Mid-Year Gaming Goals Progress

Back in January, I wrote up a list of 3 gaming goals for the year as a sort of gaming New Year’s resolution. I tried to pick reasonable targets rather than drastic changes. Since we’re now about halfway through 2024, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit that list and see how I’m doing so far.

Goal #1: Resist FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

This has been easy enough. 2024 has been pretty light on big releases compared to most years, due to issues like rampant layoffs, studio closures and ballooning budgets driving up development times. The only big “must-play” game that would fall into this category for me is Helldivers 2. While I’ve heard plenty of good things about it, no one I know has actually played it. That combined with my growing dislike of playing multiplayer games with random teammates has made this one an easy skip, though I do congratulate Arrowhead Game Studios on their success.

Goal #2: Don’t Buy Games Unless You’re Going to Play Them

This is intertwined with the previous resolution, but is definitely something I needed to work on. I’ve often been guilty of buying things that I had a passing interest in just because they were on sale, so I wanted to rein that in this year and focus on buying things that wouldn’t sit unplayed. Video games deserve a loving home, you know? I estimate I’ve bought around 20 games this year, and only a couple haven’t been played yet because I bought them on sale for my annual Halloween horror game festivities. I did pre-order one game that won’t be out until next year, but I splurged on that because I already love that game. I shelled out for the collector’s edition of Clock Tower Rewind because it’s one of my favorite horror games, and this is the first time it’s ever been officially released stateside.

Goal #3: Play More Indies

I love indie games and really wanted to prioritize them this year since it feels like they and Nintendo are currently carrying the entire industry on their backs. To that end, I feel I’ve succeeded in giving more indies a chance. What I mean by that is I wanted to put them at the top of my list when it comes to what I buy on day one, or for full price rather than waiting for a sale. So far, the only games I’ve played that weren’t indies were Princess Peach: Showtime!, Persona 3 Reload and the Tomb Raider remasters. Here are some nice indie games I’ve picked up and enjoyed so far:

• Pesticide Not Required
• Brotato
• Crow Country
• Buckshot Roulette
• Xeno Crisis
• Rusty’s Retirement
• Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends
• Letter Quest Remastered
• Haiku, the Robot
• 24 Killers
• Goliath Depot
• Disillusion
• Hamster on Rails
• Gato Roboto
• Prison City

Overall, I think I’m doing a pretty good job sticking to these resolutions so far. I don’t see much changing between now and the end of the year except a few Nintendo games giving my Switch its last hurrah before the new console is announced. It’s been pretty nice being more selective about the big-budget releases and spending that money on more indie games. This is a change I can see sticking with me going forward.