Did you know that on new years, people make resolutions or goals for what they plan to do over the next 12 months?
One of my largest money sinks in 2024 was video games, and that’s okay! I really enjoy the medium and its often a social thing for me or a way to unwind. But Id like to FINISH more games and id like to spend a little less on that. So on Jan 1st I lowered my steam wishlist from 120 to 75 and set myself the goal that I am only allowed to buy games on that wishlist.
The rules were simple:
> Can only purchase games from the list of 75 (a good chunk of them not even released or set to come out anytime soon, looking at you Judas)
> Any games outside of those 75 must be gifted to me by someone else
> I am allowed to purchase any DLC without restriction (what if I start a game I already own and want some DLC?)
It is now January 30th, my steam wishlist is 62 games meaning I have purchased 13 games. Mostly because they were on discount.
So how am I tracking in terms of my actual enjoyment of games? Well, I am playing fairly socially in games like The Finals, Pantheon: Rise of the fallen and almost weekly visits to the local LAN cafe to play some StarCraft II Arcade stuff.
Here is a couple screenshots from Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
While screenshots do not tell a whole story, you can see that this sort of long form social game is fitting in more with my gaming diet because I cannot buy as many games and get distracted.
I am finding myself less drawn to the next big thing because I know I cant buy it. As such, I am not watching as many trailers or game discovery videos or even just browsing the steam store in general, why browse a shop when I cannot buy from it?
Am I happy with the results 30 days in? Yes! Some might think buying 17 video games over 4 weeks is excessive. And it is, actually, id say I bought games at a slower pace last year but certain holiday sales could not be missed.
Has this got anything to do with truLAN? No 🙂