Today, one of my most anticipated games of the year came out - Metaphor Re:Fantazio.

I know many people reading this won’t know what that is so here’s all you need to know:

In short, the developers of this game made one of my favorite games, Persona 5. If you don’t know what that is, here’s all you need to know:

I’ve been looking forward to Metaphor Re:Fantazio for a while now, but here’s the thing - I won’t be buying Metaphor Re:Fantazio.

I’ve come to the very real realization that my time isn’t just limited but is one of the most valuable assets I have. This has become glaringly obvious as I’ve seen my daughter grow from a potato to a sack of potatoes to a moving sack of potatoes with a personality. (that’s right, it’s a dad blog)

I now like to think of my time as being a tangible item that needs to be budgeted or else it will slip away. If I don’t intentionally make the choice to use my time on something I won’t use it at all - I’ll just look at my phone and lounge around.

My wife and I are currently trying to kill our student loans. We’re constantly looking for sales and trying to find unique ways to get more money into our payments. But that’s not why I’m skipping Metaphor Re:fantazio.

I have the money to buy the game, but I don’t have the time to play it. you see, this game could be as long as 120 hours, and while in a different life I would be excited to crack into a long narrative driven RPG, I don’t have the time budget for that.

This goes for a lot of ‘things’ in my life right now. Rather than financials being the barrier to entry, it’s the time. When I get a new game, book, board game, model kit, etc., what I’m buying is a commitment of time. It takes time to read a book and it takes time to build a kit.

Whenever I consider buying something that requires time to enjoy I try to think about if I’ll be able to enjoy it within a realistic time from purchase. For example, if I bought Metaphor Re:Fantazio today I wouldn’t be able to play it for a couple of months… so why buy it?

I try to get up before Lottie gets up. I spend this time to read a little and play a little. It’s a nice time that I get to spend on me. I don’t think of this as a waste. It’s time that I’ve carved out intentionally. However, it’s extremely limited and some days I don’t get it.

My media budget is maxed out, and I typically spend 30-45 minutes every couple days to on this. There is no way I have extra time in my budget to add a 120 hour game.

I don’t know how to put a bow on this thing. I just wanted to share how I think about budgeting my time for media. Maybe next time I’ll write about the gamification of reading or something.

I’ve also written about finding gaming time now that I’m a dad and you can find that here. This post will eventually be posted onto this Substack when I find myself lacking in writing time.