Ask HN: What are your gaming habits like?

From 1996 to 2003 I was pretty obsessive about Diablo, Diablo II, Starcraft, Quake1/2/3, UrT.

I played almost no games from 2004-2007 or so. Then I started playing games a few times a week for an hour or two at a time. I've completely avoided WoW and refuse to even touch any game like it: games where the biggest loser wins.

I think it's really nice to be able to sit down and play a game for an hour or two every once in a while. If you're spending more than 5-10 hours a week on gaming or watching TV you're probably going to regret it looking back. That's a lot of time to devote to semi-mindless entertainment. Some amount feels healthy and positive though.

Posted right after you and noticed a very interesting similarity. I took a 3 year hiatus ('06 to '09). Wonder why we both waited that long to return?

Gaming and I have an arrangement.

In university, I learned an important lesson about myself: I play to win. Ultra-competitiveness works great in a lot of areas of my life, but has a drawback: when I encounter a game that doesn't have an "end", I still try to win, whatever that ends up meaning in context.

At university, I learned about MUDs, and they sucked me in completely. I would ignore classes, exams, friends, and if it weren't for a cafeteria right next to student computer labs, I wouldn't have eaten much; all in the quest for another level, another "wizard" (programmer) position, etc. At one point, I had completely stopped playing MUDs, and started building them. Skills were acquired, languages were learned, computing cycles were stolen, and in retrospect I learned more about group programming, system administration, networking, and social systems from a couple of years of "slacking off" than I ever did from my formal education.

After two years of abysmal grades (in everything except CS), my university politely invited me to explore other opportunities for a year while I got my act together. (Which I did; I got married, launched my first startup, and went back to school. I repaired my previous damage by retaking a few classes, but then relocated for a better opportunity, and never did complete my Bachelor's degree.)

So, the arrangement: I'll play any video game that has a finite conclusion or obvious play break-points. World of Warcraft is completely out of the question for me (I'm sure I'd love it), but quick rounds of FPS or racing games are fine. Mobile games are perfect for me: quick distractions with almost no social interaction that I can pull out when I have downtime, and put away quickly when something comes up.

Also, unrelated side note: racing real cars is a hell of a lot more satisfying than racing virtual ones. :)

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To djhworld's point: for me, it's not really about time management; I slice up my time pretty efficiently under normal circumstances. It's about a complete lack of self-control when gaming; competitiveness and hyper-focus on the goal win out over rational self-interest every single time.

(I don't suggest that my experience is typical, but that's how it's worked out for me.)

I hear where you're coming from, in my teens I competed in FPS leagues and travelled to meatspace tourneys and had a riot doing so. To continue enjoying the competition aspect I had to conciously cultivate a mentality of responsible gaming similar to one of responsible drinking. IE, don't do it alone (physically, online is alone), don't do it to excess, and don't let it be the center of your life. Now when I'm feeling competitive I have friends over for a Rock Band/Halo/GoW night, or plan a LAN party for some oldschool FPS action. Also for quick and dirty LAN action on a whim, grab some buddies and take over a net cafe. You could be doing the same at home but it's the social aspect that helps keep it balanced.

I guess the short answer is, like djhworld says, budget your time. Fun and work are both important, make time for each and enjoy!

I played competitively from 97-2003. Quake, UO, EQ, Halo, WoW, Tekken Tag, Call of Duty, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, etc.

I dropped it all for a few years and got into DJing.

The whole time I was building software.

For me, I thought it was the competitive spirit. I thought I needed something to be 'better' at. But when I went back to WoW about a year ago, I found that I could play by myself and I just needed something to be 'obsessed with' or 'addicted to.'

As such, I've stopped gaming and focused my 'obsession' on my startup! I still have a life, go out, etc, but my free time is comprised of reading hackernews, building things, or working on launching.

So to answer your question... yes, I gave up gaming. I still play the occasional game but if I can't put 100% of my time into it, it's not fun.

The few things I've found over the years that helped me alot: 1) Find someone else competitive and play a console game for 30 minutes per day... like during lunch. A co-worker and I played Street Fighter 4 and it was great. We kept a strict timeclock on it and it gave me my 'fix.'

2) Get an iPhone, download a new game each week, and play it on the way to/from work. Obviously this works better for me being in NYC and riding the subway, but I'm sure you can find a way to make it work for you.

3) Don't read gaming blogs/websites casually. I find this to be the #1 thing that sucks me back in and instead I choose to read startup stuff.

I suspect that as more and more former 'hardcore' gamers snap out of it and start applying their talents elsewhere (other than counterstrike websites!), you'll see a bunch of quality programmers and designers emerge.

3/4 of my staff played games competitively or 'seriously' and the majority only play 1-2 per month. They are all amazing at what they do. I hope they don't all quit when Starcraft 2 comes out :(

Edited to add: I actually landed my current job because I played video games. A video game tournament company in NYC wanted to hire someone to run their website and I've worked my way up since.

[So I guess my real question is, did you give up gaming to become a better programmer? And if so, what sort of things did you replace it with? I am the kind of person who needs some sort of competitive hobby and I having a hard time finding one.]

So I too did Counter-Strike and WC3. When I was in college, my friend and I ran a website called thewac.net (kinda dead now, don't bother going there), and it was associated with our custom counter-strike servers with a zombie mod. That taught me alot about programming and community. I moved on to create a DC++ Hub on the college network and that taught me more about systems administration, data/user management, social community, etc. etc. Then I graduated.

I've been working at my new job for almost a year, and my coworker has like 20 years under his belt in experience, and I've learned more from him about programming and technology in less then a year, than I did in 5 years of college. He's also a gamer, so we also discussing gaming as well. (Currently Bad Company 2). If you want to keep at programming, I highly suggest you jump into the Unreal Tournament 3 engine or the Source engine (Valve) and try programming for a game.

That said, if you want something competitive, I recently took up hiking in the Adirondacks, and I've decided I want to do all the summits of the ADK's and the Catskill's here in New York State. The amount of punishment it is on your body is brutal to me, and yet liberating.You compete against yourself. Your other options are to look for local sporting leagues to join, or pick a hobby for competition.

Look at yourself and think of what you want to improve and then ask "What can I do to improve that part of me?"

For me, it was my physical shape, and my lack of adventure. Hence, hiking in the largest state park in the United States, and picking Mt. Marcy for my first hike. Eventually I'll move to Colorado and do the rockies.

I hope that helps.

I have definitely noticed the time I spend programming has decreased dramatically since I returned to gaming (Steam is to blame here). While I do regret that I don't have as much time as I'd like to work on programming, I know that (for me, at least) my interests move in cycles, so in a few months I'll probably move away from gaming and back to hacking in my free time.

If you are just looking for a competitive hobby, I'd suggest rock climbing. You can do it by yourself as a personal challenge, or you can join a team and do it competitively. Either way its a lot more healthy than sitting in front of a screen playing games.

I never really considered myself a hardcore gamer. About 4.5 years ago, my co-workers game me a 10 trial on WoW. I played it obsessively for 3 years, but never to the point of end-game raiding, because I never wanted to commit to actually making arrangements to play a video game.

I quit for the Summer as a well-received birthday gift to my wife, and then started up again in the Winter, when it's much less convenient to do something outdoorsy in the evening.

Before WoW, I spent alot of time being social on the internet, maintained 2 blogs, wrote a bunch of plugins for various blogging platforms. This I don't really miss. I do miss reading in the evenings, but after interacting with text all day, it is very difficult to read for more than an hour in the evening.

Now I play a few evenings a week for a couple of hours. I generally spend my days intensively developing software, so I don't feel like I am being unproductive gaming in the evenings. In May, I, with the rest of my regional office, was let go, and I decided to learn iOS development and am developing an app for the iPad during "normal working hours."

I was a pretty hardcore FPS gamer in high school (n.b. I graduated in '97). I continued a bit into college, becoming enamored with racing simulations. It was killing my grades and sucking up time I'd rather be hacking.

I shook the habit in 1999 or so, and rarely return to gaming. I can play for about an hour or two at a time if I limit myself to one day per week. If I start to play more often than that, I seem to go down the rabbit hole and get obsessed with something again. OpenArena and Portal are pretty good examples of things that almost consumed me again.

I am not a developer. I'm a security nerd who occasionally programs tools for myself or my peers. I spend a lot of my time researching, breaking, fixing and streamlining things.

As for hobbies that don't involve hacking, I have chosen bicycling, writing, photography and backpacking. I've managed to cram all four into a single adventure quite a few times :D - Load a bunch of cargo on my bike, ride 30-50 miles to a remote area, set up camp, take lots of pictures, come back home, and write about it.

The brunt of your question is the fact that you feel guilty for spending your time enjoying Games rather than programming.

Perhaps your real concern might be how you manage time. Gaming and programming don't have to conflict with one another as long as you manage the time you spend on each activity.

Yes you might not be able to have a marathon 6 hour session playing CS as you did in your younger days as unfortunately the toils of adult life tend to take precedence, but if you schedule in a bit of gaming time in the evening or at weekends then I don't see there's any reason why you have to 'give it up to become a better programmer'.

Oh... gaming. Yes.. I enjoy gaming very much, but the sad thing is that I absolutely suck at games. Especially in the games I like. And now days gaming seems bit crap with consoles taking over etc, so the best I can do is try to make my own games (which hasn't been very successful either).

About being waste of time like TV. Well, it can be very true. But like TV and movies, if you just cherrypick good ones then it uses much less time and provides intellectual challenges instead of being a waste of time.

I used to be addicted to Counter-Strike and after a while i decided to delete it because i wanted to spend more time developing. It took some discipline, but i managed to completely delete it. After a few months, while being very stressed and in need of some entertainment, i decided to install the game again. Turns out i didn't really enjoy it anymore, so i once again deleted the game and i haven't touched it ever since.