A fate I'm hoping to avoid

Responsible Gaming

Responsible gaming is a new post I’ll be doing every week, and I’ll give you a little info why. I’ve been buying a lot of games since I started this website, tons actually, and a lot of them I haven’t even had a chance to start yet, especially with the massive amount of PSone Classics that I’ve bought off the network. Now, I’m doing my best to control my spending, but it seems like every week, especially in the last few months, I keep grabbing games off the network without thinking. Luckily they’re only ten bucks at the most, (as I’m sure you know only 6 bucks mostly) but over time they add up to a lot. So I’ve decided to start an experiment to stop me buying so many games, make me play the ones I have, and improve my studies at the same time.  This is attempt no. 1 hopefully I’ll only need one.

Background

To start with the background knowledge, I’ve been finishing a degree in languages and there’s lots of studying that needs to be done. As I’m now finished my core language classes it’s hard to keep them up, so that will weigh into the reward scheme that will make me a better student, and a more responsible gamer.

Theory

Buying games

Buying games has become too easy, and because these games are so cheap I’m not hampered by a budget. So, I will start with study time. Each hour of study time will be worth two gaming dollars. So, if I want to buy a game off PSN, I’ll need to cover it with my gaming dollars first, for instance Parasite Eve is $5.99. That’s a full 3 hours of studying for that one game (Tax gets pretty complex, so I’ll leave it out for this experiment, and also I might be a little complacent studying 3 extra hours just for tax of a new PSP game). All of a sudden it seems like it’s a bigger commitment than just a few bucks. And one that will make me a better student as well (and in turn a better language speaker too!).

Another problem has been sleep. It’s easy when you’re gaming to stay up all night getting through a particular boss fight or ending, I remember starting the ending of Metal Gear Solid 4 for instance at about 11pm, and only getting to sleep at about 4!  So to keep my sleeping habits in check, I’ll earn 1 dollar towards games for every hour I’m in bed before midnight. I can always wake up early and game anyways right?

I'm excited to play this, I just need to work out more to do it.

Playing games

Now I can’t just study for everything, because I’ll get bored with that quick. So, I’ll have gaming time dependent on physical exercise. I’ve been an athlete for years, but I’ve been slacking off lately, and want to get back in to fighting shape. So for every hour of physical activity, things like running, weights, and sports I’ll get 2x the time. For every hour spent doing exercise I’ll receive two gaming hours in return. So for a 20 hour game, I’ll be working out 10 hours. Not only will this whip me into shape, it’ll make me get off my butt instead of just turning on my game systems. Getting through a 70+ hour RPG for instance will not only have my character leveling up, but my physical body as well (like a real life RPG! WOW!).

Recording

For this all to work I’ll have to keep a pretty decent record of all my studying time and exercise time, so I bought a nice leather bound diary book to get me started. Each day my total for Gaming dollars and gaming hours will be brought forward and I’ll make off my gaming time and money spent as it happens. This should be an interesting thing to update every week, and hopefully my progress will encourage some of you out there to try something similar.

But why do this?

Well, that’s the thing, if you look at alot of gamers (especially MMO gamers) they end up spending a lot of their time playing games instead of taking care of other important factors in their lives, and I don’t want to end up unbalanced. These are the areas I need to improve upon, especially the sleeping area, good god… I thought that if I decided to use something I love to do as a motivation I’ll keep having fun and achieving my goals. So, keep checking back to see how I’m doing, scold me if I trip up, and tell me what you think, I’ll be updating every Wednesday.

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