A New Year Appears!

Welcome to 2012. For me, this will be a milestone year as I celebrate my 40th birthday in April. Some people view 40 as “over the hill” or an entry to middle age, but it’s significant to me in that I’m still as excited about video games as I’ve ever been. It’s not something that I’ve outgrown, or care to outgrow. I’m going to be playing them, talking about them, and making them a big part of my life for many more years to come, provided nothing catastrophic happens.

I am setting some goals and making some changes in my 40th year, though. These are overdue in some respects, and necessary in others.

The first change is that I’m going to focusing a bit more on games and consoles from previous generations in 2012, and possibly beyond. While I’ll still be playing games for current-gen platforms, preparing to turn 40 has really lit a fire under my retrogaming side and I want to pursue buying platforms like the NES, SNES, Genesis, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and the original Xbox over the course of the next couple of years. I’m looking to begin collecting games for those platforms, too, especially my favorites for each. I’ve done a decent job of building my PlayStation 2 collection over the last year, and I’ve found myself wanting to keep collecting and building a catalog of games and systems that have been personal signposts in my life.

The second change will be that Consoleation will be coming along for the retro ride. Expect impressions, reviews, and opinions for games from previous generations here in the year to come. Consoleation has been a great sounding board for my feelings about current industry trends and the direction of the business, but I want this blog to be more unique and less of an airing of grievances. That’s not to say that I won’t have grievances, of course, but there must be a better balance of content. I’d much rather save those for a different writing destination and focus my efforts here on the retro journey and the games. I do have personal blogs elsewhere and may use those for different purposes in 2012.

Speaking of writing, I still do have the goal of latching on somewhere as a reviewer and growing my skills in 2012. I’ll still be contributing industry analysis over at KmartGamer, but would really like to try (yet again) to get back to my roots and do more reviewing. Competition for paying gigs is fierce, and I’m not certain that my writing is good enough, but my main goal has always been to get my content read by as many people as possible rather than worrying about money. I know that working for free is frowned upon, but my priorities are different. I like to do it for experience and visibility. Don’t get me wrong: Money is always great (especially now, since I’m not working at all), but the feeling of knowing that my writing is good or interesting enough to get people to read it has always been the ultimate reward for me. I had some progress in 2011, but considering how difficult a year it was for me with employment and health issues, I think 2012 can be a breakout year if I get the right opportunity to develop and set a routine, especially now that I’m back home and things are more stable than they’re been in some time.

Some secondary goals for 2012 include:

• Visiting FunSpot in Weirs Beach, NH: It’s been nearly 10 years since my last visit, and the American Classic Arcade Museum awaits. I’m not sure it there’s going to be another classic gaming tourney this year, but if so, that’s when I’m hoping to go, now that I’m back in Massachusetts. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s the arcade seen in the King of Kong film. If you visit or live in New England, you should go.
• Going back to school: Yes, I’m looking into going back to school in the fall. I’m considering taking IT courses, but a few have recommended looking into a business degree to pursue a career as a games analyst. Still a bit torn and thinking heavily about both.
• Build a better daily routine: This is something that I’ve been struggling with for some time. I want to take steps to manage my days and time better so that I can fit in writing, social media, and gaming. I seem to have periods of swell for each and it takes away from my consistency. I’m thinking about using a Get It Done application to set small steps as far as time spent for each task, but this is a goal in progress.

I’m looking forward to what 2012 will bring, and I hope that you’ll follow along for the ride.