A.K.A., I think I’m finally, “growing up.”

I’m in a weird stage of my life where I keep playing video games even though I actively don’t enjoy them any more.  And I mean actively as in I’ll be playing a game and consciously think, “Why the fuck am I doing this?  This isn’t fun.”  But games have been a big part of my life up until this point, so it just seems natural to keep coming back to them.

Between seeing my favorite franchises either going through forced rehashes (Assassin’s Creed), being cast to the wayside never to be heard from again in favor of more “profitable” titles (Freelancer, Homeworld) or getting unnecessary resurrections (Halo), I’m just not happy with the direction the industry as a whole has taken.  And short ofGuild Wars 2, I’m hard-pressed to think of any game I’m looking forward to being released in the future.  I’m not sure if I’ve changed or if the expected quality of games has changed, or maybe a little of both, but long gone are the days when you could pick up virtuallyanygame and know that it would be at least halfway decent and enjoyable for a while.  Now everything is either a blockbuster or “not worth playing”, excluding the rare sleeper-hit (usually in the form of an indie game).

Basically the only thing that keeps bringing me back to games is nostalgia and force of habit, neither of which I feel are good enough reasons for me to justify it.  From this point forward I’ll be making an active effort to stop playing so many video games in favor of new hobbies.