Editor’s note: Aylon is a busy guy, and he doesn’t have a lot of time to do what he loves — write about video games. How do we make more time for our hobbies? My suggestion is to do what I do — burn the candle at both ends. -James
Life is all about finding balance. When I started writing about video games just over two years ago, life was simple. I was single and I had a 9 to 5. Finding the time to play and write about games was easy. Nowadays, it’s a different story.
I’m in a relationship, and I’m living with the girl of my dreams. Most days, my job keeps me until 6 p.m. When I’m free, I like to try to get out of the house and be active. It’s also important to me to spend time with friends and family. Finding time to play games, while still being fair to the important people in my life, has become a challenge. Often, I don’t have as much time available to play and write about games as I might wish.
So, if life is all about balance, how do you balance the people you love, your responsibilities to them, and a hobby that gives you pleasure?
I happen to be fortunate enough to write for New Zealand’s number-one gaming website, Gameplanet. I do this out of a love for the industry and a love of writing — not for a salary. As a volunteer, I still have many of the same responsibilities that paid writers do. I write reviews and previews, go to industry events, and interview developers when I’m given the opportunity. Paid journalists get to do most of these things while at work.
Recently, my site assigned me a review of Borderlands. This presented me with a complicated problem. It’s my personal policy to finish any game I’m supposed to review. It would be a disservice to readers to write about a game without knowing as much as I can about it. Just one thing, though:
How the hell am I supposed to find time to play through a game as long and expansive as Borderlands?
While my girlfriend doesn’t mind me playing a little when I come home from work, I can’t do this every night, and even if I wanted to, certainly for no longer than an hour. She deserves to lounge around and use the TV just as much as I do.
Weekends are tricky, too. It’s important to me to spend my recreation time with the lady of the house. We’ll go to the beach, take a drive, or get together with family for a big dinner.
But I’ll often have a 20-hour game, with a deadline, looming over my head.
As I am sure many of my fellow Bitmobbers do, I love writing, particularly about the industry, but games like Borderlands push my ability to manage my time to the limit. Borderlands is a great game, but once I was finished with playing and reviewing it, I knew something had to change. I love longer, epic RPGs, and I was looking forward to reviewing Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. Now I don’t think I’ll be able to, and that’s a shame since I did the review for the first Mass Effect for my website.
This doesn’t mean I’m down and out of journalism altogether. My girlfriend understands my passion for playing and writing about games — which is part of why I love her. From now on, I think I’ll be reviewing more straightforward games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Left 4 Dead 2. If this was an actual job — one that paid the bills — then longer games wouldn’t be problem. As it stands, it’s just a hobby.
Moving my life in the direction I want it to go can make meeting deadlines almost impossible. I can’t imagine how meeting those deadlines will become even more difficult as marriage and children enter into the picture. I am not prepared to sacrifice my personal life in order to feed my passion for video game journalism; at the same time, I know that if I ever had to stop completely, it would leave a hole in me.
Unless I’m lucky enough to get paid to write about games one day — or win the lottery — the balancing will continue. I’m just not sure what that balance is.
Someday, I hope that an answer will arise.