I used to “play” EverQuest.
For those who don’t know what EverQuest is, think of it like the 1998 – 2002ish equivalent of World of Warcraft. It was the first 3D Massively Multiplayer game out there, taking the elements that made MUDs and Ultima Online and making them into polygons, thus sucking you in in a way you’ve never been sucked in before.
Now, for those of you who might get that these are “games”, but don’t understand what “playing EverQuest” actually entails, and you don’t play WoW or know anyone who does, let me enlighten you:
To play EverQuest was to spend 8-10 hours a day sitting on your ass, pressing arrow keys and clicking a mouse as you steer a virtual you around a world filled with bad guys who cough up gold and items. As you acquire new items (say, a pretty stick), you show other people who run around this virtual world your new pretty stick, and they get jealous and go out in search of a new pretty stick like yours (or better). Meanwhile, someone else will show you their pretty stick, and you get jealous and go out trying to find one like theirs (or better). You get one, and show your friends, and their cycle starts all over again; meanwhile someone else gets a better stick and shows you and your cycle starts all over again.
Of course, there’s more to it than that. Sometimes, it’s a pretty earring; sometimes a shiny robe or new shield. But essentially, that’s all the fuck it is. For 8-10 hours. A day.
Nothing’s changed with World of Warcraft. At least, that’s what I understand, as I have never played it. I quit EverQuest for good in 2002, shortly after I spent a full two-week vacation from work in front of my computer hunting for the biggest, shiniest stick in the game with a few other people who were equally pathetic as committed as I was to the game. My wife basically gave me a choice – continue to be her husband and ditch the game, or continue my marriage to the game and lose her.
I chose her. (Being honest, it wasn’t as point blank as that, but she did sit me down and explain to me that what I was doing was not only unhealthy for me, but for our marriage, and I agreed).
Now, those of you who have been following my silly career will note that I began writing on the web in 2002. This is because I diverted my attention from spending hours upon hours in EverQuest (and other games), and turned a long-time goal of mine into my new game. I decided to write a book, and put as many hours as I did the game into that goal.
The book got written. People actually read it. It was a fantastic moment in Joe’s life.
It was also the moment I’d realized just how much time I’d spent “doing shit” in my life instead of “getting shit done.”
I still play video games. I enjoy the hell out of them… in small chunks. There are times, such as when Fallout 3 or Oblivion came out, that I may have actually spent an entire 8 -10 hours in a single day playing one game. But usually, at the end of that session, I begin feeling so guilty for putting off all the other crap on my list of things to do that I spend another three days after getting as much as I can done. Then I’ll go back to my 2 – 3 hours of playing at a time.
Which brings me to my point, and it’s one that could be controversial if anyone else cared:
I don’t see anything inherently wrong with spending 8 hours a day playing a video game, so long as nothing else important in your life suffers as a result. If you’re single and childless and that’s how you choose to spend your time, so be it. If you are in a relationship, and you are able to manage that while playing the game, so be it. If you have children and are able to raise them — CORRECTLY (i.e., so they don’t talk in the fucking theater while I’m trying to watch Star Trek) — so be it.
Just, please… don’t talk to me about how you wish you could be in shape, write a book, film a video series, build a boat, or anything else you could be doing with that time. Please don’t. Because I’ll hit you in the face with my fist and/or elbow. And I hit kinda hard, and I don’t want to do that, because I really do want to like you. So don’t fucking tell me about all your hopes and dreams you’ll never fulfill because you choose not to.
That’s precisely what’s happening: by choosing to spend x number of hours doing y, you actively choose NOT to spend x number of hours doing anything else. Period. There is no getting around it.
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Hey Joe,
Thanks for this post. I can relate to your story because I’ve been there too—but instead of choosing between my wife (I was single at the time) and EverQuest, I chose between WoW and my degree.
I do think that it is very selfish to spend 8 hours a day when someone else—your wife, kids—is affected by this kind of behaviour.
Here’s my short story:
http://pensador.org/2007/07/17/how-games-negatively-affected-my-life/
I’m a wow player, I don’t spend anything like 8-10 hours a day playing more like 8-10 hours a week but I don’t have anything else going for me so I actually try to spend more time in-game :/
You inherently outlined the definition of opportunity cost, and the bad decisions that people make all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
Nice article.
Wow (no pun intended), I can relate on lots of levels. There was a point when I could have moved to Tasmania and my ex-husband (note: “ex”) wouldn’t have noticed because he was so engrossed in (I can hardly bring myself to even say it) Civilization IV. It’s really a bigger problem than people who make casual, snarky jokes might realize, especially when someone already has an addictive personality, and guess what? He used to complain all the time about stuff he never got to do. Like me, for example.
Kudos to you for getting your shit together.
Well put.
I agree, you shouldn’t spend all your time not doing the thing you want to get done. To be fair, more people have a TV problem than people have a WoW problem. I played the WoW beta, then I subscribed for about six months, and the first time it was getting in the way of my college stuff.
So I took my character and stripped her naked, aggroed a bunch of big guys, and ran into the jungle to get slaughtered. Then logged off.
I met this girl online and I had saved up to go see her in the US. I’d come out of a bad relationship so I was wary at first of even admitting I liked her, but as it got closer to flying out, I had a crazy idea.
I bought a ring. I went to see her and for the first week, it was bliss. At the end of that week I proposed, and then two weeks later I flew back home to prepare my visa so I could go live with her.
Preparing a Visa is fucking bulllllshit. It took me ten months, and I was working the shittiest job for the money (I don’t drink, so I had great savings), and I was just getting so bored and lonely all the time.
So I reactivated WoW. It was, like any high quality game, great fun. I got a character up to level 38; her hastily picked name was Apollonia. So I was sitting on my ass playing that until she’d wake up and call me, then I’d talk to her, then she’d go eat and I’d go eat, and then I’d play till she’d call again. It kept us going through a tough time, the constant calling, but I really needed some other world to escape to while she was so far away.
Then I got pissed off with WoW and switched to Guild Wars. This is where it gets embarrassing. In Guild Wars, you pick two names, a first and last, like Joe Smith. I hastily picked a first name for Apollonia and came up with Vera. This game also served me well, but it had a weird effect. I’ve always loved writing, but seeing this character through two lenses inspired me to write a little story about her.
When I moved, and the USA’s harsh climate wrote off video games for me completely (we later got a Wii from my parents for xmas, bless em), I kept writing about this character. It taught me a lot about writing, and although I later ditched the idea for a novel, it made me call myself a writer for the first time.
Now we’re living back in the UK, and for the first year it was rough. No drive through banks, no free refills…. the UK is a harsh, stunted place at times. Thanks to the great UK minimum wage (and, at that point, great economy), I could afford to upgrade my old dusty computer and get some CS:S running on it. Then I got TF2. She noticed me playing it, and then asked to play, and then she got better, and better, and better…
Now she and some friends rent a server and she can’t wait to play every night after work. It helps her unwind, which is justification enough, and she’s learning server code and how to make maps because now it’s an interesting, relevant skill. They have it pretty full every night, and I’d be proud of her if she didn’t keep owning me (ME!), but I think it’s made our relationship better. As for me, I’ve just started reviewing games for print magazines, so the above doesn’t really apply.
“Nothing’s changed with World of Warcraft. At least, that’s what I understand, as I have never played it.”
Everything’s changed with WoW. WoW has shown us how flawed and bad EQ was. They’re very different and the days of 8 hour commitments are over.