I hadn’t examined how my relationship with the space I play games in had changed until this past semester. I noticed that I just wasn’t playing games this year: Even when I had free time and would try to boot something up, it was too easy to multitask on my PC, do work on the side, or watch TV (something that requires far less focus and attention than gaming). I hadn’t played, let alone completed any single player games. Yet I listened to all my favourite gaming podcasts, purchased and enjoyed discourse around new games. This inability to focus on a hobby I loved led me to look at why I was no longer an active participant.

I spend upwards of 60 hours a week at my desk. I think that there was a degree of guilt when I was playing games in my productive space. Eventually games, especially those that were open ended, would begin to induce an overwhelming feeling of unproductivity. With effectively unlimited time I could spend on the game, it felt like I couldn’t uphold my responsibilities as a student and get anything out of the games I was playing. And ultimately there is always more work you could be doing as a student. When my work and gaming sessions were basically all in the same sitting, it felt difficult to make gaming into dedicated sessions, and I was always multitasking. I was diverting myself to movies and TV, because when you remove any interaction, it felt like it felt like a more self-contained relaxation period rather than wasting time. I think this the big problem for a lot of students right now. Games demand more and more time, and for me there is a direct correlation between how much I can enjoy a game and how many hours I can play. I find it frustrating that so often in reviews I see 10 hour campaigns being listed as a negative feature. I love when games are self contained 10 hour experiences that I can play in a weekend off, instead of playing through tons of filler that can’t really be contained in my free time with no foreseeable end in sight. I swear, I’ve started Fallout 4 three times now, and each time I am pushed away by how directionless it feels – I can’t afford to just keep playing, I need to know that I can see a story through in a contained amount of time. When I was a teenager, reading began to feel too much like work, so I started playing games a lot more. Now it feels as though being at my computer is too much work, so I’ve moved to other forms of media.

From Dark Age of Camelot to Runescape to Guild Wars, I have exclusively gamed on my PC since I was a child. When you grow up with something it feels hard to move away from it, especially when it is, on paper, objectively better than the alternatives. But when I realized it was the space and ecosystem in which I play games that was ruining my ability to enjoy games, I made the decision to buy an console. Being in front of the TV made it more of a conscious decision to be playing games, rather than just stumbling into the idea as I was working at my desk. Being able to say “Alright, now it’s time to go play Shadow of Mordor.” (or whatever) made it way easier for me to justify my time. When I played games at my desk, I never worked or played exclusively, it was always a mixture of the two. Having dedicated sessions really helped to alleviate this problem - as games are becoming increasingly less contained, I was able to give my playtime structure by changing the space I played in.

It is sometimes very hard to identify why something is. Why wasn’t I enjoying games? I’ve found that identifying the why is the first step in fixing most problems, and I try to apply this technique to every difficulty I encounter. For me, separating the spaces I work in and play in was integral to my success in both. Small factors that seem irrelevant may impact one’s life far more than one could ever expect, and asking why you feel a certain way, or behave a certain way the first step to identifying solutions for any issue.

Aidan

@aiomon

https://libraryloadtime.wordpress.com/

https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/aiomon/blog/