You may not know it, but ennui is something you've probably experienced at least once in your life, but have you ever experienced it as a gamer?

Ennui is boredom. The dictionary defines it as a "feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest." As gamers, we've all probably gotten bored with a game... but rare is the occasion when we've grown bored of actually playing games or of doing something game related.

For instance, ennui sets in for online gamers when they realize that everything they do inside the game doesn't actually have any appreciable impact on the world around them. For console fans, it's probably come across in the form of frustration, or simply the sudden inability to care about what happens to Link, or to your Gamerscore, or to your plans for another ultimately awesome installment of Ponies and Kittens homebrew. Well, either boredom or despair, but they tend to be the same thing in this sense.

In either case, the feeling of WANTING to play seems to disappear out the window for most of us, and it's a shame, because there's something missing in our play that we don't completely understand. It's not the purpose, because the purpose behind play is always there. It certainly isn't the feeling of satisfaction of downing a boss with a well-timed Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku- Shouryuken- Hadouken combo.

In fact, no matter what reason you have for stopping, or whatever feelings you've got inside over your current pasttime, let me tell you something very important: it's okay.

Yep. The world (of Warcraft) will keep running without you, and the games you love, the guilds you cherish, and the respect you pick up from the homebrew community will remain intact even if you're not there for a little while. The important thing about games, which we sometimes forget in this day and age of trying to make games more mainstream and worthwhile, is that the worth of a game and the pasttimes we love come from the fun we derive from it.

Our suggestion: do something you haven't done yet. Your pasttime will welcome you with open arms, and you can tell us what else you've been up to. In the meantime, tell us about your stories of gaming ennui. We certainly would like to know how you got past your period of gaming ennui.

Game Politics put up a unique find that might help immortalize some of the most dedicated players of all time. According to their report, the Guinness Book of World Records will be putting up another videogame-related section with records for players who've picked up achievements for determination, high scores, and long life.

As you can see from the shot above, there are some new records being put up along with the quintessential high scores list that remains mostly the same from its previous incarnation 20 years back. Cody Miller's legendary speed run through Halo 2 on the Xbox is now listed, as well as a record for the guy who pulled off a three-hour speed run through the PS2's GTA: Vice City.

The records also hold some noteworthy people who've managed to get high scores in multiple games, such as Greg Sakundiak's records for Dragon's Lair, Tag Team Wrestling, and Twin Cobra, and Doris Self, our dearly departed mistress of all things Q*bert who got her place in Guinness for being the oldest competitive gamer to date.

Hopefully, they'll include some new categories next year, including "Person with the highest gamerscore ever" and "Most annoying leetspeak phrase used in online games." We'll be betting on "STFU Noob," for that last entry.

N'gai Croal notes in his blog that Sony should address the problem of them not having an active presence in the realm of blogging. He cites Ozymandias (Andre Virgnaud) and other Microsoft bloggers like Major Nelson, Gamerscore, and Game Tycoon as a nice example Microsoft reaching out and making a connection with the citizens of the internet.

Although Ozymandias' motives are, as N'gai Croal puts it, "hilariously transparent" Ozymandias' blog does well to bash anything and everything Sony. Furthermore it provides that consumer to company link that Microsoft needs.

N'gai notes that Sony fails at giving consumers information that they really need, straight from the company they purchased or acquired the products from. For example he says that when PS3 firmware updates are released, nothing in the download process really explains what the updates to. Yes, the updates page on the official Sony site gets updated from time to time, but it's nothing as powerful, reassuring, and as effective as say, a Major Nelson blog update. Often times people will have to go to sites like like QJ, or at NeoGAF for immediate word on the matter.

Remember PS3 Firmware Update v1.3?

The gap is there. A Sony "fan-boy" would sooner trust an obscure post by 0okm or a quick how-to from Pranav, than wait for the Sony site to update. A Microsoft "xbot" will go to Major Nelson's blog. Big gap right there.

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