I Am Not Alone

Finally, I've found them. I've found someone like me. Someone who can't resist the siren's song of electronic whimsy, someone who goes weak at the knees at the latest preview of 'the next big thing' (or even 'something similar to last year's big thing, but not quite as good'), someone who happily goes through their discretionary spending fund buying video games. I thought I was alone in this endeavor, and that everyone else had the common sense to pick and choose their game purchases carefully, and not fall victim to every flashy ad campaign or 'come-hither' intro video that shows up in their RSS reader. It seems there's at least one more person like me, and they've identified themselves here.

The gist of the fine piece of prose I've linked to, and coincidentally the paragraph that sums up my feelings and attitudes toward game purchases, is this:

But, as I said, I am not a compulsive spender. I can’t even find solace in suggesting that I am the victim of one of those unscientific, pseudo-addictions that have replaced the space once reserved for personal responsibility in the lexicon. I will simultaneously agonize for weeks before pulling the trigger on buying a new CD or DVD, while thoughtlessly ejecting forty dollars for a game that I have no intention of playing for at least a fortnight. I haven’t purchased a new shirt or pair of pants in more than a year, simply because I can not bring myself to spend money on woven fabrics. I recently bought a pair of sunglasses at one of those knock-off kiosks in the mall for $10 bucks and had the temerity to feel proud of myself for spending the money.

The main point that really rang true with me was the line about "...while thoughtlessly ejecting forty dollars for a game that I have no intention of playing for at least a fortnight." I often go to the game store and come home with multiple titles that, considering the length of today's games, I have no chance of getting to all of them in a reasonable amount of time. I have a stack of games in my possession that would take me months to get through, especially since the change in pace at which I'm able to digest gaming content after the kids were born, and that's without adding a single new title to the stack until I'm through with them. In fact, that's a fascinating idea for a project or challenge (or hell, just a blog post), to list all of the games I currently own that I have not played to substantial completion, and then try to plow through them before buying a single new game.

Even with this stark realization, the sheer amount of content sitting on my shelf that I have yet to fully experience and appreciate, the daily trolls through the gaming blogosphere continues, searching desperately for 'the next big thing' or something that will grab my attention and hold it firmly. While quality titles like Crisis Core, Phantom Hourglass, Psychonauts and the Baldur's Gate series (definitely ancient in terms of video game life span but games that deserve to be played regardless of age) sit sad and feeling unwanted in my collection, the relentless quest for games to buy continues.

Is it an obsession? Probably. I often placate my growing concern for the large stack of unfinished games by telling myself, "At least I'm not sitting in a bar drinking every night, or blowing my cash in a casino," but there may not be a big difference between these pastimes (looked on with disdain by a large portion of the population) and my current pastime of game buying (ironically also looked on with disdain by a large portion of the population).

There is a passage in Elysium's discourse that gives me some comfort:

But, there’s more at play here, and it’s the part of this self realization that I can take comfort in. I love video games. Sometimes I feel like the last of that dying breed, an unabashed fan of the industry, of its excesses, of its creatively compromised, morally bankrupt, lowest-common-denominator indulgences. Unlike less pleasant and more physically debilitating addictions, I still get the high when I install that new game and fire it up for the first time. I’ve been playing fake songs on plastic instruments for two years now, and I still bounce around like a professional fool when the lights are out and everyone else has gone to bed. I’ve been running fetch quests for digital avatars in artificial worlds for half a decade, and that ding of a new level is still fundamentally Pavlovian. I’ve dispatched ten million bad guys from their multitude of nefarious, world-ending deeds, and I still am close to that thrill of the hunt.

"Why does this give you comfort?" you might ask, and well you would be entitled to ask just such a question. It's easy for me to find solace with my perceived shortcomings and lack of willpower when some of the exact feelings I've had countless times are put into words by another. The feeling of 'not being alone' is strong and comforting, and is a feeling I'm sure everyone can associate with and appreciate.

Sadly, even after this journey of awareness and self-discovery, am I likely to change my ways? Most likely not. Like a junkie craving that next fix, I'll most likely continue to buy games in bunches, and have the best of intentions of playing them all to completion. Like those ill-fated titles that stare back at me all the time, these new games have a great chance of joining their predecessors, forlornly taking up space on a dusty shelf (or haunting me every time I open the Steam interface, in some cases), begging for one more chance to dominate my ever-shrinking entertainment time. Unlike before, walking this path is not a solo experience. I can hold my head high, knowing that at least one person is walking that path with me.