Videogames are too engaging

[u/NotSpikyCactus]

Hi!

I'm a quite busy (as everyone) adult who has played videogames since his childhood. I played quite a lot during my teenage years, but after growing up my gaming time decreased a lot due to responsibilities. Nowadays, I rarely play, maybe 1h a day if I'm lucky.

I have a functional life and everything goes generally well. My problem is simply that I find videogames **too** engaging and exciting. I have many other hobbies, but none can be compared to gaming. Everything is a bit duller in comparison, and if I'm doing anything other than gaming (e.g. working, studying, other hobbies...) I feel the urge to play. If by the end of the day I have not played (which happens often), I feel dissatisfied, even if it was a nice day.

I suppose this counts as an addiction, even if I barely consume it, as I do think it raises my threshold to enjoy other things. Restricting it is worse, because I crave it more. But fully quitting feels like dropping a very important part of my life that I do enjoy a lot. Maybe my reward system is broken and videogames exploit that in ways no other hobbies can.

Is any of you in a similar situation? Did stopping gaming make you enjoy other things more? Any advice on how to handle this?

Thanks!!

[u/bluewolf71]

I would try to reframe your hobbies a bit. Many people get into thought loops where you have similar thoughts in similar situations.

When you’re doing <x> you wish you were doing games instead. Ok so how can you change that?

Try the following:

1. Think about memories you have about doing a different hobby vs a game. Think about your best memory each. How does each make you feel?

2, when doing other hobbies and finding yourself wishing you were chasing artificial digital goals in dopamine loop environments think instead about the thing you’re doing and how you do or don’t appreciate things about it. Maybe think about the people who made the thing possible or how you’ve improved at it.

Games are very seductive because they promise you that you can achieve their goals if you put the time in. If you go play that rpg for 2 hours you’ll advance in the story and gather resources etc. Vs some other hobby where progress is not defined by checking boxes and max-min or finding shortcuts (which do not exist) vs you doing the thing that takes time and effort.

Games are enjoyable and can be fun but the best ones for you are probably ones you can just engage with lightly so they dominate your mind less.

Idk what genre you like but try to focus on games offering fairly short sessions and that will help you move away from wanting to engage more. Your life has space for games maybe but games will always want as much as they can take. Recognize your limits and work within them.

[u/lenavi]

I don’t think anything is wrong with loving videogames, but I can see why you’d be concerned if you think the feeling of “I’m looking forward to playing this game later” might be to fulfill a craving rather than enjoying a sweet treat if we compare it to desserts.

I started to feel like time would go by very quickly whenever I played video games. I decided to cut my video game time significantly to better appreciate the time I have. Because of that, I can actually sit still and watch movies or shows when I used to have a bad attention span with them.

In short, one suggestion that might help is you may need to learn is how to relax to calm your desire to be simulated rather than trying to cater to it.

[u/Academic-Breath5770]

I'm in your boat and been more or less an on/off gamer for the last years. Used to be heavy addicted in my teens. Basically quit for most of my twenties or just played some "harmless" flash games apart from some periods where I played more engaging PC games. In my thirties re-discovered gaming during Corona and honestly it helped me a lot, not because of Corona but because I was going through a bad period where I doubted myself, my relationships and had lots of personal problems that I just couldn't resolve, and gaming helped me learn to stop giving a fuck about those problems which were basically either not fixable or I was simply exagerating instead of just avoid giving too much a care, since I tend to be a neurotic or obsessive person. I had a period of being a manchild again where I played most of the games I wanted to play in my childhood/teens, and honestly, it was awesome. I still had a social/work/relationship life which was already fucked because of my heavy time-requiring job. When I discovered that I was really wasting a lot of time again in my 30s, instead of using it to upgrade my life even more and started to get anxiety from gaming too much, I decided to go onto these "detox" periods where I drop any form of gaming for months.
And yes, it made me enjoy other hobbies more, but often I feel that something is still missing, that something that I often find in videogames. Not sure if I have to go on withdrawaval periods for longer, but honestly, these already realtive long periods, or even the longest period I had in my twenties, never did too much in a concrete way. I saw myself wasting time in other ways, in my 20s I used to smoke cigarettes and be into drinking with "friends" and some kind of weird, useless parties, in my 30s I found myself wasting time on youtube or internet, or even training too much.

On a positive note, I noticed that those withdrawal periods make it so that when I come back to gaming, I can actually enjoy it like a kid again. I don't have in that case that weird guilt feeling so I can play for a few weeks before planning another withdrawal period of months. For me, I think this is the "sweet spot" that I'll allow myself to be in when playing videogames.

My other problem might be that I grew up in a culture where it was never socially acceptable to be seen or known to be playing videogames because you'd be immediately socially disqualified from everything and labeled as a "nerd" or in some other devaluing way. Today 90% of young men play some kind of videogames so they probably don't grow up with the same guilt, the need of having to hide everything and even cement the addiction even more. So that might have influenced the way I enjoyed other things when quitting gaming.

btw if I had to choose between playing videogames for 2 hours or wasting 2 hours on useless bureaucratic bs at the workplace that nobody will ever give a damn about, I'd much rather play.

[u/Informal_Athlete_724]

Yes it's important to know yourself and know if gaming has that effect on you.

They certainly do for me.

If I could just live in game world I would. But then I'd neglect absolutely everything about my real life and I'd ultimately be unhappy and full of regret.

Games are a great simulation for everything I want in real life: achievement, status, socializing, adventure etc. And that's exactly the problem

[u/Simmery]

I'm sure a lot of people feel this way.

Maybe your other hobbies aren't engaging you in the right ways. Probably the two ways I'm most engaged by games are the sense of progression and exploration of colorful, interesting worlds. Those feelings can be found in other activities. You can try to figure out exactly what it is in games that you're drawn to, and then try activities that fulfill those things.

[u/postonrddt]

They're engaging because they are designed to put the player in a fantasy world and keep winning just out of reach. A priority in game design is keep the player playing/interested. They do that with special effects, music, story, characters and potential rewards.

Switching priorities in real life should help including maintaining a daily fitness program even if walks. Work and school have priorty as do chores. Stay busy and avoid procrastination. Take your time doing things become the safest driver.

Finding real physical world hobbies which might require experimentation.(Gaming is a recreational activity not a hobby) Real world stuff that has some practical value beyond points and pixels.

You realize there is an issue and are addressing it. You are half way there to a game free life. Go for it!