End of Year Retrospective - 2014

Technically, I have not been doing this blog for a year, thus an end of year retrospective is kind of arbitrary. However, I've done the math, and if I keep up my pace and buy no other games, I should be done with my blog around May of 2016. So, realistically, I've got at least two more of these posts to go.

The 2014 winter sale did not deliver quite the same ass-kicking as the summer sale, but it wasn't from any lack of desire on my part. Buying gifts for various people ate up most of my discretionary budget, and after having trouble with Dark Souls and Civilization: Beyond Earth, I was much more cautious about the limits of my machine. That said, I still wound up buying four games for myself, getting a fifth one free, and receiving three as gifts.

It's more than a little ridiculous, I know (although in my defense, two of the games I bought were less than two dollars and only one was more than ten). Over the past seven months, I've played 27 games for this blog, for a total of more than 600 hours, and yet I am farther from my goal now then when I started.

According to  this post I had 60 games at the start of this project. My current master list has 113 entries. I started at -60 and wound up at -86. So, you know, two steps forward, three steps back.

Yet I am optimistic for 2015. The low hard drive space on my current PC is making me very reluctant to buy new games (yet eager to buy a new PC - my current plan is to move all my most graphics intensive games to the bottom of the queue, patiently save money for several months, and then buy a new laptop only when I'm ready to play Borderlands 2 and the Saints' Row series). Also, I managed to make it through the winter sale without anyone buying me any heavily discounted terrible games as a joke (I know I'm tempting fate by saying this, because technically there's still 30 hours left in the sale, but I'm begging you - only do this if it would be hilarious).

When I started this project, I chose the handle "decadentgamer." It was a gentle jab at my excessively large game collection. I think the events of the proceeding seven months have shown it to be an apt designation. It little more than half a year, my collection has almost doubled. While the majority of that increase can be attributed to challenges and gifts (and I want to thank everyone who gave me games, and wish to say that I know than many of them weren't intended as "challenges" - I just put them on the list so they'd have a high priority on my play order), almost as many are due to the fact that I simply love buying games.

There is an immense pleasure in the act of acquisition just in and of itself. Knowing that you have a horde and it has grown slightly, yet perceptibly larger. And shopping is a blast. Comparing products, hunting discounts, factoring in your budget, and anticipating the intellectual and sensual pleasures that will be made possible by your purchase - it's a total rush. The only part I don't like is that agonizing moment right around the time the money is actually spent. Making a final, decisive choice, cutting off your other options, the act of parting with money in any amount (it's kind of paradoxical - I'm a cheap shopaholic, though I imagine it's not a rare combination), and the slightly guilty feeling afterwards, of knowing that you have yet another thing you don't need.

Yet even the guilt is only fleeting. I have no great regrets about the last year. I'm in a better position financially than I was six months ago. And while it's true that I would be in an even better hypothetical financial position, had I not indulged in this money sink of a hobby, I can only speculate how much worse off I'd be in general emotional well-being. Man cannot live by bread alone and all that, though more to the point, it's always been my feeling that the purpose of frugality is that it makes indulgence possible. Living a spartan lifestyle as a hedge against future hardship is a much lauded ideal, but I've never heard of it actually working all that well.

Which is not to say I didn't overspend. Like I said earlier, I ended the year 26 games farther away from my goal than when I started. Even if I hadn't humored my shopping bug, I'd have hardly been deprived. So I have a new year's resolution to make - no more frivolous purchases. When I buy something, I must have a specific, immediate use in mind. And no using this blog as an excuse. If I'm being honest, I think it may have weakened my resolve a bit. Whereas, ordinarily, I am not completely frivolous, the reason I bought so many games probably has at least something to do with the fact that I could tell myself "of course I'm going to play it, the blog demands it." Yet that sort of thinking has filled my schedule until mid 2016, and thus probably needs to be reigned in significantly.

Speaking of New Year's, I promised a big surprise announcement. Well, here it is:

To kick off the new year, I am going to play all five of the Fallout games, in order. And to mix things up a bit, I'm going to break from my usual format and do the whole thing as a screenshot let's play.

This should roughly double my workload, and none of the games clocks in at less than 20 hours, so it should also multiply my already excessive time deficit, but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I just shied away because it was an insanely ambitious project. Even now, I kind of tremble to think about it. But, hey, at least it should help me stick to my New Year's resolution.