Gameholic: Addicted for life?

When I’m with my friends drinking in a pub or at home we talk about lots of things. Of course one of the most spoken subjects are games. But that might not surprise you, because you are reading a column on gaming site. Sometimes my friends laugh and tell me I’m too obsessed with gaming. They tell me I can’t talk about anything else. And that’s my subject for this week here at Nisute; addiction.

When are you addicted to gaming? At first, I think it’s pretty difficult to admit we are actually addicted. But if I analyse myself I can make an conclusion I’m an serious addict, unfortunately.
Lets analyse the behaviour of a addicted gamer, in this case, myself:

- Owning all consoles that are on the market (and let’s not forget retro stuff)
- Playing games more than 4 hours a day;
- Staying at home in the weekends to meet up with your digital friends on Xbox Live (or other online consoles), instead of drinking beers with your mates downtown;
- Sporadically watching TV or movies;
- Checking the internet several times a day for groundbreaking game news and forums;
- Spending at least 300 euros (average) a month on games, limited/special edition consoles, handhelds and other gaming related stuff;
- Finishing games and getting better high scores are more important than your daily school work;
- Being at work or school and thinking of strategies I can use in a game;
- Having consoles in every room of your house, which results in a lack of space;
- Going on vacation and always take a console or handheld with me;
- Playing Super Monkey Ball with your girlfriend instead of playing with something else;
- Writing for game sites in your spare time.

That last one was of course a little joke, as writing about games is a nice excuse I can use if people say I game too much. I quote: “I have to play all these games because I have to develop my knowledge about gaming in order to write some decent articles, ok?!” Sounds good eh?

Sometimes I wonder were this addiction is leading to. Will I be a complete loser in my further adult life because I played too much games? Or will I get huge debts because I spent too much money on consoles? I really don’t know. As a matter in fact, I really don’t care. It’s better to be addicted to games than other stuff like smoking, drinking or even drugs. Am I not right? The troubles are starting when your getting isolated of the outer world.

Fortunately, I can say gaming doesn’t affect my social life in a bad way. I still have my friends, parties and other social and business meetings. Life goes on, you know! But sometimes it worries me a little bit because my life is all about gaming. That’s not a bad thing, but there’s more to explore in the world. But gaming is something that made me the person I am today, and I think I can be proud of that (really I’m serious!)

I hope that you as a reader can find yourself in this story. You don’t need to take it too serious, though, but just think of yourself. Can you say you are addicted? I know I am after making the above mentioned analysis. But as long our hobby doesn’t affect others I think it’s a harmless way of life.
So in the meantime I can still honour my gamerstag; Gameholic.

Maarten de Koning