http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gad ... hpt=hp_bn7
For me it is difficulty of certain parts which makes me want to shelve the game for a while

Interesting article. In one sense, they described me to the T. 41 year old male, with job, wife, kids, community, etc. Time is an essence. But I feel like I finish way more than 10% of the games I start. In fact, checking over my games list and setting aside games that don't have a finish (i.e. Catan), I've started 47 games and finished 28. That's a finish rate of 60%. Which is honestly lower than I would have estimated before I looked at the numbers. I would have thought I finished near 80%.

[EDIT] I ought to clarify. By finish, I mean I get to the end of the story/conflict. Not that I 100% the achievements or anything like that. I don't get ALL the achievements very often.

Bad controls. I've given up on Batman: Arkham Asylum twice because the controls are super nonintuitive.

Super restrictive DRM. Again, with Arkham Asylum I don't want to play because if I have a tiny hiccup in my internet connect, I get booted from my single player game. Or I have to update seven times just to be able to play it.

Lack of Story. If I get to a point in the game and the story just disappears, I lose all interest. Strangely, I've heard people cite this as a reason why they abandoned Borderlands but I've never had that problem and have actually beaten the game multiple times.

Length. I'm good with a game that's 30 or 40 hours. If it takes 50 or 60, I can probably churn through and finish the game. If it takes more than that, I will lose interest. Largely this is an issue of Lack of Story but sometimes I just get burnt out on the games.

Something Jarring in the Story. I played Final Fantasy VIII up to the point that Baroness von Badass (Edea?) joined the party. Pretty much said, "Fuck that." and haven't picked up the game in twelve years.

Edit: Just checked the article. Isn't that the jackwad journalist who got called out for citing his friend that doesn't work in the videogame industry as an insider and expert earlier this year or late last year?

New Shiny, and nothing but. Challenges only encourage me. I haven't played a game with controls bad enough to turn me off by themselves yet (and I played goddamn BLASTO, for fuck's sake), Lack of Story doesn't matter as long as there's gameplay to make up for it, I'm as likely to quit a 12 hour game as a 90 hour game ... yeah. It's all New Shiny. Nothing but.

Hmm i have to wounder if there really is pone single reason i give up games when i do. I have finished games that annoyed me and i have to this point still never finished Oblivion, Fallout New Vegas or Morrowind despite loving all of them and having played each at least 100+ hours

Why is there an expectation that you have to beat a game to enjoy it?

Lost planet and new vegas are the only games I own that I have not finished. I have new vegas on hardcore mode cuz I can't bring myself to do anything less but at that point, its not a game to me more like an assignment. Eh. So im probly gonna lessen the difficulty

I play my games like I watch a movie. There's a story being told. I want to know it. To my knowledge, i have never not finished a movie. Even a boring one. Sometimes its worth it. (Primer. God what a great movie) Games like halo or bioshock 2 I can't do the multiplayer until I finish the story. I love stories.

As of this post I haven't read the article. Reading it now

Data loss does it for me. I lost about 4 levels of a DROD game (in DROD, that is rather a lot) in a computer death, and never got back around to it, mostly because it was fucking difficult the first time.

DROD?

A nightmarishly difficult and really fun puzzle game. Its characterized by perfect information of the rules, being entirely deterministic, and looking like a hybrid of Gauntlet, 2d Legend of Zelda, Chess, and some place with lots of cockroaches. Note that the demos are fairly easy, but should give you an idea of the game, particularly The City Beneath.

Oh, and the RPG on the page I linked is completely and utterly different than the rest of the games. I don't even consider it the same genre, though it is clearly the same setting. The demo is still worth playing, mostly because the main character tells a story throughout, and is completely hilarious.