Comment by DiggyJohnson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DiggyJohnson | Hacker News Reader

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> The nice thing about world of warcraft is it gives you the sense of progress without having to actually invent anything yourself. The only creative aspect of WoW is your build, but most players just copy the "best" builds from theorycrafters online.

I’m actually writing a book about this price topic (in the realm of your analysis). It’s specifically about RuneScape, working title: Why We Play.

The first three lines are:

I’ve played a game called RuneScape for 5,000 hours and I don’t know why. Was all that time wasted. Was any of this experience valuable?

My thesis has something to do with realizing that (if the lower aspects of Maslow’s pyramid are sorted out) many individuals are driven to pursue tangible goals they set for themselves regardless of the domain, and regardless of the fact that nobody else will give a shit. What sort of frameworks lend themselves to this impulse. (Hint: what makes games like RuneScape World of Warcraft compelling frameworks for this “drive”?)

Is this subtly just chasing dopamine hits by doing things that we are good at?

I hadn’t played video games for years when COVID hit. Call of Duty Warzone launched and since my finances were in order, family was stuck at home, I promptly got pretty addicted to the game. I could play for hours on end chasing the wins. When I died I could reflect on what went wrong, make plans on how to avoid it happening again, and try again right away. Games are so quick that you can iterate and see the results within hours. Other things in life usually take weeks or months to see progress. It’s addicting. I still have to keep the PlayStation disconnected because playing one game can easily turn into playing all week.

Real life requires a lot more work to get the same reward.

I’ve played a game called RuneScape for 5,000 hours and I don’t know why. Was all that time wasted. Was any of this experience valuable?

this is really puzzling to me. you don't know why you play? do you know why you watch tv?

there are many possible reasons, and not always reasonable ones, but in general i do know why i play games or watch tv.

to name a few more sensitive ones: boredom, loneliness, escapism.

the question is, do those activites cause you to neglect more important things in an unhealthy manner.

heck, the same can be said for reading and commenting hackernews.

is this discussion important or am i just looking for a some social connection instead of say spending time with my family?

well, it's certainly not important, so i get the same benefit as making progress in a game. it's something i like to do at the end of the day to wind down. (well, more tv and playing games rather than HN)

it serves a purpose that is meaningful and worth it.

recently i discovered that my brother played a game that i like too, so we arranged to play on the same server. suddenly playing this game is not only to relax but also to keep in touch with a family member who lives in another country.

i guess others have different levels of awareness how playing affects them, so i can't generalize or judge. personally i find this awareness important exactly to avoid wondering if that game isn't a waste of time.

You may be interested in what Ted Kaczynski says in his Manifesto. He hypothesizes that, with the majority of our biological needs fulfilled by society and technology, we are left with mostly “surrogate activities”: activities which do not need doing, but we have to do something with our time.

I work out a lot. That’s my surrogate activity. It’s something where I can push a boulder indefinitely like Sisyphus and there is no limit to how much I can do it. For others it is grinding on video games. For others, it is work (let’s be honest, how many of us can really say we “work to live” when all our money goes to consumer luxuries? Obviously situational). Once you start looking for it, you may notice a lot of people have surrogate activities.

I’ll go a step further and say that activities which are more accessible and give someone a better chance to feel part of something larger than themselves lend them best to be surrogate activities. I also think tasks which have no end make particularly good surrogate activities.

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