How Do You Quit Gaming?

Lwen87n on 30/09/2018 - 19:08
Last edited 04/10/2018 - 10:51

I spent too much time on PC gaming. i can't concentrate on anything else. My mind just can't get out of gaming. I been playing PC games since i was 8 years old. Now I am 31 years old and yes, definitely got more important stuffs to do.

How do you quit gaming and not to think about it? any experiences to share?

Today I just deleted all my games, well, that's all i know for now.

Cheers

Update:

Guys and Girls, I would like to say BIG THANKS for more than Literally hundreds of suggestions / advices.
I been watching OzB for 3 years and this is my first post. You guys and girls been giving lots of constructive, positive and helpful suggestions / advices! God I love this uplifting OzB community!
I am now also been using an apps called Cold turkey blocker for self time management as suggested. Best 22 AUD ever spent so far lol

BIG THANKS! :D

Gaming

Comments

  • superseijin on 02/10/2018 - 18:47
    +1

    Same situation. I bought a motorbike. It's a lot of fun, you meet new people, pvp or go solo, and there is endless stuff to learn and level up on. After big rides it leaves you exhausted, you've done some exploring and your time on the PC can now go into editing clips of your ride :)

  • ego22 on 02/10/2018 - 19:28
    +2

    EASY. i did it… Never get a new gaming pc or upgrade it. When its to old for new games, thats it. (or just stop now)

    Stop watching your gaming youtube channels, stop following what new games are coming out. Stop going on steam etc.. And in about a year and a bit. U will be so out of the loop u wont care anymore. When somone mentions a new game. U will think wtf is that? Just like a regular old person.

    (my pc got old and im poor)

  • BrokeB-tch on 02/10/2018 - 19:42
    +1

    Sell your PC Buy one that can't handle decent games

  • fuzcatt on 02/10/2018 - 20:45
    +2

    Sounds like you have a personality prone to addiction? Get professional help if it's a real problem for you. See a doctor or a therapist/counsellor/psychologist.

    In the meantime, it sounds like you've created a habit to play games.
    Habits are comprised of a trigger, routine and a reward.
    Example:
    Trigger - Sit down at the computer
    Routine - start surfing the web and then start playing a game
    Reward - Endorphins from playing the game and winning/progressing.

    The example above is real for me, so I have to make sure when I get home from work or wake up on the weekends that I don't sit down at the computer and trigger the routine. I do everything else I need to do BEFORE I set that trigger off.

    You can also reprogram a habit by maintaining the trigger and reward but changing the routine. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't able to find a way to maintain the reward since it comes from actually playing a game… that's why I'm acutely aware of the trigger.

    Hope you find a way to manage!

    • wen87n on 02/10/2018 - 20:54

      wow, that "trigger, routine and a reward." is spot on. that's my daily habit right there.

      My problem is the works I need to do is also on the computer, its the same trigger. sat down was meant to do works then became regular browse web and game… so I deleted the games deleted the "routine". see if its works

      • fuzcatt on 02/10/2018 - 22:43

        Haha, I know that feeling! I have to keep reminding myself there needs to be a reason why I'm using the computer, and if I stray from that reason I need to either get off or switch back to the task.

        I also had to uninstall Overwatch during a period when I couldn't stop playing it…

    • catbarf on 12/10/2018 - 09:39

      +1 for knowing about the Habit loop!

  • zqipz on 02/10/2018 - 20:51
    +1

    Think of all the money you save!!
    Here's how I do it… get all your responsibilities done, any time left is gaming time. Some days it can be 30 mins, some days it can be 12 hours.

  • Jugganautx on 02/10/2018 - 21:31

    I dont know about you but for me i want to play games but i get bored hell easy… the industry in this day and age haven't evolved and the story lines are dull and replaced by mindless multiplayer games.

    Cant play more than a few hours before i stop.

    Working 10 hr days doesnt help either..

  • Schezwon on 02/10/2018 - 21:47
    +1

    Did you rage quit?….. Jokes.. Man don't quit.. Try limiting yourself or play games that don't need you to build an empire to conquer the universe.

    Other recommendations: sports?.. Tinder?.. Pokies?.. Pokemon go(hope not)?… Music? Deciding how many genders there is in 2018?
    Cooking and eating?…

    Glad you are quitting for a while… Because time really goes fast.. And it's great that you stopped at 31 and not 41..dude your still heaps young.. Go travel and see the world… Not a virtual world.

    Be happy.

  • rover100 on 02/10/2018 - 21:50

    You have to hard quit meaning delete games and stop doing other stuff associated with them like watching gaming vids and streams. You also need to find something to replace gaming otherwise you will just go back to it.

  • Jalif on 02/10/2018 - 22:03

    To break a habit you need to replace a habit.

    It's much harder to stop something dead.

    Find something you like to do and do that instead of gaming.

    It could be as simple as going for a walk.

  • lostn on 02/10/2018 - 23:40
    +3

    I pretty much got pushed out of gaming naturally. I haven't had a gaming addiction since I was a teenager.

    What happened is the games I like to play got less popular and fewer of them got made.

    Instead the industry decided that open world collectathons that stretch 10 hours of gameplay into 200 hours through repetitive unfun quests, and collecting 200 of 12 different things were what the market wanted. They wanted their $60 ($99 AUD) game to last hundreds of hours instead of 10 hours, so that they could buy fewer games each year and get better perceived value for money.

    If it's not a gianormous open world (with vast stretches of emptiness ironically) it wasn't worth making with any real budget. If you're not making one of those, you're making an 8 or 16 bit pixellated side scrolling game that prides itself on its ugly graphics. It gets a pass because it was deliberately outdated looking.

    The third type of game is the Service game. They tend to be multiplayer oriented, and you keep playing it forever (or until the sequel is out). There is aggressive monetization in the game even when it's free to play. Loot boxes are very popular in this genre.

    The mid tier game died hard.

    I lost interest in gaming because the kind of games I liked were rare. The ones that still continued being made got turned into open world games with repetitive side quests. Every new open world game has to be 2-4X bigger than the last. I've been hoping this bubble would burst, but it's been persistent. Even Zelda, one of my favorite franchises succumbed to this disease. They butchered everything I liked about Zelda and turned it into a me-too open world game with everything I hate about open world games. Final Fantasy is not immune either.

    The world wants quantity-over-quality gaming, and I want the opposite, so I might get one or two games a year that I actually enjoy. If you listen to the likes of EA, that kind of game is dead.

    This was probably no help to you. If that's the case, sorry. This was just my personal story. Many people actually like the kind of games I detest and will probably downvote this. I'm only telling you how I fell out of love with gaming. I still have to spend as much money on a gaming rig as any other gamer, just for the few and far between gems that were made with me in mind.

  • burns13 on 03/10/2018 - 07:12
    +1

    Time to game = free time

    I love games but Ive been flat out lately training/working/other commitments. If you dont have free time its almost impossible to play.

    Ill be making time for when RDR2 comes out though.

  • mataeka on 03/10/2018 - 09:06
    +1

    I found looking at the psychology behind it interesting/helpful… And cracked usually has a bit of humour with it.

    http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-gam…

  • imurgod on 03/10/2018 - 09:10
    +1

    Mate, get some counselling. They will give you the tools you need to deal with this.

    I'm an avid gamer myself but wife/kids/business keep me from spending too much time gaming and I'm able to prioritise it but I know there's a lot of people who can't and I've had a lot of mates in your situation which has led them to fall into deep depression.

    Please get some help and avoid going to a darker place.

    If you go to your GP, medicare will pay for a bunch of counselling and they can give you the steps you need to take.

    Do it today, not tomorrow.

    Good luck and I hope you sort this out.

  • Lockdude on 03/10/2018 - 09:47
    +1

    The best thing I did was quit online multiplayer games. In general it re-established my love of gaming too. I now play on PS4 and my Switch, and 99% single player. When I play multiplayer it's local couch with my partner or friends. The sleep mode features of modern consoles are great, you don't always need a save point if you just don't unplug the power.

    Making gaming a "me" thing instead of a multiplayer thing, let me better manage my time, fit it around other aspects of my life, and was less frustration when losses occured etc. Online games were bad for my temper, because at times I just wasn't good enough. In single player games, there's usually clear ways to improve and progress. There's also a clear deadline. So there's a point at which the game feels complete and I can move on.

    Don't know if this helps or not. Best of luck with it

  • jlogic on 03/10/2018 - 10:44

    FWIW I quit World of Warcraft, by taking a month long trip hiking in the USA/Cananda.

    Came back and never logged on ever again… didn't feel the need to. Before that I wanted my life to revolve around the raid times.

    I game now but more casually so only games that can be completed within an hour.

  • ddn2004 on 03/10/2018 - 11:01

    You replace it with another time waster, hopefully something more useful. Instead of gaming 24/7, I now browse facebook and reddit 24/7.

  • KYoohu on 03/10/2018 - 11:55
    +1

    Rather quitting, why not control it? In the end of the day, its a hobby you enjoy and will always love it.

    Set a weekend schedule, for example,

    7am-8am: jog
    8am-9am: breakfast/ relax time
    9am-noon: household cleaning and laundry
    noon-3pm: relax time/ get up to date with things necessary from weekdays
    3pm- 6pm: gaming

    You get the idea. Its all about being controlling yourself.

    If you still strongly believe you want to quit, then get a macbook or something.
    I found myself never gaming on my macbook air because its never good enough to play games.
    Invest in Netflix if you havent already, good time killer :)

    • John Kimble on 03/10/2018 - 11:56
      +1

      Rather quitting, why not control it?

      OK, Yoda

      The whole reason someone gets addicted to something is they can't control it…

  • cintamami on 03/10/2018 - 12:41

    Hi Op

    Do you me to help you by taking your account off your hand? We can change the account details / name accordingly in game afterwards.

    I dont even know what game war of warship is, I dont game and will never have the time to game.

    Heck, these days, I dont have enough time to watch my own weekly korean tv show, luckily those can be downloaded for me to binge watch when the wife and kid are on vacation.

    Out of everyone here, I am the only one offering a real solution. Taking your account off your hands completely.

    If you are serious about it, my offer is as good as it gets.

    • serpserpserp on 03/10/2018 - 14:24

      Your wife and kid go on vacation without you?

      • cintamami on 03/10/2018 - 14:35

        We go on holidays multiple times in a year, but sometimes when she wants to go back home to be with her family, I cant always be with her as I am working.

  • tallkid123 on 03/10/2018 - 13:15

    You need to gradually wind it down.

    As OP is 31 now, they'd probably not be able to last as long playing one game session than they could in their teenage and early 20s.

    • serpserpserp on 03/10/2018 - 14:23

      I'd contest that, I did my best gaming sessions in my early 30s

  • serpserpserp on 03/10/2018 - 14:23

    How to quit gaming: get a wife/husband and kids ;)

    • thord on 04/10/2018 - 15:17

      I see this comment a lot, but how exactly does your wife stop you from playing games?

      • serpserpserp on 04/10/2018 - 15:34

        Some wives/husbands done like the other devoting so much time to gaming and will threaten you will all kinds of things to stop playing. You also tend to want to spend more time with the people you love than a video game.

        When you have a kid/kids and need/want to be involved, your time will simply evaporate.

        • thord on 08/10/2018 - 17:17

          I get the priorities change part, but a lot of people write this as if it's a complaint, like "My wife stops me from playing games which sucks".

          I couldn't imagine being in a relationship like that, it's supposed to be a relationship, not one where the other dictates what you can and cannot do.

  • Viper8 on 03/10/2018 - 18:47

    Why go cold turkey? Just reduce the amount you play. Everything is good in moderation, and games are no exception.

  • JayM on 03/10/2018 - 22:00

    Get a job in IT support. After spending so much time dealing with computer issues, the last thing you really want to do when you get home is sit in front of another computer.

    I barely game except on Weekends now.

  • El Grande on 03/10/2018 - 23:02

    Learn to control yourself. Fifa helps me take the edge off. I have been playing it for over 20 years. The other game I play is GTA. That is for anger management :)

  • [Deactivated] on 03/10/2018 - 23:22

    Strip right back and just let go, and focus on music instead, is one suggestion.

    Listening part can be combined with many things good, and fun, and even useful.

    Other pastimes similarly excellent at honing hand-eye coordination, readily found, in case any anxiety relating to that.

    You can maybe come back to it a bit down the track, and it may then not have quite the same draw that it once did.

    It doesn't sound as if you're doing any online gaming type stuff - indeed, playing by yourself, so whatever community aspect resides in gaming is not something you will miss, by the sound of it? Maybe not even 1 Bit. :)

    Best of luck - music also available in 8-Bit - and above..

    :-)

  • happirt on 04/10/2018 - 03:34

    make life your game of jones in the fast lane irl

    • serpserpserp on 04/10/2018 - 15:37

      Just buy a fridge and you'll win the game every time!

  • Dsquall on 04/10/2018 - 08:55

    I used to be in the same position and I think that gaming 'addiction' arises out of the sense of gratification and achievement you get that is very much visual/audio "triple-kills", "god-like", leveling up (with all the bright colours and ding sounds), clearing a level, killing a pack of mobs and the victory music playing in the background. All of these factors really get the endorphins and adrenaline pumping. However, at the end of it, when you really take a look at what you've achieved on a larger and more demonstrable scale it's pretty meaningless and I think that's where the self-reflection and desire to 'quit' kicks in.

    That said, if you break it down into its elements what drives you to enjoy gaming isn't 'bad' or 'wrong', if anything, you could probably really use it quite productively (IRL). Have a white board or something above your computer and set up achievable milestones. At each achievement of aforementioned milestone play the FF7 victory fanfare and go buy something you've always wanted (small for things for small achievements, big things for big life goals).

    I think after a while of this plus having tangible improvements in your actual quality of life because you're hitting life goals, gaming won't really that much of a thing.

    Personally, gaming is still a part of my life these days but its much more about half an hour or an hour of stress relief where you can just chill with a couple of mates and do stupid things.

    EDIT:
    Or if you really do love gaming that much, you can always make it into a career (Yeah society might look down on you (cause society is bigoted and slow to react to any change, but society is an idiot so ignore him/her). Convert your in game achievements to quality of life improvements. To be frank, gaming is no different from any other sport. In terms of societal value, is there a significant difference in kicking/hitting/throwing (insert any other adjective) a ball into a hole vs. doing a no scope headshot? I personally don't think so. So if being a professional sportsperson is a valid job, why isn't gaming.

  • Mokr on 04/10/2018 - 09:55
    +1

    You want to quit gaming but why?

    Do you find it a waste of time? Does it not make you money?

    Well you could make it make you money by streaming or making mods.

    You could start a clan and improve your leadership skills and communication.

    Gaming isn't the issue, its how you focus your energy that is.

    For example say I need to learn more skills for work, I could try to make a stat website for a game I play and try to anaylse trends then post them on the net. You just need to be creative and think about adding value.

  • rian354252 on 04/10/2018 - 10:23

    Try and substitute it with another hobby. Ie. Sports or learn an instrument. As you focus on other things, after you stop playing for about a week it becomes easier.

  • rogueghost on 04/10/2018 - 11:37

    I was hardcore into gaming and the solution is quite simple in it's execution. Say yes to things, get too busy to spend the time gaming. If you start failing to keep commitments and not sleeping etc, then the problem is significantly more severe and you are addicted (I was). In this scenario you basically have to take steps to get away from the temptation. Move your gaming objects to a location where they are difficult to use, find some way to making gaming "hard". Oh and exercise, amazing for making you tired and feeling better about yourself (i used gaming as an escape as life was shit).

    Best of luck

  • mezje on 04/10/2018 - 13:06

    Buy a project car!

  • myusername on 04/10/2018 - 13:27
    -1

    get yourself a girlfriend

  • neonlight on 09/10/2018 - 20:30
    +1

    Life is meant to have fun so if you consider gaming is fun then just do it.

    Life is too short thinking it over…

  • Detective Pikachu on 11/10/2018 - 17:52

    If you're mainly drawn towards a single game and if it's an online game that has rules, you can request to get permanently banned.

  • catbarf on 12/10/2018 - 09:42

    Another little trick is introducing barriers of entry to start playing games. For example, uninstall your games every time you stop playing it, that way it could take 5-30 minutes before you can even begin.
    Or you might log out of steam and make your password really difficult which you write down somewhere. So before you can even log in you might have to spend a few minutes just trying to get to your games.

  • kazuyamishima on 19/10/2018 - 14:09
    +1

    I have a wife, don't have kids, work and go to they gym 5 days per week like 1 hour per day, read 1 hour of material related to my work each day, help with the housechores, go to church on saturday night and have some spare time with my wife and still have time to play videogames around 1 hour each day.

    It's only up to you, don't know how much time you usually dedicate to videogames but it's really important if you organise yourself, only in that way you can still be able to play videogames.

    Having a Balance in your life also helps a lot :)

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