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Anecdata: I live this, I agree with you. An MMO was the only thing in my life I've stayed up all night for and then been able to set an alarm and wake up for

by ej10 7y ago

Anecdata: I live this, I agree with you. An MMO was the only thing in my life I've stayed up all night for and then been able to set an alarm and wake up for after 2 hours of sleep. This was a game I committed to for 14 years. I've slept through finals, been tardy my entire life, yet for this MMO I could do anything. I was "sick" instead of seeing my girlfriend, I was otherwise occupied instead of working, or school. I made the conscious decision years ago to never install WoW for exactly this reason. In the same way AA teaches that an alcoholic is always an alcoholic but can be sober, I choose to stay sober. I miss it. I think about it. But I have to make the active, conscious decision to 'choose life'.

madaxe_again 7y ago
Hear hear. I’m madaxe. I’m an addict. I wasted 18 months of university on an MMO, 15 years ago. Cost me my social life, my girlfriend, and I found myself on academic probation. It was absolutely insidious. I only found my way out of it by becoming a GM and then banning my own account, because even though I’d made the decision I wanted to stop, I just kept finding myself downloading and installing the client, yet again. It worked, I completed my degree, rekindled friendships. I did relapse about four years later while working a shitty boring QA job, and decided to treat the root cause, which was the shitty job, and went and started a business - and then didn’t game at all for nearly a decade. Weirdly, my addiction and my physical running away from the environment that fostered it lead to much of the success that I have enjoyed since. It made things so intolerably bad that a ground change was mandatory. I game again now, but it’s now on the order of about 5 hours a week on average - I’ll still occasionally spend a sleepless weekend playing something, but then I’ll go a month without. I like finite games - some adventure with an enthralling plot, and when it’s over, it’s over - or grand strategy like civ, where you master the game and move on - and frankly I find a three day deity match gruelling enough that it’ll be three months or more before I get the itch again. I’ll never touch an MMO again - they are almost perfect and infinite skinner boxes.
- danielscrubs 7y ago
  I’m scrubs, I’m an addict. Spent my youth programming, going from language to language. I was learning and it led me to jobs and I’m grateful for that, but my memories of youth is me in a dark room in front of a big monitor and a buzzing light that never really worked right. I have almost no other memories of it. was it worth spending my youth so that I could be 15% more productive at some firm? Even now I come home, kiss my gf and then sit in front of the computer to chase the next big thing, mostly because when I come home I am to tired to do anything else than just programming. There was some research on HN where they found that programming (successful run/compilation) led to similar dopamine boosts as gambling. My neck, back and hands all hurt, but I do what I always do.
marcus_holmes 7y ago
I lost about 5 years of my life to WoW. I was in a good place in 2005, had sold my house and got voluntary redundancy from my job. But emotionally not so great. Long story short, I spent the proceeds from the house sale and redundancy on a level 85 character from every class, on both Horde and Alliance, on both Euro and US servers. I only stopped when a relationship broke up, and I finally realised that WoW wasn't helping. I logged out that day and haven't touched it since (8 years ago now). I went through a severe clinical depression after that, though, and it took me another 5 years to get back to "normal" (whatever that is). Looking back on it, I was depressed the whole time and was using WoW as a way of surviving the depression without having to face my demons. I think the problem of video game addiction has nothing to do with video games. Video games are a symptom, not a cause. The problem is the usual existential crisis of modern society: what is the point of our lives? I don't think we can solve this by regulating video games. In fact, I think that video games may be a useful barometer for mental health, and a lot less destructive than the other options (alcohol, drugs, sex, etc). But I also think that's a completely different problem from the one the article is talking about, which is luring small kids into spending serious money on online games. That one we can solve with regulation.
alltakendamned 7y ago
Were you able to contain your addiction on your own or did you get help? This sounds like a challenge for sure.

by ej10 7y ago

madaxe_again 7y ago

Hear hear. I’m madaxe. I’m an addict. I wasted 18 months of university on an MMO, 15 years ago. Cost me my social life, my girlfriend, and I found myself on academic probation. It was absolutely insidious. I only found my way out of it by becoming a GM and then banning my own account, because even though I’d made the decision I wanted to stop, I just kept finding myself downloading and installing the client, yet again. It worked, I completed my degree, rekindled friendships. I did relapse about four years later while working a shitty boring QA job, and decided to treat the root cause, which was the shitty job, and went and started a business - and then didn’t game at all for nearly a decade. Weirdly, my addiction and my physical running away from the environment that fostered it lead to much of the success that I have enjoyed since. It made things so intolerably bad that a ground change was mandatory. I game again now, but it’s now on the order of about 5 hours a week on average - I’ll still occasionally spend a sleepless weekend playing something, but then I’ll go a month without. I like finite games - some adventure with an enthralling plot, and when it’s over, it’s over - or grand strategy like civ, where you master the game and move on - and frankly I find a three day deity match gruelling enough that it’ll be three months or more before I get the itch again. I’ll never touch an MMO again - they are almost perfect and infinite skinner boxes.

danielscrubs 7y ago
I’m scrubs, I’m an addict. Spent my youth programming, going from language to language. I was learning and it led me to jobs and I’m grateful for that, but my memories of youth is me in a dark room in front of a big monitor and a buzzing light that never really worked right. I have almost no other memories of it. was it worth spending my youth so that I could be 15% more productive at some firm? Even now I come home, kiss my gf and then sit in front of the computer to chase the next big thing, mostly because when I come home I am to tired to do anything else than just programming. There was some research on HN where they found that programming (successful run/compilation) led to similar dopamine boosts as gambling. My neck, back and hands all hurt, but I do what I always do.

marcus_holmes 7y ago

I lost about 5 years of my life to WoW. I was in a good place in 2005, had sold my house and got voluntary redundancy from my job. But emotionally not so great. Long story short, I spent the proceeds from the house sale and redundancy on a level 85 character from every class, on both Horde and Alliance, on both Euro and US servers. I only stopped when a relationship broke up, and I finally realised that WoW wasn't helping. I logged out that day and haven't touched it since (8 years ago now). I went through a severe clinical depression after that, though, and it took me another 5 years to get back to "normal" (whatever that is). Looking back on it, I was depressed the whole time and was using WoW as a way of surviving the depression without having to face my demons. I think the problem of video game addiction has nothing to do with video games. Video games are a symptom, not a cause. The problem is the usual existential crisis of modern society: what is the point of our lives? I don't think we can solve this by regulating video games. In fact, I think that video games may be a useful barometer for mental health, and a lot less destructive than the other options (alcohol, drugs, sex, etc). But I also think that's a completely different problem from the one the article is talking about, which is luring small kids into spending serious money on online games. That one we can solve with regulation.

alltakendamned 7y ago

Were you able to contain your addiction on your own or did you get help? This sounds like a challenge for sure.