I have sorta neglected this blog for my other one that is focusing on my trip to Antarctica. I’m sorry smashedkeys followers, it isn’t my fault that I am obsessing with this trip that is almost a month away!
Gaming is like smoking…
I’ve been in a gaming limbo these past few months, more like a rut. I want to play, I sort of have time to play. (Not really, but I always made time before with an 80 hour work week.) I do lack the motivation and initiative.
I have pretty much stopped playing any “real” games online. The Facebook games like Cafe World do NOT count, but they amuse me for the short attention span they deserve.
Here is the thing though. I WANT to play. I find myself finishing up my day and double clicking the DAoC icon, entering my info and WANTING to play, but I can’t bring myself to. I know it is bad for me. I know I will be bitter because it is no longer the game I used to play with the community I used to play it with. But I have a need for it, much like those addicted to smoking (I have never smoked, so I’m just guessing here from the perils of many of my friends/relatives who quit or are attempting to quit).
I want it. I miss it. Just one little puff is all it would take to get me hooked again. Just that one login where I find someone I used to talk to, that one kill out in the frontiers, the one /hug from anyone that might remember me.
This is something that parents, spouses and to some degree children (and pets, can’t forget the pets) need to understand. An online game is a place where while we like it or not, we get our fix. We login to talk to people, or to avoid people (IRL). We login because while life may have it’s ups and downs, the game is there like a reliable friend that you pay $15 a month to be there for you 24 hours a day.
Is it a bad thing?
Can we kick the habit?
Why the hell am I comparing gaming to smoking?
Like all habits, there is a fine line between “social smoker” and 2 packs a day. One minute you are having a great time, the next minute you are coughing up a lung. Or in gaming terms, one minute you login for the first time for the “free trial” and the next you’ve played for 3 years non stop, your spouse has left you and for the life of you, the name of your dog eludes you so you just call it your latest randomly generated name.
Finding the sweet spot to where you can play without it being habit forming is the trick.
I just use the GMs/developers/designers that annoy me enough with game decisions that don’t make any sense as an excuse. They are the big bad evil people, who created a game 5 years ago and let other people run it so it loses whatever purpose it had to begin with. It’s their fault I got addicted, if they hadn’t made such an addictive game, pulled me in and then left me to flounder wondering why I played all this time, I would of never started playing in the first place!
I laugh at your addictive games that are just like smoking!
Now I really want to login. Damn games, I luv you.
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