Getting Back Into Gaming

I have fallen out of touch with the gaming universe.

It happened slowly... I quit checking evotab.com for new articles every hour. Then I'd check it every day and just glance over the feeds for something interesting, not having time to keep up on all games on all consoles. I quit reading PvP. I didn't listen to the Gamers With Jobs podcast. I stopped watching Zero Punctuation. Before long I fell behind on Dubious Quality, xkcd and Penny Arcade..

As of today, it's been over 6 months since I've felt "in touch" with the gaming industry. It really came to light today when I stumbled across this article, from 2 weeks ago. (Nintendo has released some info on the Nintendo 3DS, a new handheld which will be unveiled at E3 this year). Back in my gaming days, this is the type of thing that I would have known about less than an hour after the news broke. And I would have been incredibly excited about it. Now it's something I'm interested in and somewhat disappointed that I didn't know about.

I don't need to get back to the point where I get know the hourly news on every game. However, gaming is something I'm interested in and passionate about, a hobby that I want to keep my nose in and an industry I enjoy keeping abreast of. I firmly believe that happiness is a product of doing the things you enjoy (advanced concept there). What does it say for my future if I'm unable to make time to do the things I enjoy today, when I have so little responsibility?

So I'm going to tiptoe back into gaming news. I plan on reading the sites I loved: Dubious Quality, xkcd, Penny Arcade, Rock-Paper-Shotgun, Gamers With Jobs.. These are all easy to digest in 15 minutes a day. Today I bought a little something-something to jumpstart these refound habits:

Sure I'll miss the breaking, sometimes obscure Kotaku and Joystiq news; I will get the highlights instead. I'll be doing something I enjoy, regardless.