Blogs. They really are the cockroaches of the internet aren’t they? For every pundit who thinks they have an opinion on something that they think people might want to hear, they seem to create a blog, and then shout into the echo chamber of Blogger or WordPress for a little while until they get bored and move onto their next project.
Politics, Sport, and yes, even Gaming Blogs are a dime a dozen … or even two dozen … on the internet. There’s a lot of them. So what makes this one any different?
Nothing. Not a damn thing.
I don’t think that this is a blog about gaming current affairs. It’s certainly not a spot for breaking news. Personally, I have Kotaku, IGN and Dicebreaker on a regular rotation on my gaming news. All outlets are well resourced with excellent, well-established contacts in industry, and I think I’m a bit late to the party to start wading into the mix. I don’t have a San Fransisco Office a stone’s throw away from Ubisoft, and I can’t pick up the phone and call Phil Spencer for an interview about Xbox, and I doubt anyone at Fantasy Flight Games has heard of me.
What I do have, is a passion for writing and for playing games. Earlier last year, I started a blog called Achievement a Day – which was designed to be my creative outlet for writing about gaming as I systematically worked my way through my Xbox library, earning – at least – one achievement every day for a year. I published a collection from a year’s worth of Xbox achievements in early 2019, freeing me up to explore some other gaming pursuits.
As much as I love Xbox, I have found the challenge to be somewhat limiting (something I was anticipating at the start), and as I broaden my gaming horizons, I’d like to have an outlet to write more generally about gaming. For instance, I’ve enjoyed revisiting some of my old favourites on PlayStation Vita, having gotten the old handheld out for my kids to play has reinvigorated me to play a few of the PlayStation Plus games that I’d been adding to my collection, but had missed out on over the past twelve months.
Lately, I’ve also enjoyed a foray into mobile gaming – there are a great variety of A+ titles on the market now, and with the power of mobile gaming in one’s pocket, the games far surpass the games I grew up on. Imagine Lode Runner on an iPhone.
In other instances, I’ve been experimenting with some of the great PC games. A lot of the collectable card games are PC only, and from time-to-time I’ve been experimenting with a great variety of the free-to-play MMORPGs and other titles hidden throughout Steam or GOG.
And last, but certainly not least, is my new-found love of Tabletop and Roleplaying Games. I have to admit – I’m one of the many who have rediscovered tabletop gaming as a way to connect and enjoy time with friends and family in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I have. For years I’ve eyed the tabletop section at PAX as an insurmountable barrier that I couldn’t cross, but I’ll be the first to admit that when the world reopens and PAX is back face-to-face, I’ll be making a beeline for the back of the expo hall.
To make a long story short, I want to be able to write about gaming and all its facets – video, tabletop, hell, even sport if the mood grabs me (it probably won’t, but these are strange times). As such, welcome to my internet home for my gaming brain dumps.
Ben O’Connor
Updated August 2021
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