218: Playing Like It's My Job

[CD-R]

I was out of work for awhile about 2 years ago. Right out of college I got a job at a mortgage broker (I'm sure you can guess where this is going). Long story short housing market tanked and I didn't make any money. I think it took me about 6 months to find a job in what I went to school for. And another 5 months to find one that actually paid good.

I don't really remember what I played during that period though. I know I had finally managed to finish a game of Morrowind as well as the Tribunal expansion. I played Dynasty Warriors 3 a lot too.

Is it wrong that I wish I was unemployed so I could play games for more than an hour at a time?

No I feel the same way now that I have a 360 and a high end PC lol.

Enjoyable article!

While reading the article I started to think about how much less games I've been playing since I started working, after college. Not just that I don't have time for it, but that I just don't feel the same urge or pleasure from playing hours upon hours. I've always been an avid gamer, and school was always a breeze so I had so much time to dedicate to gaming, and time/attention consuming games like RPG's (or other in-depth games) have always been my kind of games, and there was nothing I loved more than to just lock myself in a whole weekend to play Mass Effect, or the like.

But now I'm just like "meh" and get bored easily. Maybe it's just temporarily and because of the lack of awesome games the last 12 months (I guess we'll see when ME2, Dragon Age et al comes out later this fall). I just felt that maybe it was connected to how the author states that games rewards you when unemployment doesn't (and now it is the other way around as I love my job). Is this the reason I played so much games thoughout my high school/college years?

Just my random thoughts.

Actually same things happened to me. Every once in awhile I'll grind out a 6 hour gaming session and beat a game but I hardly ever do it as frequently these days.

 

[Valiance]

Is it bad that whenever I don't have a girlfriend, I end up playing Starcraft competitively again?

It's like I have more time and ability to focus.

>.>;

 

[awesomebillfromdawsonville]

Well seeing as construction is slow in these times, I've found myself on the shitty end of the employment scheme and nothing quite fills the day up like some good old fashioned gaming, the likes of which I used to engage in when I was in high school, sans responsibility. Then again, I wasn't married or had children in high school. Maybe it's not so similar. Either way, no matter how you squish it, unemployment is a great way to catch up on games that you havent played. Just make sure you apply for unemployment insurance so that you can afford them.

 

[SimuLord]

The sheer volume of management sims and city builders I've played during stretches of unemployment as I've tried to find my place in the finance industry speaks volumes about the brain's need for consistency and willingness to generate it artificially. With no real-world company spreadsheets to pore over and work with, I found myself poring over and working with artificial company spreadsheets. Too bad I can't put it on a resumé.

 

[starlight2098]

To me, this topic smacks of all too much personal truth.

When I was laid off from my detestable Technical Help job in February, a Job that was slowly driving me to madness and depression, I found myself with a great sense of relief. It was over, I didn't have to go back to that terrible place which had prompted the NHS to put me on Propanolol Hydrochloride, a beta-blocker, to reduce my heart rate.

Naturally, with the state I'd gotten myself into, it felt only right that I should have some relief. Relief that felt deserved, despite the fact that as time went on, I found myself in an increasingly parlous financial situation. Whilst I was falling behind on rent, failing to pay the bills and finding myself very short on food, it becomes far easier and tempting to throw on my favoured in-depth game of the day (ranging from Fragile Allegiance, to Eve Online, to Fallout 3,) than it was to search the pitifully useless job market.

Indeed, why spend more than twenty minutes a day on futility when you can feel like you're getting something done now? A battle won in Supreme Commander is a definite and doubtless - if ultimately rather meaningless - accomplishment. A lifetime aspiration met in The Sims 2 gives an almost perverse sense of having made good on a life, even when your own is descending into tatters.

Do I resent computer games for being such a time sink and providing such a false measure of accomplishment, despite the fact that I was not living my life very effectively at all? No. I can't say that I do. Those artificial positive feelings, that sense of engagement, of getting something done, gave me something to hang on to other than depression.

Ultimately I've been able to pull myself out of that quagmire and have managed to return to University - having decided that I will never work in a call-centre again. Without some relief, some focus in my life, there would have been nothing but doubt and upset. For that, I thank Gremlin and Gas Powered Games and all the makers indeed.

Funnily enough, the course I chose this time around is BSc (Hons) Computer Games Design and Production.