How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtual world making vanity things. And it finally hit me how profoundly stupid that was. So I stopped playing WoW.
I'm trying to get myself to enjoy gaming again. I can't seem to just relax and play a game without thinking I'm wasting my time. It's also hard to get the same high in a game that I do when I solve a bug or add a feature to whatever project I'm working on.
I'm going through the same thing. Just bought my son his first console. I tried getting back in to it. No interest. The whole time I just wanted to put down the controller and go "actually" do something.
I can relate to this. I often feel like I should be doing "something", like I'm just wasting my time if I'm not producing something.
However I think it's good to get the balance right. If you're working full time then I think you deserve to give yourself a break when you get home from work and indulge in some escapism. Be that watching a film or playing a game. If not it often leads to burnout.
I think I'd often rather play a game as my mind is being kept partly active and I'm not just blindly staring at the TV. I've recently been playing "The long dark", it's a good way to chill, although it can be tense in parts.... ;-)
I can also relate to this. Especially when I was pushing through a period of unemployment (funemployment). I felt compelled to keep busy and regular hours of simulated work.
Felt great until, somewhere between practicing interview problems and actually interviewing, I crashed and burned.
I remember it explicitly. Staring at a problem for almost an hour, not writing anything. Then just kinda saying screw it. I gave myself permission to just stop. Just started playing the first game I could find and sank a weekend into it.
I'm back to where I was before, but that moment is something I won't forget. Gotta give yourself permission, almost the way pomodoro gives you permission to focus completely for x time.
Try a competitive game. Something like hearthstone.
If you don't want to keep getting things done, that is.
I have no interest in a game unless I can demonstrably become very good at it compared to others. So, games like Skyrim (which used to be my favorite genre) are no longer very fun for me. Typically I don't finish them.
That's like losing at counterstrike to a 12yrold. At that point they have the knowledge of how to play and will out-class your reflexes by miles. I don't play competitive twitch games anymore (am in early 30s).
There's a lot of research and commentary addressing the benefits of play for adults. I'm having a devil of a time recultivating it for myself too though. I mean, I have hobbies, I have pasttimes. But "play," like it means for a kid, I am not there yet. I hope to get there.
For me, it is almost the opposite. I can't get into games that are highly "stateful" anymore. I find that the only games I can consistently play for relaxation are games like match-based FPSs that I'd call "stateless". The anxiety about wasting time hits me when I'm looking down at an empire in Civ or a growing base in DF or my stats pane in an RPG. When I can see evidence of how much time I've spent building an imaginary artifact, I inevitably come to the conclusion that I have better things to do.
Maybe another way to look at this is that I can't get into games that feel like projects. Building a base in DF is a project. If I'm going to be working on a project, why not a programming project that will actually create value in my life and others'? With something like Overwatch (team-based FPS with 15-30 minute matches) on the the other hand, it feels more like an activity, like watching a movie or playing a sport. I feel comfortable playing it for two hours one day and picking it back up the next day or the next week or just whenever I want to spend some time relaxing.
I'd never thought of it as stateless / stateful before but this is exactly my feeling, great vocabulary for it.
I still like building things so Age of Empires 2 is perfect for me - there's a lot of base / army building but it's ultimately a short stateless activity.
Get into a skill game, then you can say that you're improving your skills. Something like Go, Starcraft, etc. People are actually impressed even if you're only above average (dan-level Go player/Master or above SC2 player)
Same, any hour long competitive game is too much for me. It feels like a complete waste of time. I only have fun playing games like battlefield now for 20 minutes while listening to music.
I'm on the other side of that wall. I never got into WoW or any similar game. So last year, my wife and I tried getting into WoW one weekend. It was awful, so utterly boring for both of us.
That said, we did get into Minecraft for a few weeks. It was a fun little way to build a virtual world together. But after an hour straight of playing, I would just get this deep sense of loneliness and depression, and have to turn it off. It's just not reality, and that makes it feel so empty, even when it's full.
Have you tried substituting with board games or tabletop RPG's?
I suggest this because they preserve the "game" aspect and give up a bit of the virtual world feel in exchange for having a strong social aspect (hanging out with friends in real life).
Either one is actually very conducive towards socially drinking with friends while doing something that isn't trying to hear each other at a loud bar.
Board gaming (ahem, euro-gaming) has replaced video games, and I feel better about it since I get to meet new people and converse. Social skills decline when not used!
Ha, opposite of me. I've been glued to Pokémon games (SoulSilver, Alpha Sapphire) all day outside of work. I give my personal projects a few hours on the weekend.
To me, programming (on personal projects) is as fun, if not more fun, as games. I've played some great games that I was fully engrossed in, but for the most part I feel like I'd rather spend my time programming with a tangible reward (a program that does something novel) than gaming with a virtual reward (put there by the developers, they can't be entirely new things).
I am the same, these days everytime I try to load up a game I keep thinking I could have spent this time learning something new or building a game myself.
I'm making a game because I have this issue with many games coming out these days too. I actually like games that only last a few hours since they seem to respect my time more than others that pad for length (less "shit work" quests, creative stories given the lack of time for the player to get absorbed into them, etc.)
It's a hobby, and like any other hobby, it's profoundly stupid. How stupid is it to build model railways? How pointless is it to collect stamps. How dumb is it to fix cars? All "stupid" things we do for pleasure and for accomplishment. I suggest not being so focused on what should be stupid or not, and instead remember that time enjoyed is not time wasted.
I have noticed there seems to be a lot of engineers that think life is an optimization problem, that time spent not working is time wasted. I don't understand it at all, the primary purpose of life should be in pursuit of happiness and joy. I don't get the people that deny themselves joy and happiness in lieu of slaving away with their work.
There are some people that genuinely find joy in their work, I have no problem with those people. They probably have a bit of a problem in their personal life with overdoing it at work, but as long as they genuinely enjoy it I can't fault them.
edit: I should say before somebody jumps down my throat, I'm not saying we shouldn't have to work, or work is so terrible. I'm saying work is usually a means to an end, and you're very lucky if you happen to enjoy what you do to any degree.
> It's a hobby, and like any other hobby, it's profoundly stupid.
I profoundly disagree with your definition of hobby. My "hobby" is writing a science fiction novel. I don't get nearly as much time to do it as what I do for my day job, but I try hard to approach it with the same degree of seriousness that I bring to my work. So far, I don't think I've written anything anyone else would want to read, but I've managed to get to the point where I actually enjoy the process of writing.
Even better, I can sit back after I've written a chapter and say, "yeah, that actually embodies what I wanted to say". There is a very profound satisfaction in being able to do that.
I agree that many things we do in our free time might not have the qualities I describe above. I do such things too. But I would suggest that hobbies can be serious endeavors, and that the very fact that we love to do them makes them powerful.
I'm not the poster you're responding to, but the difference between something like writing vs. stamp collecting or gaming is the act of creation. You're making something that others can enjoy and that you can look at and appreciate. It can live on when you've passed. When you play a game, you do enjoy the experience, but at the end of it all, you've not created anything of value.
You don't create anything by doing sports, but it is among the most popular and healthy hobbies. You don't create anything by playing chess. Is chess not a hobby?
And if you want to look at it that way, I can say you are leaving a collection of stamps, you are preserving little snippets of history and culture from around the world and through the years. In my case, I might be leaving sick replays of me beating SMW2 World 1 in record time, for other's to watch in awe as I do over other speedrunners' work.
>>You're making something that others can enjoy and that you can look at and appreciate.
If you kind of look at it, everything can preserved and enjoyed by those coming after us. Stamp collection too in many ways is preservation of history. A game of chess with all its moves recorded, or an epic game of tetris.
Or take food for example. No body can taste what you cooked, but you can write down the recipe and ingredients to the very last gram and people can enjoy it forever.
> You're making something that others can enjoy and that you can look at and appreciate. It can live on when you've passed. When you play a game, you do enjoy the experience, but at the end of it all, you've not created anything of value.
So you spend your time creating something for other people to consume, then note that the act of consuming it is useless?
With that one you're learning skills which will benefit you IRL. Car breaks down? Don't have to pay a mechanic. Skills may applicable to other machines too. Plenty of hobbies have real benefits. Sports for example - health & fitness.
Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it (much like sex :)). We do hobbies in our spare time, for their own sake, and for our own gratification. Whether they accomplish anything is totally irrelevant, in my view.
I think that hobbies are ones where you're actually stretching your mind, even if they are "pointless". Building model railways and fixing cars can be fun and mentally stimulating for certain people. There's the challenge of learning new things, the satisfaction of making something new. Playing sports takes skill and physical fitness. There's the challenge of competition. Stamp collecting, yeah, I don't understand that, but I'm sure there's something to it. Maybe it's understanding the history and culture around the period and place they were created, or appreciating the artwork. I've never played a video game that felt as good as actually doing something in the real world. My accomplishments were entirely fictional, fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying. Maybe for some people they are legitimately stimulating, but for most people, they're just mindless fun. If they fell like they've wasted their time after doing it, it sound like they got stuck in mindless compulsion more than anything.
> Stamp collecting, yeah, I don't understand that, but I'm sure there's something to it.
> I've never played a video game that felt as good as actually doing something in the real world.
I'm a bit confused as to why you're not applying the same reasoning to video games as you are to stamps - that you don't understand it, but there may be something to it. Note that video games are often one of the cheapest hobbies imaginable, so they have higher reach overall than a lot of hobbies that require considerable prep, access to various resources, other people, money, etc.
There are a lot of very different kinds of video games out there, the variety is staggering. You have competitive games, which are in the same department as sports; you have complex creation games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress; you have virtual worlds like World of Warcraft where you can get immersed in the lore or tackle a difficult objective with other people; you have adventure games where you are taken through an interesting tale (ever played Siberia?). I could go on.
I think most people feel that they're wasting time while playing video games because there's a huge social stigma against them still, and because they're hard to connect to other peoples' experiences and expectations.
Sorry for not replying earlier. I never notice when I've got replies on HN. I guess I forgot to mention a big part of it: the original commenter said he felt like he wasted his time playing WoW. If that's how you feel looking back on the game, then that's a problem. But you're right, if someone doesn't feel like they've wasted time on games, then that's great. Most people I've known have felt like it was a waste, but I can see how some people would think differently.
I don't think there's anything profoundly stupid about most hobbies. Some might development a broader, or more useful, set of skills, but that'd be about as far as I'd go.
I had a similar epiphany when I started to learn programming (I was about 27 at the time). I realized I was spending all my time just incrementing numbers in a server.
Since then I've dropped almost all gaming, reducing it to about 4 hours a week of phone games and shifted to doing outdoor activities like running, biking, ect. PokemonGo has been a way to meld the two.
It scares me a little to acknowledge that despite how much I like the creative parts of being a developer, and love the craft to the point of being a code snob, if I could figure out how to make my hobbies and volunteer work keep a roof over my head, I'd probably stop coding.
Everyone wants to hire me to do a minor variation on the same shit ten other companies are doing, and I'm still having most of the same arguments with people I've been having for 15 years, sometimes using articles and books written 40 years ago.
Go outside, get your hands dirty, and stop chasing your tail.
I think it's very presumptuous to tell people what is meaningful and not. I have no interest in yachts or sports cars, something stereotypically bought by rich people. OTOH, I have great pride in my current DF save, and in being good at speedrunning some games, for instance. Neither of this things cost me a penny. What makes this less meaningful that something bought with money?
If one's reasoning is reductive enough, literally any activity can be made "meaningless". I find it's best to ignore a third party's evaluation of how you spend your time in most cases; they have their own biases, their own dreams, their own definition for what success and self actualization means.
That is something that you, only you, the consciousness reading these words, can decide.
The parent comment didn't say anything about sports cars or yachts. Those are potential answers but lowest on list of meaningful things far as I consider. You could be investing in business, learning new skills/hobbies, going interesting places, forming lasting relationships, working on any number of problems in the world around you, working on problems in your life, and so on. Yet, your most meaningful moment is the numbers you've achieved in a virtual box a private company created for profit while they and the rest of the world keep moving on with such meaningful pursuits. Even these companies are rarely loyal to their virtual boxes.
So, certainly do it if you want and enjoy it. Some things do have objectively more impact than others, though, with your save and games probably not existing unless someone stopped playing theirs for a while to create them with expectation of such impact. That you even like it sort of endorses getting out to create or improve something similar as more meaningful.
I could be learning new things or hobbies? Like mastering SMW2, for example? :) Oh sorry, that's not meaningful enough for you, as opposed to investing in businesses (making money for its own sake, I can see just nothing wrong with that), going interesting places (sightseeing, such a productive activity), forming lasting bonds with people (lasting 80 years, tops).
And what makes you think that playing games and doing any of those things are mutually exclusive, I might ask? Is reading and writing mutually exclusive? Stop reading, I say! Is the most meaningful moment of your life reading something someone greater than you has written on a piece of paper or a computer disk for profit? (btw nowhere did I say my most meaningful moment was beating a video game, that would be my master's in physics, so far, but that's beside the point) I mean, to paraphrase, certainly do it if you want and enjoy it. Some things do have objectively more impact than others, though, with your book probably not existing unless someone stopped reading theirs for a while to create them with expectation of such impact. That you even like it sort of endorses getting out to create or improve something similar as more meaningful. Rereading this makes me realize how misguided this point is. I assume that it's all or nothing for you, indulge in a hobby and you are a leech on society, incapable of creation and mooching off the work of greater men. Lol.
"as opposed to investing in businesses (making money for its own sake, I can see just nothing wrong with that)"
Supporting your ability to enjoy games, funding better ones, funding your existing one which will have plug pulled, and any arbitrary thing you want in life. Money is a tool to acquire, create, or continue to use other things. I'm endorsing getting enough of it to do that rather than collecting it for its own sake.
" Like mastering SMW2, for example?"
I don't know what SMW2 is. More like any creative hobby that lets you put things into existence or push your mind/body further. People that start these things are usually glad they did. Programming as a hobby can help you build better games, too. Or at least mod the ones you have. Or port them when they're EOL'd.
"going interesting places (sightseeing, such a productive activity)"
How did you find out about the game you like? Doing the same thing over and over that you did as a kid? Or meeting some new people, going to new sites, and so on?
" forming lasting bonds with people (lasting 80 years, tops)."
8-16x longer than most games. Especially when they go abandonware. The people tend to be more useful in other aspects of your life when facing challenges, too. Something you're not so good at or can't currently handle because life just dropped bombs on you. Easy for your friend. Plus, activates those other parts of the brain and its enjoyment that the games can't. I'm saying that from perspective of an anti-social person who usually doesn't want to maintain relationships but knows they led to many rewarding experiences.
"And what makes you think that playing games and doing any of those things are mutually exclusive, I might ask?"
I don't. You just asked what could be more meaningful. I thought that might be easier than people were making out given specific activities led to what you find to be most meaningful. And had people avoided those activities in favor of what you were doing, those things you love would never exist. Each thing you dismissed above had a hand in bringing it into existence. And for many people's happiness and some's economic benefit rather than one person. Turns out those same things did that for other products, services, causes, and so on. Seems doing or building them is more meaningful given the results are what so many, yourself included, find most meaningful. They amplify people's experiences.
"nowhere did I say my most meaningful moment "
Great pride, it was. Glad your more meaninful moment was something that might create more meaning for you and others, though. Maybe money, too, but I don't know much about the industry surrounding physics degrees. I'd imagine research, teaching, and support roles mainly. Example of support would be domain expertise for simulation software for physical phenomenon.
"more impact than others, though, with your book probably not existing unless someone stopped reading theirs for a while to create them with expectation of such impact. "
Now you're getting it...
"Rereading this makes me realize how misguided this point is."
Then lost it...
"I assume that it's all or nothing for you, indulge in a hobby and you are a leech on society, incapable of creation and mooching off the work of greater men. Lol."
A mix is best. If we look at introvert to extrovert ratio, even nature puts it at about 1 out of 4. The brain was meant to both consume and create. Society's structures give different rewards for each in different contexts. So, doing both in an number of contexts is likely most meaningful pursuit if your aiming for best experience as a human. Modified by differences in how people's brains work obviously with some getting no benefit from activities that benefit others.
Yes! And it's just as sad. I think we will look back on this style of social organization as profoundly wasteful. I would much rather people spent their work time doing something that has intrinsic value beyond the salary.
A similar revelation made me start hating most webdev jobs - after all, all you're doing is writing yet another way of storing bunch of strings in a database.
The suggestion of stopping caffeine after 6pm helped me. Yet, I am on my computer late at night with HN and other places waking me up with ideas. So, yeah, that might be a great way to improve sleep. Might have to try it when I can muster up the willpower.
I traded in my MMORPG habit for real life crafting. I always loved building stuff, and its way more gratifying when you can actually see, , touch, and use something you made.
I sell small leather goods (wallets, belts, etc...) as a hobby now. Its been fun so far.
I had a similar moment a few years back when I saw a video of a WoW player quitting [1] that brought me to tears. I felt really bad for a while and slowly stopped playing.
After I learned to program a few years later, I couldn't enjoy gaming any more. I'd try to play an hour or two here and there, and would get bored pretty quickly. But I eventually got nostalgic of those 20 hours nights. I sometimes miss the focus and dedication I had, even if it was just for a game that didn't bring me anything real, the way I felt while being so focused was enjoyable, not the game itself.
I tried to get back into it now that my life is in a much better position. I know the time I would spend on that wouldn't be spent on anything more relevant as it's time to off my brain. One thing I decided though is that I would only play with my wife; if she'd stop playing, I would too. So far, it has worked great, we've been spending more time together with that and usually help each other stop when we've been playing enough.
This happened to me when I was introduced to the game. I was playing my class, working out different angles. Did a bunch of quests and leveling. A friend eventually asked, "Dude, you realize you've been at this for around 8 hours now?" I thought, "No way!" Sure enough.
So, I thought back on all I did in that time. I noticed the missions were all similar with slight variations. The levels, items, and so on gave me little accomplishments but mostly just changed the numbers or face of the enemy I'd fight. There was also enough time lost to make some real money or do something like apps in the real world. Last time I did MMORPG's.
Closest thing I do these days is Battlefield 4 since it improves my hand-eye coordination, assessment, and adaptation skills as I try new weapons. Plus diverse strategies available for various maps. Keep thinking I need to get back to RTS or TBS games to but I just have a console right now.
> I noticed the missions were all similar with slight variations.
Quick disclaimer: I'm primarily talking about WoW here, since that's what I have personal experience with, but most of it should apply in other MMORPGs too, to some degree.
That's absolutely not false, especially as a new player, but at the same time it's not really representative of the "true" experience that people play it for. Yes, questing (especially on low levels) is mostly the same fetch quests over and over with dull combat.
But once (if) you do get past that, there is a much more engaging endgame, where you have 10-30 people (20 at the highest level) who need to execute slightly different strategies, at the same time, more or less flawlessly. Plus, there's all the management stuff in trying to have all those people not get too angry at each other, while hitting their heads against the same boss for hours upon hours, over the course of several days.
So no, they're not flawless, and the levelling process is dull, but it's not really representative of what appeals to us that do play them.
"where you have 10-30 people (20 at the highest level) who need to execute slightly different strategies"
I ignored this possibly because I was playing it solo. Good catch. This is actually similar to the high people get in both RTS and FPS games when coordinating action. A friend and I were doing it last night so fresh on my memory. :) Going to have to redo my analysis of the digital crack aspect to factor this in sometime in the future.
"while hitting their heads against the same boss for hours upon hours, over the course of several days."
That's where I'm already calling it excessive. It's repetitive stuff where you're doing the same things over and over to get an arbitrary number down for ridiculous amount of time. At best, doing it once or twice for an endurance challenge could be a benefit. Past that, this is causing a net loss for the players as alternatives could be happening with better variety, personal improvement, and mini-challenges built in.
For instance, our run on Battlefield 4 last night was a good example. Matchmaking is so broken at our level that deck stayed stacked against us like a boss fight with just two of us vs 2-8 opponents with skill + supporting amateurs. We constantly assessed environment and strategies given we were on land, in water, flying through air, and so on. Buildings varied in whether walls were there, what could get through them, snipers/choppers having line of site, traps, and so on. Weapons were more complex than aim and click with specific wait time, angle, or area of effect. Pro's with vehicles (extra rigged) changed whole dynamic of the above where we had to use weapons, location, pacing, and so on to counter them over period of time with many deaths. The opponents, non being NPC's, had human-level intelligence with a combo of common behaviors and surprising behaviors that were novel + forced us to improve our own tactics/awareness. All of these circumstances and effects hit us over a period of 2 hours. I helped that along by leaving any server that was getting repetitive or too empty.
So, the above experience compared to a mostly-repetitive, MMORPG, boss fight is about a non-comparison in value for the player. I had more depth of gameplay, more novelty, used more of my senses, improved hand-eye coordination, required more strategy, and so on. The benefits of enough such games to me personally & to how I approach situations in future games (tactical strategy & FPS) is clear. Everyone wailing against a boss doing same stuff, it and them, for hours involving mostly some clicks or macros I can't see except moments of hand-eye coordination or improved ability to focus despite boredom or wear. I got those, though.
So, they seem weak for a value proposition vs alternatives. I could see ways to mix that genre with what I described in BF4 run we did. I believe some do already. Meanwhile, playing them sacrifices more experiences than it gains while the supplying organization's numbers continue to go up. :)
This hit home close enough. But at least, your virtual activities didn't cripple your following social interactions, in the real world, for the next 8 years.
