9. You Play Through Games Once... If That
The latest drool-inducing, five years in the making, RPG from your favourite devs, running on their next-gen engine, that youve read reams about on your favourite blogs, stared agog at gameplay videos of, gasped at PowerPoint slides shown to developer conference audiences about, pre-ordered, left your PC running overnight to download the instant the publisher taps the server kegs ... has
finally arrived. So, here's the plan: the first fifty hour play-through will serve as orientation; to get to grips with gameplay mechanics and the main quest; an installation lap, if you will. Three to four hours a night, maybe a couple of eight hour seshes on the weekend: a couple of weeks max. But here's the reality: eighteen months later, reduced to a broken shell after a week of sleeplessness, having finally poured in the hours no longer because you wanted to
finish the game, but merely to quell the nagging sense of abject failure, you make your final dialogue choice and slump in your seat to watch the concluding cut scene. The voice-over describes your character's lack of moral fibre as a cancer gnawing upon the realm. You exit the game, quit Steam, and go to bed. You feel a tortured urge to weep, but your tears have run dry.