It’s September! We’re less than a month away from Broketober, and the fall gaming season is looming. So of course I’d be totally burned out on gaming right now.
I don’t know what to say, it happens. And it usually happens right around the time all the games are coming out. Maybe it’s because it follows so closely behind Backlaugust, that summer lull when I start hitting the backlog super hard to clear as much as I can out for the fall.
Maybe it’s also because the avalanche of games has begun a little bit early this year. Usually I don’t have to worry about new games until October or November, and I have all the time in the world to devote to my backlog (which let’s be honest, anyone following this website will know that I am in perpetual backlog mode). But this year has been different. The Microsoft acquisitions from a few years ago are starting to bear fruit, and their dedication to releasing something meaningful on Game Pass every month is becoming a reality.
And it’s been both a blessing and a curse. I’m literally getting choice paralysis. I have so many games to play, I don’t feel like playing any of them.
I know I’ve “complained” about this before (first world problems, amirite?) but it’s a thing that exists. I’ve tried different things, and if you’ve followed the website, you’ve seen my Backlog Bingo and other attempts to keep myself invested in what I’m playing. I’m a bit ADD when it comes to video games. It takes a hell of an interesting game, or at least one that scratches a very specific itch, to keep my attention. I bounce around between games so frickin’ much that I rarely make any significant progress in any one of them. That’s my curse.
To be fair, streaming is one of those things that will keep my attention. That does actually let me focus on one game at a time. The downside of that is that I don’t do it often enough, or with enough consistency, to really gain a following. So most of the time when I’m streaming, I’m literally talking to myself. It is what it is, but it can also be pretty easy to sit down to stream and decide to leave the capture device off and just play.
I also started a video channel on YouTube, and was posting my “Let’s Play’s” and backlog reviews and to be honest, it’s fun, but damn it’s time consuming. It was great until the first time I got busy with Life Stuff and then that quickly fell to the wayside. Again, if I did it consistently enough to gain an audience and maybe understand the dreaded Youtube algorithm, it would be great (and yeah, I’m totally aware that I need to wallow in obscurity for an indefinite amount of time for I “make it”) but it’s hard to justify when I need to balance it with other things that are, honestly, more important.
This would be different if I was a teenager or young adult living at home with few responsibilities and a whole lotta time, but as a middle-aged adult, it becomes a bit harder to explain to the wife what I’m doing.
As such, I’m feeling a bit of the burnout from being pulled between the games I want to play, the games I feel I need to play, and ya know, doing responsible stuff like making a living and furthering my actual career. It’s all a huge juggling act, and when you throw something like this website into the mix, which is really nothing more than a hobby and creative outlet, certain things start to suffer. Which is why I have gaps in my posts here that span months.
Would I love to do this full time? Absolutely. Point me to a legitimate revenue stream and I’m there. But that time investment is tough to justify when you never know when/if it will ever turn into something.
I feel like I make these posts quarterly. Every few months, I’ll fall off the face of the Earth and then pop back up with a recap or a “what’s new with me” post, and this is definitely one of them, but I like to be candid on here, and talk about stuff that’s on my mind. If someone reads it, they read it. If not, no big deal.
Stay tuned to the website. I’ll be trying something new soon. What that will be, I haven’t decided yet.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
