Ask HN: What games could you spend a lifetime playing?

If gamer populations lasted forever, maybe I could fly helis in BF4 forever. I was top-rated in my state for a while. Probably my single favorite gaming experience overall.

I get a lot of replay out of some single-player games: Rimworld, Slay the Spire, Skyrim, Fallout 3. I just found shattered pixel and I like that a lot, and could see replaying it a bunch. I fly quadcopter sims a lot, too, and still enjoy that a bunch.

Dwarf Fortress, Factorio, Crusader Kings II and III, Baldur's Gate I and II, Rimworld, Cave of Qud, angband, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Football manager (I'm quite deep in a save and have led them to 2066)

Civilization is the classic if you can fight off long enough in the end game on decent difficulty, although I play on easy so I discover nukes by about the 1700’s

If you mean non-computer games: Magic the Gathering and Go are my top picks. I'm not good at either (due to lack of time to practise) but they are my go-to games when I and an opponent have coincident free time.

For computer games, I'd put Crusader Kings, Stellaris and Cities Skyline (the latest is so ridiculously spec hungry)

Skyrim and The Witcher 3 are cool. I could play them over and over.

Counter-Strike. It's like badminton for me. There's decent strategy and such but it boils down to speed, reflexes, and muscle memory/intuition. There's the newer shooters, but CS gets the essence just about right for me.

I used to play FIFA competitively and did quite well. A friend went full pro. But at the higher levels, it's all exploits; you know what ranges are a balance between accuracy and non-performing goalkeepers, you know the unblockable passes.

I played a beat em up online where someone was cheesing through by attacking, then interrupting the attack animations to attack again.

CS uses nearly the same engine year after year and it's been tested through by so many competitive gamers that I'd trust it to work well after 10000 hours of experience.

Not sure. I haven't played much game since my son grows into his 3rd year. Actually, when was the last time I played some games? Maybe a few weeks ago? And when was the last time before that? Maybe a few months ago?

Gaming was super important to me when I was in my 20s but now they mostly bore me. Reality is much more "fun", in both good and bad ways.

I might introduce some games to my son when he reaches 6+, but that's it. Gaming as a hobby for a solitude was gone and probably won't come back until I retire. I do have a plan to live-stream games of 1970s~1990s when I'm old (2040s~2060s) -

"Hey kids, today I'm going to show you a game older than your grandpa. Its name is Zork".

Chess. All the other games start to bore me at some point.

I don't know about "spending a lifetime", but I was fascinated by Transport Tycoon Deluxe as a kid and remember playing it once even as an adult. Besides this, I enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto series, Football Manager, and The Sims. These days, I don't play at all despite having a PS4 lying dormant. I'm not sure why, but if I had to pinpoint an exact reason, perhaps it's the feeling that I'd be losing out on the chance to spend that time improving myself.

Universal Paperclips[1] - The only reason I quit after 100 times through it was a mistake at the final question.

[1] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/

Haven't tried it yet, but I'm interested to see if https://zenithmmo.com/ becomes such a game.

(VR MMORPG with good reviews, especially the mechanics, needs balancing work)

Roguelites, RTS, City Builders.

But people can find fun in anything. People still play Skyrim.

Oxygen Not Included, Don't Starve Together, Factorio, Age of Empires 3, BF3. I don't play that much anymore, but I love these games. Oh and chess, of course.

RTS games like Starcraft or Age of Empires. Infinite replayability.

Red Dead Redemption 2, Minecraft, WoW. In that order.

Nethack and its various variants.

I've been on Evilhack for the last 2 years and can't beat it yet, even though I ascended Nethack many times.

Dota 2

Super Mario 64… most favourite game ever.

DOTA, but mostly for addiction reasons so don't put your hand in there :D

Factorio

Tetris.

Honestly, it's hard to say, since I think I'd get tired of just about anything if I did it for too long/without any changes. Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are pretty close to me (and I played the former on/off for like 5 years), and I'll always probably be able to play a multiplayer game like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but a bit of variety will always be necessary.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Warzone 2100, Sudoku

DayZ

The GTA series

Most of the Battlefield series, especially 2-4

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Perhaps, Minecraft.

Starcraft 2, diablo 2 and dota 2

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup!

Minecraft

Ive got 3000 hours on HOI4

Civilization IV.

Rocket League

No Mans Sky

BF2 BF3 BF4

Buck Hunter

WoW

Hide the sausage