There's two separate questions at work here, because I play games for two major reasons.

The first reason is as research, to analyze and understand what games did, why they made those choices, and what kind of interesting effects those choices can have on the players. There's no game I won't play for analysis and learning. I firmly believe that we can learn from any game, even bad ones. I might not play for a super long time, but I think it's valuable to pick up new games regularly for analysis.

The second reason is for personal fun, which I find more limited in scope. I personally enjoy more character-driven narrative experiences, especially where the game will acknowledge and react to character choices in my solo gaming experiences, and I prefer to play games live with my friends in multiplayer, either co-op or competitively. This generally directs me away from game genres like sports or open world sandbox games. I used to play MMOGs more regularly, but the time requirements for those games are higher than I'm willing to spend these days.
[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]
Got a burning question you want answered?
- Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
- Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on BlueSky
- Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
- Frequent Questions: The FAQ