Monday, July 1, 2013

Ultra Casual

I'm entering a new phase when it comes to my gaming life.  When I worked at home, it left me with a lot of free time which I naturally used to play games and make stuff.  My kids were also young and took wonderful naps in the afternoon.  As they say, all good things must come to an end.

I decided that it was time to move on from my at-home job, so I could advance professionally.  It's hard to do that when no one ever sees you, working in an office does have its upside.  Along with the new job comes a commute, which takes up a good sized chunk of time each day.  I like to get into the office early, so staying up late to play is not something I want to do.

My kids are also now at an age where they don't take much in the way of naps.  So that free time was gone anyway.  I have to watch them, rather than play games, can you believe that? :)  For a while, the most time I could get to myself on a weekday was about 1 hour.  That makes it tough to play a MMO, much less multiple.

So now I find myself with maybe 5 hours of play time a week , which makes me a really casual gamer.  That's kind of funny to say.  Back in the 90's, AOL gave you 5 hours a MONTH to be online.  I somehow played Neverwinter Nights and Federation, going over my 5 hour limit sometimes.  They really made you pay for that, much to my mothers delight.

Having single digit hours a week to play games means I am going to have to make some sacrifices.  Right now, SWTOR is the only online game I am playing, and that's only once or twice a week.  The rest of my time will go to single player games and other activities like watching the DVR.

I'm going to miss the days which I could play for 2 or 3 hours each and every day. But that's just the way things go.