How did you fare with your 2023 gaming resolutions?

Today is 2024 and while many of us are thinking about what we want to do this year, I’m still reviewing 2023 in my head to see if I fulfilled my resolutions for the old year. The answer is a definite maybe.

I had named 2023 the “Year of the Backlog” and I hoped to make some progress in playing and completing games that I’ve been putting off for years now. I went into the year resolved to spend less time doing busywork in games like World of Warcraft and instead make a real effort to play other games. And while I was able to reduce my playtime in WoW I didn’t do as well working on my backlog. The big issues? I got addicted to the Persona series of games as well as the “choices matter”/visual novel genre (I blame Life is Strange: True Colors).

I’m not going to beat myself up too much, though, because I accomplished something I’ve probably never have done in my entire gaming career: completed over a dozen games. And not just your typical 6-10 hour indie game, either — several of the games I played to completion were 75-100+ hours. While the fact that many of these games were not present on my backlog when the clock struck 2023 puts a little damper on my celebration, I was able to expand my gaming range in two new directions without increasing my backlog either. So if I stick with my current playstyle in the coming year I may be able to make better progress and go into 2025 with a smaller number of games still to play. That’s the hope, anyhow — The War Within and a few other games I’m looking forward to could pose a stumbling block if they end up consuming a lot of time. But I’m optimistic.

So how about you? Are you starting 2024 feeling good about what you resolved to accomplish last year? Or are you giving yourself a fresh start and not worrying about 2023 at all?