Saying Goodbye

…it’s a hard thing to do.

And so, it is with a great deal of sadness that I let you all know that I will be taking a hiatus from blogging. I don’t know what this hiatus will look like, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. The only thing I’m sure of is that, if I do come back, it will not be the same.

AmbiGaming Corner is not going anywhere. You’ll still be able to come and read things that have been posted, and I may or may not still haunt Twitter and such. But it’s come to a point where I have realized that this hobby has taken up my time to the point of being at the expense of everything else I do in my life outside of work.

I thought about this for a long time. I thought of all the people who said I wouldn’t want to write about games for a living because it would get old, and a part of me inwardly frowned when I heard all those voices. Because that’s wrong. If I could write about games like this for a living, that would be great.

But this isn’t for a living. This is a hobby. My Patreon has enough support to pay for the domain name and such, and that’s about it. When I tallied the time I spend researching and writing and editing and social media-ing, I was spending 25 hours at least on AmbiGaming-related projects. I get it, that’s a hobby. But this hobby has been pursued to the detriment of other hobbies.

I didn’t realize until now how resentful that has made me toward blogging, and toward gaming.

It’s all been self-inflicted, and I get that, too. I didn’t have to post twice a week, but I knew that not posting meant not being “a part” of the community as much, and the self-imposed social pressure kept me writing. I didn’t have to engage on social media, but ditto for the self-imposed social pressure.

I’ve talked at length before (and I’m not going to link because I’m feeling lazy) about not really having a plan when I started this blog. But it exploded in ways I couldn’t have predicted, and somehow not capitalizing on that seemed like a waste, on top of everything else.

I let myself get swept up in the insane “publish or perish” mentality that I learned not only affects academia, but people who post on the internet, as well.

And that’s okay. I don’t regret it.

But I’ve decided that this is going to go back to the hobby I wanted it to be: to talk about games how I wanted to, and when I wanted to. So, after next Wednesday’s Metacognition post, there won’t be posts here for a while, until I have time and inspiration to write again.

Because this is a hobby. It’s not a job, and never will be, and so I’ve decided to stop treating this like the part-time, “unpaying” work that I never wanted it to be.

I’ll also be pausing my Patreon page (all patrons should be seeing a notification of a post around the time this post goes live), with final plans for it to be determined at a later date.

I think that’s about it for now. I’ve loved every moment that I’ve spent here talking with you, and I’m looking forward to doing that again in the future.

Until then…

Thank you so, so much for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon.
~ Athena