By Now, You Probably Need a Break
A break from all the space-game (and X4 in particular) talk that is. Perhaps from other things in your life too, but I’m afraid I can only offer you the first.
Although I should add this is not (yet) from any weariness of the game on my part. The game isn’t going back in the box just now. Rather, this break is brought to you by the power of… Monday. Rather than playing earlier and then writing, it was working earlier and then writing. The playing will have to come later. Sure, there are other tales I could regale you with without playing another second — but… You probably need a break.
Instead, I wanted to jump into something Bhagpuss brought up a few days ago.
I’m beginning to think that getting all wrapped up in a single game for months or years isn’t necessarily the universal good we always believed.
We all do it, don’t we? Some of us more than others, naming no names (Points at self.) One minute it’s Valheim, Valheim, Valheim, then Lost Ark is the best game ever made and no-one’s ever going to need anything else (Yeah, that wasn’t me.) Game after game, month after month, year after year, individually and collectively, we get obsessed, talk about nothing else, play every hour we can snatch, then…
Silence. The toy goes back in the box. Once in a while we get it out, play with it for a few minutes, put it away again. Eventually it disappears, lost, no-one remembers where, or cares.
Bhagpuss (Inventory Full), ‘Embrace the Future!‘ (August 2022)
Alright, I’ll own this one. Lost Ark was me. Although… in my defence, I would probably have kept playing (and so talking about it) if life hadn’t decided to throw a bit of a curveball. But even if I had, ultimately, Bhagpuss’ statement would have been rendered true whether days, weeks, or heck, even months later. And besides, I’ve found something resembling normalcy now, and it isn’t like I leapt back in there, is it?
I think the most part most telling of my underlying beliefs, though, is that this does feel like something to be ‘defended’.
I’m pretty open about the fact I enjoy, if not outright require, variety in my gaming, but it still feels like admitting to being absent a virtue. Be kind. Be patient. Be diligent. And damn it, finish the games you start.
It’s one of those things that are rooted deep into a sense of ‘right and wrong’, but unlike many of the other instances that become engraved upon our souls over years of life, it is difficult to pinpoint a direct source. It wasn’t taught in Sunday School or normal school, nor a topic of parental lectures. I’m not even sure that there is an overwhelming tide of societal pressure on the matter either to have created such an imprint.
Perhaps it’s nothing more than the fact it’s different to how things used to be.
Games weren’t always on tap for me. Picking up a new game was a big deal! They required a trip to a physical store and were expensive! Picking a new game on the basis of its box alone was often how I had to do things. Then, like the game or not, that was it for a good long while, so I really would have to make the most of it.
Or maybe more likely, it’s an extension of the old addage to ‘finish what you start’.
Whatever the source, at least for myself, there is quite a disconnect between the conscious beliefs held and the underlying. Consciously; I care not a whit that I stick to games about as well as a 2nd rate 3M knock-off. At least, not most of the time. Every so often it might bubble to the surface in a semi-formed desire to stick to things a little more consistently, like I used to in the days of old.
Ultimately though, I say: ‘Yuss‘ to the likes of Bhagpuss coming around to the all-the-things way of thinking. The more the merrier! Gaming, after all, is a path to fun. Or should be. Some people’s paths are more meandering than others, but hey, as long as you get there in the end… So be it. :)
This was posted during Blaugust 2022, the annual blogging event hosted by Belghast. Blaugust is an event aiming to welcome new blogger blood into the fold and revitalise those who’ve been at it a little longer.
The Blaugust Discord is still available to join in year-round!
