This is just a boring anecdote of a self experiment, so... Yeah.
-
I left school for the holidays on Thanksgiving break. The end of November. Accordingly, I took my Wii U back with me so I could play my games. Thing is, I hate putting cables together and all that stuff. It's just really unfun, so when I got home, I was in no rush to plug my Wii U back in. I procrastinated for a few days when I realised that I really wasn't compelled to plug my Wii U back in.
That really bothered me. So I started a kind of test for myself. How long would it take before Nintendo could convince me to want to plug my Wii U back in? I made a promise to myself, one that is sort of obvious; I'm not going to plug in my Wii U until I have a compelling enough reason to. It could be anything. Whether it's a nice sale, a new game, or just a game I haven't finished. Any reason, but I had to want to turn my Wii U on. The reason would have to be compelling enough for me to want to overcome the most minute inconvenience. If I didn't want to turn it on, I wouldn't turn it on.
There were a few things that made me consider plugging it in earlier. There was a system update I missed. Shovel Knight went on sale, a game I specifically said I wouldn't buy until it was at most $10. Mega Man 7, my favorite Mega Man, went on sale for $4. I haven't bought Smash for Wii U or Bayonetta 2 yet, so I thought about buying those a few times. But nothing compelled me quite enough to set the thing up again.
What did it for me was the Mario Galaxy 2 deal for $10. Mario Galaxy is my favorite Mario game of all time, but I didn't buy 2 because it felt like a rehash. (I wasn't really a big gamer back then. I just played a lot of games) I was so annoyed that one of my favorite games that was so perfect and whose experience was so complete was basically getting a $50 expansion pack, with a stripped down story.
Fast forward to now, and I had been lately thinking about Galaxy. I was thinking critically about what made that game so grade, and eventually starting to want to play it again. But there was a problem. I 100% Galaxy. I don't 100% anything, but I did with Galaxy. Unfortunately, that kind of made me sick of it. I really never want to play another level in that game ever again, which is probably a really weird relationship to have with one of your favorite games. I wanted to play Galaxy, but I didn't want to play Galaxy. What to do?
It's like Nintendo said "Enough is enough!" I didn't even know I wanted to play Galaxy 2. I was content with just debating over whether I should replay a little bit of the first game. Then Nintendo comes out with the game, for download (anyone who knows a thing about me here knows that I'm a digital only gamer), for $10. But that wouldn't have done it on it's own. What lit the flame under my ass was the time limit. The game would only be $10 for a week.
Let's be clear, by then I knew that I wanted to play Galaxy 2, but it was and is only a whim. I wasn't excited to play Galaxy 2. I was excited to play Galaxy 2 for $10 without needing to leave my house. If I didn't buy it now, I knew I wouldn't be buying it for a long time, and I'd have regretted not just picking the damn thing up when it was cheap, just because I was trying to prove something.
But I still proctrastinated. Until just this very morning. Why? Because Club Nintendo updated their downloadable games for the month and I saw Zelda 1 for the 3DS on it. I redeemed the code. But then realized that I hadn't even plugged my 3DS in in weeks. WEEKS. And I couldn't find it's charger so I rummaged around my room looking for it. Guess where it was?
Next to my Wii U box.
Message recieved. Happy gaming!
