
Why Ever Stop Playing Video Games - pmcpinto
http://www.vulture.com/2017/02/video-games-are-better-than-real-life.html
======
syphilis2
I've found learning and creating to be more fulfilling activities than
videogames. That's not to advocate against gaming, or to generalize all games,
but I've thought about how much time I spent playing games in the past and if
I was happy with what I gained from it: I largely was not. I felt as if I was
lacking in skills that I wished I had, and believe I could have learned in
that time. I'm happier with myself after cutting down greatly on gaming, and I
wonder if other people share the same joy of learning that I feel or if it's
an unpopular perspective.

Add.: What I believe causes a game to feel unfulfilling is if after the game
is finished the player, and the world, is (nearly) unchanged. If there's
nothing to show for it. No new philosophy, no useful talent, no object
created, nothing to share with others. Most games are equivalent in their
impact to a bad reality TV show, a distraction from progress, a time sink, a
void.

~~~
M_Grey
I find that videogames fill my "brain in neutral" space very nicely. If I'm
just not in the mood to read, or get out, pick up some new skill or polish an
old one, hang out with friends or do something productive (and sometimes you
truly want to do _nothing_ )... I find that videogames are a nice choice. I
especially enjoy combining them with unabridged audiobooks that I might not
otherwise bother reading/listening to otherwise.

The trick is to make sure that you resist the temptation to allow that empty
time (like empty calories) to dominate your life. It's like ice cream... a
little is great stuff, but don't make eating it the center of your lifestyle.

~~~
droopyEyelids
I believe the essence of what you're saying is true, but I dispute the overall
reasonableness of what you describe.

The vast majority of video games are either built around the principles of
addiction, or require a tremendous amount of time in muscle memory training.

What you're describing seems like describing how enjoyable it can be to smoke
one cigarette a month. (assuming that actually felt good). Could be true- but
the odds are certainly stacked against people attempting that behavior.

~~~
GuiA
I smoke a cigarette or two about once a month on average, typically when
attending a party.

Not only is it quite pleasant after I've had a beer or three, but they're the
ultimate social hack for introverted nerds. Are you at a crowded bar/party
where it's impossible to have a proper talk with someone? Step outside for a
smoke, and you can instantly have a nice, low key conversation with the other
smokers. Lulls in the conversation aren't awkward cause you can just go back
to taking drags; and once you're done, you can keep talking if you like the
person- or have the perfect excuse to head back in if you don't.

Highly recommended.

~~~
blkhp19
As a non smoker, reading this just makes me feel depressed.

So you use smoking cigarettes as a crutch when making real conversations with
the non-smokers inside gets hard? Then you fill in gaps in conversation with
more smoking? Most people cope with those naturally occurring conversation
gaps without breathing in smoke.

Serious question - Are you, as you stand out there with the party going on
behind you, slightly repulsed by the fact that you connected with someone
because you're both doing the same disgusting habit?

The whole scenario seems so absurdly sad, and certainly not something I'd
"highly recommend" to anyone.

~~~
lolc
I've always tried and failed to keep my smoking habit to occasions where I
could enjoy the smoking.

I wouldn't "highly recommend" trying it, because very few people can keep it
at that level. I couldn't, and my way of quitting was to remember all the
other ones I smoked. To this day, on the rare occasions where I crave smoking,
I'll just remind myself of the nausea, the bad throat, the smell, the
dizziness and whatever else the other ones, the ones I would smoke after the
good one, would do to me.

------
dvt
Guess I might go against the HN grain here. I played Counter-Strike
competitively and professional from around 17-22 (I'd say on average 5-6 hours
a day). I still play every now and then, but don't compete at tournaments or
in leagues. I'm 30 now. Not only was my experience irreplaceable and positive
(I made many life-long friends and met many cool people), but it also helped
me with many other aspects of "grown-up" life:

\- I learned to be goal-oriented and focused

\- I learned how to lead and work with a team to succeed at a common goal

\- I learned how to weed out shitty people that poison the environment

\- I learned what it truly takes and how hard it is to be the top 1% at
anything (even at a stupid video game)

\- I learned how to negotiate contracts and balance budgets

I think being in the top-tier at _anything_ gives a very specific outlook on
things. Playing casually or "just for fun" never really appealed to me as I
have a very competitive personality.

~~~
kp1234321
I am finding it very hard to get out of Silver because when I solo queue i
frequently get matched with teammates who treat the competitive match like a
casual game. Most people either don't use mics at all or they only use them
for racial slurs, and many others just play like they don't really care about
getting a win. It's difficult to lead the team when I get matched with three
other kids who queue up together and dick around the whole match, and it's
very demotivating to realize I'll have to endure at least 16 rounds of
obnoxious chatter and getting owned. I really do want to get better, but I'm
not yet at the point where I can carry an uncooperative team (especially when
there are also smurfs on the other team).

I feel like a good approach would be to find some consistent players and stop
solo queueing, but I'd love to hear if you have any other advice. Also, what
has been a good strategy for you to in weeding out toxic players? Definitely
seems like an applicable skill in all aspects of life.

~~~
s_m_t
You aren't focusing on the right skills. Until you get good at aiming, know
how to move around the map, know how to read the minimap, know how to round a
corner, know how to prefire, know how to place your aim ahead of time, know
how to buy, etc you shouldn't think for a second about coordinating with your
teammates or calling strats.

Your best bet is to stop playing competitive for awhile. Just play aim/duel
maps on the community servers and demolition to practice your aiming. Once you
go back to competitive with some actual aiming skills and spray control you
will easily blow past to MG on technical skill alone.

Again, I highly recommend the aim maps or even a deathmatch server. Spectate
whoever is at the top of leaderboard and try and compare to how you play.
Silvers are so bad at the game playing with them is a waste of time. You have
to play against people who are much better than you to get better.

~~~
obstinate
I like this advice. I never played CS:GO. But I did get to platinum in
StarCraft 2 building nothing but stalkers. All I focused on was my economy and
A-moving when it seemed like I had an advantage. Focusing on the right skills
is important. Many players who were in gold and below were worried about
strats and builds and micro. Totally putting the cart before the horse.

------
robertcorey
Playing starcraft 2 totally consumed my life from about 18-22. It was very
similar to a drug addiction except I convinced myself it was positive because
I would eventually be a professional. My addiction prevented my from working
on the underlying issues that caused my to seek refuge in the game. It also
left me with a host of physical RSI problems that have been a huge negative to
my life + career. Although if I hadn't developed them I suspect I'd still be
consumed by games.

In order to spend vast amounts of time playing video games you have to be at a
certain level of privilege. I feel as if video games have cheated myself out
of potential as well as those that my privilege obligates to help.

As with other addictions there are people who won't be consumed by it like I
was, and prohibition isn't the solution, not sure what is tbh.

~~~
some-guy
Very similar story to me: I played Starcraft 2 throughout college in a
competitive fashion and made me feel worse. There was a period of time after
that where after quitting I wouldn't touch a video game.

I've since picked up a Nintendo 3DS as an experiment now that I take long
train rides to work, and it's been an amazing, relaxing experience.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, there are many different ways to enjoy
video games without being addicted or even playing a lot. Starcraft 2 ladder
play may be one of the more stressful ways of going about it from experience.

~~~
KirinDave
Player Vs Player games are unique. They're designed around making players
constantly navigate a shifting metagame, fighting each other to generate
content out of the existing field.

It's sort of a recipe for unhappiness, as the entire system devolves into,
"Who can find the most abusively unfair strategy first, and then exploit it."
Since most of these games simply cannot have the time devoted to them to make
them "balanced" at the breakneck pace the market demands, they never really
achieve equilibrium and reward only the most heavily invested.

~~~
Cpoll
> "Who can find the most abusively unfair strategy first, and then exploit
> it."

I'm not sure I agree with this. "Finding" the best strategy rewards you for a
week at most, until the community absorbs the strategy. Then you're no farther
than the people you were beating last week.

Most games have co-opted the word "metagame" to describe this phenomenon.
Someone discovers an effective strategy, it becomes the metagame, and
competitive play revolves around polishing understanding and execution as it
pertains to the metagame.

Imbalanced games tend to self-balance at higher levels - all the crap that
doesn't work just disappears from high-level players' playbooks (except
occasionally as surprise gimmicks).

~~~
KirinDave
> I'm not sure I agree with this. "Finding" the best strategy rewards you for
> a week at most, until the community absorbs the strategy. Then you're no
> farther than the people you were beating last week.

In most cases I experienced, exploitative strategies are only slightly
improved, and require a fair amount of skill (usually games hotpatch
outrageous exploits quickly). The people who find it worse train to use it
first, and keep their advantage.

I mean... You said it yourself:

> Most games have co-opted the word "metagame" to describe this phenomenon.
> Someone discovers an effective strategy, it becomes the metagame, and
> competitive play revolves around polishing understanding and execution as it
> pertains to the metagame.

The "shifting meta" is exactly what game designers of big competitive games
want, because it requires ongoing engagement to maintain mastery. A chess
player may be rusty after a year off, but the game doesn't fundamentally
change. Someone playing League or Overwatch cannot say the same as balance has
substantially changed.

> Imbalanced games tend to self-balance at higher levels - all the crap that
> doesn't work just disappears from high-level players' playbooks (except
> occasionally as surprise gimmicks).

I've been part of the "highest levels" of two competitive gaming communities
now, and I can tell you they do NOT self-balance in my experience. And it was
incredibly frustrating to watch the rules change deliberately to break up our
strategies, even though what we were doing was simply a function of
understanding and practice.

Very few pvp games ever "balance out." That's why they have "shifting metas."
Indeed, many gamers claim prefer this because they claim it makes it easier
for new players to enter into the higher brackets against more experienced
players. But really what it does is create a treadmill you can reach the front
or back of.

Maybe some people want that treadmill. I am not sure I do.

~~~
Latty
I'd argue this isn't unique to esports - Formula One has a similar thing
happening - the teams develop new technology to make cars get round the track
faster, and then the organisation decides if they fit within the rules. The
rules change over time.

DOTA2 does this better than most - most strategies are accepted as a part of
the game - in fact, a lot of things core to play now began life as those kind
of exploits (pulling your lane creeps into neutral camps to deny enemies
experience and allow you to farm the neutrals easily, for example). The game
is balanced around those things, even if they were unintended.

Sure, the game is regularly patched, but the solution is very rarely to
directly make something not viable any more - at most it will make it even by
buffing other options or reducing it's viability (but not removing it).

The draft with bans also allows teams to deny the enemy team access to certain
strategies, which means teams can't focus on one strategy, which is nice.

~~~
KirinDave
> I'd argue this isn't unique to esports - Formula One has a similar thing
> happening - the teams develop new technology to make cars get round the
> track faster, and then the organisation decides if they fit within the
> rules. The rules change over time.

The big difference is that the advances in F1 car design and even driving is
that they can have some relevance in the outside world, in totally unrelated
fields to race cars. It's very rare that experience in a video game leads to
new engineering efficiency breakthroughs, materials science, etc. It
_sometimes_ happens that we see interesting models in economics emerge (EVE
stands out here), but I'd say its rarer for sure.

~~~
Latty
Sure, but that isn't the reason people are Formula 1 drivers or why they watch
it, it's just a reason so much money can go into the sport.

I was more talking about how I don't think that (shifting rules as strategies
develop) is a dealbreaker when it comes to audience enjoyment or player
investment.

~~~
KirinDave
Oh it's designed to maximize the need to invest and minimize the return. I'm
not sure that's a deal I like.

------
rthomas6
I used to play games a lot, and I don't now. It's not that I don't want to or
that I wouldn't enjoy it, I just want to do too many other things more. I have
a wife and a kid who demand a lot of my time, I lift weights, I try to play
board games with friends, I work on hobby projects, I read books, I do chores,
I go on trips. As much as getting immersed into the new Witcher game would be
enjoyable to me, I just can't fit it in. All those other things are more
important and make me happier.

~~~
ashark
Similar situation here. With the time constraints imposed by kids you have to
drop entire _categories_ of activities, not just moderate them, because the
baseline time commitment ("oh god, last time I played this was 2 weeks ago and
I only played an hour then—I have no idea WTF was going on or how the controls
work") and money (PC upgrades every couple of years, new consoles) required
just can't be sustained at the incredibly low levels they'd have to to fit in
with kids plus a bunch of other things.

You kinda have to pick 3-4 things to focus on and drop the rest entirely, not
just cut back. If one of those is "stay sort-of in shape" then you're _really_
limited. Most gaming just doesn't fit in any more. :-/

~~~
markdoubleyou
Kids triggered an impulse to take my career to the next level, so between
work, family, maintaining a bare minimum level of fitness, and professional
development, I've got nothing left to give games. TV has taken a major hit,
too.

Something in my brain clicked after the first one was born... an ok-you're-an-
adult-stop-fucking-around mode was triggered. The result is that the lack of
free time doesn't bother me that much. Too busy and tired to care, maybe.

------
saturdaysaint
One addictive aspect of gaming that the author doesn't mention is how
immersive and perhaps addicting a good gaming _scene_ can be. There are people
that live and breathe competitive sports, with most people following a few
teams, and it strikes me that videogames have way more addictive potential.
First of all, the barriers to entry don't include winning a genetic lottery
and/or having high level coaching from a young age, so there's a democratized
element. More importantly, with e-sports, you can watch insanely high level
play (often with engaging/entertaining personalities) 24/7 for free on your
phone, without any of the annoying content protection and walls of most
sports. I suspect I would have given up on Street Fighter a while ago without
the burgeoning streaming scene keeping me hooked and Reddit offering a lively
venue for discussion/learning.

So in a sense, it's not "just a game" like grinding away at an RPG or whatever
in the 90's in my parent's basement was - at times it can feel just as social
as experiences I've had in music scenes.

~~~
chrisdbaldwin
See: Killer Queen Arcade. The underground competitive arcade scene you
(probably) don't know about.

------
arcanus
>155 million Americans play video games, more than the number who voted in
November’s presidential election. And they play them a lot: According to a
variety of recent studies, more than 40 percent of Americans play at least
three hours a week

I'm among them. I play a few hours a week, after my wife and child go to bed.

I barely talk about games with any of my fellow adult friends, because for
some reason it is still too needing a world where discussing programming, star
trek movies or settlers of Cataan is commonplace!

~~~
robin__
I'm jealous. Every time I try a game, I totally suck at it. Even the easy
difficulty is not easy enough anymore. Nowadays, I only enjoy puzzle games if
anything at all.

~~~
theandrewbailey
That's strange. Gamers have been complaining that games have been getting
easier over time, to the point that 'normal' difficulty on many games
(especially heavily marketed ones) is too easy.

~~~
ryandrake
There's the key: Gamers have been complaining, not normal people. When I used
to be a gamer (meaning I didn't have anything else to do with my life than get
better at games), I could literally spend hundreds of hours mastering a single
game. When you're at that level, games seem easy. Now, I casually will pick up
a game once every three months or so and play, and for some games unless it's
the easiest difficulty level, I get my ass kicked. Online (vs. "gamers")?
Forget it. I totally get the "difficulty inflation" that's happening.

------
2Pacalypse-
I've been playing a single video game for more than half of my life (I'm 30
now). I've dabbled with other games, but this game and the community around it
contributed a lot in making me the person I am today. I don't plan on stopping
any time soon. In fact, for the past few years I've shifted most of my free
time from playing that game to helping a friend develop cool shit[0] for it,
so we can hopefully prolong its lifetime. Programming and gaming go so well
together that I'm pretty sure I'll continue hacking on some old games when I'm
60.

[0] - [https://shieldbattery.net](https://shieldbattery.net)

~~~
Humdeee
From your first sentence, I knew it was BW. We're the same age. I remember
very clearly all those nights fighting away on WGT and later, the PGT ladder.
I remember when the patch hit that allowed everyone to save replays. I
remember BWChart and how revolutionary it was at the time. The anti-hack
programs you needed to run in the background. Traveling to play in the world
cyber games once a year. Fighting for a spot on the national team to be
involved in nation wars. Although it was virtual, team 88) and team [LighT]
made those years for me.

------
pnathan
I played a _lot_ of video games when younger.

I regret the amount of time I spent. It deeply harmed my health, harmed my
social relationships, harmed my school, and limited my world. It was empty
success.

My total `/played` in WoW wound up well over 2 __years __at this point over a
5 year period, I believe. And WoW was not the only game I 've played. I've not
logged on in years, and I don't care to reactivate and do the math.

On the other hand... they were inexpensive entertainment that worked out well
for my living situations. Some of them provided great relationships and
wonderful bonding experiences with other humans from all over the world. Games
motivated me to get into software development.

Yet, had I limited myself in time and taken the time saved from games to doing
more programming, more art, and more reading (all perfectly doable and
feasible for the life situations I was in when I was spending time gaming that
much), I'd be a better human today. Period. Video games are fine in
responsible amounts, and I consumed in vast and irresponsible amounts.

These days I pull out Dwarf Fortress every couple months and spend the
evenings on a weekend Striking the Earth, and that's appropriate and
responsible in my life at present. I encourage my colleagues who have freshly
graduated from college to limit their gaming and to use that time to improve
themselves in other ways more engaged in the totality and diversity of human
life.

------
twoquestions
I used to play video games a lot, especially 'builder' type games like Harvest
Moon 64 or SimCity.

These days however, I feel guilty whenever I fire up a game, even one I really
enjoy. I feel like I should be doing something more 'real', like playing
guitar or building something, even if it's trivial.

It's strange, because in the end enjoying my time gaming with my friends or
playing guitar with them or building things for them add up to be the same.

------
dragontamer
> more than 40 percent of Americans play at least three hours a week

Watching a single football game per week takes up more time. Honestly, 3-hours
/ week for an entertainment venue you enjoy is kinda small.

The average football game is 3-hours 12 minutes. The average baseball game is
2-hours 54 minutes.

I find it strange that in our culture, its fine to spend hours upon hours of
watching Football, Basketball, Hockey, Baseball (and then play fantasy
football and otherwise participate in social norms for even more hours
throughout the week).

But a paltry 3-hours of video games spread out in a few sessions per day?
That's outrageous!

\----------

Lets compare apples to apples here. If you spend 3-hours gaming per week, its
equivalent to watching a single game of football or baseball per week. Its
honestly nothing to be ashamed of.

Now I played "Maple Story" (an awful MMORPG) for 4-hours a __day __at my peak.
THAT is shameful and a waste. But 3-hours a week is more than reasonable, and
just as healthy as any other entertainment venue. Hell, its arguably better to
actually have your mind active in a video game than other, more passive, forms
of entertainment.

Real hobbies (music, art, creation, programming, engineering...) probably are
the best for your brain though. And you get useful skills to boot.

------
overcast
Honestly I don't see the thirty something generation ever giving up video
games. They've been a part of our entire lives at this point. Once we're old,
it will be a case where no generation has ever been without video games in
some capacity.

~~~
alexchantavy
There's also probably going to be a huge market in making games that older
people can play when this generation hits retirement age.

~~~
mikestew
I'm bumping up against retirement age, and I'll still kick your ass at
Titanfall (well, maybe; the odds are good, but not assured). Call of Duty,
meh, not so much.

I foresee a time where playing some twitch games aren't going to work for me
anymore. But anything with the slightest hint of tactical gameplay and this
oldster-in-the-making will be fine, I think. Especially the Tom Clancy games
where "run and gun" just gets you killed more quickly. I look forward to
Rainbow Six: Palm Springs with the Naples DLC expansion pack.

~~~
civilian
My dad just turned 65 and he still has no interest in video games except for
solitaire. But I really think that he'd enjoy video games, especially as a way
to keep an active mental life in retirement. I tried to explain the "it's
almost-real physics!" angle of Kerbal Space Program, but that wasn't
persuasive. Any tips?

Also, have you played Overwatch or TF2? I found both of those more interesting
than Titanfall-- and a wise player can really help a team by jumping into the
role that isn't present on a team.

~~~
mikestew
"Hero" type games don't interest me much, and though Team Fortress interests
me, just never made time for it. But, yeah, I've always been the one to sit on
the flag with a rocket launcher, throw my warm body at a territory when no one
else will (K/D, _phfffftt_ ). Don't see why that won't still serve me well in
my old age.

~~~
overcast
Overwatch is an EXTREMELY polished version of TF2. There is really nothing at
its level at this point. I play both Titanfall 2 and Overwatch now. Titanfall
2 is a great, super fast team action shooter. Overwatch is completely focused
on balanced team combat, each player has a unique character, with unique
abilities to counter other character abilities. No two players can have the
same character on one team, and the "scoring" is quite unique. KD is really
not taken into account, and in fact, you can't even see that ratio at any
point during the game, except for your own number of kills, and deaths. Points
are awarded at the end for a wide variety of things, and ALL players vote the
top 4 players, based on these types of achievements. It's pretty awesome.

~~~
mikestew
Thanks, all. It's obvious I've confused Overwatch with something else. Given
the backlog I've currently got, I'll wait until the "Game of the Year"
discount and give it a whirl.

~~~
overcast
It was just $20 on the korean battlenet(global key) :) That's where I picked
it up while I was on the fence!

------
gnarcoregrizz
I've been semi-hooked on counter-strike for the past few years. I started
getting into it again after I got sick, and now some of my long distance high
school and college friends jumped on the bandwagon again and we play
regularly. Its a great way to stay in touch and socialize, as well as just
have fun playing the game. Its also SUPER competitive which has its upsides
and downsides. It makes the game dynamic, you constantly need to stay on top
of the 'meta' to be good, but at the same time its tiresome, so its not a
casual game at higher levels. As with anything, it does come at a real life
expense - I have 700 hours on the game, and I need to remind myself when to
cut the cord or to take a week off. I usually play 0-2 hrs a day now. Overall,
spending a nice weekend outside with friends and family is a lot better than
spending it playing video games.

~~~
M_Grey
Balance. It's a theme that runs through absolutely everything in life, and
video games are no exception.

------
0xcde4c3db
> What did the game offer that the rest of the world could not? To begin with,
> games make sense, unlike life: As with all sports, digital or analog, there
> are ground rules that determine success (rules that, unlike those in
> society, are clear to all). The purpose of a game, within it, unlike in
> society, is directly recognized and never discounted.

I think this is really _the_ underappreciated factor in why people prefer
video games to jobs. For some people, it's not that they're lazy and games are
an excuse to avoid work, it's that the games are _actually a far better work
experience_ than the average job. You don't have to go to any meetings where
an HR manager breathlessly explains how the new performance assessment web app
is going to make everything better, even though it just looks like a reskin of
the one you used last year. You don't have to spend a single nanosecond
thinking about whether you're going to be edged out for a promotion by someone
who has a better rapport with the boss. There are no especially demanding
customers or government budget cuts eating away at the revenue you're paid
from. You get to just _do the goddamn work_.

~~~
dropit_sphere
There is a lot to be said for this.

I recently wrote _the_ guide for teamplay with the US Forces army of Company
of Heroes 2. USF is widely considered underpowered in team games, because
those games often devolve into tank slugfests, and USF lacks heavy tanks.
Players who are considered "good" at USF in team games generally play "worse
Soviets" \--- that is, their playstyle (mass artillery) would be better
executed by a different army.

I quixotically refused to accept this, and played a ton of games as USF,
trying to find a style that played to their strengths and was viable in large
team games. It was my top idea in mind for a while, to use pg's concept---the
thing I thought about in the shower.

Eventually I came up with a style that emphasized flanking, range, kiting, and
prioritized taking and using ground. The most important thing was that it was
_non-gimmicky_ \---that is, it is not an easily counterable one-track pony. I
wrote a guide detailing it and the underlying concepts over the course of a
couple days, then posted it to the subreddit.

I compare this to a React app I recently wrote for a client. We had to work
with a kludgy financial API, we had to compromise on certain features to be
ready in time for a stakeholder inspection, and some bits of the code are not
so great.

It's strange, but I almost wish I lived in a universe where I could put the
CoH 2 guide on my resume, and not the client work. It's a better product, it
represents (relatively) pioneering intellectual work, and I can take full
credit for all of it with clear conscience.

Of course, no one will make any money off of it; it will not feed any hungry
mouths, and an overweening preference for solo projects can signify difficulty
working with others. But: the experience of working on it was great, and I can
look back and say, "I did a good job, at a hard thing, that conventional
wisdom believed was impossible."

------
KirinDave
Yes, playing games is fun. In no small part because they're carefully
engineered to engage you, provide a path to success, and otherwise resemble a
theme park experience. Even games like EVE Online that pride themselves on
being massive PvP arenas are carefully tuned to make constant conflict a
reality.

Not many people here know this but I have a youtube channel where I have done
an absolute ton of gaming content (mostly minecraft, but perhaps most famously
a Dwarf Fortress tutorial series), as a way to practice my speech and work
through a very difficult stutter.

And while I still respect and root for my full time youtuber friends, for me
it felt like such an emply lifestyle. Ultimately you're just walking along in
other people's stories, experiencing other people's visions, and working
within other people's limits was increasingly galling. And short of becoming
unpaid labor for those games via their modding scenes, you are a passenger in
someone else's car on someone else's map.

Like television (and probably better than television, from a cognitive
perspective), gaming is a great escape. But making it more and more of your
life as some of this article suggests is a recipe for gradually detaching
yourself from real life, real problems and real accomplishments. It's an
addictive escapism, and ever year the authors of said escapism refine their
techniques in a ruthless competition to keep you captivated.

And the best minecraft fort or cleverest warframe trick I've pulled off pales
in accomplishment to selling a company I built, teaching a new developer a new
skill, or anything similar. The minute that gaming becomes an end until
itself, you end up sliding down a slippery slope to irrelevance.

------
panic
Great article, but I disagree with this section:

 _Fourth: economics. Since every game is reliant on this addictive incentive
system, every gamer harbors a game theorist, a situational logician blindly
valorizing the optimization of quantified indices of “growth” — in other
words, an economist. Resource management is to video games what ­African-
American English is to rap music or what the visible sex act is to pornography
— the element without which all else is unimaginable. In games as in the
market, numbers come first. They have to go up. Our job is to keep up with
them, and all else can wait or go to hell._

Numbers and economic incentive systems show up in many games, but they're not
fundamental. Take a look at games like Journey, Portal, Gone Home, Yume Nikki,
or many others which work just fine without numbers. The creator of Undertale,
Toby Fox, had this to say in an interview
([http://existentialgamer.com/interview-toby-fox-
undertale](http://existentialgamer.com/interview-toby-fox-undertale)):

 _TEG: I really loved the fact that many of the branches in UNDERTALE‘s story
seemed to lead to miniature “voids” where I was forced to contemplate what I’d
just experienced without being “improved” in any quantitative way. Do you
think that as gamers and people we have become addicted to numbers / money /
experience in general?

TF: The addictive quality of “numbers increasing” is what drives a lot of
games. But some of the most important things in life can’t be accurately
represented by numbers. As for people’s lives, I have no comment._

------
TulliusCicero
Playing games is rad and cool, and there are many studies demonstrating
various cognitive benefits. One of my favorite was on the elderly playing
_Rise of Nations_ , a critically-acclaimed RTS that's a sort of blend between
Civilization and Age of Empires:
[https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/206094](https://news.illinois.edu/blog/view/6367/206094)

> The researchers found that training on the video game did improve the
> participants' performance on a number of these tests. As a group, the gamers
> became significantly better - and faster - at switching between tasks
> compared with the comparison group. Their working memory, as reflected in
> the tests, also was significantly improved. Their reasoning ability was
> enhanced. To a lesser extent, their short-term memory of visual cues was
> better than that of their peers, as was their ability to identify rotated
> objects.

~~~
cableshaft
They really need to make a proper sequel to Rise of Nations. That game was
great. Also loved its single-player metagame mode.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Well, at least they released an HD version on Steam.

------
Taylor_OD
Every 6 months or so I find a game that swoops in and eats up all my time.
Usually it is a valuable and rewarding experience and its missed once I
complete the game. Then I spend 6 months trying games from my steam library
until I find another one that has that special something.

It's not the best method but I try to set a timer for 30 minutes 3 times a
week and try a new game I've never played. It's obviously not a perfect method
but often that's enough time to decide if I want to dedicate more time to that
game.

~~~
cableshaft
Last year for me it was _The Witness_ , _Life is Strange_ , and to a lesser
extent _Monument Valley_. Those were all excellent.

This year the first one is _Civilization VI_ , but I fully expected that.

~~~
Taylor_OD
Hey! I just played Inside. It's made by the same creators of Limbo which was a
hit a couple years back. The whole game took me about 3 hours but it was
great. Puzzle focused but they were just difficult enough that I never got
frustrated and blended into the game enough that they almost didnt feel like
puzzles. Check it out!

------
dpeterson
I recently just started playing a videogame again. The last time I played was
World of Warcraft in 2005. I stopped to fulfill my career goals, get a masters
degree and strike it rich working on my own startup. Well, as the years went
by I kept telling myself, any day now my startup will take off and I can go
back to enjoying my life and do things like play video games. Uh uh. The only
thing I have to show for my years of programming and working endlessly on my
startup outside of work is horrible anxiety (I hope but it could be much
worse). So, here I am, 12 years older and back playing World of Warcraft where
I started. I should have been enjoying my life the whole time. Live and Learn.

------
vesak
If I would play games for 90% of the time I currently spend on Reddit, Hacker
News, Twitter, Facebook, etc, I'd be a better man. Happier and more effective.

I think I'll start doing exactly that.

[http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/)

------
ajeet_dhaliwal
Games, especially Japanese video games are why I got into programming, got
into the games industry, why I'm on this site.

I limit my time playing them now due to work, my entreprenuerial engagements,
wife and two children but I just got finished with Final Fantasty XV two days
ago and it was the most magical time. Ignis is my new favorite game character.
I'm convinced games are a better story telling medium than books, movies and
TV. I never remember the details of anything I've watched but with a game I
always remember because i actively participate in caring for the characters,
healing them, making them grow.

There is a negative side, they can be too engaging, too much fun and too
rewarding in an instant gratification sense. Sales at your startup not going
well? A game can make you feel good, getting bullied at school? A game will
help, but really we should deal with the real problem and then make time for
games. If you do that they are great and I'm convinced they will get better
and we have not seen anywhere near the full potential yet.

------
paublyrne
I would love to play games still. I certainly enjoyed it in my teens and in
periods in my 20s where I had more free time than I do now. They can be a real
time sink though, so I don't allow myself to buy a console. I barely find time
for the pursuits I want to enjoy as it is.

~~~
scottmcleod
"..so I don't allow myself to buy a console." this is common with so many
other people I know (and try to convince to game with me as Adults).

I think its all too common to watch Nextflix & HBO for 20 hours in a week, but
video games are taboo, despite being more social and cognitively enhancing.

~~~
gozur88
The difference is there's no length to most video games. If you sit down to
watch a movie you've blocked out ninety minutes (or whatever), and when the
movie is over you're not going to tell yourself "I'll just watch for five more
minutes."

If you're the kind of person who can't ignore that voice you'll end up
spending a lot more time gaming than you intended, particularly if your game
of choice has some sort of level treadmill.

~~~
ashark
You also don't suffer for spending 2-3hrs watching a movie then waiting
indefinitely before watching another. Even if you're watching a _series_ of
movies they were originally released months to years apart, so you'll be fine
when you pick it back up—a glance at the Wikipedia summary for the previous
entry will do if you feel it's necessary.

With video games, take weeks off and you'll have forgotten the story (if
any/relevant) and how to play effectively. At least that's my experience with
single-player games—if I take too much time off I just have to start over,
because I'll be too bad at it to handle the later stages I'm in on my last
save, won't remember enough of the story, and will have lost my connection to
the characters.

------
beat
I used to say I don't play videogames for the same reason I don't shoot drugs
into my eyeballs.

Then I got a medical condition that required injecting drugs into my eyeball
once a month.

I still don't play videogames, but take that, Keith Richards!

------
my_ghola
I've replaced watching movies and TV with videogames. It's more engaging and a
single video game can give me 30 to 60 hours of entertainment compared to a TV
series that gives me 6 to 12.

~~~
cpeterso
Somewhere between TV and video games, I started watching "Let's Play" game
walkthrough videos of favorite Sierra Online adventure games from my childhood
that I never completed. You get to discover the stories' secrets without the
frustration, plus many of people recording the walkthroughs are pretty funny.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Play)

~~~
gozur88
It's funny you should mention that. I replaced my TV watching with video
games, but over the last year have spent a lot of time watching other people
play on twitch. Kind of going full circle.

------
nyrulez
If anyone loves video games, but wants to able to pace the habit somehow,
thought I will mention this thing:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UY0TS9A/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UY0TS9A/)

It's a pre-commitment device and works great for many things, including
gaming. And way better than fighting with and depleting your will power, while
not giving up your hobby altogether if it's taking up an undesirable portion
of your time.

------
tps5
I spent my college years pretty invested in computer games, mostly dota.

I stopped when I got a job that I actually wanted to have. For a while I tried
to do both, and did. But I was exhausted all the time. Computer games are not
passive entertainment (for me anyway), they require a lot of energy.

If I could invest 2 hours a day into a computer game, I'd like that. But I
can't. Even aside from the energy requirement, I have trouble playing games
casually. Performing poorly at something bothers me and the only way to
improve is to invest more time (than 2 hours).

Anyway, I think this is an uncommonly good article. Computer games taught me
that value is totally subjective. You have to pick your own goals, and you'd
be making a mistake to adopt the goals of the people around you just because
they outvote you.

I found value somewhere else, but there's a large segment of the population
working boring, low paying jobs that they hate. For some of these people,
games will provide far more value than what they're getting out of work. And
that's totally fine. It's life and life only.

------
CRUDmeariver
I have gone through several periods in my life where I have obsessively played
video games, usually followed by me selling the console in disgust with myself
and buying a new one ~1.5 years later.

What has changed for me lately is building a gaming PC. I have found that this
beast new PC, and the things I can do with it, are more interesting to me than
most games.

My single favorite game that has drawn me in the most is Metal Gear Solid V.
It's very slow paced and tactical but still an action game. You have to make a
lot of intelligent decisions and formulate your own strategy to infiltrate the
buildings. Plus there is a whole Civilization-esque aspect where you build
your own paramilitary organization and deal with things like personnel and
budgets. Add on top of that the insane supernatural geopolitics of the story
and it is a very engrossing experience.

~~~
terminalcommand
Could you give some examples as to the benefits of building a killer PC?

What interesting things can you do with it, that you previously couldn't? Or
is it simply the speed and the ease of use?

I'm also thinking of building a desktop PC, but I'm afraid that I won't be
needing it. I don't game, I mostly write programs and browse the web. Does it
really change things in terms of latency and if it does, does that have an
impact on the relationship with your computer?

~~~
CRUDmeariver
For me it is doing big data processing that your average laptop cannot handle
well. I have the top Core i7 and I see it as a challenge using it to the
fullest. You can run the heaviest clunkiest IDE with ease. Also the
flexibility and resiliency of having multiple hard drives (a sacrosanct SSD
for the system, and a HDD for messing around). Plus I can run VMs with ease
when I get tired of Windows.

Easily extendable RAM, tons of usb ports, the list goes on... Plus it was fun
to build and I learned a lot.

------
Razengan
For all you know, real life could be a video game played by some higher
dimensional beings.

~~~
2Pacalypse-
For all you know, that higher dimensional beings' real life could be a video
game played by an even higher dimensional beings. It's turtles all they way
down.

------
tepidandroid
I tried quitting video games cold turkey shortly before starting university.
At the time, I was a huge Diablo II and Broodwar player. It was probably all
that I ever did or thought about on a day to day basis during highschool. At
lunch, my friends and I would hang out on Battle.net in the computer lab and
then again, after school, probably from 5pm to 11:30pm every day (with 11:30pm
to 1am dedicated to school work). I was pretty much obsessively playing these
games to the point that my schoolwork started to suffer as well as
relationships with parents and siblings. I'd get into daily fights with my
parents about how much time I was spending online.... luckily I was somehow
able to keep my grades pretty decent and got accepted into a good university.

During university it was League of Legends every day. After graduating, I
racked up almost 4000 hours of Team Fortress 2 in a two year period in
addition to a few thousand hours of World of Tanks.

I can honestly say that I regret all of it and I now look at my 'hours spent
playing X' Steam statistic in shame. The thing with all of these games is that
time spent playing them is a sunk cost, not an investment. You will never get
it back. You will never acquire any returns for your time except for the
immediate gratification you receive while playing it. And your real life
problems won't just go away but will probably just get worse for lack of
attentiveness.

If you are consciously aware of these facts and that is what you are after,
then great! But I think many people get sucked into the addictive side of
video games unwittingly. It's just a fact that most of these games have been
psychologically designed to keep you playing for as long as possible -as long
as you keep playing it, you can retain that sense of fake fulfillment and
defer whatever reality you were trying to escape from in the first place. Day
after day passes by in the blink of an eye because your brain gets put on
auto-pilot, and those hard realities never get any easier. "Achievements",
ladder ranking, collecting digital pixels... it's all just so meaningless in
real life. These things turn people who might otherwise have followed their
natural curiosities or be great _producers_ of things (be it code, reading,
writing, art, music, etc) into mindless _consumers_ craving that next fake
reward. And to me that is a pity.

I wish I could have spent all those hours developing my real life interests
instead. All told, I'm probably behind by 5-6 years in terms of technical
proficiency and just maturity-wise compared to the peers I look up to the
most. I have nothing to make up for those deficiencies except perhaps an
overactive adrenal gland and some mild social anxiety.

Video game experiences are, by their very nature, virtual and transient. Would
you not rather spend your time honing a skill or producing something of real
value (that doesn't end when the servers shut down), something to look back
fondly upon when you're older? The only game worth playing is the game of
life.

------
kybernetyk
Time. Or lack of it.

I can enjoy video games only when I can get really good at them. And I simply
can't get really good at something if I'm doing it only for a few hours on the
weekend.

------
DaveSapien
I love games. I make games. I don't have the time to play games. This is my
problem. If anyone has advice on how to play more, i'd love to hear it.

------
tehchromic
Because beekeeping and ping pong are more fun!

That said, I'm interested in farm integrated gaming. I think there are ways to
make automation adventurous. Properly this will be different than what we call
gaming today, however I think the answer to your question is that when tech
assisted activities are diversion from reality they tend to go out if style.
When they amend it and make it cooler they tend to become it!

------
triode3
Because a modern video card "Good enough" to play those awesome modern games
costs more than my whole damn computer? That's why I quit.

------
dk8996
I used to play video games a lot. CS, Sim games, Strategy Games were my thing.
Now I find them boring. I found other activities that are more fulfilling like
crossfit and yoga. I also spend most of my freed up time improving my self
professionally -- tech moves fast. Overall, I regret playing video games,
considering how much time I spent doing it but I don't regret doing it with
friends.

------
chis
This is a cool article, don't get me wrong. But is there a name for the
fallacy of just categorizing things instead doing actual analysis? You really
have to stretch to fit some games into the "levels" of graphics, narrative,
objectives and economy.

------
temp-ora
i absolutely hate and detest the way that he talks about his associate
dropping out of college. he says something like "he dropped out of college but
he was ok, just graduated late." he says this as if not graduating from
college is like getting some kind of terrible disease. i was having a family
dinner with a bunch of extended family one time and i jokingly told them i was
going to drop out and go into the trades. they all recoiled in horror,
literally making that gasping sound you hear in movies. "certainly not!" there
should be absolutely no shame or indignity in not being able to or wanting to
finish a college degree. it shouldnt be a status symbol.

------
donovanm
For me I just realized I wasn't very fulfilled by playing video games all of
the time. Nowadays I still like to play games but in smaller amounts. Instead
of building things in games I now find myself wanting to build software
projects :p.

------
shmerl
I don't really like when computer games are called video games. It kind of
lessens their value.

Computers allow implementing a lot of different features in gaming, and not
all of them are visual.

~~~
marssaxman
They were called "video games" before people started using computers to play
them.

~~~
shmerl
What did they use then if not computers?

~~~
DanBC
Have a look at the PONG original circuit diagram which uses discrete logic.
It's hard to call that a computer.

[http://atarihq.com/danb/Pong.shtml](http://atarihq.com/danb/Pong.shtml)

[http://hackaday.com/2012/12/22/fabricating-hardware-from-
the...](http://hackaday.com/2012/12/22/fabricating-hardware-from-the-original-
arcade-pong-schematics/)

~~~
shmerl
I don't think this was the first such game. There were computer games which
predate it.

Either way, even if electronic games existed that didn't use computers,
computers clearly took that role being more versatile.

------
nradov
Playing most video games feels like doing unpaid work with nothing to show for
it in the end.

------
temp-ora
some video games are just additive and mindless. others are works of art and
thought provoking. you should only play the former in limited amounts.
spending lots of time in the latter can be justified if you are thinking about
and appreciating the game while you play it because it will spur productive
activities afterwards -- you will develop questions and passions based on the
game that will linger long after playing and those will lead to building and
creating things of your own. half life 2 is a good example of that in my
opinion.

------
nazka
I have been a huge gamer but I stopped to play 5 years ago. I started to play
on the master system and all the video games on DOS I could find. I started
with Wolfeinshtein 3D, Prince of Persia, Another World since then I never
stopped to play video games. It was a great way to "reset my brain to neutral"
and to have fun while using my intellect and imagination. Me and my twin spent
all our money on it, it was our passion and one of the biggest reasons I
wanted to be a developer. We had a PS1 and a PC, friends had a N64 and so on.
I was able to play on a lot of platforms to a lot of video games. I loved
series that everybody knows like the Zelda, or Tekken knowing all the
background stories of each character. I played and loved also less known or
banned video games (because being violent it was a thing at that time) like
Carmageddon, Die Hard, Road Rush, or Dead Ball Zone... Just thinking about
doing a list right make me remember all the games I played and loved. I even
remember sharewares that I loved that only a few people know like Chaos
Overlords or experimental video games like Black and White. I loved that time
and these games teached me a lot. But I also sunk a lot of time playing them.

I remember here on HN someone posted an amazing article to explain reverse
engineering from the first level to the end boss. And that was really
interesting to learn about it from an expert Point of view. You had
specifications about different electronic components, he explained different
tools he was using... Someone impressed on HN commented about how this was
amazing and even more about how he could do all that when him had no time. He
came home after a day of coding and plays video games to rest and then sleeps.
The author responded that it wasn't as insane as it seemed to have his level
(he even did some crazy things in Haskell just for fun for his RE) and he said
that all he did was to poke around when he came back home and learn more and
more about reverse engineering.

Back in the days video games felt to be made with a lot of love from the
developers. Now it's really hard for me to find a game I can really dive down.
The world is so much wealthier and the games so limited. Even as a pure gamer
we can quickly find the limits of a game. I can only find my happiness in
indie video games but they are still limited. The rest is all about graphics,
additive designs, marketing, or just meh. (The only games that are relevant to
me now are Distant World Universe, Assetto Corsa, and Wargame).

When You cut yourself of video games, other distractions, and open your mind
to see the possibility offer by this world, it's like the impression you have
when you play Shenzhen IO. You realize that the real world is complex and hard
but that make it makes it so much more interesting and rewarding. I took the
real course at Stanford in ML and intent to do the one about convex
optimization, I learn a lot about law in general, pattens, finance,
investment... (In fact my MacBook right now is sitting Chartered Financial
Analyst books) and this month I am learning Kubernetes and techs like that
even thought I am not a devops. This wouldn't have been possible by being
focused on video games.

------
bobbington
My dad was a genius.

I learned how to code c++ in middle school because my dad had a great rule:
you can only play video games you create, except for 1 hour on Saturday.

It was a brilliant rule, and I had a blast learning to code. I didn't end up
playing my pong game too much. But I learned an amazing life skill which now
pays my bills. And the feeling of creating my own installable program was way
better than any video game

~~~
kazagistar
I had a higher base quota, but my parents did something very similar, where
working on creating and playing my own games didn't count against it.

------
PravlageTiem
Played WoW for years. Grinded most of my members to rank 14.

Ran a PvP guild that lost three times in 6 months during this grind.

Tricked the entire horde to split forces in AV with 3 deep operatives,
allowing Alliance to engage with the horde in two 37 vs. 20 waves, allowing
them to win for the first time on that server in a year.

I regret none of it. I learned how to lead people in high-stress situations,
how to build loyalty, and how to handle high-performance people while feeding
their never-ending urge for conquest. I took all those skills and now I run
multiple companies in different sectors, all designed to achieve a singular
goal when they are all put together.

------
douche
I've always leaned towards strategy games the most. Some of the best ones are
nearly as educational as entertainment. When I was in college, I honestly
think that the hours I poured into Europa Universalis and Victoria and
Crusader Kings were as effective for learning history as a great deal of the
readings I was assigned for class.

If nothing more, you learn a lot about geography...

------
datatan
What an awful article. It's like they spent 5 pages just waiting for an
opportunity to called Trump supporters "Trumpists" and label people they
dislike. Sad they are so bitter and angry, totally destroys any rational point
they may have been trying to make.

------
skookumchuck
I stopped because they bored me to tears.

