The Steam Awards 2022 Votes

Three of my nominees made it to the voting round for The Steam Awards 2022 and they are No Man's Sky for the "Labor of Love" category, and Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix+ for "Best Soundtrack". Vampire Survivor was my nominee for the "Sit Back and Relax" category but apparently more people considered it as a "Best Game on the Go" candidate - apparently, people have that minimum of 30 minutes required to properly play this game while on the go? Right. I find it funny that even though when nominating titles, a game can only occupy one category. Meanwhile, in the actual list of nominees to vote for, a game can appear multiple times on the list. Here are my votes though. Just to make it clear, I would never vote for Elden Ring to win game of the year. That title truly belongs to Immortality. But of course, I am only limited to the options presented. Anyway, the winners will be announced on January 3rd next year.

Twitch Recap of a Quiet Stream

Year-end recaps are not just a console thing anymore with twitch.tv now joining the fray in showcasing the summary of your activities on the site for the year. I have returned to stream on twitch again this year after about 1 year of exclusively streaming to YouTube, which happened to be a superior experience when it comes to video management. I am not a popular gamer on both platforms, so it's no longer about the viewers for me. There was a time when I was using game broadcasting as a way to meet new gaming acquaintances, but I know that is no longer what streaming is all about. For me, it's a matter of capturing moments for posterity and it has been an interesting retrospect on my life as gamer. What eventually forced me to abandon YouTube livestreaming however is the ridiculous setup every single time you stream, in which YouTube insisted to treat each stream as a whole new entity instead of providing us a universal dashboard that stays connected and ready for your stream at any given time. Recently, YouTube has even overhauled their mobile streaming experience but still failed to provide the much-needed update to the desktop page. I criticized them for this in the comment section and they actually replied back that they will be focusing on desktop soon. I haven't seen anything yet, but my fingers are still crossed. Anyway, the following stats are just for half of the year 2022 because I started streaming on Twitch again around August.

I don't remember that many chat messages since my return.
They may have accidentally added the lifetime amount for me.

Game Room 4.1 Incoming?

Well, it's Christmas time and while most people are adorning their homes with Christmas decorations, I get to work on my... Game Room? Let's not celebrate this news just yet! I am just tired of sitting around in here surrounded by these dull Amazon boxes that I mostly use as my moving containers, and I mean t-i-r-e-d! I was just like, f^ck this, I'm going to leave everything to the spirit of gaming and regain my Game Room, come what may! Life is too short not to be enjoyed, and it was much more fun when this Game Room was alive several months ago.

The Skylanders are out and about! Free from their cardboard prisons!

Christmas Gifts for Demanding Gamers

So you know someone like me, a gamer who has it all, and you want to get this person a Christmas gift. Well, there is a really easy route to complete this task: which will fail to impress the individual, but a gift is a gift right? This includes getting the latest Call of Duty games (without even checking with the person if he or she already owns the game), buying popular gaming magazines or guides to the latest games that you suspected the person is playing, or paying for a gift card to Best Buy or GameStop which is quite insulting to a high-end gamer. Worry not troubled shopper, I am here to guide you through this difficult time as you rush to get the ultimate gamer gift. I know you have had enough of the fake smiles, the overblown reactions, and the quick head turns when all you ever wanted is to do is show the gamer you love that you mean well.

Option I - RTX 4090

Stack the Steam Banners: A Daily Grind

Do you keep all of your Steam games installed? I try to and this is why I have a total of 26TB of storage, a combination of hard drives and solid-state drives, available on my Personal Computer. With access to 6,200+ Steam games however, you know that even that amount of storage is just not enough. So, I keep all the games that I have installed because I want to be able to play them immediately when I feel like it, but I don't automatically install all of the games that I just got from the Steam store. And we are only talking about Steam games here. I also have a multitude of other gaming clients on my PC, like Epic Games or the EA App and I got plenty of games there installed as well. Is there a reason to keep games installed on your PC outside of having the convenience of their ready to play state? With Internet speed getting faster and faster as the years go by, maybe this situation is not as complex as it initially seems.

I have ONLY about 27% of my Steam library installed and ready to play.

A Christmas in a Remote Cabin

Sounds like a horrible setup for a horror movie, isn't it? But seriously, I have been mulling over the idea of spending the Christmas holiday chilling in a remote cabin somewhere with my little Yoshi as we both enjoy... nature and isolation? I don't know, I do enjoy having the more personal celebration of Christmas these past couple of years due to the pandemic and quite frankly, I didn't miss all the hustle and bustle and all that noise that usually happens in a family gathering. I mean, why do you wait until Christmas time to celebrate anything with the family anyway? We don't know when we will be dead so if you have the need to hang out with someone, just do without being imposed nor limited by religious/societal events. I just learned about the passing of Kirstie Alley today, which was just shocking to me. One minute, you are alive and the next, you are no longer here. And gamers worried about a game's length when our own playtime rummaging about the Earth is extremely short.

Why build a remote cabin in a video game when you can stay in one in real life?

Wait, now I sound like a non-gamer!

Friendship Is Hard, But Not This Hard

I'm a loner. That's a fact. I don't particularly find much interest in having people around me for the bulk of my life, outside of a pet or two and a lover. As long as I have those, my social life is pretty much complete. I don't bemoan not having close friends because at the end of the day, I am left only with my own self. The truth of life is that you are always alone, and if you cannot contend with being happy as an individual, you are not living your own life. It's easy to fall into the trap of living through others, and I have seen many do just that. All this to say that I am no expert on forging friendships, even on the Internet. As a matter of fact, I am mostly open to friendships through the Internet. I do see the value of interacting with other people and I enjoy doing so while broadcasting my gaming activities, for example. Friendship is a transactional thing, and the currency is presence. We tell each other about ourselves, share our time with each other talking or gaming together, and offer support when the time calls for it.

"...and u have so much games than I couldn't even dream to have..."