Gaming addiction?

Not quite addictive, but it can be very hard to stop sometimes.

I can be playing twh2 athe 1 or 2 in the morning and be perfectly aware that I need to wake up early and I’m storing up consequences. …and yet still play for another hr.

Twice in the last week I’ve stopped because my eyes were literally almost too heavy to keep open, and gone to bed wihout brushing my teeth or cleaning myself, or even putting my clothes away, just leaving them in a pile on the bedroom floor.

I don’t think that’s an addiction, but there’s a certain compulsion that games give, and I think it is to do with engaging you as a participant in ways reading just doesn’t anymore.

Key word here though is any more.

I used to read a tonne of books. I don’t anymore. The last fiction book I recall reading was "The Lits of Locke Lamora "

Anyway I’m less into games than I used to be. Less time and more things to do that I value.

So, not addictive perse imho, but compulsive and something to monitor if you’re responsible for yourself and others.

If I had kids I’d very strictly limit their gaming time.

Edit : typing on a phone on a moving bus. Too many typos.

I’ve been giving this some thought lately. While addiction is probably too strong a word, I have been curious about the amount of time I spend gaming/surfing the web/etc. I consider being able to keep myself fed, have a clean house and clean laundry the equivalent of treading water. It’s a general baseline task for being a functioning adult.

I downloaded an app for my Mac (timings) that will automatically log how often an app is active. I’m also going to try Toggl for a month to track time spent on tasks I don’t use my Mac for. I use my iPad to write and draw with, work on school, etc. I’ll set up Toggle projects for writing, drawing, school, and playing PS4 games.

I’m going to run this through November and see what I get for data.

Anytime people talk about gaming being a “waste of time” or look down on my hobby I think of the Iris Dementt song “The Way I Should”

A cold wind against my shoulder woke me up in the middle of the night
An Autumn leaf was scraping against my window
Like it was trying hard to get inside
And then a ghost that I had met before he kept me up 'til dawn
And everything I thought was right was suddenly all wrong
He said, “Your score is looking pretty bad”
And then he asked me what it was that I had to show

So I went running down a list of things
Some were real, but on some of them I lied
'cause I felt I had to justify each breath that I’d been breathing in this life
Then I realized I was playing into someone else’s rules,
Trying to keep my score up in a game I did not choose
Then I looked that ghost straight in the eye
And said “You’d better not be coming back by again”

And it’s true that I don’t work near as hard
As you tell me that I’m supposed to
I don’t run as fast as I could
But I live just the way I want to
And that’s the way I should

October’s leaves were dancing 'round
Like angels dressed in robes of Red and Gold
But November’s come and gone now
And they’re lying in the gutter out along the road
They’re gonna make their way out to the ditch or someday to the sea,
They’ll get to where they’re going without the help of you or me
And if each life is just a grain of sand
I’m telling you man, this grain of sand is mine

And it’s true that I don’t work near as hard
As you tell me that I’m supposed to
I don’t run as fast as I could
But I live just the way I want to
And that’s the way I should
But I live just the way I want to
And that’s the way I should

I’ve not heard of her before but that was great. Now to go listen to the song…

I was reminded of Radiohead’s Fitter Happier:

Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish – at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick,
that’s driven into frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig in a cage on antibiotics.

These days, I subconsciously play fewer games for fear of being disappointed. But in my old emulator days, I think I may have been addicted, but that may have been due more to the illicit nature of the emulation scene and getting games for “free”.

Are people who torrent everything addicted to torrenting more so than they are to the actual movies/games/music?

Interesting point about disappointment. I think I run across what I consider a truly great game maybe once every 2nd or 3rd year tops, sometimes longer. Most of what I play I consider just ok.

I suspect a part of this is due to playing games for so many years, but there’s also the advent of steam making for the ready availability of so many options causing a paradox of choice as well. All the gaming options I have available to me now creates the nagging sensation that what I’m currently playing or considering playing may not be the optimal choice.

I knew guys in college that had dedicated servers for torrenting games and movies that they never watched or played.

For me, I think the bar keeps getting raised for what gets called a great game. I think we’ve seen so many games, it takes something executed even better or something that brings a new idea for the game to really stand out. What would have been great games 10 years ago just seem like good games now.

I get the non optimal choice thing too. I struggle with it. I try to keep in mind that if I really think something is better then I don’t need to keep playing the current game - I just need to be prepared I probably won’t come back to it.

Yeah, I mean the key I guess is to not let what your other choices are impede enjoying what you’re currently playing.

That said, and just as you mentioned, if you really feel what you’re playing isn’t as much fun as something else you could be playing, play that instead. That’s exactly what I did with DOS2, I made it through I think maybe 2/3’s of the game and stopped because I’d rather be playing Warhammer 2 or Xcom2:WOTC. For me at least, I know better than to ever try playing an RPG again.

Saw a post worth sharing about Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Gacha game on phones.

TLDR - Gambled away over 15000$

That is a sad story for sure.

For one of my classes, I came across this video about addiction, which I thought would be interesting to share here.

TLDR - from what I understood of the video, “addiction” is a misfiring of the need to form bonds and networks. Form proper ones, with loved ones etc, and the addiction never manifests.

I had never thought about it, but I play less than prior to meeting my wife. It’s not simply that I don’t have time: I like games, but I don’t get absorbed into them as much as I used to. One hour is the most I can play of any game at a time. Some genres I was fond of (RPGs), I litterally can’t stand anymore.
My wife, though, has been spending most of her time gaming since we met. Should I be worried?!!

Only if she is beating you at Twilight Struggle.

Do you try to entice her, wearing your sexiest undies, and she just ignores you?

Not only is there no such thing as gaming addiction but in my make belief communist utopia I would making gaming mandatory for everyone, young and old, along with reading, watching films and listening to music.

The people who wreck their lifes by doing nothing but gaming would have been otaku or stamp collectors or any other activity, if gaming had not existed.

Whoa!

Confession time. Fallout 4 survival mode was my “gaming high” last year. That is in past tense because the high is gone. But I remember that high: exploring the unknown while barely staying alive, and getting cool loot. And a save is probably 0.5-1 hour away. I can’t get that in any kind of real life activity (statistically I would have died many times instead of having countless close shaves.) For at least a couple of months I had been getting that high, that’s how long for me to get through Fallout 4 + DLCs.

That probably makes me an adrenaline junkie, but I got very little patience for PvP shooter (hell is other people, especially when those people think teabagging is ok). Only ME3 Platinum PvE gave me that kind of high/satisfaction. Or SF2, back in the days, lining up in the arcade, quarters in hand. The most excitement I get from work is to speak up in a meeting saying contrarian but reasonable things, knowing there will be pushbacks but I’m willing to defend my position (and sometimes, accompanied by utter disappointment when people actually agree with me. Fight me damn it!).

Then the game ends.

So what do I do?

  1. Find another high? or
  2. Accept that the high is one-off and move on.

The problem with #1, like other kinds of high (e.g. sex), is that the chance of finding similar high is not good. It is utterly unpredictable whether the next game (or the next orgasm) will give you that high. So it is probably an utter waste of time to chase it.

Chasing past high again is also a waste of time. I cannot unremember playing Fallout 4. The community playing ME3 PvE or SF2 is gone.

So I move on. I have to. When I get the next high I’d be grateful I get that high. But I just don’t count on find it ever again. At least I have the memories.

Not sure if it will work for you, but I had a time when I was a bit tired of AoW3. I took a long break, came back, installed some mods, and enjoyed the feeling of discovery all over again, the feeling of learning which comboes work, which don’t so well, and now I am modding a little bit.

To help me get over the technical hurdles, as I am anything but a programmer, I treat the modding as a game. So I set myself goals, like:

get this new grapeshot ability to work

which for an experienced modder like Gloweye would be child’s play, but is challenging for me.

And when it does work, that’s a good feeling too.

It’s like a combination of writing (which I used to do alot of and enjoy when I was a child) and painting and playing an instrument, in the sense of learning something new and having something to show for it.