Donutta's Blogs

"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." Corinthians 13:11

Quite a bold and perhaps controversial quote to open up with on a website about video games. However, I do not mean any malice by it. Gaming is not for children. If it were then R18 rating for games would be ridiculous, as the only audience of games would be forbidden from playing them. Instead, however, I do believe that gaming constantly could be considered childish. Allow me to explain anecdotally.

When I was a child...

Like most people my age, I was exposed to video games as a child. There’s nothing special about it. Computers back then were, rightly so, seen as the tools of the future and it was considered irresponsible not to expose your child to them so that they would have the skills they needed in the future. At about age four or five I was exposed to a piece of educational software called Granny’s Garden and I fell in love. There is nothing special about this tale. Everyone has that first gaming memory.

However, as a child I didn’t have much self-esteem. I remember being picked for the under-7 division for sport in primary school (they played soccer for the school and got to do all the other cool sports like karate), but was so convinced that I wasn’t even in the running that I wasn’t even listening when they called out the names. At the end I spoke up that my name wasn’t called for any team and ended up getting placed in the "cream" division (the one that had sports like equestrian). Due to this lack of esteem, gaming was something in which to find solace.

I did have other pursuits though. I played a lot outside and I eventually got into rugby. It was only when I moved to America and found myself without friends in any form for 10 months did video games become such an important part of my life. I was about 10 then and at the age where playing cowboys and Indians (or whatever) in the back garden just seemed a bit… lame. Sad, now I think back on it. It’s like the day you are playing with your action figures and you suddenly think: 'Why am I playing with these stupid bits of plastic?' Video games, however, did not have such a stigma for a ten-year-old.

I moved to New Zealand in 1994 and the similarity in culture with England (in comparison to America) meant that it was easier to make friends. It wasn’t easy, and it was only in about 1996 that I made friends with some likeminded geeks. Video games were still a huge thing for me, and I remember in 1997 that my mum had to kick me out of the door and make me go to the school dance because I wanted to play Final Fantasy VII instead. (I ended up sitting in the corner talking to other geeks about how cool it was!) It was only when I turned 15 that things started to change.

I understood as a child...

I got a job working at a local supermarket and I was easily the youngest there. At first I spent all of my $5.33 an hour (before tax!) on video games. However, because of the age of the people I was working with, I was slowly exposed to more "adult" pursuits. I also made friends with another group of people around this time who weren’t really into games at all. A combination of the two factors meant that soon I was passing up video games in favour of alcohol, drugs, and loose women. I still played the odd video game – we still had multiplayer Goldeneye sessions like seemingly everyone else my age – but being a "gamer" looked largely to be a thing of my childhood.

However, as I discussed in my last blog, certain things came to pass and I ended up finding solace in video games again. It was almost as if I was so upset what had happened between 14-20 that I had attempted to do it over. (You can probably see my love of all things gaming and the mentality I had in how I wrote my thesis on video games and wanted to be a video game scholar like Aarseth and Murray.) When I turned to the bottle and things got worse, I fell back on gaming even more to get me out of that rut.

I’m not contradicting the sentiments of my last blog. I am eternally grateful for how gaming helped me overcome my demons and I still love gaming with all my heart. I do think that I will, in some shape or form, play video games until I die. However, video games were there to help me out while I was solving my problems and where not intended to become a problem themselves. They haven’t yet, but I am starting to see that perhaps they could be.

When I became a man...

When I first started playing video games, I had the time to because I was a child with very little responsibility. The, shall we say, second time I started playing video games, it was because I was a student with very little responsibility. The, ahem, third time I started playing video games it was because I was unemployed and had lost all my responsibilities. The point here is that I had time to game all day. However, as I recover I start to gain back those responsibilities and I start to see my gaming time dwindle. I also start to see how much money I am wasting on video games.

I see all my friends around me getting married, having kids, buying houses, and generally settling down. A dream of mine for a while now is to own my own house (I hate living with other people) and that dream seems to be getting further and further away from me. I look at the amount of money I have spent on video games and I sort of squirm. I bought Modern Warfare 2, played it for a few days, and then left it to sit on my shelf. I bought Tekken 6 and I played the arcade mode a few times. I’m 13% of the way through Batman, and at the start of this year I bought Persona 4 and I haven’t even opened it. If I took all the money I’ve spent needlessly on video games, I would probably have the deposit for a house.

Of course, the key word there is needlessly. I still enjoy gaming a lot, but I tend to buy more games than I will physically have time to play. I mean, I bought more games than I had time to play and I am unemployed! Even if I played games all day, I probably couldn’t get through them all, and I also like to engage in the activities of reading, writing, watching TV and now getting some physical exercise. I also like making sure the house is clean. These activities take time and soon I will start looking for work and that’s going to take more time away from my stock. I don’t mind, it’s just that suddenly I can see that buying as many games as I do seems a bit silly. I dare say that someone who is living life responsibly does not have time to play every game of merit. (Maybe that's the reason why everyone delayed their games until next year; they knew the average person would only get one game and it was going to be Modern Warfare 2.)

I think, perhaps, that such behaviour was encouraged by two modes of thinking. The first was pretty obvious: as a gamer, it’s natural that I want to play all the good games and to be able to discuss games with my gaming peers. The second is one spawned from childish thinking: as a child we want to play every game, but we are limited to what we can play (usually by our parents). When we become old enough to fund the hobby ourselves, we capitalise on the opportunity to play it all. I thought as a child…

I put such childish things away...

Again, gaming is not just for kids, but I definitely feel certain attitudes towards it at very childlike. As we grow up, however, it seems like a fact of life that we have to scale back and start putting other priorities first. I will still play video games, but I don’t think it will be for hours on end. I look at the people who state with pride they play WoW for six hours a day (and therefore deserve to have epic armour whereas I do not) and I think to myself: 'How?' Let’s say you work for 8 hours a day, have an hour lunch break in that time, spend two hours washing, travelling, and eating dinner (a conservative estimate) and get eight hours sleep a night. That leaves five hours left in the day. That means you are either not getting enough sleep or your not showering. Gross. Even then, to spend all your free leisure time playing WoW just seems like a waste. I love the game and it’s done a lot for me, but even I couldn’t imagine forsaking all other activities just to play it. It just seems… immature.

I turn 27 in nine days and that is honestly pretty much the reason I wrote this blog. Every year I look back on my life so far and think about what went right, what went wrong, and what I should change. I guess I’m just starting a little early this year. Gaming isn’t for kids and I’d really hate for anyone to get the impression I’m saying that. Instead, I think that people just need to take the right attitude to it. Like anything, do it in moderation. Enjoy what you have and be content, and don’t fret over playing the latest and greatest. Play when you have the time but do not make time to play. Above all, make sure it’s a source of joy in your life.

And hey, if you follow that advice then you might find yourself down the line playing video games with your child and partner in your own house. I can assure you that it’s worth more than the largest video game collection in the world.