I'm feeling a little bit depressed with my games collection.
Clocking in at around 140 games it's not the size as such - although clearly storage becomes something of a problem with four different rooms in the Castle having to act as a virtual library - it's more about the usage statistics.
It's somewhat frustrating to look down the list and realise that some of my games have only really seen the light of day once or twice. It's not that they're bad games, it's just that there are not enough leisure hours in the day and there's always going to be a jostling for position.
The biggest enemy to their survival, however, is the Cult of the New.
New games are being produced at an alarming rate and most of my gaming buddies, from the Hustler to the Hidden gamers, are constantly throwing the latest 'Hotness' on the table and declaring it to be the next big thing. I dutifully play the latest release, think "yeah that was quite good" but then never get to play it again as a new shiny bright box appears faster than I can say "but I've only just learnt that other one".
It's not that I don't like new games, because I do - but I'd much rather spend some time getting to understand the nuances and the mechanics of a new game (whether that be nouveau or neuf) before moving on to another. Where is the pleasure in playing something once - realising towards the end of the game where you might have played better or taken a different approach - and then never having a second (or third, or fourth) go ?
It's like meeting a stranger at a party, getting on really well with them but then wandering off in search of someone more interesting or just different. Perhaps someone who is kind of the same but perhaps a bit better looking or with a slightly different T-shirt on.
On Monday night I played Steam for the first time - the Hustler had brought it back from Essen (I think he brought a truck back from Essen, actually, crammed full of new treasures). It's a revamp of Age of Steam - a bit lighter - which was also tweaked into Railroad Tycoons, as well, as I recall. Now, I'm not much of a Puffing Billy, but I am happy to play train games, it's just that I can't help thinking there's something of an over worked genre here.
Steam was good, I enjoyed it, but at the end of the day it's still just building track and shipping stuff.
Really, how many train games does the world need ?
[How many cubes does the world need ? Why do I keep shipping red, blue and green cubes to places? Is the cube market an economic bubble waiting to burst?]
If I'm at a party chatting to Age of Steam, and we're getting on fine, do I really need to slope off and buy the slightly younger Steam a drink in the hope of finding lasting true love ? Or at least someone whose laugh is slightly less annoying ?
It's the FaceBookanisation (FaceBaulkanisation?) of the world.
Find a friend, be friends for ten minutes, then find more friends. and more. and more..... but know no one.
Ok - it's easy to blame digital media (you only have to look at the mainstream media to realise that Facebook is responsible for the murder of every teenager in the world) but the parallels are interesting.
I see a similar thread in music.
In the olden days (lest we forget that those of us who continue to walk the corridors of Gormenghast are still firmly rooted in the years of nostalgia) if you liked a band you went and bought their album - or copied it onto tape from someone else's album. Yes, Apple, this was before DRM.
Some of the tracks would be great and some would be duff.
Over a period of time, however, you'd often discover that the tracks you thought were great turned out to be ok - a bit formulaic but ultimately disposable - and the ones which initially appeared to be a bit crap started to grow on you.
Classic tracks, more often than not, turn out to be slow burners. Appreciation grows with every play. Suddenly an unnoticed bass line will emerge or you sense a subtle chord change which affects the mood. The best songs get under your skin. They develop like a friendship, and are not interested in the shallowness of instant attraction.
A lot of this subtlety gets sadly lost in our accelerated society. Don't like a song ? Skip it with the touch of a key.
Better still - just don't download it. Pick the songs off the album that you like and just buy those.
Of course, the ones you like on first hearing are the catchy tunes that age faster than a baddy whose just looked at the Ark of the Covenant, instead of closing his eyes a la Dr Jones.
In this set up, the real treasures get missed. If no one is willing to put in the time to appreciate that which is not instantly accessible then we become poorer as a culture.
[Of course I would say that given the fact that my blog is not, ahem, instantly accessible and requires time to be appreciated.]
So, anyway, the point is laboured. I need to give some love to my back catalogue and to some of the less 'immediate' titles.
Sure there's some new releases that I'd like to get my sweaty paws on (the new Small World expansions spring to mind) but that should not be at the expense of deepening my understanding, and my love, of those games that already form part of the Steerpike extended family.