How Quitting Video-Games Improved My Life.
Adrift in the Sea.
“The obvious objective of video games is to entertain people by surprising them with new experiences.” — Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and others.
I remember the moment very clearly.
Sitting at my desk, controller in hand, I watched my player-character bob up and down in virtual water. The player character was a middle-aged man on the threshold of crossing into old age. Mud and grime coated his armor and his swords were dull from excessive use. His long, white hair bobbed up and down with his body, resembling a pasta experiment gone wrong. When you turned the camera around, you saw a scarred, grizzled face looking at you as if to say ‘what’s the hold up? Get on with the adventuring you lazy gamer!’
As I gazed out into what lay in front of the character — an entire part of the world-map covered in water I hadn’t explored yet — I finally had to confront a feeling I’d been trying to suppress for a long time; role-playing-experiences were no longer bringing me the joy they used to.
Even worse, when thinking about the prospect of playing other games didn’t bring any sense of newfound joy. Imagining continuing this never-ending-game of monster-hunting, monster-slaying, questing, exploring, storytelling, and item-crafting began to wear heavily on my mind. Even other genres that I used to enjoy — turn-based-strategy, real-time-strategy, action, or classic side-scrollers — seemed to contain diminishing returns.
Returns diminishing not only in terms of fun but in my bank accounts as well.
For a minute, I simply sat the controller on top of the console and let the camera fixate on the character; we stared back at each other for what seemed like an eternity. While he continued to be disgruntled at my refusal to move him, my feelings rose into a pinnacle of virtual fatigue.
I looked at the game’s record containing the dozens of hours I’d logged in. I also looked at the unexplored regions on the map and thought about the unexplored regions in the real world I was missing out on: not just location-wise but experience-wise too.
The more progress I make in these games, the less progress I make in my life.
Without further ado, I shut the console off and began a video-game-fast that a younger version of me would’ve blanched at. While the fast soon caved in to a few other games here and there, I’ve considered myself game-free for at least two years.
What I lost were the wistful memories of childhood innocence.
The things I gained were something else entirely.
Exploring Real Worlds Instead of Virtual Ones.
“It feels like there’s something for everyone in video-games. It’s not just a toy for a certain age group. It’s seeped into the culture now.” — Rich Moore, director of Wreck-it-Ralph.
I want to admit one thing upfront: video-games will always remain a key piece of my childhood and adolescent nostalgia.
Ever since obtaining a copy of Pokémon Red Version for Christmas in 1998, videogames — specifically role-playing-games — made their hallmark as one of my favorite pastimes. If I wasn’t doing homework or doing after-school-activities, you could bet your money I was slaying monsters or leveling characters of some kind. Being caught up in the Pokémon craze meant also discovering Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, Civilization, the Total War series, Halo, Gears of War, and other games usually involving, death, destruction, aliens, or history (the cult-classic series Destroy All Humans! happily contains all four).
And when you’re not the coolest or most popular kid in your grade, these games can provide a pleasant escape from the real world; bullies, mean teachers, homework, grades, papers due, and crushes on girls completely out of your league can feel like insignificant problems when the fate of a character, an empire, a world, or a galaxy is at stake.
But when the undergraduate and post-graduate-years years arrived, something changed. Suddenly games didn’t hold the same magic they used to. The old-world problems of bullies, mean teachers, homework, grades, papers due, and adolescent-love-angst morphed into new-world-problems of rent, car-payments, student-loan-payments, insurance, groceries, and…well…relationship-angst has still stayed relatively the same.
Playing the sequel to a favorite franchise used to feel like a really important moment…but when I started booting up games in my early-twenties, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the magic was lost.
The virtual monsters I was used to conquering had turned into very real monsters which threatened to make real-life-leveling-up almost impossible; moments spent on gaming were moments not spent on accomplishing what I wanted to do in the real world.
Hanging out with friends, traveling to cities I’d never been to, and discovering ways to make money on top of my full-time job kept getting put on the backburner.
So on that fateful day — when I put down the controller and started the journey to doing more with life than twiddle about in idle worlds — a series of positive discoveries were set into motion.
And they’d end up changing my life for the better.
Leveling Up in Real Life.
“You learn a lot by playing RPG’s, although not all of it was useful, or real for that matter — unless you really believed that wolves carry seven gold pieces, a flawed garnet, a scroll of ice storm, and a lock-pick somewhere about their person.” — Sorin Suciu, author of The Scriptlings.
Three major realizations developed over time:
1. I Started to Keep Better Friendships — less time gaming meant more time for going out and catching up with people I hadn’t seen in years. Whether they were from work, college, or high-school, the extra free time allowed me to get in touch on a regular schedule. Impromptu texts turned into catch-up-meetings. Online-sessions with people I’d never met in real life didn’t hold a candle to the people I could see in the real world — people I had years of experience with.
2. I Turned the Real World Into an Open-World-Game — In the olden days, I never would’ve considered driving to an unexplored city on my dime. Once I realized that entering a tavern in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was just as interesting as entering any virtual one, the possibilities opened up. Just as they did in the virtual world, talking with people in the real world led to optional side-quests and different areas to be explored. If a mysterious bounty-hunter giving you a contract to help him hunt a dangerous assassin once seemed like a thrilling adventure, taking the spicy-wing-eating-challenge at a local gastropub proved to be just as exciting.
3. ‘Looting’ Turned Into Its Own Reward — The amount of side-hustles I was able to take on opened up once I decided to ditch gaming completely. Everything from pizza-delivery, writing articles for the collegiate-student-newspaper, and starting to work on a website all brought opportunities that wouldn’t have emerged otherwise. It turns out it wasn’t only dead wolves that had a bit of extra coin on them — it was publishers looking for freelancers to write content who did as well.
The Inevitable Final-Boss.
“That’s really one of the things I love about video games. It’s a whole new world every time you start.” — Jennifer Hale, voice-actress for BioShock Infinite, Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate, and others.
In summation, what I lost in satisfaction, I gained in time.
And the time allowed me to pursue the foundations of my dreams.
Do I miss the thrill of discovery and interactive storytelling that my favorite games brought me?
A part of me reminisces every single day.
I remember the big, pivotal-story-moments featuring thecast of characters I’d grown to care about over the course of the game. I remember the quests, the exploration, the levels gained, the battles lost, the magic of unraveling a prepared experience. I remember the late-night online sessions of space-marine-battles with people from around the world; lasers, guns, grenades, explosions, goofy-armor, goofier-looking aliens. I remember the freedom and virtual memories these games offered. I remember bonding with classmates and friends over these games.
But I also remember the time lost.
If you look at life, the final-boss may not be death. The final boss may be the final-layer of crippling self-doubt; the layer of doubt which prevents you from achieving your full potential. The distractions you allow to keep the pain of dreams unconquered.
—
For those who still play games into adulthood, I think it’s great. I think it’s great how a hobby can grow and last throughout a life. The experiences found through gaming are ones that can still be worthwhile as the years go by.
But now since using my time differently, I’m using that time to carve a path to achieving my dreams.
And the worlds unlocked by chipping away at those dreams may prove to be the most compelling worlds of all.
