Difficult Decision
As we turn the calendar to 2013, I’m faced with a rather significant decision to think on over the next couple of weeks.
While I’ve enjoyed my tenure as Popzara‘s resident video game industry analyst, I don’t know that I’ve managed to make much impact– if any. Dealing with incomplete and leaked sales data makes things super-difficult, and I can’t say that I’ve done anything to further myself either as an analyst or as a writer over the last 8 months. The only thing that I’ve noticed is that fanboys don’t like it when you say anything even remotely negative and love to take shots at me. When you’re paid to do a job, the heckling comes with the territory. When you do it for fun, especially when there’s little or no chance of the experience translating into anything substantial, it becomes difficult to deal with… especially given health challenges that I’m facing.
I’ve dealt with this a bit with Game Critics syndication of some of my thoughts here, too. It’s become a lot to bear, and I ask myself repeatedly what it’s all for. Speaking my mind suddenly becomes incendiary, and it’s that “you versus the world” feeling that takes a lot of the enjoyment or worthwhile feeling out of work that I share.
At this point, my gut feeling is telling me that my free time should be spent on the retrogaming sector. I seem to have a lot less controversial thoughts when I’m talking about older games and systems, and I have considerable knowledge and experience in this area. It’s about sharing memories, enlightening others on things that they might have missed, and I can say that I have a lot less that I disagree with or complain about when it comes to this area. Retroware.TV does some great things with the retro community, for example. I think that I’d be keeping a lot of content here, though, and working on trying to expand this blog’s readership if I can.
I have ideas, like expanding my Retail Reviews series by visiting some other stores and locations and covering them. With my college schedule changing to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this semester, bringing PlayStation 2sDay back with weekly reviews or impressions is another thing I’m considering. I want to do more videos, either on their own or to complement my work here with a component aside from the written word. There are a few other things that I’m considering, as well.
So… while I’m not toying with the idea of abandoning writing completely, I am having serious thoughts about changing direction. My analysis work, while enjoyable, has not gotten me anywhere and I don’t know that many care to even read it. Covering modern games is difficult because I’m not working and have little money to afford staying active in terms of reviews. I can add to that the widening divergence between where the industry is going and the games that I prefer to play or enjoy playing. Games like Journey and The Walking Dead are so immensely popular, but I won’t touch them with a ten-meter caliprod because I have zero interest (or less) in them. There are still some games out there that I look forward to, but it’s become increasingly apparent that modern console gaming and I are on two different wavelengths– which is more than okay. Games want to be art, and I don’t want that. Hence, the divergence.
I’ll be thinking on this over the holiday break. It’s a difficult decision to make, but one that I think needs to be made. I’m spinning my wheels currently, and if I don’t see a future or any kind of gain in what I’m doing now, then I need to rethink how my free time is spent.
I also want to take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones and friends best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season, and the best of success in 2013. If the Mayans couldn’t take us out this year, there’s a lot of open field and running room ahead for us… I think. Thanks to all of you for having visited my little corner of the Web this year and during the years past. 2013 will be Consoleation’s fifth year, and it’s humbling to see that a few people have given it a bit of their time over the years. This is my proudest and most successful project, and I look forward to continuing and even building on that in the weeks and months to come.
My first thought was to jump to your defense and say ‘who cares what the haters think!?’ but you make a good point. When you’re not being paid it’s hard to brush off the heckling or justify dealing with it. I think focusing on the retro stuff would be more fun and from what you’ve posted so far, even more personally revealing. I don’t know how you feel about that but I always appreciate seeing and hearing what makes someone tick and not just reading hard numbers and carefully worded editorials.
As always, though, good luck in whatever and wherever you decide to go. I’ll try to keep up with it all!
I really do think you do a great job with the retro content and you seem to really enjoy doing that, so my instinct would be to tell you to just focus on what you enjoy. If you do decide you want to expand more into other areas again on a conditional basis in 2013 or beyond, go for it, but you shouldn’t feel pressured to fit in with a genre or market that you really don’t want to be working in and you REALLY shouldn’t have to deal with people heckling you regarding it.
I think you do a great job with this site and I think you’d make a fine addition to any other site or retro team, so why put up with the garbage if you just want to have fun?
Thank you so much for the kind words and great advice. I think that retro is that happy niche that I’ve been looking for, and I think that it’s going to be a fun move for me in 2013. I’m not sure how far it’ll go, but the change of focus/scenery will hopefully do some good things for me as a writer.
Although I do play some modern games when time permits (primarily MMO’s like Guild Wars 2 though), I really am a huge fan of classic games, particularly the 8 and 16-bit era, but also I suppose extending through to the Dreamcast or PS2 if I wish to go that far with it. I’m also a big collector. One thing I noticed though is that while people enjoy my podcast and my blog, they also really seemed to like that Act Raiser series you requested me to do earlier this year. So, that got me wanting to do more retro stuff on my site too.
I’d personally like to expand my circles a bit though and maybe do some collaborative writing or video projects or podcasts, etc. and maybe that’s something you might be interested in for 2013, especially if it’s “for fun” and not subject to jack-assery of others or unreasonable expectations?