31–40 of 87 posts
In my teens and 20s it felt amazing to finish homework and have a late night ahead of me to really sink my teeth into an RPG or something. But for the past decade that magic is just gone.
I don’t want to declare “I’ve grown and changed and maybe gaming just isn’t my thing” because I badly want it to be.
Thank you for the article. ~7 years ago, I realized I have a similar disposition - my best mental state is when I’m in a state of learning and being challenged. The struggle I’ve run into is when I look back and consider what “good” that thing I’ve been learning about has produced. For instance, I too love video games and have found immense enjoyment in them for many, many years but if I add up all my play logs and r…
In hindsight, I attribute my strongest mental skills to all that gaming. Abstract reasoning, strategic/tactical thinking, english fluency...things that separated me completely from my peers once I began my career.
Life's long and you never know. If you enjoy cooking, sure, it stacks with a lot of other benefits. I think that's a good framework to keep in mind. But there's no reason to believe nothing good can ever come from some hours spent on Call of Duty. Heck, if you enjoy them that's enough good gotten.
My 2015 PC started dying, requiring BIOS resets and other weirdness like suddenly not outputting basic VGA graphics. So I finally upgraded to an AMD 7800X3D, nvidia 4070 12GB, 64GB DDR5-6400 RAM. All to play Factorio! :D Apart from a strange error where Linux will crash if I have 2 DIMMs in the motherboard, it's been a great upgrade. (I'm going to submit bug reports to Fedora, but I'm assuming some combo of the MSI B…
There were multiple reasons I slowed down. I was interested in my academics. I looked back at all the time I had played pre-university and (rationally) lamented the time lost. The genre I liked had died (adventure games), and I really didn't like 1st person shooters. And I didn't want to deal with the headache of upgrading my PC every 2 years just to play a game. Also, I switched to Linux, which didn't help.
I bought a PS3 in 2010, but it was only for Blu-Ray and streaming. Then in around 2016, on a whim, I decided to check out a game from the library. I picked The Walking Dead (Telltale version).
I loved it. I started checking out other games. Someone bought me an Xbox One as a gift. But this all lasted a few months before I stopped playing again.
Finally, around 18 months ago, I felt guilty that I had spent $100 on games back in 2016 when I got the Xbox (some big sale, so quite a few games), but never played them. So I told myself I'll try a few.
The first one I played was Life is Strange. Loved it. Then Oxenfree. Loved it. It's been 18 months and I haven't stopped playing.
Before, I'd spend 30-60 minutes per day watching some TV show. I've merely substituted that time with gaming. And it is so, so much more rewarding than watching a TV show - even a great show. It's counterintuitive, but I find it both relaxes me and invigorates me at the same time in a way a good show on TV wouldn't (and I love good stories). With TV, you're just staring. With games, you're actively thinking. It's more dynamic. You make decisions. You're in control. And games can have great storytelling.
I remember times in my life where my work was really stressful. Looking back, I wish I had played games back then.
The funny thing is, while I had earlier lamented all the time in my youth spent playing games, when I look back now I have only positive feelings. I still have good memories of certain games - heck even certain achievements in games, from 30 years ago. That time wasn't wasted.
I always find it amusing when someone belittles gamers as losers, but then they go watch TV.
Thank you for the article. ~7 years ago, I realized I have a similar disposition - my best mental state is when I’m in a state of learning and being challenged. The struggle I’ve run into is when I look back and consider what “good” that thing I’ve been learning about has produced. For instance, I too love video games and have found immense enjoyment in them for many, many years but if I add up all my play logs and r…
I find a lot of comfort in the idea of unintended consequences. I spent the majority of my youth playing games: CounterStrike, Magic: The Gathering, D&D. I paid a lot more attention to useless hobbies than to school. In hindsight, I attribute my strongest mental skills to all that gaming. Abstract reasoning, strategic/tactical thinking, english fluency...things that separated me completely from my peers once I began…
I have a family of my own now so that has played no small part in shifting my perspective.
I’m struggling in the worst way to get into any game at all. I have free time. I don’t feel guilt being “unproductive” with that time. But nothing feels motivating to continue with. In my teens and 20s it felt amazing to finish homework and have a late night ahead of me to really sink my teeth into an RPG or something. But for the past decade that magic is just gone. I don’t want to declare “I’ve grown and changed an…
The conclusion seems to contradict the thesis. > The most enjoyable time is when you feel yourself growing, but the real test is whether you can persevere when you hit that wall or if you’ll lose interest and give up. Why does it matter if you persevere or not as long as you had fun?
> once they hit a certain wall, growth slows down drastically. Deliberate practice addresses these plateaus. I think you need to constrict your focus, zoom in, change the scale so the slowing of progress doesn't feel slow. If you can accept that, it can be just as satisfying. A great coach/mentor can help here [but how can you evaluate them?] As the frontier of your knowledge expands, there's more of it. funfact: Usa…
That's simply too much, especially for 18 year olds...
I’m struggling in the worst way to get into any game at all. I have free time. I don’t feel guilt being “unproductive” with that time. But nothing feels motivating to continue with. In my teens and 20s it felt amazing to finish homework and have a late night ahead of me to really sink my teeth into an RPG or something. But for the past decade that magic is just gone. I don’t want to declare “I’ve grown and changed an…
I just got "Slay the Spire", a deck-building, casual, rogue-like and it's awesome. Can play a little or a lot at a sitting :-)
With very limited gaming time available I’ve been searching for other games like that with limited success, apart from Hitman Go, FTL, and Into the Beach. But none of them scratch the itch quite as well.