Still Fatigued 13 May, 2024

Video games are a passion, but...

It’s been about a week since my rant about the closure of Tango Gameworks, and while I’ve gotten over it a bit, I’m still fatigued by gaming. With the announcement of the Switch successor, we’re inching towards a proper new generation of gaming, but it’s hard to be excited. Constant layoffs and studio closures. Rising prices and a trend towards $70 games. Cheaper budget games taken hostage by the whims of what popular streamers decide to play. The gaming community has never been the friendliest, but now it’s loaded with dissatisfaction and borderline hatred against the industry, an IQ-dropping culture war battleground, and general pessimism all round. It’s ugly.

But what about the /games/ though? They’re the only thing that matters - getting a passionate combination of image, audio, and interactivity. Who cares about the industry and community when you can immerse yourself in it? But I don’t know, man. I’m at that phase where I scroll my Steam library for two minutes before not playing anything - a phase I know too well. According to my stats, I’ve completed roughly 60 games in 2023, and dabbled in many more; as of May, though, I’ve only completed nine.

One day this fatigue will end. I just got to wait for that perfect game. Until then, I’m just spending my free time playing Picross. Like, a shit-ton of Picross. Of those nine games, four were Picross games. I’ve been infected with Picrossis. It might be terminal.