Weekend Reading: Manufactured Gaming Time

My current job means I spend a lot of time reading about video games, playing them and writing about them at work, but it also means that I often lack the time and the energy to go and play video games in my own home during my own free time.

I often need to create the conditions to play, setting up something similar to a date night with my favorite games, creating an environment that allows my tired gaming brain to become excited yet again and engage with some of my favorite experiences.

I love World War II, having read my first complete history of those years that shocked the world at about 12, but I can only play Hearts of Iron III, the grand strategy game from Paradox Interactive that best simulates the entire conflict, if I read something related to the period, or at least to military history.

I tend to create strategies linked to how I would play the game all the time, while walking or when taking a shower, but I only get the motivation to actually play the game when an external stimulus points me towards it.

It’s a similar story with the Football Manager series, which I have been playing since 1998 for long sessions.

I only get the urge to play it if I can find a good football game on the TV and feel that I could do a better job of managing a particular situation than the real world manages.

I suspect that a similar problem affects other gamers, those for whom their playtime has taken on some qualities of work, like those who chase just another level in Call of Duty, or those who are interested in the next loot drop in World of Warcraft.

I’m not saying that these players no longer enjoy their own pastime, but I do hope that they have a sort of alternative favorite title that they only turn to when the conditions are right and they feel a deeper feeling stirring.