You Have My Bow... And My Axe... And My *Download Required*

Every now and again, people question why I've stopped playing video games or they outright mock me for having essentially quit the hobby. There used to be a time when I would leave work in a rush to get to Best Buy or GameStop with the sole intent on getting the latest RPG or big name release for PlayStation, Xbox, etc. 

Many things have gotten in the way of my video gaming over the years, mostly board games. But as time has gone on, online has become the preferred method and creative games become fewer, further between and relegated to the fringes of video games. It would be nice to point to these reasons as to why my interest in video games has diminished in the past 10 to 12 years. But that would only be a portion of my problem. 

Put simply, every goddamn time I turn on the Xbox or the PlayStation, I am greeted with the demand for a lengthy download of a patch or a update etc. No longer can I just come home, put a disc into a machine and start playing. Today, playing a video game requires more patience that I don't have then sitting through an insurance adjustment dressed like the San Diego Chicken. Above is a photo of my minimal progress in elder scrolls Skyrim, a game I have put off playing for almost 15 years. Finally, I started a character today. Finally I actually made a bit of progress. Finally, I got into a dungeon died like three times and my excitement for this game is the equivalent of trying to fix a toaster rather than throw it in the traffic and just buy a new one.

Back to board games, it's a game sucks, I can put it in the auction or trade it into half Price books. If the game is great I don't have to wait and download patches and updates every so often to continue playing the game. The game is essentially completed. There is a time when, for better or worse, a video game was a completed project. Today, every game can be fixed, patched, and backfilled for months and years on end with no end in sight. Even if I am not being harassed to get the latest download and pay in Bitcoin or in some form of blood plasma, the continuous quest to just play a f****** game is daunting to the point of castration sounding like a reasonable alternative. Between jigsaw puzzles, board games, and watching shark countdowns on YouTube, I just don't see video games being a part of my diet anymore.