So I disappeared for a while, mostly because I stopped playing Hearthstone. In fact, I stopped playing video games period. But I still have love for this community, so I’m going to offer some friendly advice: stop playing Hearthstone, or any game remotely like it.
The title of this thread was almost “video games are evil,” but I won’t quite go that far. If a game has a strong narrative that has a definitive endpoint — like, say, Final Fantasy 7 (Remake or otherwise), or the SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN for StarCraft, that’s okay I guess. That’s similar in some ways to watching a movie, and some of the best fiction these days is in game form. The story of Arthas is (was?) epic and I wouldn’t want to deter people from experiencing it. I’m not anti-entertainment.
But what I’ve come to discover is that, for the most part, “gamer” means someone who will work for free, so long as they enjoy their work. Because that’s mostly what video games do. Just like a job, you’re given a set of tasks to perform — the term “quest” is really just a euphemism for “to-do list,” to the point that there are literally quests with rewards in the Uber driver app. But even after you complete your quests, always more to do.
All so you can get that little dopamine rush of a job well done. I mean, have you listened to the sh…tuff the bartender tells you in Battlegrounds? “You’re the best. Surely no one is as legendary as you.” Blizzard knows why you’re here: to be told you did a good job, to get recognition for achievement. Let us not forget what Terrence Fletcher had to say about the words “good job.” But even if you don’t buy into that particular ideology, you should never believe in that kind of affirmation unless the money is flowing in the opposite direction, friends. It sounds exactly like a con artist at work, because it is.
And I get it when it comes to depression. I’ve struggled with it plenty myself throughout the years. It’s a rough world, and the work we do too often goes underappreciated. The thirst for recognition is real, and satisfaction sorely wanting. But games (as a service) aren’t it, they’re an illusion of it. Like the premature enlightenment of psychedelic drugs — indeed, almost exactly like it, these games are designed to toy with you on a neurochemical level.
My friends, the Matrix is real. A prison for your mind. And the vast majority of you reading this are trapped in it. And much like that movie franchise, I don’t have a utopia to offer you as alternative. Only the desert of the real. But at least it’s the truth.
So please, for your own sakes, stop questing for worthless digital items or in-game currency. Quest for something more, or at least for IRL currency. Put that imagination of yours to work doing something real.
And don’t let fear of starting your own business hold you back. Right now I’ve got more than twice the income I ever had as a wagie, and I’m not actually all that clever — I’m just gaming the local economy as hard as I used to game Arena mode, mostly with app work like Uber. It’s amazing what working 70 hours a week will do for your bottom line. And let’s be real here — if you’re reading this, you probably already work 70 hours a week, or close to it. You just spend 20 of that in Blizzard’s hamster wheel, and ten thinking about it browsing these very forums. Wouldn’t it be great if you actually got something for that time, beyond the feel of pwning someone with a reply?
Live true, friends. Peace and love.
