I think I'm finally starting to let go of the idea of ever playing certain games.
By bigsocrates 11 Comments
I play a lot of video games by any objective standards. That being said, I, like literally everybody else, cannot play all the games, and I can't match the playtime of people who put in 5-8 hours a day, at least not on a regular basis. I'm more of a 15-20 hours a week type of player, sometimes significantly more, sometimes significantly less.
But while I can't play every game, I would say that I want, and even intend, to play a whole lot of them. Far more than time would realistically allow. A lot of people are this way, and it is part of what accounts for the backlog phenomenon, but I hang on to the idea of playing games, even games I don't own yet, more than most.
This is fine for games that are special or somehow connect to my personal interests. I have a copy of Tokyo Jungle for PS3 that I want to get to at some point, and I know that game will at least be interesting and worth my time. The same was true of rain, which I played a few years ago in early 2020*, and really enjoyed despite its age. And Yakuza Dead Souls isn't supposed to be very good, but I've become enamored of the series to the point where they've been my main games for much of this year, so that's one I really want to check out (and also own thanks to the deep end of life PS3 digital sales.) Those are still on the list.
But I'm looking at a lot of games that I either bought or thought about buying in the past and I'm realizing that I don't ever really need to play them. Am I curious about Gonner 2? Kind of, but I also kind of hated the first one and I don't think that the second would do much for me. Does Battlewake for PSVR look interesting? It does, but I have enough VR games I already don't play, and something has to be really special to make me go back to the old headset. I've been coming to terms with my mortality and limitations in the last few years (I'm not expecting to die very soon or anything, just getting older and watching the people around me get older too), and...there will always be new games and not enough time. Everyone has to pick and choose. When you decide to spend almost a month getting through The Crew you're going to miss out on other stuff, and some of that stuff you're never going to find time for.
When I was young I would read about games in magazines and think about playing all of them some day, some how, whether it was buying them new, used and cheap, renting, or even picking up a compilation some day. Time seemed like a limitless resource and even mediocre games were so cool and exciting back then (when games were changing and evolving rapidly all the time) that something like Akuji the Heartless stuck in my head from a demo video I saw once, and I still think about that game from time to time (and secretly hope to play it.) I bought a lot of games that I never found time for but also never gave up on. What, you don't think I'm going to play those Fear Effect games from 25 years ago? HOW DARE YOU?
That's a practice I continued for most of my adult life and there are all kinds of games that I think about semi-regularly that most people haven't considered for many years. In the last five years I played Fuse and Inversion. When was the last time you thought about those games?
But now as I'm starting to pare certain aspects of my life down and focus on the things that really matter, I'm finding that impulse lessening. Things contract when you get older. You have fewer opportunities, less stuff you can actually do (like sleeping without somehow messing up your shoulder), and you become aware of the limits of your time on this Earth. Choices matter more, and you're more aware of wasting time in ways that aren't rewarding.
Okay, I admit it, I'll probably never play Fear Effect. Or a lot of other games. And that's okay. I can get by with less because I already have more than enough.
*SCREW YOU, PASSAGE OF TIME!
11 Comments