I suffer the bad habit of introspection and over-thinking. Simply asking “what is a blog for?” releases a mental floodgate consisting of philosophical statements and further questions. The end result is a river with endless forks and paths of consideration rather than a solid answer. Soon enough, I’ve spent so much time contemplating this simple statement that I’ve lost track of the original purpose of the question. Or, worse, I start to ponder if there may be some other innate question, left silent and buried, that I’m actually striving to answer and perhaps fearing the answer to.

It’s a real pain in the butt, a bad habit far more problematic than that of biting one’s own nails.

What I mean to ask is not necessarily what the concept of a blog is for, but specifically what my blog is for in the wake of my other methods of creative output. Or rather, supposed creative output. These days the only thing I seem adept at creating are podcasts and Twitch streams.

The real storm within my mind is that of writing. Be it a script or an essay for the website, I’ve felt little motivation or inspiration to sit down and jot words onto a blank document. I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a figurative pile of drafts stored on my drive, words that have never seen the eyes of another. I desperately wish to write, but I’ve never been happy with anything that I’ve produced.

I mentioned that bad habit of introspection and over-thinking. The truth is, this introspection did not begin with wondering what my blog was for. It began with wondering why I was struggling to enjoy writing again. I think, finally, I’ve got something of an answer, but only after evaluating the past several years of my efforts to blog and create video essays while working a full-time job.

I spend a lot of time pondering the big questions. For example, did anyone outside of Japan even know what “Moe” meant when No More Heroes released in 2007?

THE PURPOSE OF A “REVIEW”

This is the number one contributor. When I first began writing about games, I still had dreams of designing and creating my own. A combination of reading game design articles and books, sketching out my own ideas, and pondering what made my favorite games tick, had culminated in some conceited sense that I knew more about games than your average press junkie. What’s more, I was becoming influenced by other games writers or critics that were no longer using review scores.

Despite wanting to abandon the practice, I still had the assumption that my analysis would ultimately serve as consumer advice. I found the game well-designed for such-and-such reasons, and therefore you should buy it because I perceive it to be high-quality. In some ways I was on the right track, but I wasn’t wholly there yet.

As time progressed and I continued to be verbose, I began to experiment with different formats. Most of my analyses would be organized in one essay wholly populated by the negatives, while a second essay would consist of all of the positives. There was still a sense that my word was law, however, and therefore my opinion on a game was the opinion on a game.

Two things began to change this attitude. The first was writing a column on GamersWithJobs, where my writing was met with scrutiny by the website’s editor, fellow writers, and at times, the community in a way my writing had never been before. I was so used to being one of the best writers that, over time, I began to see my own errors more frequently.

When you begin to write for a crowd, you begin to notice which pieces attract more attention in the comments than others. You evaluate how well your own articles are doing compared to your companions. You try to keep it out of your mind, but if the numbers diminish or are few, you inevitably run into an internal conflict. Do you continue to write what you wish to write, or do you try to appeal to the audience? In time, I chose to leave GamersWithJobs’ writing staff as I felt what I wanted to write did not fit what the audience wanted to read.

Writing for GamersWithJobs broke me of the habit of conceitedly writing to tell others to think what I think. However, it led to an all new problem.

Just sitting here, contemplating all the nobody reading this here blog.

WRITING FOR NO ONE

This is, perhaps, the greatest trial of them all. I think I have friends that occasionally read this website, but without any comments it is difficult to determine how many real humans come by. Yes, I can always check the site analytics, but I have no way to determine how many of those numbers are just bots crawling through search engines.

It’s difficult to feel motivated to put one’s thoughts out there if no one seems to be listening. I want to write because I enjoy writing, but I also enjoy communicating. I wish to know that people are reading, and I wish to know their response.

Curious, then, that I’d worry so much over the quality of what I’m writing. If no one is reading then who is to care if I make a good point or not? I suppose I wish to put my best foot forward, so that if someone does happen to stop on by, they’ll be convinced to stick around a while.

Hey, remember that Darksiders video I never made?

THE YOUTUBE INFLUENCE

The early days of Escapist Magazine were a great influence on my stepping away from review scores. I was reading the site back when it was doing weekly “issues” consisting of five articles rather than daily news updates and regular columns. I recall when they first brought Yahztee Croshaw on board for his Zero Punctuation series. I recall the influence it had, encouraging more young wannabe critics to try and create their own video content. I had yearned to create such content myself, but was never certain how.

Some time later, RedLetterMedia would release their multi-part deep-dive analysis of The Phantom Menace. I finally found my influence for jumping into video content. It would take years more, of course, before I’d finally release my first, shoddy, slap-dash, poorly edited video, but it’s quite clear that Zero Punctuation and RedLetterMedia influenced me to finally unleash my own content onto YouTube.

The unfortunate side effect was that it would impact my ability to write about the games that I played. As games are a visual medium, it is far more effective to describe certain mechanics and how they work through video. This often leaves me struggling to piece together a write-up, as so often I feel as if I’d rather convey the ideas in a video.

Unfortunately, videos take longer to produce, especially when they are their own recipe of self-doubt and depression. Nonetheless, it leaves me sitting there, looking at a document, wondering what can possibly be said in three-to-four pages that couldn’t better be said in a video.

SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS BLOG?

Now that I’ve identified many of the problems, it leaves the question of what the point of this blog is at all. Should I give it up and stick to audio/visual content? I don’t think that is the solution. I think there’s still plenty I can say in an essay that doesn’t need to be conveyed in a whole video.

I think the real problem is that I found it so easy to write when I was younger because I was over-confident. I keep struggling with these drafts because I keep trying to write something of an impossible quality. I want everything to have a very specific thesis, to be substantial, to have no wasted words, and yet be littered with clever prose or turns of phrase. There’s a difference between writing and mere communication, after all.

No one is paying me to write, however. It is not my job. It is a hobby, and one I used to enjoy because I wasn’t focused on it being good. This is, in part, due to my assumption that it was already good. That dash of conceit made it easy to squeeze out a post every other night without issue.

While I’d like to focus somewhat on being good, I think it’d be better if I just wrote because that’s what I wish to do. I don’t need every post to have been passed over twenty times, trying to make it as great and convincing as possible. I don’t need to make every post a definitive write-up on a game, covering every aspect of it like an old-fashioned review. All I need to do are give my thoughts.

I’ve done this on occasion. Some posts turn out to be pretty garbage, though often because I’m trying too hard. Others continue to be entertaining to read, should I go back and give them another skim.

This blog is not here to kickstart some career as a game critic. It is not here to convince you to purchase a game. It’s not even here to convince you that a game is good. It is here because I like video games, and I enjoy discussing them with others.

I hope to make sure 2021 is a year in which I not only remember that, but become comfortable with it again.