Here's a bit about what I found out about our human nature:
Imagine a hot summer day, you are sitting in the park and have 1 $ left in your pocket. An ice cream man comes along with his car and offers some ice cream, 1 $ per scoop. You also know that there's fantastic ice in a restaurant about a mile away, which is cheaper, 0.50 $ per scoop. Now, would you rather choose to have instant ice cream (but only one scoop) or walk up to the restaurant and get the double amount? Instant reward or having a bigger reward in the long term?
Most people will have the urge to choose the instant reward. That's just naturally for all of us. It takes some discipline to postpone the reward, even if you know your earnings will be higher. But if we choose the short time reward all the time, our brain gets conditioned to always want things instantly.
Now let's make the connection to video games: Playing games is instantly rewarding, because it offers us fun, makes us feel better (seemingly) and gives you the feeling of having achieved something. Compare this e.g. to doing your homework, going to the gym or cleaning up your room/flat. I never saw a banner pop up saying "Congratulations, you are a hero!!!" when I finished my homework, neither did I ever have a level up after working out. A lot of real life activities have long term rewards: If do my homework conscientious, I might improve my grades at school, which will help me find a good job; and if I work out regularly I will have a trained body with high stamina and no back pain etc.
You might say: "Wait, that's one sided, gaming also has it's long term rewards!". Ok, let's look at the long term rewards of gaming.
There's a tiny percentage of all the gamers who can make a living of gaming, have theirs sponsors and compete in big tournaments all over the world. I would estimate this number to be lower than 0.0001 %.
I also found out the next argument to be untrue: "Gaming is more fun if you are really good at a game.". This would mean that I have more fun with a level 90 WoW character with epic gear than I have with a level 15 character. To me this was almost never true, once I hit the maximum level and had good gear, I created a new character because I enjoyed the slow pace at the beginning of the game. There was time to look at the world around you and read all the quests etc. In high level gaming, it's all about efficiency, there's no time to stop and watch. So you run and run for better gear only to make the game less fun... strange, huh?
Nowadays, patience is very rare. And if you leave the choice to a kid, if he/she would rather play video games or do his/her homework, you all know what the answer is. So avow for a bit more endurance and less "taking the easy way".
I was never addicted seriously. I still play sometimes and I've never understand gamers who can talk about only games and playing just computer games in their freetime. I was a gamer too, played a lot but never felt the urge to play. Actually I spent months without gaming or computer back in that time. Sometimes I get hooked and I felt I maybe stuck in some kind of addiction but I grew up, and feel the time I spent on gaming wasted. I also wrote columns and created a quite popular gaming magazine which we've run with my freinds from 2008 to 2011. We've fed up with games during that time. So maybe creating and managing a video game magazine is also a good way to drop you addiction. You realize how empty, childish and idiotic is the gamer world, a waste of time. I learnt much but I still love and admire some of the classics like Fallout or Morrowind. Good memories. :) Maybe that means I wasn't addicted so hard to gaming as you were. Cheers!
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