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Hi folks,

32 yo Canadian male, pretty happy with where I'm at professionally and financially, about to be a dad (quite happy about that)!!

Gaming has been part of my life all the way down to the SNES/early 90s pc games, when I was a kid. It then evolved when I discovered CS Source, RTS games, city builders, more and more FPS, up to the battle royale genre. I built my own computer (that was fun and a cool learning experience), spending thousands of dollars on it 4 years ago. More recently I sunk a lot of time into Satisfactory and Factorio, neverending games that ended up taking a whole portion of my waking hours (on top of working + living). Last week I dropped off Factorio in the early morning hours and was still thinking about designs when trying to find sleep next to my pregnant GF. This is when I thought to myself that I needed to stop this madness, found this website and enrolled into the Respawn program.

Now that I think about it, I must have had a problematic relationship with gaming even when I was a kid, putting loads of hours in it, but it did not prevent me from realizing some important milestones in life (getting a degree, have a stable relationship leading to having a kid in the upcoming months, having stable finances, etc.) While I can say that gaming has not been the destroying force that it can be for certain persons, it definitely had an important grasp on my life for the last couple of years and I am now ready to recognize the paterns that lead me to gaming in the past: fun was the inital spark, challenge was also a driver (i loved being top fragger in FPSs, winning battle royale games), but it also sneakily became a way for me to temporarily escape stress or life situations with which I didn't want to deal with emotionaly. Now that I took the opportunity to look back on it all, I also realized how many hours of my life I sunk in these games. Thousands!!! Thousands of hours that could have been put to better use, learning real-life things, or simply enjoying life outside the virtual world.

One small portion of James' background story on episode 2 of the podcast was a revelation to me - he mentions at some point that he used to have worries about not finding the time to play video games when he would have kids, and how it is completely sick to think this way. I had these thoughts in the past, even more recently when the concept of being a dad became more and more real to me. I do not want to be a dad who thinks about playing video games when spending time with my kids, I want to be able to fully enjoy the moment and give my kids the best I can give them!

I haven't gamed in 2 days now, and today I deleted all games from my gaming rig, passed down all my accounts to my brother, messaged the boys and girls of my clan on discord to let them know what I was doing, formatted the Switch which I will put for sale. All of this was harder than I thought it would be, I'm still feeling uneasy about closing the book on something that I thought for so long was an important part of me, but thinking again about the kind of person I want to be and all the projects I want to accomplish in life, this is definitely the way to go for me. 

So cheers to you all, and looking forward to this new journey in my life!

Le North Dreamer

Edited by Le North Dreamer
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Hey Dreamer,

It sounds like it was more of a rational decision for you than it was for me! Good on you for recognising where you want to be and making the step. Factorio and its ilk are definitely big ol' time sinks. No-one should spend that long thinking about belts (I certainly know I have).

Anyway, welcome to the program and best of luck. It sounds as if you're on the edge of something new and exciting with a child on the way, and it seems like a good time to make a start on the journey!

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Your story minus kids is my story.

Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean.

Welcome.

On 11/2/2020 at 7:18 PM, Le North Dreamer said:

it also sneakily became a way for me to temporarily escape stress or life situations with which I didn't want to deal emotionaly. Now that I took the opportunity to look back on it all, I also realized how many hours of my life I sunk in these games. Thousands!!! Thousands of hours that could have been put to better use, learning real-life things, or simply enjoying life outside the virtual world.

This especially. 🙂 Addictions are sneaky! And while I don't think every single hour of gaming was a waste, I do often wonder what I would be much better at if I had done better things than game. Instruments, sports...? I'll never know.

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Thanks codepants - 100% agree, not every single hour of gaming was a waste, but for sure a good portion of the thousands was, at least for me. I remember scrolling through my Steam library just looking for something else to play when I was getting bored with games I was playing at that time...

Intruments and sports are still within reach if you put in the time and energy! I'm an ex-saxophonist and am now learning keyboard. What a blast!!

Cheers mate!

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6 hours ago, Le North Dreamer said:

Not every single hour of gaming was a waste, but for sure a good portion of the thousands was, at least for me. 

 

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment. There were moments when I genuinely played to wind down after a productive day at school or job. But, and I can only speak for myself and not for everyone, those days were the exception and not the rule. Most of them were either because I was putting victories over studies, or to lock my loneliness and awkwardness with me in my bedroom.

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On 11/6/2020 at 10:29 PM, codepants said:

Well, not a single hour of Kerbal Space Program was a waste for me. 😂 The others... probably mostly a waste. Avoiding feelings, as BornAgain cited.

Funny that you mention KSP - one of the most hearthbreaking parts of quitting games for me is not being able to play KSP2 when it comes out next year (that and updates to Satisfactory). All these FPS/battle royale games for sure were a waste, except maybe the ones played with IRL friends, but even then, there's better activities to do with IRL friends!

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