How many of you like games where there is no final objective and no ultimate "You beat the game"?

I like the games that let me create and build, like Sim City, and don't have a difinitive end of the game.  It makes things more interesting where I create the objectives and I have fun doing whatever I want.

Does anyone else like these kinds of games?

Those are some of my favorite kinds, to be honest.  XD It's one of the reasons I like the Tycoon games, even though I haven't played them in absolute ages.  Also, I consider Minecraft a sandbox game, even though you CAN technically 'beat' it.

I could never get into the Sims games for some reason, though, because they didn't have enough to do, from what I could gather. Granted, I've only played a few and I can't remember through what means (probably PC).

Most facebook games are that way as well, but I can't get into facebook games like I used to.  Not now that you have to have 5 billion friends to accomplish anything, OR be willing to spend money (and lots of it!)......  And the ads and gamepage designs are just horrendous as well.

Another game that sort of fits into the category, in my opinion, is Spore.  I haven't played it in ages... and again, you can technically beat it... but it's ridiculously hard and would take forever.  Even if you DID 'beat' it, there's an endless supply of things to do.

I love these, big simulation games like these or even games that do have an objective but have a large open world to do whatever you want. Right now, I have Sim City 4 and Sim City 2000 and one of them is my 2nd favorite game of all time and I play either one or the other almost every day.


Singelli : Aren't you forgetting what could really be the biggest of these games?

I played Mount & Blade Warband for about 160 hours. Not really proud of it either, but it was a really fun game by itself. It was a fun game with midevial knights and chivalry, a well done sandbox game. You could start out as a mercenary, and eventually become a lord by swearing allegiance to a king.

There were a few political things you could do and such, but if wanted to go for it all, you could wage war and try and take over all the Land of Calradia.

That would be hard though. . . . well. . . no. . . . just time consuming really. :/

I guess that's what would count as "beating" the game.

You even get an award for it.

I love sandbox games as well. xD I'm currently addicted to "Don't Starve", the graphics is hand-drawn, a 3d-like 2d spookish atmosphere. It's a pretty small game as well and doesn't really need high end specs, it doesn't lag either unless you're pushing your RAM too far with all the opened software on your computer. The goal is to survive for as long as you can, that's it. xD Though once you die, you'd have to start from scratch unless you've already figured out how to revive yourself. As for the "end", there's an adventure (or story) mode inside the sandbox world if you can find the portal. It's way too hard in terms of difficulty though, so don't activate it unless you're totally ready.

I especially love the Sims (Bustin' Out, specifically) and some tycoon games. I think you can beat tycoon games, though. What makes them so enjoyable for me is that there's a lot of content that can be unlocked, and once everything is unlock, I could keep playing until I get bored. Then that's when I erase my file and start over again. xD

I think for me, it's the "unlocking" part that I find most enjoyable when playing sandbox games.

I could not get into sandbox games beyond Roller Coaster Tycoon, and even that one had a somewhat defined ending. I am not really the creative type.

There are a couple motives for enjoying 'No Win' sandbox games, such as SimCity, Minecraft, post-mission GTA, post-quest The Elder Scrolls, etc. This can be boiled down to two rather specific ones: the curiosity to explore or the creativity to create.

The first one is pretty self explanatory. Many of these games are just massive. There are things you will miss on your first play through, second, third and so on. You could play the game for a couple hundred hours and never stumble across something someone else had found. I mean, how many of you found the giant mudcrab in Oblivion or Creeper in Morrowind? Hell, I played through Fallout 3 many times and have not once managed to find the war between that ant lady and the robot geek.

The other is a sense of creativity. Not just in simple blockbuilding creation, like Minecraft or SimCity. Though those bring a huge sense of progress, seeing nothing turn into something amazing and complex, and is often a huge appeal, there's also another aspect of creativity that's often overlooked: self-imposed challenges. Want to get five stars in GTA with only a bicycle? Find a wife and start a family without your Sim ever leaving your house?

All these just make sandbox games a very good distraction from the competitive nature of multiplayer matchmaking. However, by how I defined it, what game isn't a sandbox game? Zelda could be considered one, or Mario, due to the self-imposed challenges. We could create more than the developers intended with out imaginations, so where do we drew the line of what is and isn't sandbox?

mainly just minecraft, terraria, starbound (haven't checked that for updates in a while) and while i haven't played them much lately, xenominer and xenominer: swarm for the xbox 360 are pretty nice alternatives to minecraft albeit a vastly smaller scale in terms of map sizes. the pc version might be more forgiving than the limitations of the 360 version. things like if you go around nuking a world too much it could possibly corrupt the file or how the altitude (height limit) isn't as tall as minecraft.

good games, they're both space themed so its a bit different and swarm is more like 1st person shooter meets minecraft somewhat where you can save up money from missions and buy a area of land and build up your own base as you see fit. iirc the latest update made it so you could earn daily salary from your base alongside that daily reward system. the more valuable your base(s) (you can have up to 3 bases) are, the more money they earn you.

Man I hate to say it but I love sandbox games. Wish I had a list of all of them. Right now I'm playing Star flight and it is a great sand box game.The fun thing about these games are you don't know your in a never ending story until your hooked.

Depends on how well made the game is. A lot of companys make 'sandbox' games because it requires less work, they create a big loose environment and count on the freedom making the game last longer. If there's scope to set your own goals then sure.
E.g sims 2 was fun, plenty to do, could set lifegoals etc.
Yet I found sims 3 less fun, it felt like there was no real objective.
GTA, great sandbox, sleeping dogs poor sandbox.
Some sandbox games really stop being fun once the main 'campaign' is over, in the case of action games I'v played ones where the enemy dont respawn after you win, killing any real purpose.
In tycoon games, once you have built everything what more is there?

Technically Sim City, The Sims, etc can be beaten, by being successful, but I do agree they are "no win" sandbox games, and they are awesome. I love Sim City, I love The Sims (the original, The Sims 2) and I love Rollercoaster Tycoon.

Also Minecraft is awesome, I personally think it's a "no win" sandbox game as well, and really shows creativity.