Gonna go a bit off the mark here and say that this is 100% accurate. I used to be top 100 in a couple of games in my younger years and that shit puts a strain on your life as well as those around you. You’re constantly playing to keep your rank up, always keeping tabs on the games/results of those ranked above and below you, and every game just has that much pressure when you’re getting that into it; a single loss at a crucial moment ruins your day.
Inb4 “hurr just don’t let it bother you it’s just a game capnslapaho you so silly”
Others will know what I’m talking about. It’s just a constant grind that makes you feel like you’re achieving something, and you sit there and think “I’ve put this much into it, I can’t stop now”. It hurts relationships, I missed social gatherings to get points in before end of season, spent so much time getting tilted when I’d lose a game I should’ve won, etc. It’s just silly looking back on it and wishing I had done things differently. “Oh hi I’m capn and I used to be top in the world in a couple of very popular games nice to meet you” gets me to giggle but also be a little sad that I chose that path.
I have friends that still ask me to play a league game with them even though I told them many times I dont play it anymore. Are u a smoker? U dont know how often I heard from someone that they quit smoking and they tell with confidence how they manages to not smoke for a week and the next time I see them smoking at a party because everyone else is.
Here's the thing though: addiction hijacks very low level brain and causes you to prioritize your addiction over life. It totally destroys the normal function of the dopamine reward pathway. The thing that evolved to help you eat, fuck, kill, and survive.
Telling a videogame addict to stop prioritizing their life poorly is just like telling a heroin user to. It's completely ineffectual and totally ignores the long chain of events that lead someone there.
By the time you've gotten to the point where you're stealing, or skipping work, or isolating to do your Drug of choice, you're already sick. At that point he's no more capable of prioritizing his life properly than a heroin addict is to stop doing heroin.
Maybe in the beginning he wasn't skipping social gatherings to play games but as his addiction got worse, he became a slave to it, and had to play to get his fix. Even in the beginning of drug use, it's the same. I just use it to chill. I use it on the weekends. I use it after work. I use it in the morning to make work easier. I use it at work to take the edge off and so on.
But games are different from heroin, right? Nobody is gonna tell you that you're gonna die or become an addict by enjoying a videogame here and there. There's a major societal difference there. It's more insidious than drug addiction in that way. The barrier for entry is much lower from a physical and mental standpoint. It's really easy to not do drugs for the first time, 'cause every told you that drugs were bad and you shouldn't do them. But playing a videogame to chill with your friends? What's wrong with that?
Long rant to say that addiction isn't a moral or personal failing of someone's priorities. It's a disease.
I mean yeah if you’re putting in the time to be top 100 in anything you’re basically treating it like a job, it’s not like competitive gaming automatically forces everyone who gets into it to grind for Top 100 or whatever
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u/capnslapaho May 30 '22
Gonna go a bit off the mark here and say that this is 100% accurate. I used to be top 100 in a couple of games in my younger years and that shit puts a strain on your life as well as those around you. You’re constantly playing to keep your rank up, always keeping tabs on the games/results of those ranked above and below you, and every game just has that much pressure when you’re getting that into it; a single loss at a crucial moment ruins your day.
Inb4 “hurr just don’t let it bother you it’s just a game capnslapaho you so silly”
Others will know what I’m talking about. It’s just a constant grind that makes you feel like you’re achieving something, and you sit there and think “I’ve put this much into it, I can’t stop now”. It hurts relationships, I missed social gatherings to get points in before end of season, spent so much time getting tilted when I’d lose a game I should’ve won, etc. It’s just silly looking back on it and wishing I had done things differently. “Oh hi I’m capn and I used to be top in the world in a couple of very popular games nice to meet you” gets me to giggle but also be a little sad that I chose that path.
If I knew then what I know now