This week's Thursday Diary
entry is going to be one that may appear to be on the most
superficial topics that I could ever think of...but when you begin to
read on, it will begin to make some sense. It's a blog entry that is
one-third frustration, one-third disappointment, and one-third
realization.
Confused? Don't be. It's
all explained on the inside.
July
25, 2013
As
far back as I can remember, I have always been attracted to
electronic games.
I
still have memories of being sick with the flu when I was a little
boy, and passing the time by playing on my sister's retro Merlin toy
from the late 1970s. Although the only thing that it really ever did
was play music and tic-tac-toe, it was still a toy that I
loved...well, until the batteries finally died out and the mechanisms
that controlled the Merlin finally broke down for good.
But
I think playing that Merlin kind of fueled my love for electronic
games. And, I'm sorry to say that in a lot of cases, my love for
electronic games went out of control when I was a teenager.
Let's
face it. When you combine a love for video games with a rather
introverted personality – which I admittedly have – they can take
over all of your free time.
It
wasn't uncommon for me to sit down in front of my Super Nintendo and
play Super Mario World straight through for a few hours, trying to
find all ninety-six secrets scattered throughout the game. It wasn't
uncommon for me to don my pretend swords and armor to slay dozens of
soldiers, monsters, and magical beasts in the Final Fantasy series.
And, don't even get me started on how many hours I wasted playing
Chrono Trigger. Needless to say, I don't even want to think of how
many hours I wasted playing video games because I would likely drop
dead of shock.
But,
such was the life of an introverted teen, I suppose.
The
funny thing is that when I was maturing from my teenage years and
into my twenties, I kind of lost interest in gaming for a while.
Mind you, I do currently own a Nintendo 3DS and have several games
for it, but I only play it once or twice a week as opposed to three
or four hours per day. Part of the reason for that is my job.
Working full-time hours certainly doesn't leave a whole lot of time
to play video games, and I find that on days in which I do work an
eight hour shift, I am just too tired to concentrate on a video game.
But
lately I have found that my obsession towards video games has taken
on a new development, and lately I find that I am now wasting time
playing games that are not only less sophisticated than a Nintendo
game, but also more mindless.
And
I'm sure that any of you who are a member of a social media site know
exactly what I am talking about.
Social
media games.
When
I first began venturing onto social media sites six years ago, I saw
quite a few people playing video games on places like Facebook and
Twitter. Back in 2007, there were very limited options available. I
think some of the earliest Facebook games that I can remember seeing
around the time I joined were Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Parking
Wars. And while I admit to playing at least two of these games, I
tended to lose interest rather quickly.
Over
the next few years, other games have come and gone, and sometimes I
got into them and sometimes I didn't. I admit to playing the CSI
game for a couple of months, but lost interest after I got fed up
with waiting so long to proceed in the game. I played another game
that was fun for all of two minutes, but kept getting at least 150
game requests from my “friends” as a result of trying that game
out for all of two minutes.
Which
prompted me to seek out a Facebook game which allowed you to kick
your friends across a field so I could get “revenge” against
those who kept sending me game requests which were unsolicited!
But
other than that, I took pride in telling myself that I could break
the habit of getting suckered into Facebook games and that I wasn't
nearly as much of an addict as I initially believed.
Well,
that was until 2012, in which I started playing two more Facebook
games...and bought into the hype – hook, line, and sinker.
Fortunately,
I just recently kicked the habit regarding one Facebook game. For
six months, I played the game “Criminal Case” daily. And, I'm
kind of ashamed to admit that, because I can't believe that I played
any Facebook game for that long. But, I guess in order for us to
break a habit, we have to be the one to admit that we have a problem.
My
name is Matthew, and I am a recovering “Criminal Case” addict.
I
couldn't help it at first. I love a good murder mystery. It's why I
actively seek out video games that feature one, and why the Ace
Attorney video game series for the Nintendo DS was so much fun. When
I discovered that “Criminal Case” had crimes that one could solve
each day (with new cases being added every week), I figured that I
could have a lot of fun with it.
And
it was fun the first few months.
The
way “Criminal Case” worked was like a hidden object game. You
would look for clues inside of a scene, and then you would take those
clues and examine them for information on who killed the victim. You
could dust for prints, examine hair and skin fragments, and interview
suspects to get closer to the truth. The real kicker was that you
had to play crime scenes in order to earn enough stars to conduct
your investigation. That could take time. And, each time you played
a crime scene, you depleted your “energy”, which could take
forever to fill up.
In
fact, I think that's where I kind of lost interest in “Criminal
Case”. The early cases were such that you could speed through them
in a day or two. But as you played through the game, the cases got
longer, more complex, and took up way too much time to get through
them. And, on the last case that I solved, realizing that it took me
a whole week to play through one case, it got to the point where it
was not worth the wait anymore.
But
that was just one reason why I gave up “Criminal Case” cold
turkey.
Another
reason why I gave up playing the game was because I wasn't finding it
as much fun anymore. And that was partially due to the fact that I
was getting bored with it. After all, every case was exactly the
same and was exactly the same format. I lost interest in the
gameplay a lot later than I thought I would, but eventually that day
came last week, and I haven't looked back.
But
the main factor behind why I lost interest in the game was the sheer amount
of people who were on my friends list solely to get the freebies that
one could earn while playing the game. Not that I really have an
issue with helping people out in their games.
What
I did have an issue with was when people would take the freebies that
I had posted onto my wall and posted them on the walls of other
Facebook friends on their lists so that they could get in on the
deals WITHOUT asking my permission. Nor do I appreciate having those
friends randomly adding me onto their friends list just so they could
get free stuff for their own “Criminal Case” games. And, to most
of my friends credit, a lot of them were very respectful in that
regard. Unfortunately, there were a couple who took advantage of
that in a big way, and that was enough for me to say that I had
enough. When I start getting friend requests from people I don't
even know, and when people start hijacking my posts on my wall
because a friend on my wall lead them to it, I don't know...it just
rubs me the wrong way.
I
mean, I know that in the grand scheme of things, I'm complaining
about a computer game. And, yes, there are way more important things
to vent about. But as I have mentioned before in this blog, I take
friendship quite seriously. Perhaps I take it even more seriously
than other people have done. But that's the way I am and have always
been, and I don't know if I can or even want to change that about
myself. I don't really like having to deal with people in day-to-day
life who use me, or who are only nice to me when they want something
from me...and then once I give it to them, they go right back to
ignoring me, or making fun of me. I've had to deal with that too
much in my real life, and I decided that I didn't want to deal with
that in a computer game either.
So,
I dropped “Criminal Case” from my life. And, I think it was a
wise decision, because not only do I free myself from a time-wasting
game (which allows me more time to spend on my first love –
writing), but I also freed myself of the people who were only on the
game just for what I could give them. And, needless to say, the ones
who were most guilty of this are no longer considered friends.
But
you know, that's why I enjoy doing a Thursday Diary so much. I can
write about what is bothering me, and once I do, I feel much better
for it. Mind you, the tradeoff is that most of you reading this
probably consider me a computer nerd who got “pwned” by gamers
who were more hard core than I...but if that's the worst thing that
is said about me, I can deal. I have a thick skin after all.
Now...if
I can only break my addiction to “Candy Crush”...
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