I used to love games. Let me tell you a tale. First game I ever remember owning was Crash Bandicoot 2 on PS1. My family wasn't super well-to-do when I was growing up, so that was mostly what I played and I loved it. I never beat it but I had fun playing through it and exploring it's different worlds. Critically speaking, it wasn't the greatest game, but it had a kind of magic for me because it had a simple charm. At this time, my best friend had a N64 and we would play games like Battle Tanks, and this Rugrats multiplayer game on it, and it was super fun. I'd also watch him play Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time and I always was enchanted by it; even just watching that game, it was like a magical world I wanted to be in and explore. Ah, good memories. I got a PS2 for my birthday and with it Star Wars Battlefront. Me and my friends were addicted to that game and we would compete with each other for high scores and would love to re-create epic Star Wars battles with each other. I also had a James Bond game, Agent Under Fire, which had a cool campaign, and extremely fun multiplayer. I have so many good memories of playing that with my friends. At the same time, the Nintendo Gamecube was out and I saw my friends playing games like Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Those first two, Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine, even though I never owned them, are really special to me, because they made such a strong impression; both games were just pure fun, especially to look at. They were bright and uplifting, and that joyful playful quality of those games is something I'll never forget. There was also Halo and Kingdom Hearts out around this time. I loved watching people play Kingdom Hearts as well and it was stuck in my memory since the first time I'd seen it; it was so dark and mysterious, but so joyful too. It was melancholic and hopeful at the same time in a way that was powerful. Halo, on the other hand, was a whole different story. It was so fun to play it with friends. I remember countless times of going to people's houses to play the campaign or the multiplayer and having a blast with Halo CE and Halo 2. Halo 3 was incredibly powerful to me and I had such a good time with this one friend who I would have sleepovers with all the time and we'd just play Halo. Forge was so fun, making custom maps, and the campaign was the coolest yet; especially the latter parts. My friend and I would also play Mass Effect together, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and Halo Wars. These were some of the happiest times of my life, spending time with my friends, exploring these worlds together, fighting together, and just having pure and simple fun. Now all of these games I had played at my friend's houses, but I still just had my PS2 and a few games on it. I wanted to start collecting more games of my own, so I saved up my money and bought a Wii. It was great fun to play Wii sports, but I had bought it to play Metroid Prime 3. I consider that my first real gaming obsession; the Metroid games became some of my favorite games and I ended up playing the entire Prime Trilogy, Super Metroid and Metroid NES. Those are such beautifully designed games and they piqued my interest in game design. At around the same time, my uncle gave me his old Xbox with Halo CE and Halo 2. I would put on music and play Halo CE for hours, not just playing, but noticing or even studying the level design. Same with Halo 2. Then came Halo: Reach, the last big Bungie Halo game. Again I saved up money and bought an Xbox 360 and Halo: Reach. I loved this game, and thought its design was amazing, but something felt off to me. It didn't really feel like a Halo game in a lot of ways; mostly because the Flood and the Forerunner stuff were missing. It wasn't a disappointment though, and the forge, firefight, and lan parties were so awesome. After Reach, I started sort of collecting games for myself. I bought and played Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim. I got and played Kingdom Hearts for myself and loved it. Eventually I played Dark Souls, which was also one of my most fun gaming experiences of my life; I was playing and my roommate would watch me play with a walkthrough and we played through the game together like that. It was so fun. This is where things started to turn sour for me though. Halo 4 came out and I played that. It was not fun to me at all; the spirit of it just seemed wrong. 343 came in and changed the design of everything, and did this awful story, I couldn't stand Halo 4's campaign. The multiplayer was unenjoyable too, but I got some enjoyment out of Spartan Ops; especially in the later levels which I noticed were really interestingly designed. Then came Destiny. I was so hyped for it. It was Bungie, the company I knew and loved, and they were saying all the right things; all the things I wanted to hear. I was so excited to play Destiny; I did something stupid. I sold my Xbox 360 and "upgraded" to a PS4. I sold all my games; I was so hyped for Destiny. I played the beta and I got a sinking feeling after beating it like "that was it?". I could see that it was MMO gameplay which is a genre I could never enjoy or get into. I think I'm an action gamer at heart. Destiny took all the action game elements that I loved, but put them in an MMO context, so it turned my favorite thing to do in a game, action combat, and turned it into a grind. Destiny was a huge let down for me. It wasn't just Destiny though, all the games that were coming out at the time seemed to be half-finished products that were rushed out by publishers and needed to be fixed through patches. Around this time, this was when I started to notice micro-transactions enter console gaming, and a trend towards lucrative DLC. Gaming has changed too much for me to enjoy it. The last AAA game I bought and played was MGSV which I loved, but I never beat it. The story left me wanting more, and it felt unfinished in some ways. It just wasn't as fun as I had hoped, although it was incredibly impressive in many other ways; like how deep its simulation was. It's a beautifully designed game. The last game I've played and enjoyed was Journey, which was something I always wanted to play since I had heard about it, but now that I've played that, I think I'm done with gaming. The mainstream game world has become too greedy and cynical feeling, and there's no magic in it for me anymore. It feels like developers are much more concerned about making money than making something fun. The only exception to this would be Nintendo. I would be playing Splatoon right now, but I can't justify buying a Wii U just to play that game. Not even Overwatch, which has something like the bright joyful quality of the games I loved, like Super Mario Sunshine, and Wind Waker, can get me excited; the design of that game does nothing for me. I'm a little excited for FF15 but I can't help but feel a little cynical because it's a modern Final Fantasy. I'm worried there will be something stupid about it that will turn me off to it. I want to get excited for gaming again, but until there's a return to a spirit of fun in games, and the corporate "industry" greediness side of things goes away, modern gaming is completely boring to me. It sucks because I feel like games could be so much more, I look at games like Dark Souls and I say "that's where I want gaming to go", but that's not where western games are headed, or where most Japanese games are at. I hope Final Fantasy 15 does well, because, say what you want about it, there is real artistry and talent on display there; especially in the design of the visuals. The level of detail is incredibly impressive.