I've been a gamer for some 15 years now - and a fairly dedicated one at that. I've owned thirteen different consoles and played probably 1500 games in my time. I'm usually a fairly modest person, but I will say that there are very few people who share my level of knowledge of and dedication to videogames (if you think you could match wits with me, drop me a line).
My dilemma is going to sound a little absurd to a lot of you, but I'd like for you to hear me out first before you release the hounds. A little over four years ago, I started reviewing videogames over at GameFAQs, around the time their reader reviews section launched. At the start, I'd write admittedly pathetic reviews every couple of months. After I graduated from high school, and found myself with a lot of time to play with after having to defer university, so I began to review games on a regular basis. After a year or so of writing at GameFAQs, I took a sabbatical from reviewing, until being lured back into the fold by a site offering store credit for reviews. After being substantially short-changed on my review credit, I soon learnt that a lot of reviewers for smaller sites were managing to secure free games to review (often referred to as promo games or review code). Wanting in on the action and looking at obtaining one of my lifelong ambitions - a trip to E3, I began looking around several sites, and after a few unsuccessful gigs with other sites, I stumbled upon PALGN.
PALGN was my opportunity to make it in the big time. It had everything going for it - dedicated writers, solid infrastructure, a small but dedicated following of users and plenty of room to build a successful site. In an effort to obtain more recognition for the site, I pushed myself to a) improve the quality of my writing and b) produce as many articles as I could. After fourteen months at PALGN, I've written some 91 reviews, more than the previous three years combined. Unfortunately for me, all of this writing is beginning to take its toll.
The main thing that suffers from writing at PALGN is my love of gaming. Admittedly, I do push myself a little hard for the benefit of the site, paying for most of my review material out of my own pocket, with the occasional contribution from publishers, but the sheer amount of poor and mediocre games is diminishing my ability to enjoy the games I play of my own accord, and the will to continue to follow gaming in the future. For example, I've acquired ten new games in the last week - something of that nature would have had me really excited two years ago, but frankly, this sort of occurance is not uncommon for me now, and I honestly am finding it hard to commit to playing any of these games, regardless of whether I paid for them, or they were free. This problem is not unusual amongst reviewers, but you'll find that a lot of these other reviewers are paid for their work, do not have to pay for the game out of their own pocket and do not write the volume of material that I do. I refer to this condition as gaming burnout, and unfortunately, there is only one solution: taking a break from gaming.
This leads to another problem - running the editorial section of PALGN. Writing a lot of material in order to keep the site alive also takes its toll on me, but I still need to keep up to date by playing as many games as I can, and as such I am beginning to suffer from both gaming burnout and writing burnout.
I do not wish to sound as if I am complaining about the fact that I have so many games at my disposal - I know that some of you would kill to have the amount of games I have. Unfortunately, you get tired of playing videogames if you are forced to play games you don't like at length just to write out a 1000 word article on what you think of said game, especially when you are doing it for free, and very few people read it. Honestly, I am surprised it has taken me this long to burn out, especially after times when I've had to sit up til 3am playing Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines just to be able to have enough play time on there to justify writing a review that only 50 people are going to read.
Anyway, here's the deal. I'm going to be taking a bit of a break from both videogames and PALGN for a while. You'll still see my work around the site, but nowhere near as much of it. Hopefully you'll all still be around when the fire that fuels my desire to play and write about videogames has re-ignited.
The views expressed by Matt Keller in the Easy Mode editorial are his own, and are not indicative of the views of the PAL Gaming Network or its affiliates.
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