On Kevin Miller’s last blog post, there were some good points made.  There were a few, shall we say, tender morsels of thought-provoking dialogue.  Even the comments contained some relatable quotations, like Sean’s, “What I don’t love is the feeling that I’m wasting my play time when I play a game without tropies/achievements. I try to ignore the feeling but sometimes it is too much and I go whoring for awhile.”  And that’s what I’m going to write about here and now.

Did I lose you yet?  No?  Good.

Now that Gamer Limit is part of my life, it has become my achievement system.  When I read about an interesting news tidbit, I post it here to bring it to the attention of the GL-ers.  My buddies on the site, as well as any random game geek that stumbles upon my blog, may shine a new perspective on it or bring up some other points I had maybe not thought about.  When I play an obscure indie game like The Majesty of Colors,  I like to share it.  I write a blog post about it, I help other people broaden their gaming experiences a bit, and my personal time with the game has some validation.  I can look back on the things I’ve written years from now when I have become a world-famous and well-respected video game journalist, and I can keep track of my gaming life – my achievements.

Linked with my Xbox 360 gamer tag is my game history.  Tonight, if I hop on my dashboard, I can see that I still haven’t been able to complete a single difficulty level of Earth Defense Force 2017, and I can see my 1250 achievement points on Oblivion.  After spending 120 hours in Oblivion, it’s nice to see that I have something – anything – to show for it, even if it’s just a meaningless number on the Internet.  There wasn’t a leaderboard for me to top, and I didn’t get paid for it.  It was just free time that could have been spent more productively.

But it did give me life experience.  It did give me game experience.  To know what you like and don’t like in games, to know what is “good” and “bad” with game design, you need to play many hours of many different games.  You can’t play Call of Duty 4 and nothing else.  Yes, you may become a professional CoD-er, but you’ll also be a one-trick pony.  Game companies keep bringing out new games because the old ones are beaten, or get stale, or are simply ignored.

When I go back and play a SNES game, I would like to do it for pure enjoyment.  But that’s hard to do.  When I shut off my console, I haven’t gained anything or become more of a success.  I have merely wasted an afternoon on selfish recreation.  But when I come online and write about my retro-soaked afternoon delight, it becomes more than just a few wasted hours.  It becomes something I can share with the world through the semi-permanent joys of the world wide web.

And yes, Gamer Limit could be hacked, or the ‘Net could go down, or Australia could be hit with a nation-wide EMP, and all my work could vanish in a split-second.  But until then, we can share these game times with each other, and achieve communally.

I may not actually be “achieving” anything, but I’m doing it with all my friends.  In that way, it can be a life well lived.  Thanks, Gamer Limit, for giving my justification for my selfish gaming ways.