Giving Up Gaming Part 1: Cold Turkey Genocide
OK. Let’s do this. If I’m going to quit gaming forever, I need a plan of attack. There are two classic ways of quitting any addiction: gradually cutting down, or going cold turkey. When I gave up smoking, I chose the former, and it seemed to work ok; I started on 20 Marlboro a day, then went to 10 Marlboro Lights, then 5 Silk Cut, and eventually I was able to say goodbye to cigarettes altogether.
Well, kind of.
I still feel a slight pang of desire whenever I see someone light up. It’s totally manageable, but it will never go away. The trouble is that games have a much stronger hold on me than cigarettes ever did, and if they remain on my PC to tempt me, I know that I’ll end up falling right back into the old ways. For me, therefore, the only solution is cold turkey.
So. For this to work, I have to remove all trace of games from my computer. This proves easier than I thought… and more terrifying than I could have imagined.
The first thing I delete is Doom III, a game to which I’ve returned time and again, even though nowadays it pretty much bores the dicks out of me every time I play it. Whoosh, it’s gone. I feel a slight sense of nausea, but nothing that can’t be allayed by a spot of conciliatory masturbation. What next! How about Sid Meier’s Pirates! The old Amiga classic is one of my favourite games ever, and was my companion during all those long, lonely adolescent nights, before I knew the touch of a woman, when the best drugs I could get my hands on were nutmeg and banana skins. Whooosh. Au revoir, mon ami. This is a piece of piss!
The horror… the HORROR
At this point, a giddy elation grips me. With every act of erasure I feel physically lighter. As I watch Prey and Unreal Tournament disappear without a scream, I’m seized by a drunken homicidal rush. I want to delete everything, everything, until my computer is totally pure, and I’m so light that I will rocket from my swivel chair and twat my head right through the ceiling. I suddenly understand how it is that killcrazy rampages can start from a simple fatal misstep; how even the most well-adjusted person can trip and slide into an ever-accelerating helter-skelter of depravity once the first bridge has been burned and they learn how easy it is to destroy.
I’m going to finish them all off. I’m going to torch the whole fucking village. The lights go red, horrific shadows skitter at the edges of the room, and the halls shiver at the sound of my maniacal half-laugh, half-scream as I frantically stab “uninstall” again and again. I am Hell’s hammer, and the Control Panel is my anvil.
At around the time when I’m expunging every last one of my emulated Aliens games, this frenzy becomes tinged with desperation, because at some point soon there will be nothing left to delete, and I must shudder to a stop and survey the yawning emptiness that I have created. And there will be no going back, because This File Is Too Big For My Recycle Bin, and I know it.
My “Games” folder is empty.
Oh god. What have I done.
Not… the younglings!
At least I still have my saved games, I tell myself. Those tiny children, nestled safely in My Documents, oblivious to the hell I have wrought. But a voice whispers dark thoughts. Better to put them out of their misery too, the poor orphans, lest they grow up, and one day seek their revenge by addicting you once again. Can you finish what you started? Are you, when all is said and done, a man?
I know what I have to do. There is no choice, really. A few cold motions of the mouse, and those tiny seeds of life have been crushed forever. My PC is suddenly as empty as a virgin’s nethers, the echoes of my keypresses resounding through its empty folders. I am bloodstained, beatific. But now I pause. Was this all for nothing? When the embers of adrenaline have grown cold and grey, will I crave games once again? Or will I slip their hold, now that they no longer lurk behind every spreadsheet and webpage, torturing me with their presence?
Only time will tell, I suppose. In the meantime, I need to cleanse myself of the horror. Perhaps I’ll go and wash my hands until they bleed. Or masturbate. Probably I’ll masturbate.
Filed under: Addiction
I once decided to get all the games off my computer, so I ran a reformat and fresh install of windows. As I sat there with a completely pristine computer, the first thought to enter my mind was, “Fuck, I wonder how fast Unreal Tournament will run now?”
It’s a brave, brave thing you’ve done, Tim.
I’ve been wondering how long it will take before I feel an irresistable urge to put UT back on again. Unreal Tournament is such an insidious game. You tell yourself that the odd ten-minute deathmatch isn’t so bad, and of course it isn’t. The trouble is, you play ten-minute deathmatch after ten-minute deathmatch until it’s 3AM, and then you finally stagger to bed, hollow eyed, doomed to dream about headshots all night.
It was always the sniper rifle that brought me back. Just an endless stream of bots on Facing Worlds, aching to run directly into my crosshairs as the announcer shouted “M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL” with each glorious headshot.
Yeah, I better stop now.
My god, not…not Freecell?
You monster!
Funny, UT was the game that snagged me, too. I think it was the online play that did it – searching for that one server that had no lag and good, smart teamplay and communication that didn’t sound like R2-D2 farting out his non-existant backside. You know, the server you found one of those times. Constantly chasing the dragon…
I’ve found a good solution to this problem is to have your laptop stolen.
I remember that fabled time I found the Perfect Server. It was on Alien Versus Predator, as I recall. The lag was low, but that wasn’t why it was so great: it was the people. At the beginning of the game we were nothing more than strangers, but by the end… we were friends. I’ll never forget those guys. Joker_Poker, where are you now? Wolfspite21, I miss you so. And ShadowTemplar… oh, ShadowTemplar. If only our circumstances had been different, we might have fallen in love; had children together; who knows. Ahhh, memories.
Also I won the game by like 500 points.
haha now if you had to delete the video games AND the porn you’d really be stumped.
Oh jesus. That doesn’t bear thinking about. If I didn’t even have porn, how would I fill my time? I think I would have to take up a useful hobby, like knitting, or clogmaking.
wait.. dogmaking?
erm.. nevermind that.
interesting read!
like many among us with bigger aspirations in life, i too have gone through (plural) moments of game deletion. my half-assed solution consist now of having 3 computers. one being my old desktop pc, which i still use for gaming.. think of it as a dedicated machine. i have decided not to buy any more new games though (i probably couldn’t play any of the “next-gen” stuff on it anyhow)
my other pc is a laptop/tablet, specificly bought for digital painting on location (it happens to be what i do).. luckily, it runs vista, and has a crappy shared-memory video card.. no games there!
lastly, my real work machine is a mac.. at first i thought this would free me of the all-to-easy game access, and the constant seduction of games at my fingertips… untill i discovered it had a pretty mean chess program. i’m severely fucked.
but hey, chess is better than shoot-em-ups, right? i mean..
right?
*sigh*
keep up the good work!
Still recovering from a chemical addiction, video games are my methadone… if I ever find the gumption to shake that digital monkey off my back, I’m sure your words of inspiration will be a useful guide.
oh, and “Doom III”? pshaw!
I carry Doom I & II around on a usb drive so I can shoot-up… uh, I mean play anywhere anywhen I want.
I still feel pangs of nostalgia for Doom 1. A few months ago I downloaded the direct-x upgrade and hi-def texture pack mods for it, and spent a happy week reliving old memories. I don’t know why, but for me, E2M2 was always The Bitch. The theme tune was creepy and fun at the same time, and there’s something about the warehouse section that gives me the screaming willies.
Oh, memories.
Hyver, I sympathise with getting accidentally hooked on a chess program. I have an addictive personality, so I’m basically just looking for shit to get addicted to. It’s almost irrelevant what it is. Have you ever been on http://www.isketch.net ? If you’re easily addicted, avoid it like the plague.
Alternatively, we should totally play together. My username is Camerhill! I play it every night!
I think it’s time to admit that I am terrible at giving up computer games.
i’m gonna set the smart example here by not clicking that link, tempting though it may be
I’m drowning in deadlines as tight as jack skellington’s underpants.. maybe later…
man that doom upgrade sure sounds tempting…..
maybe i should go out and find some pot or something.. :nohope:
talking about doom… that game gave my my first and only game-related injury..
back when the demo version was being spread out through game mags and schoolboys, i played that sucker start to end in one sitting. in a dark attic room, headphones on.. perfect setting. sometime in the deepest hours of night i finally hit the teaserscreen and switched off. next ting i know, i find myself half broken at the bottom end of the stairs.. seemed that doom’s revolutionary 3d feel thoroughly messed with my own personal feel for balance. ouch!
a few hours later, i was limping back to school. it was not a happy day (but man! what a night!)
Oh man, I remember when I was given those magic three discs with the first shareware episode on. I think I did the whole thing in one sitting too. I can’t even confirm if there were toilet breaks.
I can quite understand your balance being fucked after that first heady session; just imagine if you’d had full mouse-look back in those days. I think I would have vomited all over my computer.
re: isketch.net
you bastard!
I’m so very, very sorry.
It has me by the balls as well. I can’t look at anything blue without feeling the urge to type SEA OCEAN WATER WAVE TIDE SHORE BEACH BOAT SUBMARINE, and when I greet a friend, there’s a slight stutter as I force myself not to shout MAN HUMAN PERSON FATHER SON FAMILY SHOULDERS TORSO.
I’ve checked out your site and I’m really impressed by your pictures. My favourites are the Syd Mead-esque future cities, but they’re all amazing. However, this probably means that you play iSketch with a sketchpad, and you should be aware that at least half the other players are therefore seething with resentment towards you. Those easy, organic strokes! The delightful speed of composition!
Asshole.