Playing video games wisely

[Ima Freeman]

I don't play video games regularly for years now. I just saw how much of a waste of time the can be.Guess that many here gone trough the same and can relate.

 

Recently, I decided to create a steam account though and purchase my fav game of all time in discount.

 

I like to go to concerts, play frisbee or table tennis from time to time to relax and let my mind rest on one thing that I love. These are distractions that actually have a positive impact on my life.

 

What I want to avoid getting sucked into multi hour sessions of playing. This is particular difficult because I like to play grand strategy games.

 

Do you have experience integrating  occasional gaming into a self actualizing, productive and healthy life in a way that actually benefits you ans your life?

The thing is, I love strategy games and they give me a great feeling.

But I hate seeing my potential being eaten up by distraction.

 

 

[Yimpa]

Have you heard of HealthyGamer?

[Basman]

Strategy games are particularly bad at sucking you in and being time sinks.

 

[Basman]

It's fine to have some entertainment/play that isn't meaningfully progressing your life. You need it to relax and unwind occasionally. Games are that.

I find gaming the most fulfilling at the end of the day as a kind of reward. I can only game for 1-2 hours at most though before it starts feeling unfulfilling unless it is particularly engrossing, which is rare.

[Shawn Philips]

Getting sucked into multi hour sessions of playing has a relative low impact in your daily life.

Imagine playing mmorpgs against other human players who cheat, insult you and make rise your cortisol and anger that ruins all your day!

Wise gaming is avoiding the ego involved in this fictional world. Just what all gaming companies want.

[Terell Kirby]

Hmm almost like asking the question, how to be wise while eating fast food

Kidding- that’s my biased. I look at video games as a distraction ultimately, but I can see it sparking some creative inspiration. Similar to film

[integration journey]

Gaming is fine as long as you have a boundary with it. Don’t listen to this woke shit that gaming is a distraction. Play it mindfully and do your other work. 

[enzyme]

Unless it's directly affecting your lifestyle and keeping you in the house all the time then there's nothing wrong with video games.

Could always set a timer if you get sucked into a session - I'd be playing Civ 6 and 2 hours would go by in the blink of an eye if I'm not careful.

[Kalki Avatar]

@enzyme The thing is that to get really good and if you play strategy games you actually want to be good or there’s no sauce, it requires a lot of time and tradeoff so it does becomes a distraction unless you are streaming or competing to actually gain something out of it in this case money. You can play it casually but the problem comes when the ego wants to improve and wants more which is the hook of strategy games. I was actually about to start playing some strategy games but decided not to. There’s no point. Better to play adventure games. The only competitive game I play at this point is brawl stars on my phone because it’s quick and casual. I’m not expecting anything out of it other than tranining my mind to act fast.

[enzyme]

@Kalki Avatar Unless it's an e-sports game like Counter Strike I personally don't see the benefit in sinking hundreds of thousands of hours to improve in a game, it's about having fun.

As for improving, there's loads of youtube videos out there, some people dedicate their entire channel to making tips and tricks videos on certain games, strategy/sim games especially.

[Kalki Avatar]

@enzyme that’s the thing, you got to study the channels and get mentors. That’s where the training and consumption of time goes depending the game. I was going to play csgo and lol but fck that, lol. There is too much work to do. I rather play assassin creed, god of war, Mario, Zelda, etc. Ofc you can have fun, but after a while you will want to level up. That’s the hook that came when I was in csgo. There’s no point just playing for fun and being trash. It will start to crash your ego and self belief at some point. The only games worthy for me are sims because you can transfer that skill into real life like racing simulators. I’ve friends that learned to do burnouts in traffic lights by practicing on sims.