Lost Time

I sometimes wonder if putting my time into these videogames are worth the overall outcome. Really, the only positive and "reputable" aspect about this expensive hobby is that it can improve hand-eye coordination and a person's overall intelligence.

But that's about it.

A person can easily invest over one hundred hours into a game -- that's a serious amount of time, time that could be spent doing more productive things. You could be getting exercise, learning a new language, or hanging out with a bunch of friends. One hundred hours? My god, that's a good chunk of life right there, my friend. What have you accomplished in that time? Your entire party is at level 99? Wow, that's quite an American accomplishment, if I do say so myself. Congratulations.

Recently, I read this article on Gamasutra, and I mostly agree with all the author's points. The thing is, yes, you definitely are gearing up for a near-impossible challenge, and by gearing up, you probably will get better at the game. But that's all it is, though: a game. Like the author of that article, I've become really good at a lot of these games, but in the end, I really have nothing to bring to the table of "reality". I've spent a majority of my time in front of the TV playing Soul Calibur and Smash Brothers and yes, even Mega Man 9 -- yet I can't repair a car if it breaks down and I can't cook an excellent meal. Those are fairly good skills to have. I don't have them.

The only reason I'm still here, writing about these silly things is because I believe that this new medium has the potential to become something great, like parts of film and literature -- right now, though, playing these games does not make me feel like I'm growing and improving. In fact, while I play Mega Man 9, I may be, in fact, becoming better at the game, but in real life, I'm still just a so-called "Man-child", someone who is mentally immature and probably will be until I begin to invest more time into "reality". As it is now, I've reached the point of no return; I've spent so much time playing games that there's got to be a way to put that time into something useful in the real world, right?

Professional Smash Brothers player? Yeah, real fulfilling.

The article also points out that there are two types of mindsets: the first mentality believes that when you die in a videogame, that's it -- you give up and go home. The second views that loss as a personal growth, and even though you had lost, the next time you play, you will rise up to the challenge and overcome it. The latter mindset doesn't believe in "wasted time".

Taking this into account, I booted up Persona 4, a game in a series that often doles out cheap, sudden deaths if the player isn't paying attention or makes a tiny mistake. In previous play-throughs, a had put over an hour's worth of time into one of the dungeons, and before I knew it, I ran into an enemy, which randomly "critical-ed" my main character. I was killed in an instant.

This had happened before in Persona 3. I was used to these types of deaths. But this time, after recalling the Gamasutra article and thinking about the hour I had lost and nothing to show for it, I blew up. I usually never get angry over anything, but when that monster randomly (and "random" is the key word here) stole that real-life hour away from me, I couldn't handle it anymore.

Was it worth it? Specifically, I had payed $40 on something that was indeed enjoyable, but ultimately made me feel cheated, worthless, and angry. That's not good, is it? That's not "personal growth," right? When you die in Mega Man or in some action game, yes, you have to restart -- but you've really only invested about fifteen-or-so minutes of your time. In Persona, an excessive amount of time that you've given in real life to develop your fictional characters is lost due to some random element that the player has no control over. It reeks.

So here I am, writing about a hobby that may or may not be a waste of time. Videogames have been a big part of my life, and sadly, nothing else in the world really gets me as excited as when a new Zelda or Dragon Quest comes out. There's something drastically wrong with that. Now that I think about it, though, what's the difference between reading a book and playing a videogame? Nothing much, really. You still put in a good share of time into each activity, and at the end of each, you really have nothing to show for it...well, except a topic for conversation.

Here's hoping that something in this medium shows me that this wasn't a waste of a good twenty years. Otherwise, there's no crying over spilt milk...a lot of spilt milk.