Back in February this year I entered a gaming shop with the intentions of buying as many titles as I could. My excitement at seeing what was on offer for me to take home to add to the collection was high. I was looking forwards to seeing my piles of games get larger. I loved it even though I kinda spent money I didn’t really have!
Fast forwards to August 2020 and after many months of not shopping I enter a games shop and begin looking. My excitment has left and I’m kinda bored looking at the games.
So what happened?
Well a number of things happened but mainly Coronavirus happened! The virus had us all stuck in the house and shut all the shops so we couldn’t go game hunting. And that had an affect on wanting to hunt for games for me. You see I discovered Playstation Now, Playstation Plus and Xbox Ultimate pass.
Now , you might be saying, why has that killed your passion? Well I’ve kinda covered this is another blog on my site but I’ll briefly go into it here. Too much choice and not being able to go out kinda gave me too much time to play games. I was gaming tons whilst off work stuck in doors. Because my children don’t live with me we also discovered online gaming together as a means of keeping in touch with them. I chose to keep my kids safe so I didn’t see them for 7 weeks; online gaming gave me the opportunity to interact with them almost daily.
We played games such as Plants vs Zombies garden warfare, mudrunner, fortnite and a whole host of other games. We had a laugh we really did. When I wasn’t online gaming with the family I was online gaming on Gran Turismo Sports and Ride 3 plus other games. This was unusual because I had never been an online gamer before the virus-in fact I actually detested it because I found the driving games full of people intent on ruining your race. Pointless!
I live on my own so I chose gaming as I didnt fancy just watching Netflix or tv all day. I have a very small house with the tiniest of back yards so not much to do if you can’t go out. Gaming became my stable.
I finished a few games (a blog on my page) and probably would have done more if it hadn’t been for gaming with the family on line. I had such a massive choice of games on PS Now that I forgot about my physical titles and indeed the buzz of going to the shop to get more. I could have a lot of games within a few minutes (if I stream ps3 titles). Why do I need to spend money on fuel and car park fees to bring home the same games that are on PS Now?
Then there was the issue of seeing the same titles on sale that I saw 6 months earlier. Yes yes I know that would be the case because there are 1000s of copies of franchise out there and I have a lot of the ps3 and xbox 360 titles (my prefered collection) but I realised that the visit was exactly the same as previous months….the same thing! I’m looking at the same titles I thought about picking up in February but (and I did see evidence of this) more expensive prices than before. Are shops trying to recooperate lost profits from Corona by inflating prices? I’ll leave you to decide!
Now I have another issue, I’m struggling to find an engaging game either in my collecting or on the subscription services to play. Dont get me wrong there’s tons of choice out there but I have the feeling of see it all, done it all before. The last game I finished was Man of Medan which I really enjoyed. It was 6 hours long and fitted perfectly into a slot I have now I’m back at work. I really enjoyed the game but now I’m searching for the next game to fill that void and I’m struggling. Mainly because I feel I can’t find one but also I’m just not that interested in playing games that have been done to death. I want something new. I could go with the millions of retro titles now flooding the market but if I wanted retro I have original titles from back in the day; I don’t want to play those!
Take the playstation Classic. I have one and it’s currently full of ps1 games I’ve added to it. I booted it up yesterday and shifted through the many games on there only to turn it off 15 minutes later. Just no interest!
There is one saving grace currently that has spiked my interest and that’s the Ps Vita and the games I can get on there. I can happily pick it up and play Super Stardust Ultra or Sine Mora for 15 or 20 minutes. I enjoy playing in handheld mode for some reason. I guess it’s because I can also play when I’m out and about the same games! That console is an amazing console.
I’m thinking that when you have time to sit back and take stock of what you do in your life you maybe realise that somethings aren’t as important or as fun as you always thought they were or that the money you spend on stuff you leave in a cupboard or on a shelf for a long time isn’t as important as you thought they might have been? Don’t get me wrong I will probably still buy some physical games as I go but I’m thinking that they may only be current gen games in the future and not older stuff…………
DAMN YOU CORONA YOU KILLED MY PASSION!
Does anyone else feel that way?
Has the virus broken it for you?
Retro Gaming Mad 
Work is what killed my gaming passion. Don’t have enough mental energy to play games. I think with anything, you begin to lose interest if it becomes less rewarding.
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Thanks for your comment. Yes work can kill it. I must admit I come home from work so tired that the last thing I think about is gaming. But then there are times when Gaming has helped with frustration from a work day as well. I guess that it’s a pretty much up and down world for me as it has been over the years. There are time when I absolutely love it then all of a sudden it’s gone for a while.
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