After playing World of Warcraft for 15 years, I started becoming increasingly bored and disgruntled with the game. The game being grindy and repetitive is no real surprise, I mean it’s an MMO. But the one thing that was really frustrating was paying monthly for a subscription and a huge chunk of cash for an expansion, but still having extra stuff flashed in my face all the time that was simply not possible to earn in-game. Mount skins, cosmetics, miscellaneous stuff that is only available in the Blizzard store. They also began adding loyalty items that require being subscribed every single month, and doing repetitive, extremely boring stuff on top of the other repetitive boring stuff, so basically double dipping on your grind, which really isn’t fun.
Aside from that, I also played other games that required a heavy amount of grinding too, and each one of them had similarly frustrating elements. Destiny 2, overwatch, Battlefield, Fortnite, Halo, and the list goes on. Each of them has the same issue: fear of missing out. FOMO basically makes it so that if you don’t seize the opportunity to spend real life money, you will never be able to obtain something really cool, because it’s only there for a short time, and then it’s gone, and you are made to feel guilty and bad about it. It’s just kind of depressing playing kind of games and realizing that you are now mentally dependent on financial transactions in order to get the full enjoyment of the game. That to me is a very very awful way to live life, and it really messes with your emotions
So I ditched every game that had any element of an in-game purchase. This is honestly helped my mental health a huge, huge amount. Now, I only play games that either have no microtransactions in them at all, or are completely free and 100% possible to play with no purchase required at all. So games like team fortress, deadlocked, Stardew Valley, and many other indie games that you can purchase and then never have to worry about getting suckered into the microtransaction cycle for
When I did this quitting thing from MMOs and FOMO inducing gachas that you describe, I suddenly
I still think it was worth it to quit though. My mind just gets stimuli from the seemingly simplest things, like looking at a beautiful tree on the roadside, brutalist architecture, interesting conversations that I focus on instead of my mind wandering onto the next mount or raid boss I will have to tackle.
And when it comes to gaming, if I want to satisfy my itch for twitch and a bit of adrenaline, roguelites scratch it the best, without the long term commitment to playing them for days or even hours.
But what works best to keep sanity is exercise, and with riding a road bike at least twice a day I can combine elevated heart rate with zoning out and Zen for stress relief really well. It’s simply meditative.
I think of the twelve years I’ve spent playing MMOs fondly, lots of memories were made. But I would never do it again. And it has nothing to do with self-control, and willpower to not start it again, although quitting cold turkey definitely required both. But it had everything to do with the realization that it’s a trap that’s a poor substitute for real life, even if real life has dealt you shitty cards.
I can spot the hazy, reality-disconnected look of addicts from a mile away. The self-deluding statements when the topic somehow gets brought up. And I can do nothing but feel a bit sad for them, and hope that somewhere, someone manages to gently nudge them on a path that helps them escape from this trap.
Wtf, is this some (copy) pasta?
If it isn’t it should be our Lemmy pasta with sauce IMO!