I’m sitting in glorious Portsmouth, NH away from my family and various gaming platforms. I’ve such boredom coursing through my veins that I’ve been pondering what I’ll play first when I return to the humble abode. You know, after hugging the wife and kids, of course. This was not a concern for me a short time ago. Even as recent as 2015 I’d play whatever struck my fancy for as long as I wanted. I’d aimlessly move on, wander back, rinse and repeat. That’s because life, defined by some as marriage and parenthood, hadn’t caught up with me yet. It has taken me awhile to realize the tectonic shift in the prioritization of disposable time that I unassumingly undertook when I went from me to a family.
I’ll allow the reader to psychoanalyze why so much time passed before the realization. My mind would rather focus on how it’s adapted to new priorities. I’ve long kept to a self-imposed rule of beating games that I’ve started. The chastity was originally imposed to minimize frivolous purchases, only receiving a new title from my own dime when something else was completed. Purchase limitations went out the window when disposable income became more readily available. The focused play did not. That’s been updated for the new reality of life now.
#2017gaming sees @Quake Champions as 9/15. Level 25, 100+ matches, etc. My primo twitch gaming years are well past me. K:D slowly inc from 0.71! Q3A fun. pic.twitter.com/gz3u1QYI10
— ☁iTZKooPA☁ (@iTZKooPA) December 26, 2017
Today, I’ve realized that playing a game to completion for finality’s sake is no longer tenable for me. Now, I don’t remember the last title I did 100% by any measure, but I can’t imagine I’ve been close to that level of completion for anything in five years. Over time, my definition of completion has become far more fluid. Only partly because of the uncompletable nature of MMOs, MOBAs and other popular genres. I dropped Star Fox Zero after a few paths through the story because its game design had run its course. Quake Champions was marked complete not because I level capped, but because I hit the K:D ratio I was looking to obtain to prove to myself that ‘I’ve still got it’. Gigantic was kicked to the curb because the publisher did it for me. When I complete these games I don’t expect to return either. Few from #2017gaming have seen a boot up since, the real exception being Quake Champions. It’s simple really, games I’ve completed, whatever that is on my now sliding scale, are dead to me unless they are truly bringing me joy.
Why I consider beating Legacy of the Void on Brutal is another quirk I leave to the reader to psychoanalyze. Let me know what you determine.