills your ears is pretty therapeutic.

Try changing the way you approach gaming.

Another thing I've really been enjoying is setting up EmulationStation Desktop (ES-DE) with RetroArch backend and building out a full retro collection. When I don't want to play games directly, I can still sift through them. Download a completed Sega Genesis/Mega Drive collection, scrape the boxart and manual data, fix titles, patch fan translations. And if I see something interesting while I'm doing this that I've never seen before, I'll pop into the game and poke at it a bit to see if it clicks and maybe THAT will be my thing for a bit. Look up some articles for best hidden gems on the PS1 and see if there's something new, or get into a system that you've never touched before like the TurboGrafx-16. Discovery can be part of the fun, too.

I know we're all burnt out and frazzled, sometimes forcing yourself to play that one game that you've been meaning to play and want to enjoy is just the wrong ticket and only puts too much pressure on yourself, further disincentivizing you.

I'd just try another game. I cannot play long RPG type games anymore either, because I usually just play 30 minutes here, 40 minutes there (Steamdeck yay!). So it is games that save where you stop and where the story isn't super complicated.

Hyper light drifter was super good. I only started gaming again last year and missed out on games like that.

Start to play it. Leave the cellphone, close any social or chat programs you have open and just play. You need to be alone with the game. Use headphones to get a more immersive experience, a good chair also helps.

Take a break, go do something else like take a long walk or work on a project, then use gaming as a wind-down reward.

More practical advice how I finally finished Skyrim is to simplify. I started a new game with only 2-3 mods, only did the main quest line, and didn't pick up anything valued under 100 gold IIRC. And only carried one set of armor and weapons.

I play old GBA titles. Simpler quicker games that are easier to pick up and put down. Simpler items, simpler controls, simpler plots. Still fun and engaging.

Got an Analogue Pocket and have been working through all the 2D Zeldas.

Meanwhile I picked up Cyberpunk the first time it went on sale and have played through the tutorial like 5 times.

Tbh, the main enjoyment I get from skyrim is installing it every few years and screwing around with mods to get the perfect setup. Then once I actually start playing I quickly bored and stop.

In general, it's easier to get dopamine from the anticipation of a game, actually enjoying the game requires some work and a habit. Sometimes it's just too much, especially if you're feeling a bit burnt out from exams.

That looks like addiction. The idea of a future gaming session releases the endorphins in your brain but the game playing part doesn't. You need a break from games. Edit: I'm no doctor