Why I started playing games in my 30s
I never truly understood why people get so hooked on playing games until my startup failed and my wife got me Hogwarts Legacy...
I was never much into games. When I was a kid, my parents got me a Sega Mega Drive 2 for my birthday, and I only remember three games distinctly. I loved Sonic 2, played a bit of The Lion King, and terrorized my mother into playing Robin and The Flash with me.
By the time I had a PC capable of running decent games, I was already a teenager and was much more interested in making games and websites.
I remember this 3D Game Maker thing where you had a few gameplay options and a character customizer that you could use to create variations of the same few models. It was a fun program to use that built basic games.
During university, I was more focused on partying than gaming, but I remember playing a few NFS games. Those were quite good, to be honest, but they never really got me hooked.
I was still not sold on the whole gaming thing. I couldn't really understand people who poured hundreds of hours into a game. I always felt like there were so many better things to do.
In terms of free time, my first corporate job sucked big time. It was a great learning and professional experience, but games never even crossed my mind.
In my second job, I had a lot of free time. But once again, game development was more intriguing, so I developed a beer-themed brick breaker game and even launched it on the app store (it didn't do well). But I got hooked; I watched numerous courses and built more than 10 prototype games in Unity.
During this time, I also started experimenting more with playing games. I still had no taste for them, but I thought that making games required playing them as a form of research, if you will.
I remember the Nintendo Switch coming out at some point, and it was so appealing. It reminded me of those pocket Tetris games that we had as little kids. At the same time, you could play awesome games on it. However, it was way too expensive for my modest salary, so I quickly forgot about it.
My third job was back in big corp and I started making a bit more money, so (as one does) I created a startup with a friend of mine. We raised some money and had at it for almost two years but couldn't find a product-market fit.
I remember a distinct day in February last year when I felt incredibly down and beaten. My amazing wife bought me a Nintendo Switch OLED for St. Valentine's Day. It was a fantastic gesture, and she even got me a Sonic game with it.
With the startup life, I barely had time to play it – it was more of an emotional support item. But then our startup failed. One of the things that got me through was the Switch. Hogwarts Legacy had recently been released for the Switch, and my wife had bought it for me because she knew I'm a huge Harry Potter fan (yep, she's that great).
I suddenly found new emotions in gaming. I guess I hadn't played anything I really cared about before. Immersing myself in this game helped me come to terms with the harsh reality of our startup failing.
Somehow, I graduated from playing casually once or twice a month to spending time in and around Hogwarts regularly. I love epic stories and exploring new worlds, and I never realized how playing a game is much closer to reading a book than watching a movie ever could be.
I think I can now understand why people are so into gaming. First of all, playing a game is an excellent distraction from daily stress. I've worked high-pressure jobs most of my career and can't believe I never figured this out before.
So, now I consider myself a proper casual gamer, meaning I play once or twice a week, and it's been great. I've also been seeing some additional benefits of playing games.
Honestly, it's probably all in my mind because I've been reading up on the supposed benefits of gaming. And I know these are not really proven, but they make a lot of sense.
Playing games has the potential to improve reaction time, help develop critical thinking, and promote dexterity in your fingers. Especially after all the messing up my fingers have endured from typing and working with a mouse, a console controller feels different, as if it stretches my fingers. At least my wrists and hands have loosened up a bit over the past months.
But the best part of playing games is the amazing reset they offer. Every time I am stressed about work and can't switch off at night, I play for an hour, and it all goes away. Playing a game leaves no room to think about daily mundane stuff.
It's so much better than watching Netflix.
I used to look at gamers with bewilderment, but now I look at gaming with a vast curiosity. I am curious to find the games I'll love the most and spend a portion of my free time playing them.
Anyway, I've been feeling like I discovered sliced bread lately, and I wanted to share this emotion with you.
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Till next time,
Dobri 🍃