My dearest Video Games,

In the spirit of all of the farewell letters typically sent to soldiers from their two-timing worthless girlfriends, I felt I needed to finally make official my break up. It is with a heavy heart that I am going to have to break up with you, Video Games.

It’s been a 22 year relationship that has had its ups and downs. We’ve been through the arcade, the PC, the Atari 2600, the NES, the Sega Genesis, the Lynx, the GameGear, the Super Nintendo, the Turbo Grafx-16, the Saturn, the Virtual Boy, the Jaguar, the N64, the Playstation 1 and 2, the Gamecube, the Play Station Portable, the Game Boy, Game Boy SP, and the Nintendo DS Lite. We’ve played hundreds upon hundreds of great games (the list is simply too long to list). I still own most of the games I bought for the really good systems (NES, SNES, Genesis, PS1, PS2, GameBoy, Gamecube, DS). I didn’t keep all of those systems, I didn’t even own all of them (rented frequently at BlockBuster or a friend/relative owned it).

It’s a shame it has to end this way. Unfortunately, I have found someone else. Her name is Grad School, and she keeps me so busy, I simply don’t have time to waste with you. We had so many great memories and you’ve never let me down. I will always hold a special place in my heart for the interactive game. Any time I see a child playing a Virtual Console game as if it’s brand new, I will weep with all of the memories of days past. Any time someone rants about how great the new Mario game is or about how they’re tired of seeing MegaMan sequels, I will probably shed a few tears.

This has been a year in the making and I have been dreading making it official as I feel I will now be missing a part of myself. The seventh generation of console games has arrived with full-force and I am lacking the desire to continue our relationship at this point. The prospects look very promising as all the systems have something to offer a hardcore old-school gamer such as myself. I think this time, I’d rather spend my money and my time on other things.

I hope you understand. Best of in all of your future ventures; try to avoid the mediocrity of the movie industry and don’t over-glutton yourself like you did in 1983. In fact, I hope we can continue to still be friends. I have still have to ride a vanpool to work, which leaves me with about 6-8 hours a week to enjoy some great DS games. Also, I will probably keep my subscription to EGM (going on fifteen years strong).

Love,

s1n