What descriptors instantly kill your desire to play a game?

Survival crafting. That's not gameplay, that's busywork.

Permanently Deleted

Turn-based RPGs

I prefer turn-cringe RPGs

Open world, suvival, crafting

Games with these qualities that are actually good are marketed as RPGs or adventure games

My favorite games are FTL, Papers Please, We Love Katamari, Castlevania NES, Wild Guns and Fallout New Vegas and FZero X. I don't even know what I like.

"gacha" games. We used to call that shit loot boxes just a few years ago

MMO

Don't get me wrong, there are a few MMOs I like, but the vast majority are awful.

Anything that compares itself to stardew valley, mid game that spawned a bazillion worse knock offs where you play in a souless happy charming Cozy^(TM) village where everybody knows everybody and there's never any interpersonal disputes

Also horror games and open world, sandbox, survival crafting games

MMO - I like multiplayer games just fine, but whenever they call it “massively” multiplayer, I know it’s going to be a grindy time-sink with anemic gameplay and the requirement to join some sort of group of other players in order to progress. It’s one of the few things I have filtered on Steam because it’s a guaranteed hard pass every time.

Turn-based - This one is hard for me to admit because I’ve played lots of great turn-based games and will inevitably play more of them, but for some reason when turn-based is a key feature, my brain interprets it as being a low-budget and/or low-effort game, or that the gameplay won’t match how the game is presented. It’s not that I dislike the concept of turn-based play, but when I see “turn-based” in a description I just glaze over.

Early Access - I don’t dislike early access, but the fact that it has no specific definition bothers me a lot. There’s no way for me to tell whether the game is a complete enough experience to be worth starting, so I usually end up passing until the game gets a full release (which isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that early access is an automatic red flag.)

There are certain genres that I’m not that interested in, like puzzle games, visual novels, hardcore simulation games, etc., but the above are things that make me think twice about a game even if it looks interesting otherwise.

probably roguelikes with meta progression since i know the first 10 hours is gonna suck until i unlock some good abilities/items to make it tolerable

Damn, I like some examples of everything listed here except shady money extraction schemes.

Pay to play is my biggest dealbreaker. I'm either paying once, or paying for dlc. But I'm not paying to continue to play a game that isnt FF14

RTS games, namely because I can't micromanage fast compared to some esports gamer hyped up on gamefuel.

soulslike

fuck off, boring ass dodgeroll grimdark cringe

Any sort of deck-building because it feels like homework

This is why I skipped every game of Gwent

“Free to Play with in game purchases”

Or the suddenly becoming popular

“Pay for a full game but still has in game purchases”

MOBA. honestly i don't know why everyone's playing these. even if all the matches were not radioactive cesspools of toxicity i still don't find its gameplay loop enjoyable or fun.

My 3 C's for the past 6 or 7 years: crafting / card-based / competitive

I can be won over with near perfect execution though (eg Subnautica is the dreaded survival/crafting but I love it).

Card based

Soulslike (if it's 2d tho, that somehow makes it better for me though?)

Crafting

Survival

"Procedural generation"

Gaze upon my vast array of extremely similar structures/landscapes, this totally won't turn exploring the world into a boring chore.

Horror. What is the appeal of being scared you all are weird

Zombies

Crafting

Metroidvania

Retro/Arena (Boomer) Shooter - I am the exact demographic for these but I played enough of them in 1996 make something else i beg you

Metroidvania. I could barely get through one Castlevania, I really don't appreciate tons of backtracking.

5v5. All the most toxic games are 5v5, whether its CSGO or League etc. I can't stand them. Though the real problem is automated matchmaking and lack of server browsers, most other pvp games have ways of mitigating the toxicity but 5v5's really just encourage it full tilt.

I really wish larger team based esport games were the ones that took off, but alas.

4X

The first X is fun and then it's miserable

first person shooter

"hack and slash"

Story driven, cinematic

I want to play a videogame that makes me feel like I'm getting better at the mechanics not one where the mechanics are there only to progress the story

'RPG' when all that means is 'levelling and loot mechanics'. Those just break verisimilitude for me for no actual benefit. I can't really buy into fantasy of somebody (especially with a somewhat established backstory of excellence) to start out as an incompetent buffoon and then in a span of a week become the greatest at everything ever. Such games also often have really poor mechanics elsewhere, often by making the game combat-heavy and not giving you a particular diversity of options when in combat (for example, BG1 and 2 martials largely just get 'hit enemy' and, maybe, 'use equipment').
This criticism applies to looter-shooters and to souls-likes. The former are at least almost always bad shooters which are made addictive via their RPG mechanics, and the latter usually have a rather one-note gameplay of dodging things by rolling, which not only feels dull but also looks very silly and breaks verisimilitude for me. This criticism does NOT apply to Disco Elysium. I also had fun with New Vegas, which made me realise that I do like narrative parts of games, as Fallout games in general have very subpar gameplay.

'Live service'.

'Multiplayer' - I don't really care for multiplayer. Not a very competitive person. And I can entertain myself in challenging ways by picking up a math textbook and solving problems presented there, or finding problems from math olympiads and solving those. (I know, I have not yet posted the solutions in the other relevant thread - I have been too busy; I have 3 problems' solutions ready and written on paper, the geometry problem I have solved in my mind but have not written the solution yet, and the remaining problem I am yet to produce a detailed solution for.)

'Open world' - usually just means that a lot of the time one has to waste on traversing boring environments.

Roguelikes, pixel graphics, horror, card-based

2D is usually a pass, although there was such a game that I passed on for a long time (Rimworld) that ended up becoming my all time most played game.

Post-apocalyptic and zombies especially have been done to death (pardon the pun) and I just find them boring as hell.

However I adore open world survival craft and as long as a game doesn't look like total shit I'll give it a try (usually a try first just to be safe)

Alpha, beta, early access, casual, anything with seasons or events, mass multi-player, free to play, or anything where the gimmick is "funny"

Open World means the game is probably going to be way too long for me to actually play it.

fighting games tbh

the one type of game i cannot get

I was going to say none, but then I saw survival amd crafting and was instantly reminded of how disappointing most of the game I've played with those descriptors were.

Multiplayer. I think multiplayer has evolved lately for the worst. There are multiplayer games that I enjoyed and I enjoy, things like Project Zomboid (If it's RP oriented), Lethal Company, Project Reality and some racing sims or strategy games with friends. Big ass multiplayer games are not what I truly desire, apart from maybe World of Warships because I like that game overall. Many years ago multiplayer was all about playing with your friends, now you have to put up with a lot of random cringe ass gamers every time you want to play some shooter or whatever. This is why I absolutely enjoyed Lethal Company, because it reminded me when we used to play games for fun with friends. Maybe coop is my thing..

And that's my main issue with multiplayer games: people stress the fuck out of me. I mentioned World of Warships earlier, well I got a bit tired of it's community and the constant negativity and toxicity. I just want to enjoy big ships for fucks sake, stop trying to tell me this game sucks because the new french heavy cruiser is insanely overpowered and destroyed the meta or whatever. I do not care. That shit makes me feel completely alienated from the community.

On the other hand, multiplayer games (not all, of course) became horrible cashgrabs. Lots of monetization thrown around, from developers selling skins, buying overpowered shit or grindy games where you have to pay to speed up the process, games pretending you will take their product as a second job (or third, even) and T H E M E T A. Nah, I'm no longer up for grinding these days, not for a while at least.. cuz after all I have to do real life grinding to eat you know?

Multiplayer ruined some games as well, like Pro Evolution Soccer. Multiplayer back in the day was just plug another controller and play against (or with) your friend, and that was it, the games were heavily singleplayer oriented and had cool features. Then KONAMI (alongside EA for FIFA) added online play and since then, the game became shittier and shittier. The singleplayer features are worse and worse each release, the game is too oriented towards online play and the monetization is absurd. Instead of using today's tech to produce quality sim football games, with lots of licenses to play with full kits, stadiums, chants and so on, no, we get this lootbox infested shitfest that only serves to feed KONAMI with more money. EA doesn't do it any better.

My instant reaction to "multiplayer" these days is , for example, STALKER 2 having multiplayer is a bit sus, battle pass? Are you kidding me? On a STALKER game? I hope multiplayer doesn't "dumb down" the game and suck development time out of other more important things, like it did to GTA V.

Soulslike is an instant turnoff for me too. I'm kinda picky when it comes to games, plus it's hard to get recommendations because I have pathological demand avoidance and my tism brain interprets a suggestion as a demand 😩

I don't really like PvP games too much because I can get really competitive and I have really low frustration tolerance. Co-op is okay but I'd only play with people I know of friends that ask me to play.

I mainly play JRPGs and single player games but anything that has to rely on unfair mechanics or RNG to raise difficulty I completely avoid 🤷🏿‍♂️

anything to do with cards or having a deck of cards

(Multiplayer) horror open-world survival craft. If zombie horde attacks are your way to challenge the player, I won't play your game.

Souls-like is a show stopper for me, too. Doesn't sound fun.

PvP, doubly so if the PvP descriptor is preceded by any of the following: full loot, world, or lane pushing.

Hardcore, I like to enjoy playing video games, not getting mad at them. Soulslike pretty much necessarily fits into this.

"RPGMaker"

which is a shame because some of the best games I've ever played are RPGMaker games, like Lisa

edit: oh and any kind of voxel-based graphics is a bit red flag.

Horror, PvP only, MMO.

eSports

GAAS

Gacha games

I sunk like 500 hours into Genshin and regret it. The exploration and combat are fun, but most of that time was spent on meaningless grinding.

I think I got PTSD or something from it cuz even seeing gameplay of it now gives me stress

Any game that isn't the game I'm currently obsessed with playing.

Deck-builders, MMOs, survival-crafting, early access, GaaS. I typically avoid soulslikes but I've enjoyed Elden Ring specifically. Tried Lies of P but kind of fell off from it. Did enjoy Zomboid until I reached a stable "not gonna die from winter or lack of food, infinite ammo" state. I just don't really like games that don't have somewhere to end.

Loot-based...

If I have to spend more than 2 seconds to figure out which weapon/armor/accessory/etc to use by flipping back and forth between what I have on and 10 things I just picked up that are slightly different, I'm just going to close the game and play something better

survival, crafting, roguelike, deck builder

Me taking notes (turn based apparently, a lot of my ideas are tabletop converts)

Story-rich, narrative, role-playing etc. Except if it's comedy. I can do comedy. Sometimes.

Also Obra Dinn I like and that has "story-rich" (I just checked), so whatever, I'm a hypocrite.

survival crafting bores the HELL out of me. the only one i can tolerate is no man's sky, because i get to fly around between planets or whatever easily. theres some vampire survival crafting game (V something? idk it came out recently-ish) that looked so cool since it had ARPG-style combat mechanics AND you get to play as a vampire! who wouldnt wanna do that...but then i had to build a base and grind out getting like wood and bones and shit and i checked out so fast

also the only soulslikes i do enjoy are the ones BY fromsoft. every other one feels badly balanced or too clunky or whatever

these combos:

• survival, crafting, roguelike: imagine building a sandcastle in a beach and watching the waves eat it all up. again. and again. and again.

• cinematic, puzzle: aka eye-candy for first minutes, stuck/backseat forever.

• horror, without action: i feel main char is just dumb putting themselves in a compromising situation in the first place.

• sports, managerial: some ai implementations suck. also these are "babysitter" games. be a professional backseater and all that.

having any of these:

• multiplayer: selling a game experience that's dominantly influenced mostly by other players is not my cup of tea.

• lifestyle: unless that lifestyle is a detective solving mysterious cases, nope.

• jump-and-run: walking simulators, let's goooo

• "always online": makes me think it is a phone game. online trackers and data privacy, oh my.

• "escort mission": technically not a genre, but i haven't seen one where i finished a stage and i feel proud of myself.

competitive

casual

puzzle

MMO

early access

crafting mechanics

open world

Survival crafting for sure. I like Minecraft well enough, but even there I prefer to just explore. I can't stand farming resources incessantly.

Turn based, card based, strategy,...

"Metroidvania"

Also, I usually do kind of power through it, but

'Meta-progression' - I very much do not like roguelite meta-progression, at least in most cases. Sometimes, the same game might feature multiple systems of meta-progression, some of which I tolerate, and other ones I just consider awful.
The clearest example of such a game would be Roboquest. The primary meta-progression is bad. It locks almost all decision-making behind upgrades that you need to grind to deal with. On the other hand, it also features some items that permanently unlock some utilities, like the grappling hook.

I dont care about soulslikes, rythm games and racing sims.

I will probably play it anyway, but a game based on dnd's rules is a big sigh from me. It's not a good rules system. It's even worse without a real DM. Bg3 was great, but like in spite of the base rules not because of them.

Not a fan of simulators.

Won't play anything with a subscription fee.

Don't care about mobas or battle royales. Most competitive games, really, don't care for.