This will seem like a weird flex, but probably one of the weirdest ways my hobby has affected my life is that I don't really feel comfortable writing about videogames or reviewing them, despite loving the media form and enjoying writing

The trouble is that, currently, gaming journalism -- particularly written games journalism -- has a really bad rep. So bad, in fact, that sometimes, just having an analytical mind and being able to articulate where a game is failing or could do better is enough to pass muster

I'm a writer, so I have a certain level of articulation, and I generally love games, so I do think deeply about them, so I run into that weird pseudo-journalist mark a lot. Problem is, I am not a journalist

I'm not trained as one. My skillset is creating *fiction*, which should not be a skill that journalists look to acquire. (There's an old joke about how many journalist are very poor novelists -- "Inside every journalist is a novel, and that's exactly where it should stay")

So in a sense, it's unethical for me to represent myself like that. But people do that for me. Several times, when I've bothered to write legitimate reviews, people take them too seriously when I'm mostly trying to get an opinion out there and leave feedback to help a game grow

I also occasionally get developer responses, which, I mean, I get it, the devs are cool and taking notice, but still kinda freaks me out lmao, I don't necessarily want to court that kind of attention

As a result, I've kinda stopped giving out my opinions on games as much, or at least trying to severely hold back the urge to articulate it properly, because I don't feel comfortable with the extra baggage surrounding it. I almost actively avoid leaving reviews nowadays

Idk, it's probably another one of those issues where it's all in my own head, but I still feel like I'm on this weird cusp where I have just enough skill to fake being a real reviewer and don't want to put myself in a position where I run into moral uncertainty because of that

(A fun note is that for a while after release I was the top steam reviewer for One Step from Eden, entirely because I managed to sum up several frustrations people were having about the game. The whole situation super freaked me out)

Eventually the dev asked me if I'd alter my review after an update, which I did -- mercifully, it completely scrubbed the ratings the review had gotten. I felt really bad about the whole situation, and have avoided giving reviews since

(This thread is kinda out of nowhere, but I've been thinking about it lately, and wanted to articulate why I very rarely speak about videogames on my public accounts despite it being one of the other consuming hobbies of my life)