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NEW VIDEO: I Quit MMOs and THIS Happened

Quitting videogames for good. Time to take back my life!


QWymer

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Hello! Thank you for checking out my introduction. My name is Kevin, and I'm a 20 year old student studying Law. My first ever experience with videogames was bitter sweet; I had a friend named David showed me his gameboy advance and on it, he was playing "Kirby & The Amazing Mirror". So, from the age of 5 or 6, I was hooked. Within a few weeks of pestering my Mom and Dad, I got one for Christmas and this started my (unfortunately long) journey with gaming.

Eventually, I swapped Gameboy games for DS games, and then DS games for XBox games, but all of these platforms were missing something. I couldn't exactly play with others on these platforms (I had no friends on xbox), so my gaming usage remained unhealthy, but relatively stable. Well, that changed with the invent of online MMOs. Runescape was one of those games that sucked me in completely. I got hooked immediately; a place where you can meet friends, train skills, conquer the world? That was my kinda thing. I still vividly remember having 13-14 hour days dedicated to basically just playing Runescape. I somethings think to myself Why, like Why did Runescape have such a huge impact on me? Like most games, Runescape provided that immediate feedback loop of progress. You could actively track your experience, and this let you know how far you would be from your goal. Now, with things like running? Hah! So What if you ran a mile a day? You definitely couldn't see improvements in your cardio as immediate as MMOs. So, being the rational, ten year old boy that I was- I focused most of my time and energy on games.

Now, this basically went on for YEARS and years. So from the age of 10, all the way to around 16-17, I spent my time gaming, thinking about gaming, fantasizing about gaming, strategizing about gaming... you name it. Luckily, all of this changed when I came across boyinaband's video titled "The Happiness Experiment". While this did not initially get me to quit gaming, it did start my journey on self-development. I'll link the video at the end of this introduction, but basically the premise of the happiness experiment is that you "bet" yourself to do a task, and give yourself such a horrible punishment that you would scare yourself into doing a task or habit. So, being the rational seventeen year old guy that I was, I created a bet with myself to donate my bank account's savings to a stupid organization. I forget which, but the point was that I didn't want that to happen. And... the experiment worked! I ended up with an exercise habit, and it has continued to this day.

So, with a few years of trial and error, I finally have gotten to a self-development stage that I consider acceptable. However, gaming still runs deep in my blood. While my identity as a gamer has faded, it is not dormant, so my goal with this forum is to cut off videogames once and for all. Recently, over the past few weeks, I had a heavy relapse where I spent around 7-8 hours a day playing Minecraft with my friend. I justified it by saying that I was -technically- spending time with a girl, and that it could lead to a potential relationship. However, sitting there wasting away my day away started to create anxiety, which ultimately led me to do what every other rational twenty year old man would do- I threw away all my hours worth of items into a fire, and then killed my character. This surprisingly worked, and freed me from the gaming shackles once again.

This time, I want to be proactive. I want to tackle my gaming addiction before it strikes again, and this forum is my way of doing so. I'm so extremely grateful that this forum has a wonderful community of likeminded individuals, and I'm excited to contribute to it. Thank you so much for reading this introduction, and I hope to see you around!
~Kevin

The Happiness Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEd4UW5f7s4

 

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Hey, Kevin! I work in the legal field right now (not a lawyer though), good luck with your education. Quitting games for good will definitely be beneficial, I know what long hours are required for a legal profession. Friends are usually what pull me back in as well. I used to live on the west coast so most of my friends live out there and are also gamers... playing games with them feels like "hanging out" even though we barely even talk about real life while doing so. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Kevin,

Your post reminds me very much of my own journey with gaming.  The constant time sink and losing yourself in the progression when you were younger, then the self-realisation and research you do around it with attempts to stop, before you decide that it can be controlled and then you let it back into your life and it takes over again until you don't want anything else.  I share your vision to cut it off completely, with no celebratory gaming sessions because I've achieved something tangible in the real world.

Your comment about running a mile made me smile a lot.  As a runner I understand how much patience and dedication it takes to develop your fitness and train, but do get frustrated about how you don't get that instant feedback like in a game.  What I've found with anything that isn't developed to be addictive like gaming, you have to enjoy the sense of identity it gives you despite what you might be feeling.  If you're training for a race, visualise yourself smashing it at the Olympics, if you're learning an instrument and nail a tune/song, visualise yourself in front of a cheering crowd.  It sounds daft and obviously it isn't real, but I find that stimulating my imagination in this way helps me achieve my goals and be more creative with life.

Good luck with it all 🙂

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