How to quit gaming painlessly? (Update: additional explanations and other content)

Updated 2022/10/22: I found that completely "quitting" games isn't necessary, because people always need entertainment.

Principle

"It's easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury to frugality." Once you've played high-quality AAA games, you won't want to touch low-quality ones, and there are very few high-quality games. The following games can give you thought and feeling, helping you go "from frugality to luxury":

Red Dead: Redemption II

The story takes place in the American West in 1899, and the protagonist is the second-in-command of a gang. At this point you might think, "What — a Western cowboy game? No one plays that!" I thought the same before playing, but after starting I felt I owed Rockstar money; this game could sell for 500 and it'd be worth it. This is my No. 1 — the best representative of the "ninth art." I don't need to talk about the plot, graphics, music, and details; after finishing it, it's like experiencing a condensed version of Arthur Morgan's life, a piece of history, and the comings and goings of people connected to the protagonist. After playing this game, not only did mobile games lose their appeal, but other AAA titles also felt less satisfying. The narrative immersion is very strong — don't search for walkthroughs online to avoid spoilers; if you must search, use guest mode so the platform doesn't remember your preferences and recommend related videos that could spoil the story. Red Dead 2 is a prequel to Red Dead 1, and I've heard a remaster of the first game is coming.

Metro: Exodus

The graphics are good, but the campaign is much shorter than Red Dead's; I recommend slowly exploring each chapter. The story is set in a post-nuclear wasteland worldwide — the first playthrough can be quite scary (I must admit even a tough guy like me got scared). If it's too scary to continue, install a trainer; before using a trainer you're timid, after using it you strike back hard! This is the third in the Metro trilogy; the first two are Metro: 2033 and Metro: The Last Light. Their graphics are a bit lower, but the stories are good and worth playing.

Metro: Exodus (Metro: Exodus) Gameplay Guide

The Witcher 3

If you play this after Red Dead 2, it can be off-putting at first because its early maps feel oppressive, horse controls are stiff, and the graphics can't compare to Red Dead. But the flaws don't overshadow its merits — it's worth playing. Choices you make in the game affect the story's direction. Be sure to buy the Game of the Year edition, not just the base game. To avoid spoilers, play the Blood and Wine DLC after finishing the main story; Hearts of Stone can be played anytime. The next-gen version's Chinese voice acting is very good, and even some songs were changed to Chinese.

Other games

The Last of Us — I've heard the story is excellent; it's already been adapted into an HBO series. Death Stranding — the music is good; I personally find the gameplay and story average, but many people like it, so it's worth trying. GTA4 — reportedly the best story in the GTA series, but the driving feel is so bad I couldn't get into it. GTA5's story isn't as deep as the games I mentioned above, but it's still good and has high playability. The studio that made Red Dead, Rockstar, actually started with the GTA series — surprising, right? Detroit: Become Human — the story is good and the opening theme is very pleasant.

Do games play you, or do you play games?

For games where you have to grind resources like it's a job, it's best to use a trainer to farm resources. For example, in GTA Online, after farming money I'm already bored and it saved me time. I really don't understand why some people grind missions like it's work every day.

Competitive games like LoL and CS require practicing skills (last-hitting, quickscoping, flick shots),Having to grind skills to play a game is unacceptable to me — that's the game playing me, not me playing the game. Because I don't practice hard, I often lose, so I rarely play those games.

A PS5 costs around six to seven thousand yuan. That's about the same as what you'd spend on skins over a few years; with a bit more money you can build a decent PC. Save up and buy a setup, then put the time you normally spend on mobile games into AAA titles. Gradually your desire to play games will naturally decrease, and you won't regret it.

Games I don't recommend

Frostpunk & Frostpunk 2

At first it's easy to get immersed, but later you realize the game's essence is making you lead a group of stupid, violent, and difficult people (my personal opinion).

The most ridiculous thing is the second game, which even has an "evolutionist" faction that wants to resist the cold through biological evolution. The pace of biological evolution is nowhere near the speed of technological development, and there's no way in the game to convince them to abandon this foolish idea. If you do things that don't align with their values, they'll violently protest, send secret police to arrest people, publicly condemn you — you can't completely eliminate them.

Another faction is the "orderlies," who, like me, dislike the evolutionists and initially supported me. Later there was an opportunity — the system told me this chance might permanently solve the blizzard problem at the cost of getting a few fewer cores. This aligns with the evolutionists' thinking, and I supported it, but the orderlies strongly opposed me. It was an opportunity that could possibly solve the problem once and for all with a small cost — why not try it?

Playing this is exhausting to death.

War Thunder

I originally played this for modern jets, but the current environment is terrible: cramming twenty-something fighters into a tiny map means you encounter enemies before you've built up energy. You can energy-side-slip, but by the time you enter the fight the enemies are close and you don't have time to adjust radar to find them. If the RWR warns you, you can only turn defensively; by the time you finish defense and try to turn back to attack, teammates are probably nearly dead or the enemies are nearly dead — you won't have a good experience. If you're unlucky, you fly into the middle of an enemy formation and get missiles from 6, 10, and 2 o'clock — even at ten thousand meters and two thousand km/h, you're just waiting to die.

Tanks are all about map knowledge: you need to know where you can ambush on a map, memorize the weaknesses of various tanks, and have good vision, otherwise you can't see where enemies are. Having a big screen is a big advantage — many times I didn't even know where the enemy that killed me came from.