COVID-19 changed my daily routine in more ways than the obvious. It meant that I regularly picked up my old dusty Xbox controller again, after more than a year out. Such periods of unuse and desolation for my console have been commonplace throughout my life, yet the cyclical nature of the hobby always brings my return. Picking up the controller so close to the border of adulthood life this time, however, made me seek an explanation as to why a machine held such prominence in my life.
Two different conclusions for different types of games came to the forefront of my thinking. Firstly, feelings of friendship, competition and adrenaline instantly metamorphosed around my main gaming interest – online multiplayer games such as FIFA or Call of Duty. And secondly, feelings of adventure, immersion and exploration grew from my other gaming interest – role-playing games.
In my prime teenage years, when my adult personality was coming into fruition, and yet the burdens of adulthood had not yet knocked on the door, online multiplayer was an extension of my school life. Most days it was insistent in my routine. Why? Simply because it expanded the capabilities of friendship – it bridged the wide gap of strict parents, budget constraints and poor real-world entertainment. It created a wider world of games, rivalries, and conversation that all my friends could embark on – all from the comfort of our armchairs. Every weekend my friends and I could push for a higher division on FIFA or explore the Nether in Minecraft – the fun was endless. It’s because of these endless possibilities why every time there seems to be a resurgence online, whether it be for a new game or a global pandemic, I instinctively pick up my controller.
Then there is my other video game love. Role-playing games. For avid readers of my blog, they will know that I recently decided to pick up books once again. Well, role-playing games were what had filled the escapism hole in my life, which books might traditionally do. Whether it be the Fallout series or newer games like The Outer Worlds, these games allowed me to turn off my everyday life, by exploring alien communities and dictating my in-game moral personality. I could fight dragons in Skyrim, train creatures in Pokémon, or even ransom a little girl’s cat in Fallout 4. I decide my path, my pitfalls, and my image. I’m allowed to be something I could never be in real life. And it for these reasons that I keep going back – nothing matches the feeling of complete immersion, where your real-world feelings seem to melt away and you and your character are one.
As you can see, I love video games and play them a lot. They are unrivalled as entertainment in my life. However, this is what I am attempting to change. Video games are great, yet they are highly addictive. If you play a game of football you lose one hour of your day. If you watch a film, you lose two. If you play video games, you can easily lose six. This means that I often go weeks without progressing my life, endlessly completing the bare minimum to return as quickly as possible to the screen. Luckily, since the new year, my change is going well. I’ve picked up the controller about five times – but my true progress has been in the huge steps I’ve taken outside of the box, in my life.
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