Admittedly, I toe-dip too much. I get a new game. I play it long enough to gain initial impressions and describe the bulk of the systems that I believe the game holds. Talk about it a bit with friends. After a few discussions, I may keep playing it on the regular for another week or so. But soon enough, something else new comes along. Or maybe even an old classic comes along that I’ve been jonesing for. Or I feel the yen to hit the skies or the black again in a flight sim or space sim. The need to burn donuts with my Thrustmaster Wheel and Pedals sets in the latest racing sim. The short of it is, there are too many genres and game types I like…that I find addictive…that cause me to rabbit. And over the past few years I’ve become worse and worse about getting back to the new titles I procure in a steady, disciplined backlog rotation and in a timely manner.
That’s to say nothing of the hardware reviewer lifestyle I continue to perpetuate despite giving up the cape on writing reviews years ago. So when a new piece of kit comes into the studio, I also get distracted by the need to test it. And the best use-case for that test may not be the latest title that just came off the presses. To put it mildly, I’m a mess.
I used to pride myself on some pretty extreme levels of discipline. I used to be disciplined about gaming. About livestreaming. Making let’s plays. Blogging. As I’ve gained more responsibilities at work, or just as commuting has become more and more of a burden, I’ve dropped off of regular repetitions of many of those things.
But especially in gaming is where that loss of traction can be seen most plainly. I want to change that in 2025.
And in fact I’ve gotten a pretty decent start here in December? The new algorithm is nothing groundbreaking. Look, I’m never going to be the type of gamer who only plays one game. I am still doing a rotation. If I am lucky, I get in a max of 18 hours of gaming in a week. In order for me to complete most games, I’d have to hit that metric with ace precision, and stay on 1 game for two weeks straight. That would mean no Call of Duty sessions. No World of Warships. Limiting my freedom to go back to a title on a whim. But mainly, it crimps my ability to play live service games or the games I call my forever games. Like Forza, Civ, Age of Wonders…anything in that vein. So I won’t be going cold turkey on playing multiple games.
But I am trying to keep that sprawl to a minimum. Since I started this new paradigm, I’ve been playing the following games:
- Monster Hunter: World
- Batman: Arkham Knight
- No Man’s Sky
- Call of Duty: Black OPS 6
- Metaphor ReFantazio
My plan is to keep the rotation that tight until mid-January. Or maybe until Spider-Man 2 comes out on PC. And I’ve been fine so far. No multi-game sprawl (beyond those five) FOMO. It’s giving me enough variety. I’ve probably played more Batman, No Man’s Sky, and Metaphor than Monster Hunter. And I am playing BLOPS6 more frequently than the others, as well. While this list misses a few things that cause me to normally kick out of any limited playlist….a racing sim, a flight sim, and a 4X game….I’ve decided to work hard at being ok with that. “Drinking deep draughts of a game” is what I call it, when I am going back to the well on one particular title more than I would have in the past. We’ll see how things go and I’ll update this theme when we’re down the road a bit.
DRAFTED ON MY MACBOOK AIR M2
Rounding Off Infinity 