Types of games that aren't worth my time - games I WON'T blog about

Video games are everywhere. They come in many different shapes and sizes. I like many of these types, but there are many I don't particularly identify with. Let's get these out of the way so it's clear what I will NOT be spending my time blogging about:

Casual games

Some sources use this term to refer to the type of game you play for minutes at a time, typically on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Sure, I have fun challenging my wife to a rousing game of Words with Friends while I'm away for the day, and when I'm standing in a long line, passing the time with 2048 or another puzzle game helps abate the boredom. These games may bring some positive social interactions or stimulate some intellectual skills, but they don't have the depth that causes real passion the same way my style of video games does.

Sports games

I'm biased here, because I'm not a very sporty guy myself. On the one hand, sports games allow me to actually be good at a sport for once, but on the other hand, I'm not out with a ball actually improving my physical skills or fitness.

Sports games can be fun, especially if there's something unique about them, such as games that feature less common sports such as Olympic events or games that feature popular video game characters. Even the mainstream-style games involve essential gameplay elements that I like, such as upgrading, customization, and simulation (I'll post later about essential gameplay elements).

The main reason I don't like sports games is because they are always coming out with new versions every year to simulate that season's lineup of athletes, and they usually run the same price as other new games for a given system (for example, current generation games are typically $60-$70). Because they are always cranking new ones out, not a lot of thought is given into refining the gameplay, graphics, interface, and so on, and they also have terrible resale value.

I have had fun with sports games, but again, they haven't really excited me in the same way other ones do. To be fair, the only video games my baby-boomer father would ever play with me were Tiger Woods golf and Wii Sports.

Internet games

Ranging from Flash Player type browser games to social media based games (remember Farmville?), these games are simply the pre-smartphone/tablet versions of casual games. Same lack of depth. Same time-wasting qualities. While they are great for wasting time at school at work when you don't have access to real video games, again, they aren't worth blogging about.

MMORPGs

This one's tough, because I have enjoyed a few of these before too and so do millions of others. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) are like RPGs, just with the online aspect. RPG games by themselves are quite fun and I consider them worth my time and worth writing about. The massive online aspect, though, changes things. The objective of these games is, well... actually there is no objective. Usually, you create a character in the world of your chosen game, and you work completing mini tasks to improve your characters skills. This often involves and even requires interactions with other human players. For many, the draw is the desire to keep leveling up, or improving the character's skills. Some even get bent on becoming a top player for that game.

I played one of these called Runescape in middle school. It was fun and it sucked my time away, until one day I realized it was stressing me out. In order to keep progressing, the tasks I had to do were getting harder and harder, and often they were very tedious. I found myself grumbling at having to click on a school of fish over and over and over again to improve my characters fishing skills, and that's the point where I realized I wasn't having fun anymore. I looked ahead and where this would go, and I realized that there was no end in sight. No way to "beat" the game. No objective.

I've avoided MMORPGs ever since (including the wildly popular World of Warcraft) and I will not be blogging about these games either.

Besides these types of games, I pretty much like everything else! In the future, I'll write about what I DO like in video games.