Temporary Beings and Our Temporary Things

Sony recently announced that they are planning on going digital only for the PlayStation platform and there were a lot of negative reactions to this. I would assume that those who oppose this move are PlayStation loyalists who have never played games on digital forward platforms like the Personal Computer because for me, at least, I thought this was a good announcement, with some reservations. For someone like me, it's all about access, not the delivery. And for someone who has moved places many times in a short period of time, I wish all of my games are in digital format because I am tired of hauling tons and tons of these things with me. When it comes to digital rights management of their gaming content, Sony has been a dependable publisher. I have heard about them cutting off access to movies purchased on the PlayStation platforms before, and that is problematic - of course, this should not occur. The more blatant problem with digital purchases on consoles is the fact that console gaming has abandoned backwards compatibility, which complicates things due to the conflict of access and playability - this has never been a factor in PC gaming. Still, Sony has always allowed us to redownload anything that we have purchased in the past so things are looking up perhaps?

I rather have my games readily downloadable via a gaming client...

Steam Calendar Keeping Things Current

There are too many important things happening in the world these days, you wonder how a gamer could keep up with all the new titles coming out that are relevant to that person. I mean, I certainly struggle with that these days since gaming, as much as it is a beloved hobby, is not necessarily existential in nature when it comes to overall importance... perhaps, so sometimes it gets pushed to the back burner. Well, I know that this feature has been out for a while I believe, but I have been noticing that these days, I am getting more and more reliant on using the "Personal Calendar" section of Steam to keep me afloat in a sea of never-ending game releases, at least on the PC gaming front.

I tried maxing the game count to 500 and that spiked my anxiety level so 100 is more than enough.

Talking to Myself #1

Gaming Collection: Of Value and Access

If you ever wondered when a gaming collection would be considered "expansive" or perhaps even "complete", the answer to that is probably "never". I suppose I can use my own Game Library as a case in point. I have a lot of games. Perhaps too many games? Perhaps not enough because I have seen others with a lot more than me, either exclusively on Steam or across platforms. Sometimes I look around the room and thought that I had a nice little Game Room with plenty of physical gaming punch, but it would take mere seconds looking on YouTube to find others who have an ungodly collection that make mine look like a baby's playpen compared to a sprawling university compound. Video gaming is still an active industry and there are plenty of games, indies or otherwise, coming out left and right and if you are that deep into the hobby as I am, sometimes it feels like there's hardly any room to breathe. So, it takes some level of self-control to manage my library growth at a steady rate.

Culdcept The First that just came out was a rare day 1 purchase for me.

The Game Room, Living Room, and Garage

My guy, Selxes in Manitoba - in case you don't know by now, made a strange request in early April: He asked me if I could set up a couple of my older consoles in the living room so that he could play some video games there. The living room, as you have probably concluded from this interaction, is Selxes' domain. Sure, it's our shared space during mealtime, date nights, and movie viewing, but outside of those things, I find no reason to be there due to his choice of... cable offerings? So, to have something from the video gaming realm intrude upon his personal space is rather significant. Sure, he has played some video games with me, but he has very little interest in the medium. It was a genuine request however, because he said he wanted to "stimulate" his mind a little more. I agreed and installed my PlayStation 4 there, alongside the Nintendo Wii. He was really excited that I also volunteered the Wii because he said that he has enjoyed bowling on that console in the past. As you may have expected however, he hasn't touched them yet outside of a little demo I did for him when I completed setting those consoles up late last month.

I got a little bit of separation anxiety from this.