gaming, and the pursuit of happiness.

"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness." - Chuang Tzu 350 B.C.

its remarkable how games have been evolving.. its not as simple as it used to be. no longer are you working towards an end or trying to achieve a simple high score. there is no end, no "game over" to remind you to return to reality. as the number of people who participate increase, naturally - so does competition. and with competition, you have a diverse number of players. demographics that extend from teenagers to the average nine to five worker; categorized into casual and hardcore player subsets. and by hardcore, i'm mostly referring to those who sacrifice aspects of their real life to better themselves ingame. to become the truly "elite." its no longer about the game itself, but how much time you're willing to give up to play it. a noob is just a pro, with a little less practice.

as a source of entertainment and relaxation from everyday life, games have become the ultimate vehicle for escapism. but, the severity of this is much dependant on the individual player. in a given lifetime, we are provided the opportunities and the ability to excel in any direction of our choice. and games have become an alluring alternative to a fairly large population from that. as it did for me. give a kid in rural africa a handheld console, equipped with a competitive role playing game - and i wonder how viable of an escape from reality that would be. but, for those who have become complacent with their lives - making just enough to live comfortably - spending the remainder of their life inside a game may seem satisfactory. an oblivious and much ungrateful take on the opportunities that are bound to us.

many games emulate the development of virtual skillsets via a character. whether its: tony hawk unlocking hidden skateboard parks, mario learning how to fly, a sim becoming more charismatic, a world of warcraft warrior obtaining new combat skills through quests, or an eve-online character training to fly battlecruisers - it's all the same. the emulation of real-life hardships to learn, replaced by simple mouse clicks or keystrokes coupled with time. lots of it. which are then presented to us in a fantasy world of low-gravity skateboarding, talking mushrooms, a virtual neighborhood, heroic ventures, and deepspace exploration. how truly delusional. yet, curiously entertaining.

but, seriously.. what other entertainment alternatives are there?: spending money to play obsolete games at the arcade? watching television sitcoms? going to the movies? going out to purchase alcohol at insane markups? spending time with the family? playing around with your pet cat, fuzzball? our standards of what makes us happy have undoubtedly skyrocketed with the advancement in technology. the ease of loading up a game has made some of these options less attractive.

at first, i became very cautious about games that required time commitment. i was careful when selecting a game to ensure there were no obligations for extended gameplay. everything i thought i had learned from quitting the world of warcraft. i was soon after, introduced to eve-online.. drawn by the idea of "playing whenever you want," i decided to create a character and play casually. shortly enough, i came to the realization that any game that requires character development is a waste of time. i would never catch up to those who have played for years.

when the game eventually becomes obsolete (which all do), what sense of accomplishment is there? does it really matter if i collected all one hundred and twenty stars in mario 64? if i manually leveled my pokemon roster to level 99 without the rare candy hack? if i had one of the best pvp assassins of diablo ii on the east coast? if my world of warcraft character had the best equipment imagineable? if im piloting the most undefeatable spacecraft in all of eve-online? not really.

what is it that truly drives us gamers? its competition. and as difficult as it may seem to begin working on our real life attributes and skillsets, what is achievement without hardship? its not as easy as the matrix. you can't sit in a chair and learn kung fu, or how to operate a helicopter. all the hours we had spent kicking ass in the virtual world, we could've become better individuals. keep yourself motivated, and eventually you'll build momentum. motivation is the key to unlocking your success. or if the idea of that seems too overachieving, you can always falter back to the fantasy world where you can pretend to be "elite."

so, how hard will it be to break the habit?

i really don't know.

good luck.

... since then, I've switched over to playing life.