reader discretion implored

Y’know, from time to time I find myself looking at the state of my Steam library and wincing a little at what’s become of it—for as much as I’d like to call myself even a semi-prolific gamer, such habits have certainly waned over the years in a way that ‘less free time’ just doesn’t fully account for…whereas the matter of my spending (ability, albeit) has trended almost inversely to such, somehow.

I think an especially damning solidification of such and springboard for some semblance of a thesis past today’s respective challenge prompt lies in the differences seen between my ‘Last Played’ and ‘Hours Played’ sortings as of now—a snapshot of both being as follows below…

Starting off with a trip down short-term memory lane, you can see my latest minor obsession in Umamusume: Pretty Derby still first and foremost (as per my repurposed-in-part first post for the sunshine_revival)—though I’ve since been seeing in the cards a return to the RAIDOU Remastered playthrough it snagged me from in the first place, given my so-far fruitless pursuit of one particular support card has indeed been sobering me to the moége’s mechanics even more than to its (meta)narrative conceits.

That would be far from the only title I’ve as of yet left to the wayside, though—YOU and ME and HER and MiSide were at some point meant to be the first matters subject to My Two (Non)Cents, for instance, but proved seemingly too imposing of prospects (each in a different sense) for what I figured of their worth; PEAK and Spirit City I seemingly didn’t see myself getting much mileage out of besides, on similar notes; the likes of Blue Prince, The Bibites, and Berserk or Die I do remember being fun enough for me to at least consider coming back to (albeit apparently later rather than sooner); Planet Crafter and Atlyss, on the other hand, I feel like I’ve more or less exhausted for how little time with them I’ve spent…

…Speaking of time spent—wow, I seriously entertained The Isle again in the big ’25, didn’t I? At least I’ve long kicked ARK to the curb that it thoroughly deserves; likewise, I don’t think I’ll ever look in the direction of Primal Carnage ever again¹. I have more positive reasons for effectively abandoning Abomi Nation and Jurassic World Evolution (2), at least; though, I’m admittedly abstaining from the latter for the next few months to ‘preserve the magic’ of the oncoming third entry more than anything…

…That being said, there are actually a lot of good memories in here—even ones I can see myself following up on sometime soon: For as much as it might’ve frustrated me, GRIP has still scratched a specific racing itch Speed Racer: The Videogame first instilled in me long ago; similarly, Hades is what I consider the gold standard for roguelite design…just ignore how runs in Gunfire Reborn and Balatro have taken up more than double of my time. Likewise, for how little I’ve found myself wanting to return after my initial discoveries of them, I consider Monster Sanctuary and Subnautica to be transcendent experiences amongst their respective genres. The sheer scale of RimWorld’s presence here also speaks for itself, I think.

To circle back to the forest from the trees, though, it’s pretty telling that—even with at least 10 hours’ worth of buffer through cutscenes alone—Pretty Derby is already comparable in total playtime to titles I haven’t touched in literal years; clearly, I have ample opportunity to start working through the rest of that almost-800-strong backlog…so I suppose it’s more simply a matter of what I’ve chosen to shirk that opportunity in favor of instead. Considering that I do still engage with a lot of media on the daily (from short-form Reddit posts to YouTube video essays to pieces of audiovisual art and prose besides), I suppose games just having provided a smaller piece of that pie over time isn’t that bad…

…There’s also all the stuff I’ve been set on putting out into the world myself, for whatever good or ill it’s all worth—but that digression is a post for another day.

¹ save for its absolutely slapping soundtrack, anyways↩