duck_sauce
Member
Lately Ihave been thinking about how much being a gaming enthusiast has changed how I enjoy games and honestly, not always for the better.
Back in the day I used to just play whatever looked fun. I didnt care about performance, metrics developer drama or whether a studio was doomed or on the rise. I did not follow sales numbers, or look on steam charts for player counts or check Metacritic scores. I just played. And i had a great time playing games.
Nowadays I read a lot on gaf and other places, and I definitely fallen into an enthusiast mindset. Constantly checking performance breakdowns, watching df videos, looking sales charts, cheking in depth perfomance vidoes and perfomance OTs. Worrying if a games launch numbers are good enough all that stuff. And honestly it is kind of exhausting. I catch myself enjoying a game less just because I saw a post saying it is underperforming or not hitting some benchmark. I cant just enjoy the game for what it is anymore without this extra layer of noise.
The Switch 2 is a perfect example. I picked it up and was having an absolute blast. I played a bunch of old Switch 1 games and messed around in Mario Kart World. I was just enjoying the thing. It felt great to have that sense of fun again. But then I started reading threads about the subpar LCD display, how Mario Kart World was a letdown how Nintendo fumbled this or thatand yeah, it kind of got in my head. My enjoyment dropped but though nothing really changed about the games and the swith 2. Stupid i know but it is what it is.
So I have decided to chill out a bit. I still like reading discussions here, but Im going to stop treating it all so seriously. I want to focus more on what i enjoy about games. Story and gameplay and not turning everything into a mini analytics breakdown. Im trying to rediscover what made me love games in the first place.
What about you GAF? Has being deep into the enthusiast scene changed the way you experience games? Has it made things better? Worse? Curious if anyone else feels the same.
Back in the day I used to just play whatever looked fun. I didnt care about performance, metrics developer drama or whether a studio was doomed or on the rise. I did not follow sales numbers, or look on steam charts for player counts or check Metacritic scores. I just played. And i had a great time playing games.
Nowadays I read a lot on gaf and other places, and I definitely fallen into an enthusiast mindset. Constantly checking performance breakdowns, watching df videos, looking sales charts, cheking in depth perfomance vidoes and perfomance OTs. Worrying if a games launch numbers are good enough all that stuff. And honestly it is kind of exhausting. I catch myself enjoying a game less just because I saw a post saying it is underperforming or not hitting some benchmark. I cant just enjoy the game for what it is anymore without this extra layer of noise.
The Switch 2 is a perfect example. I picked it up and was having an absolute blast. I played a bunch of old Switch 1 games and messed around in Mario Kart World. I was just enjoying the thing. It felt great to have that sense of fun again. But then I started reading threads about the subpar LCD display, how Mario Kart World was a letdown how Nintendo fumbled this or thatand yeah, it kind of got in my head. My enjoyment dropped but though nothing really changed about the games and the swith 2. Stupid i know but it is what it is.
So I have decided to chill out a bit. I still like reading discussions here, but Im going to stop treating it all so seriously. I want to focus more on what i enjoy about games. Story and gameplay and not turning everything into a mini analytics breakdown. Im trying to rediscover what made me love games in the first place.
What about you GAF? Has being deep into the enthusiast scene changed the way you experience games? Has it made things better? Worse? Curious if anyone else feels the same.