n3wt0n!

So it has been one month since I committed to not purchase any video games in 2011. So far, the toughest moments were when I had to pass on Game Dev Story on Android, and this weekend’s Steam deal on The Rainslick Precipice of Darkness episodes 1 & 2 pack for $2.99. I’ve been able to stop and reflect on just what appeals to me most when I want to make a purchase, and I think it’s the price-point. I have the first episode of Rainslick already. I haven’t even played it yet. How do I know I’ll even want to play episode 2? But $2.99? Not that seems like a good deal. And I want to jump all over that.

But it’s a good feeling knowing that I’m passing it by. Other good feelings? Not obsessively checking Steam on Tuesday or Wednesday to see if the midweek madness has been posted yet. Or Steam’s weekend deal.

On a similar note, a couple weeks ago I completed Just Cause 2 (on the PC) and I have yet to fill that gap with another game in my huge list of unplayed games. I have options, but I find since I’m putting less focus on acquiring new ‘stuff’ I’m putting that focus toward learning and doing other things. Plus, I’ve got that free mmo, LOTRO, to play

I have a goal for 2011 that should benefit a few areas of my life. Simply, I will not purchase a single video game or downloadable content (DLC) for a video game in 2011. This means pay-what-you-want sales/bundles are off limits, as is pirating said bundles (or any games for that matter). This isn’t a decision I’ve made on a whim, either. I’ve had a few months to let this sink in [facebook] and to work out the details. Note: I’d have linked to twitter rather than identica except Ping.fm was misbehaving the day I initially announced my idea.

On to the details, the only allowable ‘new’ games that I can add to my collection are:

• Gifts — but I am not allowed to prompt the purchase with, “Hey, I’m not purchasing any games in 2011 but if you buy me X then I’ll buy you Y in 2012,” because that is cheating.
• Board and card games — they are not video games.
• Game demos, trials, and ‘free’ games — XBoxLive Indie Game trials, Steam demos (and mods and free games), etc, so long as they are freely available for download by the developer/publisher.
• Code giveaways — kinda sorta the same thing as ‘free’ games
• Borrowed games

If the game doesn’t fit the criteria above, I can’t add it to my collection.

Why? Well, this is where the benefits come in. See, I went kind of crazy with game purchases starting at the end of 2009. My Steam collection ballooned to a crazy size over the course of the last year. I don’t think I could possibly complete all the un-played games in my Steam games list if I try all next year, and an un-played game is an unappreciated game.

Why else? I’ve got a note taped to my monitor that says, “Why are you sitting here? Spend some time with your wife.” I put it there, and it’s pretty self explanatory.

I expect to enrich my personal life by putting less emphasis on video games and more time with family and friends (non-gamers). I expect my wallet to thank me. I expect my productivity to increase as I will cease to compulsively check Steam Game Sales and Cheap Ass Gamer throughout the day. I expect to spend more time reading through my neglected bookshelf. I’ll never make it as a game designer & developer if I spend more time playing games than making them.

Wish me luck in 2011. I have no doubt this is going to be a hard habit to break. I’ll post throughout the year under the tag #stateofthepenny here on the blog and twitter.

I’ve set up a subdomain for Generic 2D Platformer. This is a first-phase exercise for motivating me to stop reading about everyone else making games (my RSS reader is full of indie-game blogs) and finally get around to my own projects. Stick-men puzzle solving and platform-jumping coming soon!

And if you haven’t checked it out, I can’t tell you enough how much Spelunky simply rocks. It’s a pinch of Nethack and a dash of Castlevania all rolled into Indiana Jones.

I use Ubuntu as my flavor of Linux. I started with Red Hat 5 and quickly moved along to Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog (v5.04). I’d been, up to that point, strictly a Windows user. So why Linux?

For one, the professor I was working for at the time had as little to do with Microsoft products as she possibly could. She required me to use the Red Hat that she provided. After becoming victim to a rootkit (I knew little about keeping Red Hat up-to-date) we switched to Ubuntu and I’ve loved every minute of it. For the record, I dabbled a little in OpenSuse but I felt it never had the ease of use or the community that Ubuntu did.

If you’re reading this, I presume you are a student. As a student you’re supposed to stereotypically be short on cash. I know, you’ve probably never bought Windows or Office in your life. If you own a computer, you’re probably wrong. The laptop you bought, if it wasn’t already running Mac or Linux, was shipped with Windows pre-installed. The high price you paid? That went toward the Microsoft licenses so you could use Windows on the laptop.

Linux is free. It’s free in more ways than one. Not only are you free to use the software without paying a cent but the philosophy behind the operating system is that the source code is free, too. It’s not hidden behind layers of obscurity but instead the stuff that makes the program work is made available for you, as a student, to learn from. You can see what another developer did to make the software do what it’s doing. It’s no wonder colleges and universities teach computer science on the Gnu/Linux platform in the first place.

Being a computer science student this operating system is tailor made for you. I didn’t think so when I first started the degree. I was all Windows and anything I could do on the Unix terminals in the computer science lab there was the same thing I could do on Windows. I was misguided.

While it’s possible to perform the same actions on either platform, the Linux side promotes the sharing of knowledge. There is a global community of people (LinuxQuestions, UbuntuForums, etc) so help is always close at hand. Monthly meetings are held close by in the form of Linux Users Groups. And when something works, it most often just works (without that blue screen of death).

If you’re concerned about games, in the very least dual boot a WinXP/*nix PC. Wine is getting better (and in fact version 1 is coming soon). Wine is a virtual machine that allows programs compiled for Windows to run within Linux. Best of all, there is a growing market of commercial (and free) PC games for Linux as well (Frictional Games, iD Software, BioWare, Introversion, and the new Penny Arcade game…)

Linux is everywhere, right under your nose. It can be found on cell phones, mp3 players. I even have a version of uClinux running on my Nintendo DS. So isn’t it about time you give it a try? The only thing you should be afraid of is really enjoying the experience. It’ll suck away your free time because you won’t want to leave.