This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor's note: I can empathize with Nick's situation. I still love games, but because I write about them for a living, they aren't my go-to form of relaxation like they once were. It's something I've struggled with, because I never want my love of video games to fade away, and the prospect of that happening really scared me. I've come to realize that I still love being a gamer, but I'll never be as hardcore as I once was. Thanks for sharing your story, Nick. – Aaron
I looked at the blank, white canvas in front of me. As I contemplated what to fill the empty page with, the small cursor incessantly blinked in rhythmic timing. It taunted me. Write something — I dare you.
As I stared at the newborn Word document and that menacing cursor, I realized something: Coming up with ideas for articles is hard work.
Scratch that — coming up with good ideas for articles is hard work.
Okay, so this realization didn't hit me all at once. But the more I try to think about different article ideas, the harder it seems to get.
Maybe the reason that I can't think of any interesting topics to write about is because I'm not "hardcore" enough. Or maybe it's because I just don't care enough about video games.
For a long time, I thought that I wanted to be a video-game journalist. But after seeing the dedication that some people have to this craft — and comparing it to my own, decidely less passionate feelings towards the gaming industry right now — I'm not sure that I would be good at it. This is because I'm more of a casual gamer than I used to be. I rarely buy games anymore, and when I do decide to make a game purchase, I usually only buy the big-name titles.
I wasn't always this way. Looking at my rack of Playstation One games right now, I see Rival Schools, Fear Effect, and Devil Dice. Sure, I've always liked blockbuster titles like Final Fantasy 7, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, and Metal Gear Solid, but I would also eat up more obscure titles. If something like Rival Schools came out for current-generation systems today, however, I wouldn't give it a second glance; I probably wouldn't even give it a first glance.
I suppose I can chalk up my current ennui with the game industry to a few different things. One is that I'm on a budget. When I was a child, I could convince my parents to buy me pretty much anything. (And to a young video gamer, there's nothing better than having parents that spoil you rotten.)
But now that I'm an adult and have to pay for my own stuff, I need to be picky when it comes to purchasing games. When I have to make a hypothetical decision between something obscure like Demon's Souls or the new Halo game, Halo is going to win out most of the time. My lack of funds has created an enormous backlog of unplayed games that I have no hope of ever completing.
Another reason my passion for gaming has subsided is that I just don't have time to keep up with the industry. I can actually pinpoint when I started playing games less frequently — it was around the time I started college. I quickly found out that college, unlike high school, requires one to do more than merely show up to class to receive a passing grade. So naturally, I had to cut down on the amount of time I spent playing video games, to ensure my success in the world of academia. I would literally go months without playing a game while I was in college.
And while my no-video games diet in college helped me have a successful academic career, it also made me fall behind on all the current events in the game industry. As a result, I gradually developed a disinterest that I've never fully recovered from.
And perhaps the biggest reason that I am not the gamer I once was? My burgeoning social life. Carthusian monks had more of a social life than me when I was in high school. But after high school, I got a job at the local grocery store, and met some people who would eventually become some of my closest friends. As I continued to work at this grocery store and plug away at college, I started going to more parties. And drinking. And making friends. And drinking.
Now that I have goods friends and a great girlfriend, I find it hard (though not impossible) to sit down and make time for a video game. Before I had this kind of social life, I would make life events revolve around my video game schedule; now, I have to find time to squeeze in a video game. And I don't really have a problem with that.
Don't get me wrong — gaming is still one of my favorite hobbies. I own all of the current-generation systems, have an Xbox Live Gold subscription, and frequent the Wii shopping network. I'm not what most would call merely a "casual" gamer. But as of right now, I don't have the passion for gaming that I used to. Maybe now that I'm out of college I can find the time to reconnect with the industry that's been a big part of my life for 20 years.
I guess time — something that I have been lacking for the past five years — will tell.
Does anyone else ever experience that blasé feeling with video games? Do you ever get that feeling that you don't love games as much as you used to? Or am I just a bad gamer?