I'm in the same exact boat, verbatim. I feel as if the community is what drives me away sometimes, but I myself am to blame for it because we're all jaded. Nowadays I get upset or genuinely angry when playing, before it was harmless frustration that needed to overcome, now there's a pride that says when I fail at something, I need to feel bad about it and it makes me not want to return. Every time I set a game down I have to talk myself into coming back to it, and I'm even finishing some games I never broke the finish line with out of a compulsion for closure. However my answer is this:omgeveryone9 said:
Gaming is fun. It may not be the olden days with the olden way but gaming is an amazing source of entertainment so far different from television or books. So this just means you need to find what makes you happy, even if it's different, and pursue it. I used to play nothing but multiplayer with a set group of friends and we'd practice, play, and screw around. Nowadays we've grown up, drifted, play competitively, structurally without the fun. The competition as a whole is different. I find myself more amused by single player games where I can pursue any end that i mean without obstruction. I realized that I loved playing final fantasy's for the research and the 100% completion; I used to watch my stepbrother play Ocarina of Time and now I can watch people stream anygame or get into the spectator portion of E-sports like League of Legends; I used to play Halo and CoD for my friends and I will continue to do so with every sequel, I just won't have to play it 8 hours a day like a religion until the next one, just play it until I'm content and move on. Find things to look forward to versus complaining how the current X or Y isn't good enough or like the old Z.
My advise would be to get into the hype, do the research, and consume time that revolves around gaming even if it isn't gaming itself. Being a gamer doesn't mean you have a controller in hand or keyboard at your fingertips, it means talking about past and future games, watching someone achieve what you may no longer have the free time to do and enjoy vicariously, or it means getting deeper into your hobby and pile on all the old and new you need to complete with your new perspective in life. And at the very least, the best piece of advise I've gotten for any game of any sort... Mute anyone who isn't a personal friend pregame. Don't let them give you a reason to mute them, and depending on the game they don't deserve that chance. Sportsmanship is unfortunately found in niches so do what makes you happy, and don't take away from someone else's happiness under any circumstance.