I’ve stopped playing several.  There are generally two types of reason.  The first is because I have got bored or fed up with it for some reason.  For me this applies to 40k – It’s a decent enough game now, but really I’ve been in and around the 41st millennium for 30 years and I’m pretty bored with it, extensive as the background is, the game isn’t stunning enough to counter that sense of ennui with the background.  Kill Team may reignite my interest because of the low buy-in, but we’ll see.  A second game I gave up on was LotR.  This was not because of boredom but I got really irritated by GW’s attitude to the game and players – we were treated with contempt by staff at local stores who resented that it took shelf space away from their precious 40k and WFB, and by the senior management who dropped it like a stone after the cash-cow disappeared after all the film hype died down.  And then they let Gary Morley loose on the sculpts, who nice fellow and competent sculptor that he is, really really didn’t fit in with the style that the Perry twins and Brian Nelson had established.  It was real rage quit time for me!  However, never say “never”, and I got back into The Hobbit with the rise of the GBHL,  SBG magazine, the move to Forge World and GW’s new fluff bunny attitude to life and their involvement with the fan scene – which is much more about a partnership and acknowledging the contribution fans make to the game rather than pretending that it is all about GW.

The second reason to quit a game system applies more to “generic” gaming, so is mainly about historicals, but can include fantasy and sci-fi.  This is when I find a better ruleset.  So I won’t quit a period, but I will quit a ruleset.  So I was into Mongoose Publishing’s Battlefield Evolution: World at War rules – a platoon level WWII game that worked well at 20mm/1:72.  But then along came Bolt Action, with a simpler game system and shinier books, and I moved to their system for my fun.

This kind of moving around is quite common in historical circles as various trends in rules design occur – people are still playing Napoleonics these days, but rarely with the kind of table-heavy micro-managing rulesets that were around in the 1970’s for instance.

I do find I do it with other genres though.  For instance I have some Infinity stuff and am currently painting up the Red Veil set, and do quite like the game, but find that when I am in the mood for a sci-fi skirmish game I usually end up playing Deadzone because I really enjoy the mechanics of it, and find it easier to get into than Infinity.  So at some point, I may actually decide I’m going to ditch Infinity.

My problem though is I rarely if ever sell off models or old rulesets.  I hoard them in my Man Cave.  So there is always the chance they may get used again sometime when the stars realign.  For instance, I have a huge AT-43 Red Blok army up there which hasn’t seen the light of day in over a decade, but well, one day…. 😀

An interesting issue is when does it count as “quitting”?  For instance, I stopped buying Warmachine stuff years ago because with the shift to plastics at the prices they charged in the UK they just seemed like very poor value for money. However, I still kept playing the game with my existing metal army throughout the duration of 2nd edition.  And I may start playing 3rd edition when my mate and I can be bothered to learn the new rules (although we may just ditch that and keep on with our 2nd edition rules … maybe),  But I have never bought a plastic model and never will as I really don’t like their material.  So have I “quit” or haven’t I?  Hard to tell…