With the recent arrival of the Winter Sale, Steam's sales events for me have progressively felt less and less celebratory each time they show up. I know this is mostly due to the fact that I have a lot of games. I think that perhaps I am beginning to reach some kind of saturation point when it comes to further enriching my Game Library. Perhaps it's because I am now also progressively getting more and more invested in physical tabletop gaming, even though this newer hobby is slower in its growth, thanks to the fact that it's being controlled effectively by my lack of storage space. Then, there is also my admiration of the Epic Games Store, which has been offering free games nonstop to the point that any game that I am interested in that also has an Epic version will be immediately removed from the Steam wishlist and transferred into Epic's so that I can potentially just get the game offered for free or reward Epic with its eventual purchase - Epic is certainly doing a whole lot more when it comes to value than Valve does these days.
Perhaps this strange feeling is originating from the fact that I am still silently mourning Yoshi's passing. She was a huge part of my life; she was always there with me. I have a box of her toys that I was supposed to get rid of that is still sitting on the staircase. Suki is not interested in playing with toys at all, so she couldn't inherit Yoshi's goodies. Yoshi loved these toys, and she knew each one by name. I know that I have to let go and that I am at a subconscious level delaying what is needed to be done. Losing her was the first time that I was truly affected by death, how matter of fact it actually is, how present it is in totality. A day before she was gone, I remember shopping for new games to induct into my Game Library. This still haunts me to this day, how invested I was in that process instead of spending time with her. I know I cannot guilt-trip myself for this, but I know that it had changed me in some ways.
I do have a bunch of stuff sitting in the Steam cart right now. Most of them are downloadable contents for games that I already have. That's becoming a common theme. Like I am not pursuing new things anymore because I like the things that I already have. Yet, I am not motivated to finalize the purchase. This has happened many times this year: I found good deals on games, whether on Steam or somewhere else, and I just let the discounts expire while those items stewed in the cart. Meanwhile, I have been able to focus on playing a small number of titles in an attempt to maximize the enjoyment of their content, so there is some positive to this looming change. I have also been playing a lot of my board games lately, though doing this takes up too much space in my Game Room, and I have been doing so with some sort of urgency, whatever significance that may carry. Couple with the craziness we have found ourselves living in outside of the world of Steam discounts, 2025 has been such a concerning, reality-altering year. Yet, I have endured, and we must endure. What does 2026 have in store for me, for us? With the way 2025 ended up, all I can do is to brace myself and continue to survive while continually striving for some kind of triumph, no matter how impossible that may feel these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment