NEW VIDEO: I Quit MMOs and THIS Happened
Some Yahoo
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Posts posted by Some Yahoo
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Welcome to the forum.
You know that feeling when you are in a group of people and they are all talking about their lives, like "I went to a great restaurant last night", or "I met this girl" And you try to contribute to the conversation an all you have is "I beat this troll-boss-monster and I got the magical breastplate... It took me 9 hours to gear up for that." And everyone looks at you like you're some kind of alien.
Think of quitting gaming as a way of building a great life, with stories to tell your friends, dates, children and grandchildren.
Glad you're here.
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I had a feeling that others would have time to read after gaming.
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I thought I'd share what I'm currently reading and take a quick survey of what you're all reading too. Here's my list...
How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method (Advanced Fiction Writing) (Volume 1)
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My opinion: Yes. Shut off the computer and go be with real people. Find love, don't look to the internet to nurture and fulfill you. It doesn't care about you. Except of course to come back here once in a while and let us know you're OK.
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I also tried multiple times before I found this site.
I am 56 years old and I had been gaming since there were games. Here's what worked for me.
- Uninstall all games. Then uninstall Steam or whatever. I know they have been a big fat part of your life, but they are TOXIC.
- Set up other activities. Take a walk, shoot some hoops, go take an art class. Get out there with people, doing things.
Look at your games. They will make you a loser. Imagine that they want you to fail. I am diabetic, and I can't eat sugar. So I use a mental trick to keep away from it. Whenever I see a Twinkie or Coke, or anything sugary, I repeat inside my head "It's Clorox, it's Clorox". Teach yourself to see the games as failure and laziness. Imagine yourself at 56 without any social skills, friends, job, etc. Learn to hate them. Say to yourself Effing Games!
Please. DON'T end up my age with the same problem, but 40 years more entrenched. For God's sake, Don't become ME.
FYI: You CAN. I did.
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On 2/13/2018 at 2:27 AM, STRONGERIDEAL said:
So im only on my first day of not gaming.
To be honest i feel great at the moment.
Thing is... A dream of me is (or was?!) becoming a Game Designer.
But guess what stopped me to Design my Games?
....Yes Gaming..
I'm in the same boat. I have always loved 3D CGI and I spend some time designing in Unity. There is some crossover into cinematography as well. You can always pursue that if you find it too tempting.
Anyway a school in switzerland accepted me already to start my studies in september and if i make it i would have a bachelor of games & art . The Idea is really cool.
But is it even smart if i go in this direction if i dont even play videogames?
I part of me thinks dude how u wanna stop playing videogames if ur surrounded by them. Well its kinda the ultimate proof to be cured from it... isnt it ? ofc only if i make it.
And secondly i tought that:
A dealer that dosnt take hes own stuff is more successful
....
Whats ur view on that..
My Opinion: You have a problem with gaming. Most people don't. Removing yourself from a career that fascinates you is not going to hurt the game industry at all. Designing is a creative outlet. Just keep your eyes open to the pitfalls.
Greetings
Ismael
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I didn't realize this when I started my detox, but it's important to stop ALL your entertainment consuming activities for 90 days. Otherwise you'll just substitute 60 hours a week in games to 60 hours in (YouTube/Netflix/porn).
I'm not saying to never enjoy entertainment, I'm just saying dial it back to a reasonable level. 1 hour a day maybe. Yes, I leave my wife alone in the living room after 1 episode of (whatever). Moist nights I try to create something or learn something, but some nights I just go to bed early.
Don't fall into the trap of substituting other entertainment for games. You won't get well that way.
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I *strongly* recommend a service called Spam Gourmet.
I rarely sign up for anything using my real email address. There are also GMAIL settings you can use to filter out certain emailers (if you use GMAIL).
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Consider me submitted
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Things that I need to keep reminding myself of.
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Pursuing perpetual entertainment is not a life goal.
- YouTube is good for a little edutainment, but in small doses.
- Netflix is good for about 1.5 hours of your time 3 days a week.
- Reading books is better than either of these.
- The only things that are impossible are the things that you refuse to try.
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There are 2 kinds of hope.
- There is hope like "I hope I earn a lot more money soon, so I can get out of debt and have some fun." This is the nebulous kind of hope - like wishing for world peace - that doesn't require any action on your part. This is the bad kind of hope. This kind of hope demotivates, and stifles creativity and convinces us we are powerless to improve our lives.
- The other kind of hope is like "I have hope that what I'm doing will be profitable." This is a hope that drives action and improvement. It waters the soul and energizes. This is the good kind of hope, without which all is lost in a pit of despair.
- It is not my wife's, daughter's, boss's, or anyone else's fault that I am stalled out in life. I caused this, and it's up to me to repair it.
- Fixing things may seem daunting, but since it's my fault, that also means the solution is ultimately under my control.
- It is imperative that I limit contact with toxic people. This may mean cutting down time with people I love in some cases, because they make me worse. Toxic people are the ones who take without giving, and/or resist your efforts to destroy the status quo.
- People who really love and understand me will want to participate in my progress.
- Oh, yeah - it's good to have people in your life who'll call you on your "stuff".
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Pursuing perpetual entertainment is not a life goal.
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Victory.
Sweet, sweet VICTORY.
I have my life back!
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Great to see you here, Brian. You can do it. I have 10 more years of gaming than you, and there weren't even home computers when I was a kid. Now I am 9 days away from finishing my 90 day detox, and planning to party (with real people) when I hit the date.
I'm sorry to hear about the child support thing, I hope you have some interaction with your child.
We have created a society that actively punishes maleness, and I think a lot of us check out of it because we are tired of working hard to get everything taken from us, and then face daily ridicule for being men. It's not actively as bad as all that, but it feels that way sometimes, and we end up saying, why should I work my ass off for a lifetime just to be mocked and have everything stolen from me?
If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, this is the kind of thing that makes the heroes of the story check out of society and into their own little world.
Anyhow. Gaming is beatable, the further you go into your detox, the less you'll think about your games. We wish you all the best, and I strongly recommend that you actively take up some other hobby to fill the massive slice of time you'll be getting back. If you just sit around watching Netflix shows for the 40th time, you'll get so bored that you end up right back where you started.
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I have begun to think that the cash-loot-box thing is going to make it a lot easier for people to give up gaming. WTG, Star Wars Battlefront!
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HAPPY NEW YEAR
So. No games over Christmas, which is excellent. I have also been keeping my 90 day detox goals - at this point it would be such a pain to start it all over if I lapsed - with my Feb 18 goal.
I have a little confession.
I am a coder. One of my dreams is to create a video game from scratch, so I have been working on it. This is nothing new, I have been toying with this idea since the 1980's on my Atari 800.
BEFORE YOU PANIC: There is no relationship between creating a game and playing one. It's a lot of hard work. I just spent a whole weekend figuring out how to put health bars above enemies. To be kind to you GQ's, I will not give any details of the project here. There is a near-zero chance you'll ever see it anyway, as I am using the project to build my skills, not to make a public game of it.
My usual pattern had been to work until things got hard or confusing, and then play games because that was less mentally demanding. When things get hard I have been just walking away, taking a breath, getting water or coffee, and playing with Spiffy.
Another thing I have noticed.
Netflix and Amazon Prime have been getting a little boring. I looked up from the screen last night and asked my beautiful, charming, and talented wife to go out for pie with me. We went to Black Bear. She had the triple chocolate thing, and I found a no-sugar-added peach cobbler. We talked and talked. It was almost romantic. It was way more fun that killing a boss and getting 2 rare armor drops for the wrong class (LOL) and 75 cash-unlockable loot boxes.
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I wonder what I'll do if I get a game for Christmas. Perhaps God still accepts burnt offerings...
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OK, you quit gaming. You have 80 hours a week to fill and you already did all the house cleaning, laundry, dishes.
You're not quite ready to join some club or just hang around hoping to meet people, because you're 35, but you stopped progressing socially at age 17.
I found this site where you can learn stuff. It's called SkillShare. I'm taking all kinds of classes, like graphic design, leadership, and jQuery. I am not a paid shill, I just really found this helpful. with all that time, I have completed 3 smallish courses already in 2 days. There are no degrees or anything, so if you're looking to enhance the resume, it won't help that much, but I really appreciate the ability to update my skills a bit and redeem some of that time I used to spend gaming.
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This might sound sad, or involved, but there is a point, I promise.
I have type 2 diabetes. It's because I love pastrami sandwiches and hate physical activity. When I was diagnosed many years ago, I played this trick on myself. Just like when my kids were born and there was a poopy diaper, I would say "It's mustard, it's mustard, it's mustard", then hold my breath while I changed it out; I did the same kind of thing for sugar. I told myself "It's bleach". Using that technique, I was able to fool myself into thinking (over time) that donuts were toxic, and sugar in coffee or Coke was awful, and the day Taco Bell took 30 minutes to make my food and gave me a large churros for my trouble, I tossed them in the trash. I stopped eating chocolate (did you know that chocolate smells much better than it actually tastes?)
In general, I told myself that sugar hates me, and bread is not a friend either.
Today, when I think about my gaming, I think about the way it made me think about my family (you know, those people that love you?). Did you know that there were days that I actively wished they would all leave the house so I could play games? I skipped many outings with them because Tera was having a special weekend treasure hunt of some kind.
So, when you think you're gonna slip and download a game, picture inviting a gang into your home to steal everything you love and beat you up in the process. Oh, and you have to pay the gang $20 a month.
Told ya there was a point.
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13 hours ago, indie_rok said:
Today, my girl friend dumped me.
She never said why, but my intuition tells me the reason.
I want to share a story about my daughter. There was this guy in SoCal (we live in Norcal) that she met at EDC and dated up to the boyfriend/girlfriend phase. They had a lot of fun, but...
- He had no car, so she always had to drive to see him.
- He was a gamer so he had little money
Sometimes on the phone, he would stop listening to her because he was trying to game at the same time. Sometimes he would end a romantic call early because his buddies were going online to do some quest.
Then came the time when she planned a visit, drove 6 hours to LA for a weekend, and...
- There was no food in the house
- So they would have to go out (which he could not afford, so she would have to pay)
- His laundry was not done so he had nothing to wear
- He had made no effort to clean his place up. It was a sty.
To her, it was like saying "I will only love you if you do all the work and pay for everything".
She left him that weekend. 12 hours driving just totally wasted (though she did go have dinner with some of their mutual friends before coming home).
Don't turn into that guy.
You know how you hear there is a concert happening, and you go online for tickets, and it's $500, so you do this thing called cost-benefit analysis and decide that, though fun, the cost is just way to much for what you get out of it.
Next time you go to buy a game, tally the cost up in your head.
- $20 sign up
- $10 a month
- Stunt your social maturity
- Lose your girlfriend
- Lose the ability to get the next girlfriend
- Lose promotions at work (or great grades at school) because you quit at 4:45 every day to get online.
The cost is much MUCH higher than what it says on the download page.
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This is a GREAT VIDEO.
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Imagine if you will... that video games became life, and your world was full of the kind of things you find in - say - Every MMO.
- There are 75% girls who wear bikini armor, yet have male voices, brag about how stoned/drunk they are, how slutty they are, and how much sex they have with nameless guys. Would you even sit with such a "girl", much less date her?
- Everyone talks about bacon and screwing your Mom.
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You decide to go play basketball with 3 or 4 friends.
- there's one huge burly guy wearing a playboy bunny tail who never talks, and leaps up ever other step.
- there is one guy with a laser pointer who runs around the sidewalk flashing it in people's eyes.
- There is a girl who keeps screechng "wohooo!" every 3 seconds and never stops.
- Then there's the guy with the ball who stopped walking as soon as you formed your group, and 25 minutes later will follow you all to the court.
- There's one guy who walks around looking at everyone's shoes and calls you all newbies, and brags about his $90,000 basketball shoes. (and when the game finally starts, he completely sucks, and ends up screaming at his teammates).
- And there is one guy with no shoes, constantly walking into walls and poles, and keeps saying "I'm new, how do I do this?"
- There are lots of people in town - all doing stuff, but they all ignore each other.
- You say "Hi" to people or ask directions, and no one answers, except the guy who says "Run over the edge of that cliff over there".
- You lose the key to your house, and then find it after searching under a barrel on the roof. Because that's where people leave their keys. And people always have crates and barrels on the roof.
- It's always day or night, depending on where you are.
- The stores are loaded with items, but only certain ones can be picked up.
- You have have a piano in your pocket, but you max out a 20 matchsticks.
- You absolutely can't sit on chairs, eat meals, hug your children, use the toilet, wash your hands, or change your underwear.
- Your primary form of interaction with people is hitting them or selling them stuff.
Sounds wonderful! I think I'll pay $30 a month for it!
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Read a book. Write a book. Start a business. Learn to paint. Turn that intense dedication all good gamers have into something wonderful. Think about it. When you were sick with the flu you may have stayed home from work, but you still gamed, I'd wager. Gamers have an intense personality type where hard learning curves and repeated failure does not deter us. So use it. If we put our talents into other things we'll most likely flourish.
Have you heard the Dad phrase "Anything worth doing is worth doing well"? I hate that saying. It implies that if you aren't immediately wonderful at something, you should not even try it. My attitude is Anything worth doing well is worth f*cking up 10,000 times to get it right!
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Feeling better today.
Hey I wanted to note that you have [For Gamers] and [Parents of Gamers] on the site, but my beautiful, charming and talented wife also enjoys reading the posts here. Yes, I have found it very useful to come clean about my gaming with her and share my struggle and this site with her.
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Sick today: Pleh. Watching Netflix and not gaming. This site is so right that the main thing is to have other activities to fill the massive hole that 16 hours a day gaming leaves.
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Last Saturday I went to the Symphony. Awesome show.
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90-day detox
in Daily Journals
Posted
Great start, man. Let us know how you're doing.