Video game XP IRL
I will definitely keep playing video games in my pension
Few times already I’ve had discussions with people about video games and what kind of benefits can we derive from them outside of just fun and relaxation. Usually I get flashbacks to childhood arguments with my parents excusing my late night gaming sessions and repeating myself plenty how it’s improving my hand eye coordination, teaching me about other cultures and how there are pro players earning money on this stuff. Yeah, you can sense a bit of sarcasm there because the I could have made my point way more convincing with a bit more elaboration, but then again, also with a much more life experience to actually notice the effects.
The reasoning I hear from other people is that gaming is wasting the time you could spend doing productive things, whatever that might be, and yeah, I’m sure you could find more productive ways of spending your time than gaming, there are plethora of ways. I did try to avoid gaming at some point, and it worked for a while, but I didn’t replace it with some other form of relaxation and soon it simply got replaced with binging YouTube or Netflix. If you are a sort of person that can go without a release valve then you can stop reading this article and go do something smarter.
I’m not a video game designer by any means, but I do notice when the designers manage to achieve a great player progression curve and difficulty balance that is fair to the player and respectful of their time and effort. Every time I get beat up in a video game and immediately feel the need to improve and go at it again, I get reminded of how important that mindset is in the real world as well. Failures are our best learning experiences and we feel much better about ourselves when we keep growing compared to ourselves in the past.
So as long as you gaming habit is not so addictive that it tangibly negatively impacts other aspects of your live, don’t feel about about other people saying gaming is a waste of time, because if it makes you feel better, and teaches you a thing or two, it’s a great source of motivation.