Bit of a peek behind the curtain post here. I know I still want to write more, I still want to share my thoughts. But two things prevent that for me: real life and the discouraging discourse around how we talk about games.

Obviously real life is the priority, so it’s hard to both keep up with writing about the games I’m playing, but also to well…play new stuff. I’ve been gravitating towards games I’ve played before or the new games I’ve picked up are all games that take a long time to get through. Which can make it hard, I feel like I hit a good cadence of playing a game, beating it and writing about it. But I also feel like I need to adjust and maybe go back to pseudo-travelogue styling writing about what I played, a peek into what I did. But would that be interesting? Sometimes when we play, we’re doing some grind work or maintenance in the games we play. So I’m trying to figure out how I want to balance that. I know I wouldn’t care about how new or old a game is that I write about, but it does feel weird to write about a game that isn’t a new experience to me.

The next reason why it’s hard to write is kind of how the broader community sees games writing. I won’t same games journalism, since that’s not what I’m trying to do here, but you could lump that into the broader discussion as well. I have no delusions that I could make writing here a full time thing, that I’d be paid for my thoughts. But I see more and more that the environment of games writing is kind of speak truth to the fact that you have to treat it as a hobby, not as anything that will fill the coffers. We see some games journalism websites get bought out and that industry has been favoring a deluge of content in the hopes something clicks rather than nuanced reporting or criticism. What do I mean by that? Well some sites will post every press release, notification or bit of news they can, no matter how small. So they might post that a new game is coming out, guides or tips on a game that just recently released or even just that a game has been patched and what’s in it. I think I thought engaging with this meant I was staying on top of the news in an industry I care about. But aside from the guides, I’m only really reading press releases. I’m not learning anything, I would most likely get the same thing by going to the press room section on these developer’s websites and reading the same thing. What I actually value is the editorial, opinion or criticism of the larger industry.

I think a good example of this a podcast I listened to around Summer Games Fest over at Aftermath. They spoke about how some of their staff just decided against attending Summer Games Fest, not because they didn’t think anything would be announced, but they couldn’t see the value in them going to the event itself. They could stay at home like us and watch all the videos and then discuss, giving their opinion. Rather than saying “hey X game is coming out”, maybe they shift the conversation. Xbox announced a lot of new games, but what’s happening in the background over there?

When Polygon was bought out and some writers were laid off, I wanted to stick with the site, I really felt like I grew to be more invested in games because of that site. (I didn’t become a bigger fan, because I think being a fan can cause you to get tunnel vision and not be willing to critic the thing you love.) But what I noticed is that my feed for Polygon exploded as they would post more and more content, but it was so hard to keep up with it and I ended up just marking articles as read because as I scrolled through nothing jumped out at me as something engaging. It was especially true when the new big open world game would come out. My feed would be flooded with quest guides, tips, and patch notes. But I’m not playing that game, so there’s no value to the flood. I think my solution has been to drastically curtail what I read about for video games. I try not to read stuff on Reddit, because that is a very specific lens that I at most times don’t agree with, and I stick to smaller gaming sites that mainly talk about stuff outside the game. I might not read a review of a game, but I might read about the conditions at the developer. I might not know how to complete a certain quest, but I’ll read about how the game feeds into the bigger trends in the industry right now. I know it’s not in everyone’s interest or even capability, but I actually pay for my gaming news now. I subscribe to Aftermath. I have some Patreons I support (Besties and Post Games).  Because they aren’t concerned about ad views, they may not post as much, but they can definitely post what they want.

I guess that’s as good a spot to end this post. I also want to post only what I’m interested in, and maybe that’s why it takes so long for something to come out. I don’t want to write something to just make sure my article count goes up. I’ve seen more discourse around if this is a hobby, post when you want. One podcast I listen to, A Life Well Wasted posts an update every few years, as an example. Some blogs might do the same. So I’m not giving up on this, and I want to flex this writing muscle to make sure when I have an idea, it doesn’t take as long. I have a couple ideas percolating, so here’s to keeping this all going..