“I Just Can’t Commit to That
Level Anymore”
Players, Demands of Games,
and Player Services•
Elisa Wiik

People, the author holds, instinctively believe quitting a game to be a simple
choice: you are either playing or you are not. But she finds quitting play more
complex. To understand better the whole ecosystem of play, she maps out thereasons Finnish players abandon or reduce their gaming and examines thesereasons through the lens of specific demands. Using an online survey andinterviews, she reveals that the dedication and effort needed to play—andthe expected audience for a game—can drive players away from the games
they once so enjoyed. She concludes that using the player service model
promoted by Jaako Stenros and Olli Sotamaa in 2009 can identify the actions
game designers might take to lessen the effect of these game demands. Key
words: analog games; digital games; game demands; quitting game play;player services

Larps started to demand a really deep dedication and the level of proppingrose to something incomprehensible; I just didn’t have the time for that. It
felt like I was a bad larper and the joy vanished from it.
—Woman respondent, age forty-two

What happens when players abandon their games and take an extended

leave from the various imaginary worlds they have been inhabiting—or at least
devote less time to them? Trying out different games and hobbies, then giving
these up when life changes, is of course a normal part of adult life. But games
are an important part of popular culture and a lucrative, growing business. Bergstrom and Sherman (2021) note that exclusionary practices can keep womenout of digital games and maybe even push them out. If the players are kept out(or pushed out) of that culture, especially diverse players, their departures canaffect both the business and the culture of gaming.
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American Journal of Play, volume 15, number 1 © 2023 The Strong
Contact Elisa Wiik at elisa.wiik@tuni.fi

“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

As Bergstrom and Sherman (2021) note, documenting the constraints ofplaying digital games can reveal thresholds that might be lowered to help thosestill wishing to participate. I agree with their notion that the norms and structures of games and game cultures become more visible when we examine theentire ecosystem of playing, including different varieties of games and former
players, current players, in-between players, and even nonplayers. In short,
understanding the constraints of play can help us design games for everyone
and not just for that stereotypical player, the young white male (Fron et al. 2007;
Paul 2018; Booth 2021), and hardcore players who have a lot of time on theirhands (Consalvo and Paul 2019).
In this article, I rely on a survey of—and on interview data from—Finnish players who have abandoned or reduced their gaming. I define games verybroadly and include different varieties of digital and analog games to garner awide perspective on games in these individuals’ lives and on their ideas aboutplay. In reality, they might well use several devices to play games, and they do not
fall neatly into either category of analog players or digital players. Abandoning
one type of game might sometimes mean abandoning all others, too, but notnecessarily. As Bergstrom (2019b) argues, different games and the types of games
played depend on the situations, the needs of individual players, and those withwhom they are playing. Focusing on one game only, or on one genre, Bergstrom(2019b) says, limits what we can discover out about nonplayers. It is important
to know who abandons games, why they do so, and whether players are being
excluded (Bergstrom and Sherman 2021).
To find this out, I posed two research questions: What reasons lead players
to abandon or reduce their play? What kind of thresholds do the answers reveal
when looked at through the lens of the demands made by games and play? For
my purposes, I directed the lens of demands toward games as designed experiences. In other words, what does the design of the game demand of its players.
The difference between player and designer can be murky in analog games
because players also enact the rules and sometimes take on a double role as player
and game master. I, therefore, focus on the demands imposed on the player by
the designers of the games, and thus my discussion includes examples of how
the designers can take these experiences into account in the future. As I show,these demands act as barriers or thresholds that trigger a negotiation processthat leads some players to cease participating. I first look at previous studies
related to the quitting of games and to leisure constraints, then I present mydata and the method I used to obtain it, and finally I describe my results. I close

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P L AYwith a discussion about the possibilities of the player service model (Stenros andSotamaa 2009) as a useful tool for devising ways to lower the thresholds that
hold some players back.

Previous Research
Quitting and Leisure Barriers
Previous research about quitting game play has included instances that were very
public and often very dramatic because the developers decided to shut down
online worlds (Consalvo and Begy 2015; Pearce and Artemesia 2009; Papargyris
and Poylymenakou 2009). Even when the online virtual world itself does notend, sometimes players still share dramatic “quitting texts” in forum and blog
posts or on YouTube and other video formats (Dutton 2007; Nagenborg andHoffstadt 2009; Webber 2012). When it comes to more commonplace and lessperformative quitting, plenty of research has been devoted to the retention andchurn prediction, meaning how to identify players who are about to quit playing an online game or to cancel their subscription fee (Debeauvais et al. 2011;
Borbora et al. 2011; Runge et al. 2014). Other research concerning digital games
and quitting have approached the issue from the point of view of abandoned
avatars (Bergstrom, de Castell, and Jenson 2016), or the reasons for deactivating
and reactivating accounts (Bergstrom 2019b), or rage quitting (Weber 2020).
Some have looked at Pokemón GO (Rasche, Schlomann, and Mertens 2017;
Butcher, Tucker, and Young 2021) and various mobile social games (Wei et al.
2015). Indeed, numerous studies use one or two individual games as examples,but there exists some research examining the issue from a wider perspective (Lee,Yu, and Lin 2007; Jiang 2018; Bergstrom and Sherman 2021). Research about
quitting analog games has been more indirect—for example, research aboutparents finding time for board games or about conflicts between role players(Rogerson and Gibbs 2018; Bowman 2013). Although these examples do notdirectly concern the experience of former players, the topics touch on possible
reasons some players abandon gaming—family life constraints or leisure timeand social conflicts between players.
The same kind of indirect exploration of my theme can be found in Deterding’s (2016) article about autonomy. The push and pull of wanting to play leisurely
and the social obligation to play at work or as a team can affect the autonomy asingle player enjoys over starting and quitting a specific game. Juul’s (2009) inter-“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

views with game developers about casual games and the meaning of casual touches
on the busy life of adults, how casual games might better serve adult lifestyles, andhow such casual games have brought in new kinds of players.
Leisure studies have been preoccupied with the topic, especially when it
comes to leisure constraints. Crawford and Godbey (1987) developed a conceptual framework of the barriers to leisure that families face. They divided
these barriers into three categories: intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural.
Later, Crawford, Jackson, and Godbey (1991) described a hierarchical processthat develops in stages, which can be overcome or not, but sometimes ends in
nonparticipation. These barriers, they note, must be faced again when someone
wants to specialize in selected leisure activity. According to Jackson, Crawford,
and Godbey (1993), overcoming leisure constraints requires negotiating. How
successful this negotiating process proves to be depends on the strength of theconstraints and the motivation of the individual. Recent game research has usedleisure constraint studies to examine quitting (Tan, Yeh, and Chen 2017; Bergstrom 2018; Bergstrom 2019a).
Demands of Games
Since I use game demands as one reason for quitting or reducing play, a glimpse
at previous research about the demands of games seems also warranted. Startingwith digital games, video games demand interactivity, cognitive skills, physicalskills, emotional responses, and social engagement (Bowman 2018). Moving
on to board games, as Booth (2021) remarks, many board games take hours toplay, even after set-up and learning the rules. Board games are expensive andnot accessible to people with mobility constraints and mental difficulties. Continuing to miniatures, miniature war gaming as a hobby includes several otherdimensions besides playing, such as crafting, collecting, storytelling, displaying
and appreciating, and socializing (Meriläinen, Stenros, and Heljakka 2020).
Finally, role-playing games also need to be considered. First, it is worth noting
that, instead of the acronym LARP for live-action, role-playing games, I use thelowercase larp as is customary in Nordic Larp communities and scholarship (seeNordic Larp by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola 2010). Tabletop role-playing
games require that the players listen to each other and the game master, roll dice,play by the rules, imagine what is going on and role play their characters. Players
need to concentrate to accomplish all this and to maintain such concentration
throughout the game. Larps require at least some kind of garb from the player,
which can consist of clothes, props, and even such accommodations as tents

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P L AY(Bienia 2016). Some high-end larps involve significant costs, both in terms ofmoney and time. For example, the players of College of Wizardy larps in Poland
prepare both physically and socially on average for thirty-two hours and spend
around six hundred euros for the game in total (Montola 2017).
Larps also make cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demands(Korhonen, Nykänen, and Partanen 2020). In addition, larps can appear a formof labor to both the organizers and the players, and this labor can be divided into
three types according to the needs of Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs. As
described by Jones, Koulu, and Torner (2016), the first order of labor includes
the basic needs of the players, such as hunger and security; the second order
includes cognitive and artistic needs, such as teaching or playing music in thegame; and third order of labor includes needs of the fiction such as pretending
to do a task related to the role of the player.
As we can see, players cannot simply jump into the game world and forget about their real lives. Games demand many different skills, abilities, andresources.
Hegemony of Play
While these demands are overt, there exist covert demands as well that concern
only some players. Inclusivity in games and in game cultures has been studied
from multiple perspectives, but for my purposes, the concept of hegemony ofplay seems important. Fron and her associates (Fron et al. 2007) talk about“the hegemony of play,” in which hardcore games, hardcore male gamers, andwhite male developers are more valued than other types of games, players, anddevelopers. Even though Fron and her colleagues examine only digital games
for their analysis, hegemony of play exists in analog games as well. Mostly whitemen design and illustrate board games (and mostly white men appear on theircovers) (Pobuda 2018), which have a host of other diversity problems as well
(Booth 2021). Role-playing games and larps are no different.
Tabletop role-playing games essentialize race and have a history of poorly
representing gender, sexuality, and disability (Tremmel 2018). The typical player
and organizer of a larp in the United States is a white male (Amherst 2016), andthis makes entering the larps difficult for players who are Black, Indigenous,or persons of color (Kemper 2018). Moreover, some larps have organizers andthe players enact “racecraft,” meaning essentializing the concept of race andportraying hurtful racial stereotypes in playing a character (S. Eddy 2020; Z.
Eddy 2020). Other larps introduce prejudices into their game worlds that can

“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

be harmful if not handled carefully (Holkar 2016). Many games, no matter theformat, draw on racist stereotypes in fantasy, science fiction, and horror withouteven realizing it (Loponen 2019).
In addition to these issues, hegemony of play influences the attitudes of players and their behavior toward coplayers they perceive as “other.” Although this is
an important area of study, it lies outside my scope here. I plan to cover it more
fully in subsequent articles using this data set. For now, the next section provides
more information about who these players are and the research method I used.

Data and Method
The data I used for this article consists of a Finnish language survey (n = 243)and interviews (n = 22) I conducted of former players. The survey questions
were informed by a pilot study conducted by Frans Mäyrä, a short paper survey
distributed in the Finnish Museum of Games in 2018, but I did not include thatdata in this article. Both those answering the survey questions and those providing contact information for interviews were self-selected, and the survey was notintended to be representative. A qualitative online survey is a good way to gather
data that is at the same time diverse, deep, and rich, but one of the problems withan online survey can be that it excludes those without access to the internet andthose who do not have computers (Braun et al. 2020). Bethlehem (2010) also
discusses the problems of coverage related to surveys. According to the statistical
office of European Union (Eurostat 2021), 92 percent of Finland’s households
had internet access in 2016. In 2021, the number had risen to 97 percent, so theinternet coverage was quite good in Finland at the time of the survey in 2019.
I tried to mitigate the remaining problems of coverage by distributing fliers with a link to the survey to the libraries of three big cities. This offered thelimited possibility of finding information about the survey offline and answering
its questions without the need of owning a device with internet service because
Finnish public libraries provide computers with free internet access. The electronic survey data was gathered using a web forum open from May 2019 toJune 2019. It offered a combination of open-ended and closed questions about
aspects of quitting or limiting one’s game playing, how gaming has changed,
the consumption and usage of other game-related media, and attitudes toward
game culture. The emphasis on the open-ended questions allowed respondents
to write answers in their own words.

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Playing and games were defined very broadly, and the available selection
listed in the survey was informed by the Finnish Player Barometer, a biennial
survey “about the popularity of different varieties of game playing in Finland”(Kinnunen, Taskinen, and Mäyrä 2020, 13). The game playing I asked about inthe survey included computer games, console games, hand-held console games,
mobile games, browser games, board games and other parlor games, card games,
miniature games, role-playing games, larps, pub games, gambling, and paperbased puzzles. I also provided a blank selection for “other” games so the respondents were not restricted to those I had listed. I used this list in questions that
asked about the most frequently played game types and for what types of games
respondents had quit or limited their playing.
The pilot study results showed that when asked in general terms about quitting or limiting a game playing, the respondents talked almost exclusively about
digital games. The overarching goal of this new survey aimed for as wide a perspective on playing as possible and to tease out play habits that do not immediately
come to mind when games are discussed in public. As Stenros and Kultima (2018)
argue, games and play are moving targets that constantly expand. According tothem, it is not fruitful to concentrate just on digital games or on games as products.
Instead, a more encompassing point of view requires understanding the expanding
ludosphere and the multiplicity of games. I attempt to do this by understanding
games as “interactive systems and playful activities” (350) that can be categorized
within the nonexhaustive selection of varieties listed in my survey.
I posted the link to the survey to various Facebook groups and discussion
forums devoted to different types of games, or to geek culture, and to the social
media channel of the Finnish Pensioner’s Federation. A Finnish gaming news
portal, V2.fi, also shared a link to the survey. Paper flyers with an address tothe survey were distributed to the libraries of Tampere, Jyväskylä, and Helsinki,
the university campus areas of Tampere and Jyväskylä, and game-related stores,
cafés, and arcades in Tampere. I asked in the survey for consent to participate
and for possible publication of the data, and I informed the participants of theirrights. I provided the opportunity for them to give contact information, but I
did not make it mandatory. According to the guidelines provided by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (Tampere University n.d.), an ethicalreview was not necessary.
I conducted the interviews remotely from December 2020 to February
2021, and they lasted from thirty to ninety minutes each. I provided the interviewees with information about their data privacy and had them sign a consent

“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

form before the interview. The interviews were transcribed using a professional
service and both the survey answers and interview transcripts were analyzed
with the qualitative analysis tool Atlas.ti. The analysis method for both the survey
and interviews was qualitative thematic analysis (Kuckartz 2014). The analysis was iterative and cyclical, beginning with highlighting important portions
and writing memos, and forming the main categories during partial coding of
the data, then writing additional memos and coding the rest of the data. The
subcategories were formed by partially coding the data and then, after writing
memos, coding the rest of the data. Memos are reflective notes the researcher
writes during the analysis process (Kuckartz 2014) and in my case were reflections and draft versions of the coding, categories, and subcategories. The categories and subcategories were further refined and renamed after that, continuing
the iterative cycle. Some of the memos were constructed as a codebook in thestyle of Guest, MacQueen, and Namey (2012), and the code book was followed
and updated throughout the different cycles. There were 243 survey answers,
after excluding duplications and two respondents who had not actually quit or
reduced their playing. Figure 1 shows the gender of the survey respondents andthe interviewees, and figure 2 shows the age distribution of both groups.
Because a slight majority of the survey respondents were men, I felt it
important to give voice to women and nonbinary persons in the interviews,
counteracting game research’s tendency to be male oriented. More than halfof the survey respondents and interviewees were in their thirties, an age often
defined by work, child rearing, and other adult responsibilities. However, it isimportant to note that this was not the only age group represented and not allof the respondents talked about having children, for example. The interviewees

Figure 1. Gender makeup of survey respondents and interviewees

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Figure 2. Age distribution of survey respondents and interviewees

were selected from the participants of the survey who had given their contact
information and consent to being interviewed. The selection was made basedon gender, age, and the answers given to the questions. The goal of the selection
process was to provide a variety of genders and ages among the interviewees.
Another goal was to offer a deeper, more comprehensive view of the topics covered in the survey and to explore possible changes to a respondent’s status as aplayer. I compiled a list of potential interviewees to further these goals, alongwith possible backup names if initial contact proved to be fruitless. In the end,
the majority of the interviewees were women, because women responded more
often to my interview requests. It may be that women felt a particular need totalk about these issues, and the gender of the interviewer might have played arole, too. Next I detail the results of the survey and interviews. I translated theinterview quotes and created a pseudonym for each of the interviewees I quote.
The translated quotes from the survey are accompanied by the gender and theage of the respondent.

Results
Reasons for Quitting and Reducing Gaming
The coding process resulted in six broader categories for quitting or reducing

“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

Figure 3. Reasons and subcategories for quitting game play or reducing playing time

gaming: immaterial resources, material resources, well-being, social aspects,
responsibilities, and appeal. Each of them has several subcategories, listed infigure 3.
These categories resemble the reasons given for leaving a social networking
game YoWorld (Bergstrom 2019a), for leaving a massively multiplayer online
game Eve Online (Bergstrom 2019b), and for quitting online games in China(Jiang 2018). It is interesting that the same kinds of reasons appear whether thegame is digital or analog, although the emphasis may vary (the lack of coplayers
seems to be more commonly related to analog play, for example). The boundaries
between the categories were not clear cut, several of them overlapped, and most

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Figure 4. Game varieties played by survey respondents

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of the respondents gave several reasons that contributed to their abandoning or
reducing their game play—for now, or for good.
When asked what game varieties the respondents had played most frequently, computer games, console games, and board games proved the mostpopular but all of the varieties listed in the survey were represented.
Game varieties for which players quit or limited their play ranged from
one to even ten per person, the most common being two and three types. Thisshows the multiplicity of gaming: the players had mixed and matched play types
indiscriminately in their lives, not necessarily following the digital-analog divide.
Another aspect that illustrates the multiplicity of playing games is the intermittency of play discussed in the next subsection.
Fluctuations of Everyday Play and the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic
The number of different types of games has varied a lot. I get easily hooked
on doing something entertaining, so I do it in an “intensive period” a great

Figure 5. Game varieties survey respondents quit or reduced play

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P L AYdeal, and then I take a long break or quit entirely. From time to time, I takedeliberate breaks from gaming because I know I need all my free time forsomething else.
—Woman respondent, age thirty-six

As Bergstrom (2019b) has discovered, playing games can also be fluid and fluctuating. What was thought a permanent departure, turned out to be just a break;
and what was intended to be a short break, might extend and transform into
a permanent state. This became evident in the interviews because some of theplayers found new types of games with which to engage, or they dropped someof the game types they played earlier. Even when this is normally the case, muchcan change if something more disruptive to society happens.
At the time of the interviews, the COVID-19 pandemic raged, and it
affected the playing of the interviewees in various ways. Face-to-face engagement
in role-playing games, larps, and board games decreased, as did spontaneous
play sessions with others and digital playing during commutes. A few gamers
found more time to play, and for some the pandemic did not affect their playing
whatsoever. Digital tools that enable remote analog playing became popular during the pandemic, and most of my interviewees tried at least a few times to play
analog or digital games remotely with their friends. They mentioned platforms
such as Board Game Arena, Tabletop Simulator, Roll20, Zoom, and Discord andused them to play board games or tabletop role-playing games remotely. A few
interviewees said their role-playing sessions became more frequent because it
was easier to gather the group online. And one praised the automation in Board
Game Arena.
On the other hand, technical issues were bountiful, board-game collection
was limited on these remote services, and dice rolls could not be checked toprevent cheating. Although a few interviewees began to play remote role-playing
games regularly, some spurned remote play for its lack of the social connection
present when players gathered in the same physical space. Both the positive andnegative aspects of digital analog play that they mentioned resembled examples
found in Meriläinen (2022) and Scriven (2021).
The fluctuating nature of everyday play seems to resist clear boundaries andbinaries. Some who reportedly stopped playing altogether and confirmed it at
the beginning of the interview actually still played occasionally. These occasions
were usually a result of others, such as children, needing help in a difficult gameor needing a coplayer, of co-workers inviting them to a game, or of workplace
Christmas parties. This contradiction might be explained by the word choice of

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the question: “Have you quit your gaming hobby?” These kinds of more casualplay sessions might not come to mind immediately when thinking about playing
as a hobby. There seems to be a clear division between playing as a hobby andjust playing. Hobby as a word was not defined in the survey, but the responses
seem to indicate that playing as a hobby means playing regularly, as a result of
an individual’s own instigation and playing certain types of games.
Bergstrom and Sherman (2021) encountered similar answers: some former
players still played mobile games or computer games as part of their current
leisure habits despite reporting earlier that they had not played at all. Likewise,in an article about the life cycle of digital gaming among Finns, Nevala (2017)
reported that one interviewee denied gaming having any importance in her
adulthood, but she still played casual games in the evening for relaxation. Thesetypes of answers might be connected to the individual’s player identity and to
misconceptions about certain kinds of games because some responses included
value-laden expressions about “real games.” I examine these attitudes next.

Attitudes Towards Casual Digital Gamesand Future Playing Prospects
According to my survey, most of the players had reduced or quit playing several
types of games, and most of them still reported playing some games. When
asked about changes in their play, many reported now playing only digital casual
games, mobile games, free-to-play games, or digital games casually in shortbursts. Some of the players seemed content with this, but others appeared clearly
unhappy about the situation. For these unhappy players, mobile casual games
proved a means of passing time or of filling the need to play when other games
were not possible.
They described mobile games as “clicking games,” “brainless,” and “surrogate.” They showed their preference for longer games when they were asked
if they wanted to play more and why. Some players felt they were missing out
on new digital games, such as narrative computer games, action adventures,and “milestone games” (for example Red Dead Redemption 2). Others missed
immersion, and some even evidenced a nostalgic longing for the times when
they could immerse themselves in games without interruptions.
Three groups could be identified: those who would have liked to play more
and were not satisfied with their situation; those who wanted to play more but

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P L AYwith a caveat (for example, if they had more time); and those who were content with their situation and did not feel the need to play more or at all. If thethresholds of playing could be lowered, two of these three groups might be able
to play more.
From the point of view of sales, retaining these players could be valuable
to game publishers. What is more, understanding the myriad reasons behindabandoning games might help game designers tackle these thresholds, leading
to the development of games designed for a broader consumer base. This inturn might help keep the game culture diverse in terms of age, gender, and playstyle. One type of threshold involves the demands games make on their players,
and the latter part of my description of the results concentrates on these. The
categories I examined related to such demands are: dedication, effort, and appeal.

Demands of Games and Play
Dedication: Time
Especially these huge fantasy worlds where you can play the plot, or you
can stay in that world doing nice things practically forever started to feel
somehow distressing. Not that you have the freedom of choice, and you cando what you want there, but if you get stuck in there yourself and then you
just hang around there, it feels like something that just doesn’t fit in my life.
—Titta, age thirty-eight

The time-consuming nature of games came up several times in the survey
responses. Respondents mentioned long role-playing game campaigns requiring commitment from everyone involved, larps requiring free weekends andtime for preparation, and certain types of digital or board games being longand massive. Some participants felt that they needed to have at least a couple ofhours of uninterrupted playtime to achieve immersion and that starting up a
console or a computer for a mere half-hour session felt pointless.
On the other hand, several interviewees expressed apprehension about
investing their time in certain types of activities that lead to their losing timeor losing the sense of time such as raiding in massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPG’s), in immersing themselves for months on end, orin joining international servers of text-based role playing that included action
twenty-four hours a day. (Raiding means joining forces with other players to

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defeat a powerful foe or groups of foes in a game.)
For some respondents, gaming felt like a waste of time, and they preferred
doing something more productive. These feelings of wasted time seemed to beconnected to what the player expected from the game or what the game expectedfrom the player (such as dedication and effort). These sentiments might also beconnected to the ideas of the appropriateness of games as a hobby for adults
and of the productivity demands of modern society, but these hypotheses would
need to be explored further.
Dedication: Concentration
But it feels somehow really hard that I should start the game, start playing
it, pay attention to the plot and continue playing when I know that I might
have to have a break. That I can’t play, and I will forget the plot and then it
is troublesome to remember where the plot was going and from where I am
continuing.
—Alina, age twenty-threeSome respondents mentioned that they found it difficult to concentrate on playing. This inability to concentrate seemed connected to long breaks between
play sessions, taxing workdays or school days, game properties such as quests
and intensive plots, long games, and progressing through a game in general.
The physical and mental strain of working and studying seemed to be closely
entwined with the effort and dedication games demand from players.
Massive story-based digital games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 andthe Witcher series came up in a few answers as games that are long awaited but
turned out to be too difficult to complete. The problem might also be connectedto the game design of such titles. They are narrative driven action, role-playing
games that take tens to hundreds of hours to complete and have numerous sidequests. Both also apply “slow game time,” Red Dead Redemption 2 especially.
Slow game time is presented as the counter to “hegemonic game time,” which
gives players control and emphasizes efficiency and meritocratic mastering of
the game, as described by Vanderhoef and Payne (2022).
Accordingly, slow meandering travel, unrushed unraveling of the story, andsedate chores run counter to the capitalistic ethos of performing efficiently andavoiding wasting time. Although some respondents decided to put effort into
the quality of their gaming experience and concentrated on single player action
adventures, others felt it impossible to do so in their current life circumstances.

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Paradoxically, it seems that games that avoid the hegemonic game time of speedy
achievement might still emphasize the hegemony of play by prioritizing players
who have the opportunity to make time and space in their lives for it.
Effort: Preplay
I think it is great that the larp scene went in that direction, that it is bigger
and more professional, but as a player who is an entrepreneur, I just can’tcommit to that level anymore. When the organizers put so much effort into
it, building huge worlds and creating the game for years, I don’t want to spoil
their work. If they would give me an important character and I haven’t internalized the character information, had time for that workshop or pregame,or I am within an inch of dropping out, I don’t think it is respectful for thosethat have created the game for years.
—Jessika, age thirty-eight

Certain types of games required effort even before the actual play session. Larps
came up several times in the responses because they require the player to learn
the materials beforehand and, in most cases, to make or purchase the weapons,
props, and clothes. Often games even have workshops and pregames either inperson or online before the actual larp starts. It is important to note that thelarp tradition the respondents are talking about is Nordic larp, which focuseson joint storytelling, light rules, and atmosphere (Nordic Larp, n.d.). Cazeneuve(2020) remarked that participating in the Nordic larp community demands
much special knowledge. Preparations, special knowledge, and rules make larping not unlike labor (Torner 2020), and even in game the players might need toperform several types of labor-like activities (Jones, Koulu, and Torner 2016). In
addition, larp-related stress can be taxing for players. Korhonen, Nykänen, andPartanen (2020) found that a factor in larp-related stress was a feeling of failure,
meaning a player’s own feelings about not performing as expected. Althoughthese examples show that larps place several types of demands on players andthat these demands can be challenging to meet if the player has other, equallyor even more demanding responsibilities in their real lives.
Effort: Learning and Maintaining Skills
In the end, it was so laborious that my playing ended up consisting of buying
White Dwarf magazines and reading battle reports and looking at pictures of
nicely painted figures, because I felt that my figures were so ugly that I didn’t

“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

like them and did not have the energy to keep painting them. My miniature
hobby started small and lasted a short time, and then it fell by the wayside;
but I still like the Warhammer world a lot but if you would be serious about
it, it costs a lot of money.
—Ella, age thirty-six

Playing games either by oneself or with others also requires an effort to learn theskills to play and an effort to maintain achieved skills. As Meriläinen, Stenros,and Heljakka (2020) noticed, there are two practices at the heart of the miniature
war game hobby: playing and crafting. The researchers found that in addition
to this dual core, the hobby includes collecting the miniatures, displaying andappreciating miniatures, and socializing with other players. While for the hobbyists the dual core can be a source of enjoyment, for new players like Ella, thedemand of crafting skills can be too taxing.
Other examples of overly laborious activities from the survey included
massive and complex board games with intricate rules, finding ways to progressin digital games when stuck, reacting to situations as one’s character in larps
instead of just rolling the dice, and digital games with complicated combinations of controls.
According to Christopher Paul (2018), digital games are mostly based on
skills and labor, and games reward players who have the opportunities to honetheir skills and devote their time to such labor. Although Paul talks only about
video games, it seems to be not so different with board games. Intricate rules
and skilled tactics are at the core of massive board games. The cognitive load oflearning the rules in board games has been recognized in other research (Satoand de Haan 2016; Booth 2021), and although this load is mitigated by players and YouTube celebrities who frequently make how-to-play videos in which
they explain and showcase the rules, official rule videos by the designers are notoffered as a default (Rogerson, Sparror, and Gibbs 2021). Long and complex rulesets can be a barrier for some players, so offering alternative ways to adopt theknowledge could be beneficial.

Appeal: Expected Player
Maybe in a way it has alienated me from gaming because now, for example,
the main character is usually a big guy with a crew cut and a stubble thatmight even be some kid’s dad at best. So, it is in a way evident what the

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—Ella, age thirty-six

As time went by, some games and game types lost their appeal in the eyes of
the respondents. Games they had tried became unrewarding, uninteresting, or
not playful enough to continue playing. This seemed often connected to preference, but sometimes the loss of interest appeared more related to the implicit
expectations of the kind of player engaging with the game—if, for example, aplayer was expected to be interested in an older man protagonist or in competitive gameplay.
A few survey responses touched on the topic of meritocracy in games: thecompetitiveness of miniature gaming, superficial storytelling in digital games,
and the emphasis on the competition instead of exploration in location-based
digital games. In addition, two interviews touched upon the hegemony of games
as a reason to abandon playing, such as the sexism of crossword puzzles or—as
we have seen—the prevalence of male characters in digital games.
Ella’s thoughts about game characters illustrate the trends in character
design in digital games. Williams and his associates (Williams et al. 2009) studied
the top selling console and PC games in the United States in 2005 and early 2006
and found that 90 percent of the main characters were male. Harrison and hercolleagues (Harrison et al. 2020) repeated the census with the United Kingdom’s
top selling one hundred digital games of 2017, and there was only a 1 percent
increase in the playable female characters. It seems the expected player for digital
games remains still a man who loves to compete and test his skills. As I discussed
earlier, this expectation is not limited to the digital realm. However, diversity
continues to be a key issue to consider, unless game developers want simply toturn away players identifying as nonmale and noncompetitive.

Discussion
Tan,Yeh, and Chen (2017) have shown that several factors influence the responseof a player who confronts a barrier to participation. However, constraints andfailed negotiation processes are not necessarily negative forces in an individual’slife. According to Kleiber and colleagues (Kleiber et al. 2008), ceasing participation can result in negative emotions such as disappointment or frustration but
not always. Limiting or ceasing participation can start the adaptation process,“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

which has three different benefits: players can devote their time to other goals
in their lives; adaptation can lead to personal growth or new discoveries; andplayers can see the possibilities life has to offer in a new light.
In addition, players can choose to pose constraints on themselves for goal
attainment. Goal attainment was evident in my data because some respondents
had paused their gaming for the sake of a large study project and others had
chosen to prioritize different hobbies or time spent with their loved ones. For
those who felt that their physical or mental health suffered because of games,
quitting seemed to be the right response. In addition, some of the respondents
proved content with their situation and did not feel the need to play as much as
they once did or even not to play at all.
However, quitting becomes a problem when players would like to continue
their hobby but are pushed out or excluded from the game cultures in which
they participated, such as in the case of a game design that favors only certain
types of play styles or players. By using demands as a lens, it is possible to identify some of the structures in games that influence players detrimentally. Even
though the reasons for quitting mapped out in this study are consistent withprevious research, the use of this lens illustrates thresholds that can be affected,
for example, by the design of services. Retaining diverse players and inviting back“lapsed players” through accessible game design could have a positive impact
on both the financial profitability of games and the diversity of game culture.
One way to lower the thresholds could be to provide better service for players than currently available. Stenros and Sotamaa (2009) have outlined a player
service model with five service categories that games and other playful activities
offer, both in digital and physical venues: maintenance of environment, supportof initiation, facilitation of playing, assistance of play, and the socialization ofplayers. Using the player service model, I suggest some possible solutions. Next,
I use two examples of the player service model to discuss the possibilities ofproviding better assistance to play.
Providing Better Service
According to Stenros and Sotamaa (2009), assistance of play includes possibilities to customize play—for example, with the aid of difficulty settings andgame-specific, walk-through guides both online and offline. At the moment, thedigital game design of popular narrative AAA games—games developed withlarge budgets for production and marketing—seems to be invested in providing
huge worlds to explore and a wealth of content to consume. While these games

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shorter and more accessible games are available in the form of indie games,
free-to-play games, and mobile games, the attitudes and preferences of a subset
of former players seem to skew toward these bigger experiences.
My survey respondents and interviewees talked about wanting to play but
not having the mental energy or time to do so. For example, Alina mentionedthat concentrating on a complex game was difficult when she knew a break would
soon come. Designing AAA games spearheaded by the ease of use and accessibility might help adults with busy lives to retain their play hobby. Althoughmost digital games have at least some kind of difficulty settings, and accessibility settings have become more frequent in the past few years, a lot of work stillneeds to be done. Instead of providing the basic easy, normal, or hard choices
for difficulty, games such as The Last of Us 2 offer more than sixty accessibility
options (Leite and Almeida 2021), should serve as a starting point for how toapproach accessibility. In addition to customizable accessibility and difficulty
options, features that offer easy onboarding to the game and mitigate the effect oflong breaks would be needed. Kultima and Stenros (2010) proposed an expanded
game experience model that includes three stages even before the act of playitself: information retrieval that happens before choosing to play, enabling thatprecedes choosing a game, and preparations preceding choosing to start. Taking
these stages into account while designing and marketing AAA games could help
players find what they are looking for and ease the chore of starting.
According to Stenros and Sotamaa (2009) supporting initiation means
helping players choose playing as an activity and choose a particular game. It
also means “providing physical and mental accessibility to games” (6), but theygive no examples of this. In my survey, larps were described more frequently
than board games as too laborious, especially when it came to the preparations
required. The survey response I include at the beginning of this article talks about
feelings of failure when not meeting these expectations, as Jessika’s interview
reveals. Even though the Nordic larp scene is committed to offering high-end
experiences, there exists a danger in making the games inaccessible to players
who do not have the resources to commit but would still like to play. Svanevik
and Koljonen (2019) briefly discuss this exclusion, along with such pitfalls as
uneven participation in preplay, but the article does not offer solutions to these
problems. One option might be to increase the possibilities for support of initiation that highlight the physical and mental accessibility of games.
In the context of larps, this could mean offering costumes, as well as offer-

“I Just Can’t Commit to That Level Anymore”

ing more larps that do not require much preparation. Although shorter larps arepart of the Nordic larp scene, it seems that weekend-long, laborious experiences
are the norm. Kannasvuo, Kevätkoski, and Leppä (2021) talk about the “slowlarp,” which is subtle in its style of play, its setting, and its design. They recommend settings be robust and mundane and activities emergent and offering
opportunities for immersion and pondering. Because they also recommended
a long, continuous playing time (or a preplay and workshops if time is short),
theirs is not a perfect solution to this problem, but it might work for some.
Digital analog play could also be one possible solution, again at least forsome players. Remote larps became more common during the pandemic, andthe online magazine Nordic Larp published several articles about designingand playing online larps (Nordic Larp, n.d.). In Valha11a, an online science
fiction-themed larp played via Zoom, the technical issues with the remote connections were integrated successfully as part of the game world (Rose Villarreal,
Poynton, and Martineau 2021). While migrating the games to the digital world
can offer accessibility in the form of available coplayers and automated features
both in larps and tabletop role-playing games, the solution is not perfect foreveryone. Stable internet connection, hardware, and software are the minimum
requirements, and not everybody can afford them. In addition, players can have
digital fatigue due to remote work (Meriläinen 2022). Many people in my survey
mentioned that they just did not want to sit in front of their computer in theirleisure time after work, and this was even before the pandemic. Digital analog
games can widen the possibilities available for players, but they are not right for
all of the players who feel larps to be too demanding for them.
The two examples I have discussed show how the player service model
can be used as a tool for thinking about game design from the point of view of
mitigating the demands on players. But it is worth noting that the player services have continued to develop since the model was first introduced and thatan update on the model would be beneficial.

Conclusions
I posed two research questions at the beginning of this article: What reasons leadplayers to abandon or reduce their game play? And what kind of thresholds thesereasons reveal when looked at through the lens of the demands made by games
and play? I offered six categories of reasons players abandon or reduce their

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P L AYgaming: immaterial resources, material resources, well-being, social aspects,
responsibilities, and appeal. When looking at the categories through the lens ofdemands of game and play, I established that the effort and the dedication thegames demanded from players can form unsurmountable thresholds for players
who have plenty of responsibilities and not enough time or resources to invest in
their play. In addition, an emphasis on meritocracy and hegemony of play candrive away some players. By examining the services games offer in the light of
the thresholds, we can identify possibilities for lowering the thresholds. Usinga player service model as a tool together with the expanded game-experiencemodel can help designers address the needs of lapsed players. As long as the
structural barriers are left for the individual player to overcome, games are notaccessible enough to everyone. Playing as a regular pastime is prone to disruptions caused by everyday responsibilities and other activities, but the pull of thegames remains strong. The fluctuations in the amount of play and play types of
the respondents suggest that if barriers are removed and thresholds lowered,lapsed players might still come back to their hobby, in one way or another. As
the data shows, the players who quit or reduced their playing had been very
active players who played many types of games. They are women, men, nonbinary individuals, parents, and adults with demanding jobs and studies. Keeping
these players away from games by game design that prioritizes young men withplenty of time on their hands will eventually lead to the impoverishment of gameculture. This must change.
This research was supported financially by the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies and reviewed by Frans Mäyrä, Olli Sotamaa and the research seminarof Tampere University. Jukka Särkijärvi helped translate the quotations from thesurvey, and Marianna Leikomaa proofread a draft of the article.

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