10 Secret Ways Video Games Totally Waste Your Time

Though the loot grind was once upon a time only reserved for RPGs, the loot-hoovering loop - in which players are encouraged to tirelessly scour the environment for every last piece of shiny scrap - is commonplace in most action-centric genres nowadays.

With the dollar-per-hour value of video games at its lowest ever point with players having so many options available to them, publishers desperately want their games to instill a pathological sense of addiction in players: an OCD-addled compulsion to keep collecting that ever-precious loot with the promise of bigger, better weapons.

But it's ultimately a pretty sneaky way to avoid creating actual, curated content for players, trapping them instead in an addictive cycle of killing mobs, harvesting their remains, rinse and repeat.

In broader terms, games like The Last of Us feature totally unnecessary crafting mechanics, and as anyone who has played the sequel will attest, it's easy to spend literally hours searching cupboards and drawers for scrap.

As useful as the game's weapon upgrade benches are, having to sit through lengthy - if admittedly gorgeous - animations of Ellie modifying her weapons becomes a real chore after a while.

As fun as looting can be, often the trash-collecting loop can feel like a superficial attempt to imply a game has greater depth than it does, and in turn staple a few extra hours onto the critical path.