What did I Play in 2023 and how does 2024 look?

2023 was not exactly a great year for playing something new and different for me.  Granted, this blog is not the place you go if you’re looking for commentary on new titles or much in the way of variety, but 2023 was an exceptionally focused year by even my standards.

My 2023 banner courtesy of our daughter

Also, despite 2022 being a hectic year that saw a significant downturn in my play time, 2023 managed to continue that trend with me spending less time on PC gaming than I did in 2022.  We’re at low ebb around here.  All of this is based on measurements taking by ManicTime, which keeps track of how long apps have the main focus on my computer.

ManicTime – For your app time tracking needs

So what happened?  I don’t know.  I work from home, so it isn’t like a long commute was keeping me away from my computer.  In the end, here is what I played in 2023, broken out by percentages.

1. WoW Classic – 66.42%
2. EVE Online – 23.69%
3. Civilization II – 2.16%
4. LOTRO – 1.78%
5. Civilization V – 1.51%
6. Baldur’s Gate 3 – 1.47%
7. Civilization VI – 0.80%
8. Diablo III – 0.51%
9. Civilization III – 0.31%
10. Valheim – 0.25%
11. Astro Colony – 0.24%
12. Civilization IV – 0.19%
13. LEGO Star Wars – 0.15%
14. Alpha Centauri – 0.14%
15. EVE Vanguard – 0.12%
16. Civilization – 0.11%
17. Wizardry – 0.04%

That is 17 titles total that ManicTime recorded me playing, down from the 21 recorded in 2022.  If anybody is just dying to know how many hours I played, they key is that Civilization has exactly one hour of play time on that list.

Graphically, that breaks out into a pie chart like this:

Titles broken out by percentage of my play time

Anything that was under one percent on the list was lumped into the “other” wedge for the sake of readability.  And yes, I did spend a lot of time playing WoW Classic in 2023.  Wrath of the Lich King Classic was that good, so far as I am concerned.

Now, 17 is an accurate number, but by itself does not perhaps tell the full story of the year.  So it is time for the chart that breaks down what I played when in 2023.

My 2023 in video games

I do not go as crazy with that chart as Belghast or Naithin, mostly because I am not sure that much detail adds anything to my own story.  Also, I don’t play as many different titles.  Everything past the top two is just kind of details.  Most of those titles were a couple of weeks… or days, really… within a given month.

The chart shows I played EVE Online and WoW Classic pretty much all year long.  No surprise there.  I also decided, in the name of clarity and laziness, to lump all the Civilization titles up into one row, as that was all part of the same experiment last April.

The only thing I would dispute would be World of Warcraft, as time with that was barely anything like “playing,” I was generally logging in to collect some mount or pet reward for simply being subscribed, but in August when I logged in the game tried to give me some new gear and that turned into such a fiasco that it was my peak play time, so I made the mark for the year there.

I suppose the variation from my expectations set out in a post a year ago is the most notable aspect of this.  Maybe.

I mean, I was pretty darn sure I would play Diablo IV, then didn’t bother.  Meanwhile, I specifically said I wasn’t likely to play any Civilization titles, and then I played them all in 2023.  That was something.

I was also feeling like LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga might have been a thing, but it turns out that no… that was fun with my daughter on the Wii more than a decade back, but not something that captured me in 2023.

And then there was Valheim, where I started to get into the Mistlands a bit, but then our group was so wrapped up in Wrath Classic that I left that alone after a while.

Anyway, that wraps up 2023, so it is probably time to see what the new year look like.  What do I think I will play in 2024?

Likely Candidates:

• WoW Classic – Season of Discovery
  
• Cataclysm Classic
• EVE Online

Why should 2024 be any different that 2023?  I’m playing two of those already.

Strong Possibilities:

• Baldur’s Gate 3
• Valheim, or something like Valheim (topic for another post)

Potshot and I might make our way back into Baldur’s Gate.  The whole Season of Discovery thing in WoW tore us away from that, but it might fade before Cataclysm Classic lands.  And there might be room for a WoW Classic break with the group to go do something like Valheim.

Seems Likely:

• Tarisland
• EverQuest

I think I will be in for Tarisland, if it ships this year, if only to catalog the ways in which it is not a direct copy of World of Warcraft, one of the most over used tropes this past year by some gaming sites.

And, of course, EverQuest will be hitting 25 this year, so I will probably subscribe and try to play, figure out once again that being stuck somewhere way below level cap and having nobody else I know playing will mean boredom and will quickly stop playing… but I likely will play some even knowing that in advance.

Things I will want to play, but probably won’t:

• Forza Horizon 4/5
• World of Tanks / War Thunder
• Project: Gorgon
• Most of my Steam library

It just seems to work out that way.  I have a limited amount of time and a hierarchy or titles I am in the mood to play.

Negative Interest:

• WoW Retail
• EverQuest II
• Minecraft
• LOTRO

Not knocking these as bad games.  They are on this list because there is some part of me that wants to play them.   There are just specific circumstances that make them undesirable to play.  I think we maybe have beaten Minecraft to death, for example, because every attempt at a return feels like a slog to get back to our old world and we all wander off in a week.  And, as I have made abundantly clear, LOTRO is pretty much unplayable for me on my wide-screen monitor.  Meanwhile, every time I log into WoW retail I am reminded how out of step I am with the current state of the game and I quickly scurry back to some flavor of classic.

So that is my summary, such that it is.

Past year posts:

• 2022 – Combined summary and predictions into one post
• 2021 – Combined summary and predictions into one post
• 2020 – Combined summary and predictions into one post
• 2019 – I played some things that I predicted I would, but not many
• 2018 – Technically, mission accomplished; reality, not so much.
• 2017 – I played nothing from the list, though arguably only two were playable
• 2016 – I played none from the list, but most didn’t ship
• 2015 – literally nothing I listed went live
• 2014 – I played Warlords of Draenor, which was a gimme really
• 2012 – Actually tried most of the items on the list
• 2011 – Tried 3 out of 5 eventually, but then The Agency was on the list
• 2007 LOTRO (shipped!)
• 2007 Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising (Didn’t ship)