Games of the Year 2022: In Conclusion

This running Games of the Year list has been an interesting experiment.  I decided to start this series right as we were shutting down the Geek to Geek podcast as a way to keep creatively broadcasting some gaming thoughts out into the world.  I learned a few things from sticking with it this year.

The main thing I learned is... I just don't have as much desire to broadcast my thoughts out in public as I used to when I started this blog or when I started podcasting.  I still love to have in-depth discussions about current games and general geekery, but I feel less and less need to broadcast those thoughts widely.  Honestly, it's been over a decade of blogging and podcasting at this point.  It would be more surprising if my relationship with the media landscape hadn't changed.

Around mid-year I started trying to use Twitter as more of a microblogging platform to do very short quick-hit thoughts about games but didn't get much traction or conversation going which was what I actually was looking for.  After that, Twitter started imploding and I flipped over to using it as a purely consumption platform.  I don't really post there anymore.

Instead, I'm posting a lot more on Mastodon.  You can find me at masto.ai/@void if you're interested!  It feels much more approachable, has lower stakes, and the chances of actually having someone respond to a conversation starter on a topic are exponentially higher than when I blog here.  Blog comments and conversations are essentially dead in our modern media landscape, social media is where those types of interactions happen instead now.  I'm hoping Mastodon can be a fun new home to have some more public facing conversations around gaming, but only time will tell.

Even moreso than social media, I'm finding myself more and more drawn towards walled garden conversations in private Discords, Slacks, and text message groups.  It's almost like reverting to the early days of the internet... and I'm honestly kind of ok with that.

Because of the reality of blogging in the current media landscape, I've decided not to keep this series running into 2023.

Even though I'm not going to write about it here, I actually do like keeping a running list like this.  My intention is to start doing a running Games of the Year list every year going forward.  It gives me a feeling of accomplishment and conclusion when I take the time to think about where to put a game on my list in relation to other games.  It's even a fun exercise just trying to decide if a game is interesting enough to add to the list in the first place.

I like the entire exercise around the running GOTY list itself.  The main difference is that I no longer feel the need to broadcast the process or write out exactly why I'm putting a game at a certain spot.  The act of keeping the list is going to be just for me moving forward.  It will most likely simply end up as a private Google doc for myself.

Hopefully some of you found this entire exercise interesting!  Thanks for reading and sticking with me as I sorted out what I wanted to do going forward.

I'm not disappearing forever, but you can generally expect this blog to be much quieter again after this post.  If you need to get in touch, you can find me experimenting over at Mastodon or it's possible I'll still be watching my Twitter DMs too.  If I don't post for a while just know... I hope you're having fun geeking out about whatever is making you happy!