First of all, I’m in college right now and ’till today I have been somewhat addicted to Videogames (and they were exciting), and I’m not that much of an online player besides having played online on PS2/XBL/PC.

My problem is that I’ve always been kind of shy, and that contributed to get lonely and to not socialize that much with other people. So, due to my personality, I’d stay home playing games. And I feel that with all the time I’ve spent playing videogames I could have done something productive. Yes, I’ve done some stuff with videogames, but still I feel that I’ve wasted so much time and energy in some silly achievements or in completing/mastering a game. And with that, I’ve became somewhat obcessed with this virtual world where you could be a hero and where your actions didn’t had real consequences.

So since last year I’ve thought a lot about Videogames and their impact in my life. I’ve never had any problems in school (grades) or any other behaviour problems (maybe). My only problems are my social skills and interaction with other people. Why? Because, even if you talk about several subjects that aren’t related with Videogames, you’ll end up thinking or talking about something related to them. I’ve come to a point in my life that I’m not interested in playing games, because they are so boring and what I’ll do most of the time is to read/talk/comment/discuss/review/criticize about videogames, their market impingement, technicall issues, marketing subjects; all related to videogames. But even that, I feel ashamed about it.

So, in general, I’m quitting videogames. Well, maybe except PC, but console gaming for me is dead and I’m not going to spend hundreds of hours in playing a game. I’m not going to say that Videogames were an absolute waste of time. They weren’t, but still I felt they were. I’ve learned much about history, etc with videogames and even researched on various subjects due to videogames. But, moving forward, the problem is that stop playing videogames or even stop visiting Videogame content Websites is going to create a void in my life. Why? Because if you’ve played videogames since you were almost 7 or 8, and drop it at the age of 19, you’ll feel that all this knowledge, all these experiences, all this investment, all this life you built surrounding videogames was worth nothing. And then you become somwhat depressed and realize that beyond videogames you don’t really have any other “hobbie” (so to speak) or activity that you could do. Or even any talent. Why? Because all of your time was spent surrounding videogames.

This blog post is more of an outflow and my recommendation is to not get addicted to videogames. Yes, I could try moderate my playing time, but overall that would be an excuse to play more and more. So selling my console systems (an extreme choice of handling the problem; which I already did) is a more effective way to outcome the addiction I have/had. 

And with this I want to know if any GB member here is having the same kind of experience as I am.