I Really Need More Games?

There sure is a lot of content out there. As much as some people do not like that word, it’s hard to think of a better one. Content is just the nebulous stuff / activities that people partake in to whittle away their free time. There are vast libraries of books to read, a seemingly never ending supply of music to listen to, and several lifetimes of movies to watch. The same holds true for video games, my favorite way of passing the time. One look at my Steam library quickly reminds me of this, and there are growing pangs of guilt when I get a new game instead of finishing my old ones. Then there are all of the games I have for older consoles that I’ve either never finished, or know all to well I could play for 100 more hours and have a great time.

This has gotten me to the point where I’m trying much harder not to get any more. I think I’m good. I could play what I have now and be well served until I am old and grey. It’s a goal, and I know that it will take some time to really get into the habit with this, but it’s something that I want to do. Getting all of these games over the years has gotten me into a nasty cycle of mindless consumerism. It’s one of my weaknesses, and I think I’m at the point where I really want it to stop.

Whenever I actually finish a game I already have now, it feels pretty good. There’s a small sense of accomplishment for beating the final boss, and getting some tough achievements if the game has any. However, what feels the best is that I made the concerted effort to complete the game and not give in to the nagging base desire to consume more of these things. The more games that I finish, the more this feeds into these feelings. I’m hoping that it will build momentum over time like a tiny snowball rolling down a mountain, gradually getting bigger. The big thing that I need to resist right now is making excuses for myself to get a new game after. I don’t think it’s a good idea to reward myself for, say, finishing 10 games by getting a new one. No, I should stay the course, and just keep finishing these, and enjoying what I have. The last thing I want is a relapse and getting mountains of games for pennies on the dollar every Steam sale.

One thing that this got me thinking about as a bit of a tangent is that it could well feed into how I go about building PCs in the future as well. It used to be that I would want to get something with a decently powerful video card in it. Now, though, I’m mostly playing stuff with a simple aesthetic or that is at least a decade old. I don’t need a fancy, high-end card for that. I may even be able to get away with an integrated set up. AMD has some decent APUs out there. The 3400G runs a Vega 11 integrated chip. It looks like the 5700G will as well, and AMD is saying that there will be a retail version later this year for it, rather than being OEM only. The former runs pretty darn good for older games, and doesn’t seem to have issues with Linux from what I’ve read. The latter seems to have a decent CPU boost, although the graphic side of things might only be a mild improvement. I’ll have to wait for some benchmarks before making a decision which to get.

In any case, sticking with finishing off my games library not only prevents me from stupidly buying yet more games that I’ll barely touch, but also streamlines my hardware needs going forward. I still want to make a Linux desktop, and the GPU shortage looks unlikely to end for a while. As such, these simple, less expensive APUs do tick a lot of boxes for what I need in order to run what I do have. Could such a system also have a longer life span since it won’t be terribly strained playing these classic games? Could something like that last a decade or longer? It would be an interesting experiment to try out.

Anyway, this has been something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. There are just so many games out there, and I have more than enough to keep me occupied for a very, very long time. I need to cherish what I already have, not keep getting ever more stuff.

- Pennywhether

pennywhether@posteo.net

(April 20, 2021)