A few days ago, I came across this video:

http://screwattack.com/videos/The-Only-Thing-I-Know

While I feel for the guy, he is wrong.  How I choose to spend my free time is my choice.  I think it is somewhat broken to feel like every waking moment you have should be spent being productive.  It is very clear to me that video games are the best way I know of ( for me) to just zone out.  You basically take all your problems and worries and you shelve them for an hour or two.  You don’t abandon them.  You don’t ignore them.  You just realize that there is nothing you can do about them right now, and you do something to help relax and get your mind off them.

This guy sounds like he had some bad stuff happen in his life.  It sounds like his wife left him, he lost his job and he blames his gaming for having nothing to show for years of living.  Maybe he is right, but I think that the real problem is not with the games themselves, but with his inability to budget time, notice what is really important in life and not let his habits wreck things for him.

His video throw up numbers about the average number of level 80s people have in WoW and then he lists how long it takes, throw in a little multiplication and … OH GOD!  People are wasting YEARS of their lives!  I don’t buy it.  There are numerous ways to level faster in WoW.  Not only have they increased the amount of experience gained in lower level areas now, they have introduced a class that STARTS out at level 55, and if you participate in the recruit a friend program you not only get TRIPLE experience for both of you, but as you level you earn “free levels” that you can give out to people to help them catch up.  Tons of people I know do this.  They download the client and start a new account, do the recruit a friend thing with it, dual box both characters up to level 60 with triple exp and “gimme” levels in a matter of weeks.

Hell, WoW is not the only game to do this.  In EQ2, every max level character you have provides a 10% bonus to exp for ANY alt characters you level.  On top of this you can get exp bonus potions that boost exp gained for a set amount of time, and it stacks with other bonuses.  If you have 5 or 6 max level characters in EQ2, you can end up with 200% bonus exp with no effort at all.

Sure there are people out there who do have a real problem with addiction, but is that the fault of the games or is it really a flaw in the person themselves?  I have been playing games for decades now.  I played them through school and college.  I played them while working full time as an adult with a wife and two kids.  My life situation dictates how much gaming time I have to spare, my gaming habits do not dictate how much time I have for real life.  Sometimes it is hard, but making the right decisions is what being a responsible adult is all about.

Besides, his video has a mixed message.  He rails against gaming and talks about how it screwed everything up and he wants you to hear his message and consider that you might be wasting your own life  … and then he shows PAX at the end and talks about how games brought this community together and these people seem happy and mostly level headed and how great it is that games formed such a community!  Sorry, but I am calling bullshit.  This guy allowed his own addictive nature to run away with the escapism that games provide and he screwed his own life up over it.