[deathspeed]

I have a ton of games I have bought and started but never finished, for both PC and consoles - some of the highlights include MechWarrior 3 and 4, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, World in Conflict, several GTA games, and almost everything I have bought on sale at GOG or Steam.  I have started almost all of them, and enjoyed them, but never seem to finish them.  I finish very few games that I buy.  I can honestly think of only a handful of post-Atari games I have played all the way through.  ON PC, it is Crimson Skies, Command & Conquer 3, C&C3: Kane's Wrath, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and just last month, FSPort.  For Xbox (the original, not One), it was Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, MechAssault, and...yeah, that's it I think.

I try not to be a perfectionist, but something in my psyche wants me to do everything "right" the first time through. (In RL, I certainly am not a perfectionist!)  That means no failures or missed objectives in any sort of linear campaign.  If there is an obvious secondary or bonus objective, I want that too.  I think that is what kept me from finishing FS2 when I bought it over 13 years ago.  I played for hours, but got frustrated that I could not finish part of it.  It may have even been the same mission I just finished (with cheats).  http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87167.0;topicseen

I have similar issues with RPG or open-world games - I don't want to miss anything, so I try to do all side quests and get all equipment and finish everything, but sometimes it gets tedious and I quit.  With racing games I want all the cars and all the upgrades and all the tracks, but it can turn into a chore instead of fun.

Fatherhood/family life has added a new set of challenges.  I usually don't game while the kids are up, but when I do I usually don't play things where resuming from an ill-timed "pause" can cause issues, such as in racing games.  It also makes it hard to play RPGs where I need to pay attention to what the characters are saying while the wife unit is talking to me as well.  I tend to play slower-paced stuff like C&C3, and usually I do skirmishes rather than replaying campaign missions.

The end result is that even though I enjoy the games, I end up rarely finishing one.

Another thing that seems to be getting worse as I get older is that I don't want to learn new control schemes.  That was part of what kept me from coming back to Freespace for so long - it was more complex than W-A-S-D and mouse with a couple of buttons.  I'm still struggling with keyboard commands and adjusting joystick bindings, and I probably won't do any other flight games or mods until I finish this one.  For instance, in Diaspora I had the hat switch mapped to thrusters to assist with landing, but right now I have targeting functions mapped to it for the main FS2 campaign, and I had the glide function mapped to a joystick button that I am currently using to equalize shields.

No point to this, just wanted to share my thoughts and see if anyone has anything similar they want to share.

[Dragon]

I do tend to finish what I start, and also have a habit of playing games in chronological order (Try that with TES series. Arena is a bit tedious, but Daggerfall is awesome, and they all make for an unique experience). Sometimes I do put off a game (mostly because of lack of time), and sometimes, when something is incredibly tedious, I leave it for longer, but I always try to finish what I started, if only to see how the story ends.

[Klaustrophobia]

i finish almost everything i start.  the only ones i can think of not having finished other than deliberate quit because i didn't like the game is the descent series.  without much of a story behind them (especially 1 and 2) there wasn't a lot to keep me pushing forward as the levels got larger, harder, and it felt monotonous.

[Scourge of Ages]

Most games that I spend more than 2-3 hours playing, I will try to finish. That is, games that actually have endings.
But there are quite a few that I've gotten through humble bundles, or in Steam sales for pennies that I'll play for a little and then completely forget about. I feel that if a game can't capture my full attention in that amount of time, there are better ones I can go play.

[karajorma]

Thanks to humble bundles, etc, I have a ridiculous number of games I've never even played, let alone finished!

[Mongoose]

Thanks to humble bundles, etc, I have a ridiculous number of games I've never even played, let alone finished!

Yeah, I have that problem too, as I suspect does almost every Steam user ever.  But if I sink any amount of time into a completable game, I pretty much always complete it, even if it sometimes takes me years to do so.  I have a few PS2 titles around that I really need to go back to one of these days.  *stares guiltily at Shadow of the Colossus*

[Phantom Hoover]

There are a lot of games I've stopped playing shortly before the end. Homeworld and Aquaria come to mind.

[Grizzly]

I am a bit in the middle. Backloggery helps me take track though.
I often do finish my games, though. The exceptions are games that are just not any fun, or games in which I encounter game breaking bugs (mainly due to overzealous modding on my side ). One issue is that I often forget to backup my savegames, so there are some games I have not finished, even though I have put more then enough time into them to finish them.

[TrashMan]

Most of the games I played, I finished. Some games I finished multiple times, and I get back to them again and again.

That said,there are game I never finished and some games I bought but still haven't installed.

[InsaneBaron]

I generally finish games I start unless they turn out to be lame. I think one of the few games I started but didn't finish was iF-16 (the controls were so blasted complicated you could have used the game to train real F-16 pilots. I prefer Ace Combat).

I also stopped playing Command and Conquer 2... I can't even remember why. Probably cause I started it right after C&C 1 and... well, by then I was sick of playing RTS.

[Wobble73]

Some games I finish because I am just hooked on them, (F.E.A.R 1 and 2 come to mind). Others I have attempted to finish but if I get stuck on a level I loose heart and end up giving up. (Batman Arkham Origins). Others I have picked up and played for a while but then I get a new game I want to try so I start playing that one with the intention of coming back ot the first but get so hooked on the new game I forget about the first.

[karajorma]

I mostly play games until I finish them, but I only go for 100% if I really enjoyed the game.

Last game I played I have no intention of trying to complete is Dragon Age 2. I got to the penultimate battle, had the First Enchanter decide to go evil on me for no apparent reason other than cause the designers made the stupid decision to invalidate all my choices in the entire game, and decided to not only ragequit but also rage-uninstall.

[Rodo]

I tend to finish only games that are story-driven, if they are based on the challenge represented by AI behaviour solely I tend to drop them when I get the "full inventory" out of the game.

eg: DK I played to the and then DK2 played until I got all or most rooms/traps unlocked.

[MP-Ryan]

I am pretty selective about the games I buy, and generally finish those I purchase.  I can therefore actually name the games I've never bothered to finish (typically because I didn't like them or just got bored):

-Descent 2 (got stuck, got bored).
-Star Wars:  The Force Unleashed (too arcadey)
-Dead Space (vastly inferior to System Shock 2; save system was obnoxious; predictable jump-scares, all-around overrated).
-Torchlight (got fed up with the ridiculous difficulty spikes in the side missions where I'd be flattening the main quest and getting squat for good loot, but getting my ass handed to me in the side missions after I got about 1/3 of the way in because I wasn't getting any good gear in the main quest.... and I just found the gameplay got tedious).
-Assassin's Creed (maybe it was good when it came out, but years later it is merely clunky and repetitive, with a brutal save system and semi-frustrating PC controls).
-Red Faction (gifted to me on Steam, and I might have enjoyed it back when I first played the original Half-Life, but gaming technology and storytelling has evolved so far since this game came out that I just couldn't do it).
-Company of Heroes expansions (have been shelved while I play other things as I'm not in an RTS mood right now, but I'm sure I'll eventually go back to them).

No, I do have a massive backlog on Steam and my hard disk.  I'll eventually try them all, and probably finish most of them.

[deathspeed]

I mostly play games until I finish them, but I only go for 100% if I really enjoyed the game.

My mind keeps trying to equate "finish" with "100%" even though rationally I know there is a difference.  I guess I try to do it all at once rather than replay it.

I still don't know how the FS2 story ends; I have to avoid some posts in here.    But I hope to finish by the end of the weekend!

[Grizzly]

I still don't know how the FS2 story ends;

Soylent green is people!

[Mongoose]

It was his sled!

[Ghostavo]

He was dead all along!

[CP5670]

I finish most games I play. I do have a lot of unplayed games that I never started, but once I take the time to install and configure a game I usually play it at least once, even if it's not that great. The exceptions to this are FPS/TPS games with checkpoint-only saves, which are becoming frustratingly common these days. Some of these games good enough to attract my attention initially, but I often become quickly irritated by the game wasting my time and just stop playing. I find a lot of older FPSs more fun since they actually let you save properly back then.

I have similar issues with RPG or open-world games - I don't want to miss anything, so I try to do all side quests and get all equipment and finish everything, but sometimes it gets tedious and I quit.

I'm a completionist too. I tend to just keep playing the same game for a few months and finish everything in it, even if I don't spend a lot of time gaming each day.

[Nuke]

i will sometimes start a game and not finish it, if its kinda crappy. there are a few games like that. fear was like that, i got so sick of the stock looking graphics that i just couldn't sit through one more level. i also have a thing about buying flight sims and never playing them. other than that i tend to beat games in about 2-4 days.