Why I can no longer play violent video games – Reader’s Feature

metro.co.uk:

A reader is surprised to find that he no longer enjoys violent games like Call Of Duty and thinks it must be because he’s now a dad.

At 34 I don’t like to think myself as old yet, but I do have two beautiful twins and, as any parent will tell you, that makes playing video games very difficult. They’re three in a couple of months, so I have been able to slowly drift back into playing games occasionally, when they’re in bed or at the in-laws, but I’ve found a strange thing has happened: I just don’t enjoy games the way I used to. Or at least not the realistically violent ones.

Most video games involve violence of some kind, although the options for ones that don’t have slowly increased over the years, with the rise of indie gaming and more and different people playing games than was the case 10 or 20 years ago. You’d barely know that to look at the output of major publishers, except Nintendo, but that’s an issue for a different feature.

I used to have what I guess is pretty average taste in games. I played FIFA and Call Of Duty, as well as other big franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Battlefield, but I consider myself fairly open-minded and would also play Telltale games and whatever indie title caught my eye (I love Into The Breach!).

With having such limited time at the moment, the obvious one to go back to for me was Call Of Duty: Warzone, since it’s free but also something I’m familiar with. I downloaded and played it, and it’s obviously a good game, but something was off. It is essentially a game of toy soldiers, but suddenly the idea of endless shooting and killing people no longer had the appeal it once did.

Warzone is a pretty realistic looking game, even if the gameplay is very arcadey, and, basically, you’re just