On 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board, a thread asked, “I want to hear from people who’ve been gaming for 20+ years — has your taste in games changed as you’ve gotten older?” and pulled in 41 replies. Some posters drifted away from reflex-heavy genres like FPS and PvP toward more laid-back titles, while others cooled on RPGs and visual novels. Meanwhile, plenty said their love for Nintendo titles and JRPGs hasn’t budged an inch. Many also pointed to a shift from caring about story to caring about gameplay, making this a thread where opinions on how age reshapes your taste split cleanly in different directions.
What people said
1AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:10
Or has it not changed for you?
2AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:10
I've gotten to the point where I don't want anything but FPS anymore.
3AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:11
Haven't hit 20 years yet, but mine's changed. Student/school-life games, that kind of juvenile stuff where only teenagers show up — I don't really want to play those much anymore. Both the world and the experience just feel too narrow. Also, I've completely lost the drive to play RPGs.
4AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:11
It's changed. Pretty much the only games I play now are ones where you can create your own protagonist.
5AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:11
Got burned out on FPS multiplayer after about 10 years and went back to Mario-style platformers.
6AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:11
Can't even be bothered turning on a console or PC anymore — it's mobile games only now.
8AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:12
Of course it changes. 20 years ago was basically the last era when JRPGs still sold well.
9AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:12
I get bored of poorly-made games halfway through now. I don't get swept up by "everyone says it's good" hype anymore.
10AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:13
I still only ever love Nintendo games — so what?
11AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:13
Mine hasn't changed, but since games like that barely come out anymore, I've ended up buying fewer games overall.
14AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:13
Hasn't changed one bit. I've loved JRPGs since I was a kid, and it's still my favorite genre.
15AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:14
I stopped caring about story as much. In the end, how fun it is as a game matters way more.
16AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:14
It shifts depending on how much time I have or my mood at the moment, so hard to pin down.
17AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:14
I stopped playing PvP. It just turns you into a worse person.
20AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:14
It's changed. I still love the games I used to play, but I never actually play them anymore.
22AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:15
It's less that my taste changed and more that I lost my motivation. Now I only play easy games I can finish quickly.
23AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:15
It's changed. I used to love visual novels, but I barely touch them now. Story's become secondary in how I judge a game.
24AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:15
I'm 29, but the games I played as a kid still look shiny and amazing even in their newest entries. I got into Like a Dragon (Yakuza) in high school, lost interest as an adult, and it's stayed that way — feels like I'll never touch it again before I die.
25AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:15
I can't handle dense, heavy stories anymore. I used to play Kingdom Hearts and lose track of time until sunrise, but with KH3 the character interactions just irritated me.
26AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:15
It's been about 40 years since I started gaming, and reflex-testing games are just not doable for me anymore.
27AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:16
I don't think it's changed for me. I was always bad at side-scrolling adventures, vertical shooters, rhythm games, and puzzle games, and I still don't play them.
28AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:16
Not much has changed, but I've started branching out into more kinds of games than I did when I was young.
Most recently, Three Houses.
I used to be averse to games with anime-style characters, but I don't let that stop me anymore.
29AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:16
I've been gaming for nearly 40 years now, and on top of the old classics, I enjoy recent games too — both Japanese and Western titles.
30AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:16
Hasn't changed for me. I played Zelda on the N64 as a kid, and I'm still playing Zelda the exact same way today.
32AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:16
I've caught a case of "can't-finish-RPGs syndrome." It's just too much hassle these days.
34AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:17
I've lost that obsession with opening every single treasure chest.
35AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:17
I stopped playing action games and shooters. Now I just leisurely get through about two RPGs a year.
36AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:18
I can barely play new games anymore. I think the last one I played was Pokémon Masters.
37AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:18
You start understanding why idle games are so popular.
38AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:18
Same as with movies — you start thinking art direction and presentation matter more than story. Also, you figure you don't have time to waste on bad or mediocre games anymore, so you end up only playing the highly-rated ones.
39AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:18
Super Robot Wars, which everyone used to love so much, has fallen out of favor — times really do change.
40AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:19
Graphics are so good these days that even genres you're not into end up looking fun.
41AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:19
RPGs and that kind of tedium have gotten rough for me, but on the flip side, I hadn't touched Mario at all — 2D included — since the N64 days, and I ended up loving Odyssey. Action games where you just control the character and plainly work your way through really are great.
42AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:19
PvP is definitely fun, but once you start chasing the top ranks it's exhausting and you tend to stop playing anything else, and cheaters endlessly grind your motivation down — so once you step away, you cool off on it fast. That's why I barely play it anymore.
44AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:19
Splatoon's online matches and the like — fun, sure, but they eat up a ridiculous amount of stamina and mental energy.
45AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:20
Oh no, this is one of those bot threads with an ID ending in "M" 🤣 (on 5ch, poster IDs ending in M are often flagged as spam bots)
46AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:20
I used to play Nintendo games a lot, but now I don't touch them at all — it's all PS5 these days.
Still love big-budget RPGs as much as ever. I like visual-novel-style and live-action adventure games too, but they barely come out anymore.
I play action games and the Resident Evil series too, but big-budget RPGs are still the best. I'm into big Western AAA titles as well.
I've been gaming since back when there were only about three Famicom cartridges out.
47AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:20
I've started playing a lot more indie games and lighter titles.
48AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:20
For about the last 5 years I've only played fighting games. But after buying a Switch just for Smash Bros, I went on a run of masterpieces — Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade 2, Bayonetta, Fire Emblem — and it reminded me all over again how great single-player games are.
49AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:21
Maybe it's because FPS games already existed when I was a kid, but if anything I've stopped playing typical JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tales, Xenoblade, or Persona. The settings are already rough enough, and on top of that they feel too anime — I just can't.
50AnonymousNov 6, 2026 20:21
I realized it wasn't big-budget RPGs I actually loved — it was the evolution of games itself. New things like Splatoon or PSVR still pull me in, but I don't really play ordinary big-budget games much anymore. Or rather, I can't stick with them to the end.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
In the thread, opinions split between those who moved away from genres demanding fast reflexes or PvP as they got older, and those who kept favoring the same titles regardless. One notable point is that the condition “20+ years of gaming” itself covers a wide range — some respondents have been playing for nearly 40 years, going all the way back to the early Famicom era, so even within the same bracket, people grew up on very different console generations. While several people mentioned shifting from valuing story to valuing gameplay, a fair number also said their attachment to JRPGs or visual novels hasn’t changed one bit — so even within the thread, there’s no consensus on a simple generalization like “RPGs get harder to enjoy as you age.”
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