Thanks for the message. I also had a Dota 2 phase, so I understand where you're coming from. Yeah, it does take awhile for your brain to rewire to less "stimulating" forms of entertainment. But it happens slowly. I'm also doing NaNoWriMo this month.. first time for me. I see you are making videos on your channel, so I subscribed and will be following along. Cheers

@@palebluewave awesome! Good luck for us!

Read Louis L'amour's book "The Sackett Brand." It will introduce to you a book that you can't put down even if you thought you weren't in the mood to read.

Thanks for adding your thoughts & your story here. It sounds like your transition away from gaming is going great. Agree completely on where we are headed with literacy. It is sad to watch it happen.

How dare you

That's great advice. People complain abut not finishing 'backlogs' but they'd have time if they'd implement your thinking : all they have to do is cut out the time wasting attention exploiting 'games', that are addictive for the wrong reasons.

Speaking from experience family does influence a bit, especially at first, but you can and have to balance and prioritize things.

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Thanks for the comment! My choices of games, and the way I consumed them, were definitely a big part of the problem. I am naturally pretty competitive and I tend to find myself attracted to the games that don't have "endings" and tend to be endless grinds with moments of continual upgrades or higher rankings (competitive Fortnite). The problem I have with these games is that it never seems to be enough.. no matter how high I get in the rankings, I always am driven for more, and it's hard for me to be happy unless I'm improving. For whatever reason, single player games never hold my attention.

Do you also olay older Pokemon Games?

As ex League of Legends player, I can confirm single player, story driven games way less addictive than competitive games. Sometimes even a single player game hooks so bad and I find myself grinding side quests or whatever, but at some point game just ends with credits screen. Then I completely detach from game as satisfied.

@@Kaolidas It's the same, I been playing single player games since 2018 and I think every day about games and I aleays buy New games. If I have free time, my brain takes me to the console.

Yeah, I feel like I've been posting this around KZfaq lately as it's really that so much of the issues surrounding modern games from monetization, addiction, time-wasting only actually apply to a specific kind of game that ironically brought gaming to the supposed mainstream: the progression system video game. I've been gaming since the NES and I honestly think games are the source of most of my success in life. Games used to be locked based on your skill. There was no dopamine ding unless you actually improved your skills. And the reward was an increasingly difficult challenge until you beat the game. It's exhausting like playing a sport. You can be addicted to it, but it's pretty hard to ruin your life with such games simply because of the high level of tension and challenge. Like a sport, however, it teaches you a lot about how your brain works and the incredible things you can be capable of if you apply the effort and practice. Not just getting rewarded for showing up, but for drilling, thinking creatively, improving perception and reaction, thinking tactically, understanding limitations of code and AI, etc. Every gamer like me that I've known has been similarly successful at work and other areas of life. They are well rounded like you described yourself and tend to have a variety of interests and successes. Games taught me how to get my brain to work to acquire skills and how rewarding it is simply to increase in skill at the most obscure tasks that would otherwise seem boring. Including reading. It was in games that I learned there's a skill to reading to create immersion and this made me a better reader and increased my reading comprehension and enjoyment, fiction and non-fiction. I'd love to see progression system dopamine games separated from traditional gaming in discussions like these. Traditional games like Mega-man, Contra, Metroid, etc have evolved into Hollow Knight and Elden Ring. 90% of "gamers" that play gacha games and mmos have never played any of these types of games and probably could not or would not for more than 20 minutes or so since they do not have the dopamine for having the mechanical motor skill sophistication of a slot machine system. It really is COMPLETELY different nearly like comparing watching action movies to reading novels.

"Addiction problem with games". Fixed that for you.

Thanks for giving a different yet important perspective. Makes me think more critically.

I'm a student, full time sysadmin, full time dad and husband, and also have a dog. I make time to play amazing story rich, atmospheric games like System Shock (2023). I sometimes casually play stuff like Chivalry but try to limit it as much as possible. It's games like CSGO DotA and LOL that I regret wasting time on, I was good enough at shooters proven through much faster games like Quake, but I felt I had something to prove like most teens who get sucked into the rabbit hole do, and after I did I didn't feel more content or enlightened as I do after playing a good singleplayer game, or watching a good movie or reading a good book... I dodged a big bullet, I've also said no but more consistently to WoW - A good reason was because it ruined the chances of a Warcraft 4 ever coming out, and playing a time consuming RPG it was inferior to custom maps made by me, my friends or strangers online who put passion into them, from my perspective. Play games that are made with passion, learn the difference and skip the attention money grabbing schemes entirely, you've got nothing to lose really.

​@@yamchayakunope. Idk how these people struggle with this. Play games in short burst. Simple

Thanks - I like your plan. It's great you're only 20 and making this decision. You have the gift of time and the self-awareness to know it's time to change.

Do you play musical instruments?

@@tristan_840 Piano

That's an amazing journey man WOW. Many congratulations to you, I hope to emulate your journey too!

I know this comment is old, but based on the other books you've listed, I think you would enjoy the "His Dark Materials" series by Philip Pullman. The books are called: 1. Northern Lights, 2. The Subtle Knife and 3. The Amber Spyglass. I'ts my favorite book series.

Best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the second best time is today

Whatever you decide to do w/your gaming, I hope for greatness for you. Cheers

That's an awesome story. It's amazing how much productive time is freed up when you quit gaming.

Sounds like you're having a great transition away from video games. There is a weird mix of nostalgia and fun that gaming has. It's easy to just want to go back.. but it always ends up feeling like time not well spent for me after I do go back. Thanks for adding your story. Catch you later

My thoughts exactly. Back then games had a passion in them, unique and passionate releases were frequent. Nowdays, the only good options are indie ones, but the good ones aren't that many. This industry really gets away from producing souless unfinished crap. Games went from art to products

Amazing. Thanks for your message. These are the types of messages that keep me motivated. Getting closer to 30? You're choosing the best time to throw the gaming out. Congrats to you. Check in sometime in the future and let me know how it's going.

people have to make decisions themselves. best you can do is be an example of why its good to quit

@retrospectivej5718 yikes

I agree, if you only had to choose 1, choose reading. But I like the idea of scraping the cream of the crop off the top of both hobbies. If you get choosier about what video games you play, you'll only play the best video games, and in theory, you'll have the extra time to do the same thing with choosing the best books

Haha.. easy to do that right?!

Awesome - keep the momentum going

I think the distinction is that reading is more active and imaginative, I don't think it's necessarily about learning things, more experiencing something and creative a world with your imagination.

That’s a dumb statement, no one ever thought reading was a waste of time, maybe some thought reading a certain book was junk but that abt it. All video games are a waste of time.

@@notyourtypicalcomment2399thats not true. Back then fiction was widely considered a waste of time

@@imhereforkaisa1555 maybe adults reading science fiction would be considered a waste of time, but not reading, u said there was a time ppl thought reading was a waste of time. Ppl read the news ppl read to be informed. Reading was never considered a waste of time. How will video games ever get there? U said its not there yet.

In the 1790 book Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, Reverend Enos Hitchcock wrote: "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?"

Nice - hope you're still going strong

Thanks for the kind words. Totally agree with the effort involved in reading. I was thinking I may get some comments at some point on this video that I just replaced one addiction with another... but I agree with you, books have a very different energy to them.

Thankya.

Find a book that sounds awesome and go for it.

The game gives you an already pre-made image for you to view, while the book makes you create everything your way inside your head. I see games and books as different story telling arts, and I consider the books to be better in that regard because the word placing can create some really unique and delightful sensations while reading. Reading a story you really liked gets you envolved with it, you can't wait to go back to the book, just like how you can't wait to go back to a game that you really like. Reading is much healthier for the brain than gaming is, provides many psychological benefits, prevents old age brain deterioration such as dementia, makes you more calm, improves concentration, creativity and the capacity of having ideas. Gaming is super fun, but most good games are either indie or retro. The market got super saturated and the AAA releases are just souless. As for books, there are tons of excellent writings to explore

Thanks - I'll be following your channel!

I quit playing to read too. So far I've read Ender's Game saga (Orson Scott Card), Metro 2033 trilogy (Dimitry Glukhovsky), almost all of H.G. Wells' books, The Call of Cthulhu (Lovecraft), Stalker (Strugatsky), 1Q84 (Murakami), 2001: A Space Odyssey (C.Clark). It is very good to read. I was addicted to solo games then with hindsight I realize that the stories were poorly developed, or in a way chopped by the gameplay that takes over. So yes with a book there is no gameplay but the work of imagination is really rewarding, so much so that I started writing little short stories :) Sorry for m'y English, it's not my first language

Thanks! 😄

Thankya

Nice! Have a book recommendation for me?

@@palebluewave Yes! A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke are among my favorites. They're popular for good reason

@@palebluewave If you like fantasy try First Law

Also story-driven games, because they actually have an ending

Play Outer Wilds dude. That shit is an experience you will never get in books. I like reading but that experience? That's unique to video games.

I am really sorry man. Watching this video it just hit me how much time I have wasted too. I am sorry for your loss and I hope you find peace.

Glad to hear you decided to make some big changes. I know that feeling of guilt - not a fun thing to carry around all the time. Let me know how it's going someday in the future.

Same here. But with KZfaq, not video games.

Hey, how are your goals going now 9 months in?

​@@Ryan-is-meHey buddy. I've been clean for 9 months. No relapse. The only game that has tempted me is Balders Gate 3 but as time passes my urge reduces. How's your journey to quit going?

@@MrK.A Hey, good to hear! My goal wasn't to quit entirely, but to limit the amount of time I play. The rule I made for myself was that I can only play games if I've also read for an hour that day. I've been able to stick to this rule pretty well. I've only broken it 4 times since February, and now I'm working on cutting down my KZfaq time, ironically.

Thanks - added it to my queue

True, true.

Yeah I did about 6 months ago!