Does your Gaming hobby drive your life?

I am pretty new to this forum. I have read a bunch of threads and a few that I really enjoyed were How do videogames make your smarter?, and Why do you play videogames? This thread is something along those same lines.

I am a person who has many hobbies. I have found that because I am obsessive with my hobbies it has actually enhanced a great deal of my life. I decided a long time ago that I am not going to work to ear money just to pay my bills, I am going to work hard so I can play hard. I decided I was going to work so I can participate in my hobbies all I want.

I love bowling, golf, movies, and all types of electronics. I remember when I was 16 saving up to buy a used VCR which I paid $700 for 25 years ago. I didn't mind going to work or even working extra hours because I knew the fun thing that I was going to buy with the money I earned. I think if you can have an attitude that you will always treat yourself to fun things, then even bad jobs might be easier to deal with.

Gaming is a very expensive hobby. Next generation units are $600, games are $60. Gamers seem to be very passionate people. Society may say too much is a bad thing.
I couldn't disagree more. My passion to enjoy myself has done nothing but enhance my life. So I am wondering how many others are driven in the real world because of a passion for gaming? Maybe you own an Xbox 360, and now you want a PS3 unit, you also want to buy 3 games a month. Do any of you think like this, that I better work harder so I can enhance my hobbies? I been thinking like this for years.

As a friend of mine once said, leading a life of debauchery and hedonism is hard work.

There's no question our hobby is expensive, and because of that it pushes me to succeed in my work. The trick is to not fall into a dependence. I have a former co-worker who hasn't left his room since he was fired. All he does is play WOW day in and out.

What store do you own?

I once again have to disagree with the description of gaming as a hobby. I'd rather classify it as a pastime, or a form of entertainment, or a recreational pursuit, combined with a merchandize consumption pattern.

Classifying gaming (or TV watching, or bar-going) as a hobby dilutes the meaning of this word.

I've always thought the hobby moniker wasn't really that descriptive, because as much as I hate to admit it, games are a very big part of my life. Always have been, always will be. I go through brief stints where other things take major priority, but before long I'm back on the saddle and more hardcore than before.

But it's not a way of life because I really don't think it enhances me in any way, mentally or physically. It's indulgence, pure and simple. Maybe some minor benefits here and there if you play some smarter games, but as a whole, it's just plain and fun entertainment.

It keeps me young, it keeps me anticipated and eager over the next best thing, and it provides a lot of joy in my life whether playing alone, or playing with family and friends. Its basically the closest I've felt to "feeling like a kid on Christmas" in my adult life, which quite frankly, can be a gaping hole of major craptitude unless you have some great thing like gaming to look forward to

If it wasn't gaming I'd have some other experience to "keep me going" Anything that makes me forget about work and bills, I'm in.

MaxShrek wrote:

What store do you own?

Liongames.com... we had a thread about it not long ago.

It's a lifestyle.

I don't know if gaming per se drives my life, but I do have the job that I have because I want to make enough money to have a house and a family (someday). I figured out years ago that $15k/year wasn't going to allow me to ever support a family.

A side benefit of this is that after making that career change, I realized that I now had money to do things that I had stopped doing, like buying consoles and playing Magic. Shortly after moving back to Houston, I went to Best Buy with Duffman and bought a PS2. Sadly, they were sold out of GTA3, so I got FFX instead. At the time Duffman suggested that I go elsewhere, anywhere, to find a copy of GTA3. While FFX is an excellent game, he was so right (but I wouldn't notice this for months, because I failed to take his worthy advice).

Also: this thread rules.

Edwin wrote:

It's a lifestyle.

How so? What do we stand for as gamers, and what life mantra do we have? I dunno, what else defines a lifestyle?

Good point Gorilla. That is one of the points I am trying to get across. Swat, I see nothing wrong with admiting games are a big part of your life. I see nothing wrong with the pleasure of indulgence. That could be a driving force in life. For example you love games. Maybe you start with an Xbox system, then you want to collect games. Next up, you buy a 360 unit. Now you want to experience the 360 the best way you can. Now you go out and buy a high def tv. Then the sound system. Now you turn around and look, and there is a ton of money tied up just because you love gaming. Maybe you love gaming so much and wanted the nice things to go along with it, you succeeded in the outside world by having to make good decsions, so you can afford the expensives pleasures associated with gaming. Therefore the passion for gaming did help you suceed and enhance your real life.

In a word, yes.

I wouldn't have thought about getting an HDTV so soon (and 1080P at that) or an HD-DVD player if I didn't game and own a 360. Until I met my wife, my vacations from work used to consist of a few days off to sleep late and game all day and night. My leisure wardrobe consists of Penny Arcade, GWJ, PvP and a couple Firefly t-shirts.

Gaming doesn't drive my life as much now that I'm married and have a child, but I'm counting the days until my little girl can play a video game with her daddy. I've also got my own room in our new house which will house my PC, PS2 and Xbox (The 360 is going out with the HDTV).

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I don't know if gaming per se drives my life, but I do have the job that I have because I want to make enough money to have a house and a family (someday). I figured out years ago that $15k/year wasn't going to allow me to ever support a family.

That's why I went into law school, but then I left. I decided that it would be easier and slightly less insane of me to earn what I could get out of college and just move to Mexico when I'm ready for a family. I speak Spanish, and $15k goes pretty far down there, so I figure I'll be set!

My driving life hobbles my gaming, though. Gas is expensive. I take public transit most of the time now, except when I bought my 360. I didn't trust carrying that back on the L.

I put the two together, and I took a second job in the gaming industry. Not quite enough to "support" my habit, but enough to make it budgetarily possible to keep me and my kids in games and reasonable hardware without a huge sacrifice in other areas.

Computers definately drive my life, I spend most of my time looking at a screen, and when possible gaming takes as much of that time as I can afford and considering the investiture in hardware and software I have made... yeah the gaming probably does drive my life. I know without it the rest woudn't be as good.

Okay, Hemi reminded me of some thing: I got an HDTV because I learned that Xbox games outputted at HD resolutions (or at least 480p). And I'm now thinking about getting a widescreen TV because most games these days support that.

And, most of my get-togethers involve gaming. My friends used to have LAN parties all the time.

Actually I went a bit off topic.

I guess if you want to go way back and get a bit deeper, my love of gaming when I was younger got me into computers, those computers got me into running pre-internet BBS's, and those pre-internet BBS's got me interested in taking my computer career further, leap-frogged to the point I'm at today.

So yes, gaming has pretty much got me where I am today. And in return, I take a "gaming tax" off each paycheck and give it all back!

Swat wrote:
Edwin wrote:

It's a lifestyle.

How so? What do we stand for as gamers, and what life mantra do we have? I dunno, what else defines a lifestyle?

Finger --> butt.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I once again have to disagree with the description of gaming as a hobby. I'd rather classify it as a pastime, or a form of entertainment, or a recreational pursuit, combined with a merchandize consumption pattern.

Classifying gaming (or TV watching, or bar-going) as a hobby dilutes the meaning of this word.

Why? I mean, I can see why tv-watching and bar-going aren't really hobbies (even though they easily fit the dictionary-given definition for the word). I'm not sure what makes gaming non-hobbyish.

What about tabletop roleplaying? Target shooting? Gun collecting? Which are hobbies and which are recreational pursuits? You seem to be attributing a certain something to the word that I don't quite follow.

Yeah, I refer to gaming as my "hobby". I have lots of hobbies, actually.

Swat wrote:

Actually I went a bit off topic.

I guess if you want to go way back and get a bit deeper, my love of gaming when I was younger got me into computers, those computers got me into running pre-internet BBS's, and those pre-internet BBS's got me interested in taking my computer career further, leap-frogged to the point I'm at today.

So yes, gaming has pretty much got me where I am today. And in return, I take a "gaming tax" off each paycheck and give it all back! :D

Whoops, I totally missed that part of my life too. I got in to networking PCs just to play C&C: Red Alert and Quake. This led me to networking and PC support, and eventually server, LAN Admin roles. So, my hobby led to my career as my BS in psychology only gets peripheral use dealing with end users.

I'll throw in saying that I wouldn't have gotten a few of my jobs if I couldn't throw on my CV that I can also fix computers and run a database.

As for this "hobby" debate, I think it's a semantic debate coming from people being sensitive about people not valuing games the way we do. I'm fine with calling it a hobby, same as I like reading as a hobby, or how I used to build models as a hobby. Heck, I did those for about the same reasons as I play games these days. Watching sports? Wine and whiskey tasting? Hobbies. Playing pickup games? Sure, I'll call that a hobby, too.

But that's all my own take on the way I do those things. I certainly don't do them as a profession or as a lifestyle. Maybe some people do, but I can't afford to have these things as a lifestyle, and nobody's offered me a job to drink whiskey or play softball yet, and I'm not good enough at video games to make any money in that!

I guess the word "hobby" is entirely subjective to the amount of time you spend on it. If I go play frisbee once a month, it's a hobby. If I play frisbee every day, if I spend a lot of time every day reading about frisbee techniques, if I go on road trips to frisbee tournaments and trade shows, if I wear frisbee merchandise, and i constantly bore people with my talks about how I love frisbee - I guess it's still just a hobby, but that hobby is a big part of my life.

So yeah. Something like that.

I'm with you, Swat. Also, I can't wait for Frisbee season to start back up. I might have to join a spring league.

It wouldn't say gaming completely drives my life, but it is definitely a big part of it, and has been for as long as I was tall enough to see the screen on a Space Invaders machine. Like Swat said, gaming helps me to still feel young, and gives me something to look forward to almost every day.

I don't think the cost really affects me because I've played video games as child with little or no money to my name, as a starving college student, as a poor fresh out of school grad, and now as a moderately successful professional. Whatever I could afford, I played.

Amusing side note as to gaming's effect on my daily life: while going through my morning e-mails I happened to notice that when my left hand rests on my keyboard my fingers aren't on the tradition ASDF keys for typing, they naturally sit in FPS mode. Pinky finger on left shift - ring on A - middle on W - pointer on D - thumb on spacebar. I'm not even sure how long I've been doing that. What's worse, even when I intentionally set them to ASDF to type, they eventually move right back to WASD. Considering my professional life consists of a lot of typing I'm not sure if I should be slightly proud or slightly worried.

Bru wrote:

Amusing side note as to gaming's effect on my daily life: while going through my morning e-mails I happened to notice that when my left hand rests on my keyboard my fingers aren't on the tradition ASDF keys for typing, they naturally sit in FPS mode. Pinky finger on left shift - ring on A - middle on W - pointer on D - thumb on spacebar. I'm not even sure how long I've been doing that. What's worse, even when I intentionally set them to ASDF to type, they eventually move right back to WASD. Considering my professional life consists of a lot of typing I'm not sure if I should be slightly proud or slightly worried.

Same here. I found it can easily be retrained to sit with thumb on Alt and ring finger on Tab, though!

Really? My left thumb is on the alt tab and my right finger is on the tab key in case the boss comes by. Hehe.

wordsmythe wrote:

Same here. I found it can easily be retrained to sit with thumb on Alt and ring finger on Tab, though!

Swat wrote:

Really? My left thumb is on the alt tab and my right finger is on the tab key in case the boss comes by. Hehe.

What? You don't have one of these yet?

Bru wrote:

What? You don't have one of these yet?

Thank FSM that I have admin access to install that software. Think I can get it expensed?

wordsmythe wrote:
Bru wrote:

What? You don't have one of these yet?

Thank FSM that I have admin access to install that software. Think I can get it expensed?

It helps productivity because it allows your feet to use your computer too!

Edwin wrote:

It's a lifestyle.

I'm with Edwin. I spend some part of everyday playing or reading about gaming. I work a week (12 hour days) and then have a week off. On my week off I spend at least 40 to 60 hours playing games and the rest with my wife.

At one point in my life about 6 years ago. I was hooked on a game and had my friends take my wife to the movies because I had a clan match that day and didn't want to be bothered. The wife and I had a sit down talk after that and I knew it went to far. She did the same thing with shopping a couple years before that so she understood what I was doing. What I'm trying to say is there must be a balance and I'm just lucky enough to have a wife that understands my passion for games.

She loves shopping for shoes and purses and I love games. I spend 200.00 bucks on games and she gets to go blow 200.00 bucks on her lifestyle choices. It must have balance or it will take over your life and destroy it.

It's a filthy secret I hide from society at large