Baldurs Gate 3 comes out on Mac tomorrow. I will not play it

This resonated with me, thank you for writing it. My own personal rule now is that video game playing should also be social time. I started playing BG3 using wine (on Mac) when it came out, but only with friends. Gaming time is (crucial) social time.

Eagerly anticipating this game has brought me back to my childhood days when playing the game I wanted seems like the ultimate fun, but of course now I have responsibilities. Now playing is a reward for myself if I handle everything else and again, only with friends. Even though I've been tempted dozens of times in the last month to fire it up for a solo session, that rule has stood me in good stead.

Specifically for video games, I actually think abstinence is much more achievable than moderation, because if you haven't installed the game yet you can't get any instant gratification. In a moment of weakness you might click install in Steam, but then 20 minutes later it's still downloading and you aren't having fun yet and maybe you come to your senses and cancel the download. You could even uninstall Steam to make it more difficult for yourself.

If it's already there ready to play, it's incredibly difficult to limit yourself to a certain time period (if you're addicted). Endless instant gratification, zero friction, the game never gives you an opportunity to pull yourself out of it.

I'm sad to hear about your addiction.

People seem to have an inability to judge this game relatively impartially. They either claim that it's an unholy abomination that should have been aborted by the compiler or it's the greatest invention of mankind since the printing press. In reality (and as someone who played the original bg1, and bg2), it's a solid dnd based RPG experience with an incredible amount of content that is somewhat diminished by the number of bugs that continue to plague it even after its official release.

If it helps - the game is fine but it’s not the platonic ideal of video games in the way that the press coverage (and your blog) suggest. You’re really not missing anything by not playing it other than an enjoyable way to kill some time.

It’s _definitely_ not good enough to “fall off the wagon” for, seriously.

We create fake sub-games within the real world all the time, it's not limited to video games. You see this when people get really invested in petty office politics or other such nonsense, and they realize how little it matters when they walk away.

I think people in the real world often overvalue the significance of the games they're playing. If you make a mistake on live television a lot of production people will probably get upset and claim it's the end of the world, but most people really don't care and it doesn't actually matter that much. Sure you should be professional and try your best to avoid mistakes, but there's usually no significant real-world consequences.

Anyway, a while back I uninstalled League of Legends because it was sucking up all of my time and it wasn't even fun.

Have you considered playing with friends or your SO? I think turning video games into a more social activity can help clamp down on the addictive aspects without sacrificing connections. Heck, I've met tons of people thanks to playing competitive multiplayer video games.