Abject Geekery

I remember living in the local arcades, those murky neon dungeons where digital battles were waged against tanks, aliens and little blue ghosts. I was hooked and the quarters flowed from my pockets to enrich the hygene challenged owners of these Dark Dens of early computer gaming.

As I got older, I discovered the pleasures of REAL computer gaming…. first in text or ANSI graphics… then with ever smaller and more colorful blocks of pixels. Good stuff… good times.

I was there for the rise of the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG), playing hours of Ultima Online (Atlantic forever!), Everquest, Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Champions Online and finally… Star Trek Online. Over the last 10-12 years, I have been there and done that for both online and single player games.

And consoles! Yep… I had all the stars from the home TV gaming world, from the original  pong to the Wii… ending with the Playstation 3. Cartridges and disks… I have played them all.

And now? I’m done. I think after all these years, I’ve gotten just about all I can out of these experiences.

What started this decline was my house was robbed a couple of years ago. My PS3 was stolen, along with all the games. As I was totaling the value of these for insurance purposes, I actually saw the accumulated bottom line number and was shocked that I had wasted so much money on this hobby. I decided right then to not replace the console and use that money for other more “home improvement” things.

Since then, I’ve picked up a few games, but none of them have really entertained me beyond the first few days. After the initial “cool” factor… they all became more like work than play… and as my play time is limited, I tended to look for other quick bits of distraction.

The final nail in the coffin for my Gaming Identity was a quote by Edward “Bill Adama” James Olmos, who commented about how we are a reflection of what we choose to do… if we read histories, we are historians… if we work on our houses, we are carpenters/electrician/plumbers etc… gardeners… and he left that if we play games in front of a TV for hours…well, we are THAT. Wow.

At this stage of my life, with the commitments to family and career and house… I cannot see devoting my time to so unproductive a hobby. And that really is the point, isn’t it? Hobbies are great. Every man needs a hobby. But, as far as hobbies go… I would consider computer gaming to be the least productive outside the event of entertainment itself.

As I get older, and I start to look at time as a more limited commodity, I cannot help but feel that even my entertainment time needs to be productive in some way… be it the creation of something useful or pleasing to the eye… or making my home a more fit place to dwell in… or activities to improve my mind and body.

What really seals the deal … suppose if, like the property value stolen… I could somehow reclaim the time spent on 10 years gaming to then spend on either the equivalent reimbursement of previous entertainment…or something else, like lessons or carpentry or some there more productive hobby… what would I do? There really is not question, for me…

I wouldn’t be gaming.

I’m thinking the parents are all “WTF are my kids singing about!?”