Switching Gears: 2017 and Why Video Games Worry People
My oldest son the first time he turned on Mario by himself.
Nintendo games have been a part of my life for most of what I remember of it. One of the first things I remember is playing Super Mario Brothers with my dad. I had to have been ...3? 4 at the oldest? I jokingly told a friend while we were discussing our most impactful Christmas & Birthday presents that the introduction of the NES altered the trajectory of my life forever from that point forward, but that isn't a joke.
There are people that contend that games rot your mind. This isn't true for me, and wasn't true for my friends growing up. I was friends with "the smart kids" all through my school years. I identified as "smart." My friends and I all played games to some extent. I admit that my desire and capacity to obtain and consume new games far outstripped many of my peers.
Nintendo's presentation of its new console, the Switch, has me at a crossroads. For the first time I've found myself considering the implications of continuing down the road I've been on literally as long as I can remember. It's not the quality of Nintendo's offering that has me thinking, but the stage of life I currently find myself occupying.
Video games have changed a lot since the 80's. Big budget AAA games have become an arms race of who can push the envelope even closer to photo-realism in both appearance and in actual interactions between the player and the game world. Games exist today that surpass 8-year-old Bill's wildest dreams. But instead of being filled with wonder, there is an undercurrent of obligation.
When I was 14 years old, a game that boasted hundreds of hours of gameplay would have blown me away. I would scramble to get a copy and play blissfully for hours and hours. And such a game would be rare. Today games are designed to be services that last as long as you are interested in them. Games like World of Warcraft, Destiny, Monster Hunter, Call of Duty, mobile Skinner-box style games, and even evolutions of old games like the latest Pokemon have systems in place to keep you coming back to that specific game. Player retention is a huge metric. While I may have played the games of my teenage years multiple times, it felt like re-reading a favorite book, or re-watching a favorite movie. Games today are more like years long spanning soap operas that give you just enough progress in each play session to keep you coming back again day after day after day.
Developers are getting really good at making you want to stick around! There's so much to fuss over that if I am really into an addicting game, I find myself thinking about it in the shower, sneaking some time searching a wiki or FAQ between meetings, and spending time away from the game planning what I want to do during my next play session. I used to think of this as a great feature of modern games. Today, one game can be so complicated that you could spend literally hundreds of hours on a single purchase. There was so much to do and think about that I didn't need to buy new games as often, generally spent less money on other forms of entertainment, and often could put the console to play these games (3DS, phone) in my bag and take it wherever I want to go.
Catching Pokemon with my daughter the day of the Pokemon Go launch
Then I started growing my family. Adopting my daughter when she was nine years old didn't do much to change my habits, and we often played games together. She could already make her own cereal and knew not to stick her finger in an electrical outlet. Adding two more boys to the mix really put some things in perspective that I didn't understand when I was a kid.
I have a handful of personal goals that I want to achieve sometime in my life. Some of them are far off dreams, but require daily practice to manifest anything worthwhile. Sometimes it is studying Japanese. Lately, it has been reconnecting with drawing and art. Every piece of advice I read on how to improve is to prioritize daily practice and keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.
Once you have a handful of kids, your days get pretty crazy. After volleyball, music class, dinner, bath time, and story time, bed time, you're left with 1-2 hours a day of personal time to accomplish everything you must and want to accomplish. After cleaning up the messes of the toddlers (and the now teenagers), you're usually talking an hour tops.
So how do you spend that hour? Obviously you could play games, and that hour would go by really fast. But what about that nagging voice that says "hey, didn't you want to put out another comic?" or "how long has it been since you studied new Kanji?" This feeling shows up in quiet moments alone: the shower, long drives, standing in line, or waiting to fall asleep. I've found that you can ignore the voice for awhile with new games or tv shows, but eventually the gentle reminder becomes a deafening chorus. Cynicism seeps into your entire outlook and makes everything you do feel like a futile, pointless waste of hours you will never get back. When I get bored of a super complicated game, I start to beat myself up for obsessing over something “trivial” and ignoring all the other development I said I wanted to pursue.
My youngest son rocking the PS4 gear
Now, let me go on record: games are not “bad.” I love games. I will never stop playing games. But I recognize that when I am actively playing games, my brain focuses on every minute detail of every system to crowd out the unease I feel about not making progress towards dreams I've had my whole life. Having kids wakes you up to the fact that "the rest of your life" is finite and very short. My youngest is one, and he was only a little new born baby for the first few months of his existence. He's already starting to piece a few words together. In a few months he will be more himself, more independent, and that 1-year-old toddler will never be the same again. Today matters. And if enough todays go by without change you will continue on the same path "for the rest of your life."
I love my family and want to be an active part of it, but I still have my own personal ambitions. That means, if they’re awake, I try not play games unless they're playing too. It also means that if I want to continue to grow my personal dreams and ambitions outside of family, I have to do it when they're asleep, while also getting enough rest myself that I don't get fired at work. I'm starting to wrap my head around the idea that, in the long term, I beat myself up less if I use that spare hour every day towards my dreams and ambitions instead of retrieving magical rocks for characters inside computer simulations.
All that said, I pre-ordered a Switch because I know that my kids and I are going to have a blast with Super Mario Odyssey, or 1-2-Switch, or, when they're old enough, Zelda. Just like playing with my dad in the late 80’s/early 90’s, Nintendo time is family time. But I have become increasingly critical of purchasing new games that only I will play. It's not that games are a waste of time, it's that if I ever want to create the things I've told myself I will make time for someday, someday must be today, or it will never happen. The last year slipped through my fingers faster than I ever thought possible. I vividly remember moments from 18 months ago that feel like yesterday. Playing games by myself in my free time accelerates the pace of time slipping by. If I don't use my time now, today, in a way that directs me towards the future I want, it will never happen. In 2017, my goal is to slowly course correct the ship that is my career, goals, and ambitions, even if it’s only an hour at a time.
