It's either something dark and gritty like dark souls, or the cutest shit ever like animal crossing or stardew valley. I'm my case it's both.

Destiny. I hate it but I can't stop playing it.

Any game where you fight by picking stuff out of menus

I spent a vast majority of my college years and mid 20s playing an MMO by the name of Puzzle Pirates. Honestly, if it had maintained a large enough player base for the content, I probably would've been addicted a lot longer. I've never come across another game quite like it and it's a shame mismanagement of the company and shitty decisions about the direction of the game led it to a slow death.

Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

Like I hate it, it was a disappointment when I got it (maybe even more than Skyrim). I wanted Morrowind 2, I got “oh, the LOTR series is popular because of the film, why not flatten our setting into generic medieval fantasy?” instead of my jungle city with dragons flying around the canals.

The main plot is stupid, most of the faction plot lines are stupid (Mannimarco is probably one of the most embarrassing bosses in a video game of all time). Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine showed that there were still some capable writers at Bethesda, but Horse Armor probably got a lot more profit for much less effort. (And now, they’ve figured that they don’t even have to do that and can just resell what modders do.)

Despite how much I hate the game, I’ve sank thousands of hours into it - not just playing it, but modding it. Installing the mods of others, making and releasing my own. I have a dream of someday making a total conversion mod which would fix all of the things I hate about the main story and the landmass and the dialogue and the lack of roleplaying opportunities… to the point where I’ve also spent hundreds of hours making small stabs at the project.

I listen to other people play the game and talk about the game and complain about the game all of the time. I watch more hours of people playing Oblivion than Morrowind - which is the game I actually like and think is good!

Edit: Plot of Morrowind - complicated political intrigue, analysis of colonialism, and subversion of the “Chosen One” narrative, where you could make a very strong argument that the main character is a government agent sent to “fulfill” an indigenous prophecy to destabilize the region politically and further centralize the Empire’s control over Tamriel.

Plot of Oblivion - Mehrunes Dagon is now basically the Christian Devil (flanderizing the very interesting morality of the Daedra in lore). Your job is to fight all the evil cultists who want to bring him back for basically no reason, like even in their “paradise” they’re getting tortured for funsies. No one has motivations other than being bad guys or good guys. (See also how the Mages Guild portrays necromancy as “the bad magic” which was a religious thing in Morrowind but canonically seen as morally neutral elsewhere before they became the generic baddies you slaughter in dungeons and caves.)

All I see are awesome game recommendations, thanks everyone! Except for Stardew Valley.. that's my game. I love it but I hate it for reasons mentioned already.

For me, HC WoW

Second Life. If you could call it a game.

I started "playing" it in 2006. Went through long periods of not playing it.. but I always come back.. and it's always worse

Did you know on the original FFX on PS2 if you play more than 9999 hours the hours played flips over to 0000 again?

PS I also checked how many hours 9999 is because I wasn't sure if I was exaggerating how much I played the game, and it's less than two full years worth of hours, and I did in fact play more than that, easily.

Battlefield 2042. 5k hours.

Stardew Valley.

Megaten