Shameless Gaming: This Is The End

What is Shameless Gaming? Well, I’m glad you asked! Shameless Gaming is Kotaku’s version of Dry July, a month where we ignore new releases and play through our video gaming pile of shame together. We take all those unfinished, ignored games, the ones we cast aside, and we give them the attention they deserve! Join in!

So this is it. Shameless Gaming month is over. My grand total, the amount of games I removed from the my pile of shame, the number of games I complete: zero. Zip zero. But, still, I don’t regret a thing. Because, in a way, Shameless Gaming helped me fall in love with games again.

My month of Shameless Gaming started with an experiment. A stupid one. You may have read about my polyphasic sleep experiment — an experiment that, at least in part, was designed to give me more time to play games. I had fully intended to sleep for only two hours a day in order to give myself more time to complete games for Shameless Gaming month.

But at one point I just broke.

And to a certain extent my resolve to plough through games I wasn’t enjoying, just for the sake of a number broke. Trying to finish Max Payne 3, exhausted, with no sleep, not enjoying a single second — at that point I realised that I really had to use Shameless Gaming to play the games I truly wanted to play, but didn’t have time to, with the constant stream of new releases. I realised that I had to use my Shameless Gaming time to play a game I could truly play without shame.

And that game was Dark Souls.

Over the last two or three weeks, I’ve put roughly 25-30 hours into Dark Souls. Apparently I’m not even halfway through the game. I just don’t care. I’ve largely achieved nothing, very little trophies, no achievements. I just don’t care. For the first time in ages, I feel like I’m playing a game for the sake of it, for the minute-to-minute enjoyment of it. It feels like a small miracle.

So, from a numbers perspective — complete disaster. But in terms of rediscovering that core enjoyment, that ability to just be in the moment with a video game and enjoy the experience? Shameless Gaming month has been the most rewarding month of gaming I can remember.

How did you guys and girls go with Shameless Gaming? What was your final tally? How did it all finish up? Let us know in the comments below.


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


35 responses to “Shameless Gaming: This Is The End”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *