How would you best articulate feeling and dealing with 'Gamer Guilt'?
Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2023 11:05 am
And what actions do you take to directly counter it?
I've been feeling this a lot lately, that ever mounting gnawing feeling that I'm playing games too much recently to avoid IRL factors, to escape for as many hours as I possibly can at any given opportunity and to just enjoy gaming in those very carefully allocated gaming sessions. I've been playing far too much Battlefield you see, now after reaching an S rank that gave me equipment that allowed me to adequately feel that gaming rush I missed so much I play a session I come off, and I'm back on once again within ten minutes thirsty for more. Yes ok I will still have those moments where I shout at my team for being a complete bunch of incompetent cunts while I feel I'm doing all the work (this in itself is highly debatable, but I go with it anyway because main character syndrome) or swear that the dude sat on a hill who just head shotted me through solid brick right after I spotted him for my team is a damn dirty cheater resulting in my daughter hearing me yell 'cheating fuck!!' behind a firmly closed door. Sorry about that, expect more within minutes.
Behind all of this insanity however is that creeping why am I feeling this when I'm just enjoying my favourite hobby that is the unreserved sense of abject fucking gamer guilt perched heavily upon my shoulder. Do I not deserve this downtime? What am I doing wrong here, exactly? What is this guilt shit - why do I keep obsessively looking at my hours played counter and feeling worse about it every single time creeping up 4-5 hours in a single evening, why do I wish to hide it from the world and scrub it from my mind but somehow cannot?
I'm just playing games here. I like playing games. Gaming completes me.
It's not like I'm back in my days of playing WoW when lengthy hours based sessions were the so very often the done thing and felt completely normalised for the time - until I realised I was horribly addicted /gquit and never went back. I like possibly many of you knew many who committed far worse 'crimes'.
So to you, I ask, yes you - how exactly would you put into words what it is we are dealing with here and more importantly how in 50,000 words or fewer do you specifically deal or learned to deal with this nagging albatross circling about your head while gaming? It will be interesting to hear any takes on this, large or small.
I've been feeling this a lot lately, that ever mounting gnawing feeling that I'm playing games too much recently to avoid IRL factors, to escape for as many hours as I possibly can at any given opportunity and to just enjoy gaming in those very carefully allocated gaming sessions. I've been playing far too much Battlefield you see, now after reaching an S rank that gave me equipment that allowed me to adequately feel that gaming rush I missed so much I play a session I come off, and I'm back on once again within ten minutes thirsty for more. Yes ok I will still have those moments where I shout at my team for being a complete bunch of incompetent cunts while I feel I'm doing all the work (this in itself is highly debatable, but I go with it anyway because main character syndrome) or swear that the dude sat on a hill who just head shotted me through solid brick right after I spotted him for my team is a damn dirty cheater resulting in my daughter hearing me yell 'cheating fuck!!' behind a firmly closed door. Sorry about that, expect more within minutes.
Behind all of this insanity however is that creeping why am I feeling this when I'm just enjoying my favourite hobby that is the unreserved sense of abject fucking gamer guilt perched heavily upon my shoulder. Do I not deserve this downtime? What am I doing wrong here, exactly? What is this guilt shit - why do I keep obsessively looking at my hours played counter and feeling worse about it every single time creeping up 4-5 hours in a single evening, why do I wish to hide it from the world and scrub it from my mind but somehow cannot?
I'm just playing games here. I like playing games. Gaming completes me.
It's not like I'm back in my days of playing WoW when lengthy hours based sessions were the so very often the done thing and felt completely normalised for the time - until I realised I was horribly addicted /gquit and never went back. I like possibly many of you knew many who committed far worse 'crimes'.
So to you, I ask, yes you - how exactly would you put into words what it is we are dealing with here and more importantly how in 50,000 words or fewer do you specifically deal or learned to deal with this nagging albatross circling about your head while gaming? It will be interesting to hear any takes on this, large or small.