Is it possible to be a productive and well-rounded person while also having your main hobby be video games?

Is it possible to be a productive and well-rounded person while also having your main hobby be video games?
I want oldfags to answer more. How did playing video games your whole life into your 30s affect your life overall? Your work, personal life, health, all that stuff.
Is it a worthwhile hobby to pursue? If you could, would you go back and take up something else as your main hobby and maybe only play video games casually?

No

33 here. Video games are not a problem at all. They don't conflict in any way with my personal and professional life.

Sup Forums, on the other hand, does. A lot.

I'm in my twenties, not an oldfag but I've decided to give up on getting new video games. The thing is I've got an enormous backlog to play through. It'll probably take me until I'm 30 to beat all of these games. But I've put everything else first: my health, my career, my social life. If you ask me vidya is the biggest waste of time ever created. You want an entertaining story? Go to the cinema and watch a movie, it's only two hours of your time and you still have to go outside for it. Want competition? Play a sport, you get exercise that way and it's just as fun (if not more-so because it's real). Reality>virtual reality. I wish I would've realized this sooner.

So if you've realized all this, why not stop playing? What keeps you coming back?

>Is it possible to be a productive and well-rounded person

Depends on your definition of these things. The way you talk about it sounds like you want to be a wage slave

I didn't waste thousands of my dollars to dump my games in the trash, video games are still fun at the end of the day. But they are not worth it in the long run. If I could do things differently I would've saved my money. As it is now I'm stuck with this stuff for the near future. I figure if I'm outside living life or at the gym all day improving myself I can spare a few hours here and there to play through my backlog. But I will not allow my backlog to grow anymore, that's for damn sure. Even a game comes and will probably be the greatest of the generation (like Cyberpunk 2077 or something) I will still avoid it.

What would be your personal definition?

>productive
Doing something you love
>Well rounded
Not having your life dominated by a single hobby

I think you have a sunk-cost fallacy. If you are serious about not wanting to buy any more video games, then you really should cut your losses now and pawn off all your shit.

>doing something you love
If a person loved playing video games, would you describe them as a productive person?

Not gonna happen. I paid for what I own, I play it. Simply as that. I can however not pay for more games in the future. So maybe I'm still gonna be into this hobby for a few more years but a decade from now I'll have outgrown it entirely. As long as I'm not a lifer it's fine by me.

If they are using their time to do something they love then yes.

If it doesn't get in the way of other responsibilities, yes.

A person can also love masturbating. If a guy jerks off all day I would not consider that person to be productive. I'm not that user but when he says "love" I'm assuming he means something that he really has a passion for. Usually, when people are passionate about something they are not passionate about consuming but instead creating. Someone passionate about movies usually wants to be a movie director but there's a difference between that and someone who watches Netflix 24/7 because they have nothing better to do with their life.

30 years old here, have been gaming since I was 3. NOTHING on this Earth has held me back as much as video games. Anyone who says videogame addiction is okay is a fucking addict. I specifically have spent the last ten years playing video games WAY too much and regret it immensely. I have a decent life and am a productive member of society, but I could be so much further along in my career had I stopped. They're made to be addicting and really good at it, especially if your life sucks. They are a symptom to a larger problem which is basically electronic addiction. Games reward your brain almost exactly like drugs and normal life seems pale in comparison to the quick fix a game can give you. Then, ten years later you look back and have literally accomplished nothing except beaten a few games. I feel myself slowly growing out of video games due to adult life seriously ramping up and kicking my ass. Do you remember that feeling of when you stopped liking to play with action figures? It feels a LOT like that. You try to have fun, but you just don't anymore and you're not sure why. But it's because you're older now and you require bigger, more important things to have fun. You can possibly still be moderately productive, but you can't reach your full potential while addicted to video games. If you say you aren't addicted, then stop for two weeks. If you would have ant difficulty doing this, you are addicted.

But isn't playing video games the equivalent of watching netlfix, and not directing a movie?

Better to do it sooner than later. But you're a grown man, you'll make your own decisions.

It is, playing video games is the same as watching Netflix. Designing video games would be the equivalent of making movies.

So then playing video games can't be defined as productive, because you're not really producing anything. Unless you're a twitch streamer or something like that.

Video games only have a bad influence during school and university, since you are supposed to study in your free time at home, but when having a job you can do whatever you want in the evening and weekends without affecting your performance, as long you don't play all night

The only thing that held you back was you. Video games are just a scape goat

That sort of thinking doesn't seem practical to me.

I never said it was productive, I'm saying the exact opposite.

In my lack of will power against them, yes. To argue spending all day playing video games every day would not hold someone back is asinine.

Pocrastinating on Sup Forums is a bigger threat to being productive than videogames.

Who needs to be 'productive'?
If you're happy with who you are, what you do and you're not living in a cave, who gives a fuck?

Why not study more about your field of employment to give yourself an edge over others? Is playing video games in your 20s really a good use of your time?

>How did playing video games your whole life into your 30s affect your life overall? Your work, personal life, health, all that stuff.
Not even in the slightest.
Everything about my own existence that is fucked up (and it is everything) is entirely my own fault.

People blame games for their problems, but it's really that they have problems and that is why they turned to games in the first place. There is absolutely nothing about enjoying them that should ever ruin your life.

All you need to know is that there is time for hobby, and time for more important things. For work, for friends, for socializing, for family.

A lot of people who play games excessively do have tendencies towards addiction. Some are just lazy fucks. Some are escapist, evasive, cowards, messy, associal, depressed.
But their problems are: untreated propensity to addiction, laziness, cowardice, escapism, evasive personality, depression.

Not the damn bloody games. People mess their lives up because there is something wrong with them, not because of the medium they enjoy.

That said, OP:
Read. There is nothing wrong with playing games, but people need to fucking read more. Read, and go out with some friends every now and there.

To spend all day doing any hobby would hold anyone back. Its not something specific to video games its something exclusive to your addictive personality

>If you're happy with who you are
Because A) the odds are that you are not actually happy with who you are if you aren't productive, and B) the odds also are that if you aren't productive now, even if you happen to be happy now, you will almost certainly not be happy once the damn debts start to catching up with you.

Get outta here ya commie.

Hence me qualifying myself with 'as long as you're not living in a cave'

I'm in my early twenties, but i spent my entire teenage years playing games in a "competitive" format and i had nothing to show for it, and the sense of accomplishment was very temporary.

I think now, I continue trying to be good at certain games just in the hopes of doing streaming and entertaining people in some way. That drives me a lot and if that weren't there I don't think I could justify spending my time on videogames. There are other things in life I should be doing instead, especially if I ever want to make it.

>if you aren't productive,

Not everyone is a wage slave. Just having a few moments of happiness between the slog of real life is enough for some.

Yeah. Being productive generally means "making sure you won't end up in a cave in the FUTURE".

If you work in a grocery store or flip burgers you certainly don't care about that during your precious free time after doing that shit for 8 hours a day. Nobody cares what people do in their free time as long they perform well during work time

But if video games are hurting more than they're helping, especially in the long-run, are they worth playing, or should you quit as soon as you can? I'm thinking about 40 to 50 years from now.

>All you need to know is that there is time for hobby, and time for more important things. For work, for friends, for socializing, for family.
I agree with you but at the same time video games are kind of designed to suck the life away from you, especially games that last hundreds of hours. A movie is a couple of hours. A TV show is an hour a week for a new episode. Only video games require too much free time to be dedicated towards it. It would've been better off never being invented at this point.

Of course it is.

There are people that watch TV in near all their spare time
There are people that spend all their spare time in the pub
There are "people" that spend all their spare time squatting on a bridge with a bottle of cider in the freshest of trackies

Yet somehow that encroaches on having a fulfilling life and the others are perfectly normal.

The looking down on video games as a pass time has been around since they were invented. It's the same as ANY other pass time, you can do it in moderation and have a productive life. If you neglect your life for ANY 1 thing then it's a problem.
Video games have fuck all to do with this question.

>video games
>hobby

Not gonna lie you sound like a total fucking retard. You just wrote a string of posts talking about why video games are dumb, and yet you continue to play them. Seriously I can't even. This is the dumbest thing I've probably read all year.

So why not drop video games entirely? What's stopping you? Is it this place? Is it because you've done it for so long now its just a part of who you are and what you do?

>your main hobby
It's too late. You clearly already have autism.

Most people aren't passionate about something that can provide safe income. Work is about financing the bullshit you do outside of work (and survival) in general. Why would you waste your time doing shit you don't enjoy outside of work? If you have an extreme interest in something marketable or the kind of competetive spirit to spend every waking hour on a business of your own, that's fucking great, but forcing yourself into it sounds like a good way to be miserable.

I never said they're dumb. I said they're fun. But they are a waste of time, deal with it or don't you fucking asshole.

Work's got a pension scheme, I pay into it, it's on top of a state one.
Feels good living in a 'commie' country, huh?

By definition they are. Reminder that your personal definition doesn't matter for shit, only the real definition.

But if you are flipping burgers, the best way to ensure you won't have to flip burgers in the future is to be productive outside work and look for opportunities that could land you a better job.
And I'm not talking about what other people think here, I'm talking about your personal long term satisfaction.

Late 20s, don't really feel like they've held me back. I never turn down social shit to play video games and I have plenty of other hobbies.

As far as using them to procrastinate sometimes, I'm honest enough with myself to know that I would just use something else if I didn't have games. I used to procrastinate by cleaning when I'd banned myself from games. The time I play games during is the time my peers watch netflix or do whatever else.

Late 20's here, so probably not as much of an oldfag as you wanted input from, but I figure I may as well share anyways.

I would be naive to say that gaming has not held me back somewhat in my life. I would also be naive to say that I'm not addicted to playing video games. The fact of the matter is that gaming is my primary form of entertainment, and I have spent way too much time on it.

I would have to agree with to an extent. I found it was much more of an issue during my adolescence, especially in college. My motivation for actually performing well in school was horrible, and it was mostly due to me wanting to spend most of my time at home playing games. Somehow, I made it work, and eventually got myself a comfy "adult" office job.

At that point, it feels different. No longer is it an issue of gaming directly affecting what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Instead, it's now more of a detriment to my personal well being. It doesn't impact my ability to do my job at all, I'm responsible enough that I go to bed on time, get up on time, get to work, and do my job. What it does impact is things like motivating myself to go to the gym, spending time outside, and being more social than I am currently.

In my opinion, gaming, just like most hobbies, is dangerous to spend too much time with. It's healthier to try to find multiple hobbies to do. That being said, I don't think spending a couple of hours a night gaming is going to hurt anyone, so long as they're responsible.

Of course you fucking retard, theres no actual rule against it and you can always make time. You've been taking memes too seriously, take a look at it without your Sup Forums filter. You can do whatever you want.

my answer to that is just really ludicrous out loud, I want to stream / make videos related to video games and create a little community that I can personally socialize with. I've wanted to do that since 2008 or 2009, but I was too young to know how, and also had very bad internet. That's why I keep playing games.

It just feels important to me, but I have other goals in my life as well, and videogames could never distract me from those no matter what.

>browses Sup Forums
>not autistic

Fucking wew laddy.

We're not talking about old hobbies, and shit like fucking stamp collecting isn't literally designed to get people addicted to it. Movies aren't interactive nor are they Skinner boxes. Books are not programmed to be addicted not are many many other hobbies. Your point is fucking stupid and I've heard it literally thousands of times as well as all the other addict COPING METHODS.

Only interesting if you're in a creative career choice. Otherwise for people that don't like partying and social get-togethers video games seem like all there is but I'd advise traveling and spending time in nature (perhaps with friends or a partner) as the best way to spend free time.

Work to live. I'm not interested in living to work. Those people all die from heart failure in their 50s or die when they retire because they forgot to develop hobbies and a life.

No. It's impossible.

If you play video games as a main hobby, and that means more than 1 hour a week of gaming, then you are not productive enough. Also, if you go to Sup Forums you are not a good person. So anyone answering your thread with a positive response is lying.

Nothing is a "waste" of time. If you do what you enjoy its time not wasted.

At the end of the day you will never be Alexander the Great of Julius Caesar. You will never be remembered through the ages, and you and me and everyone we know and love will be forgotten about shortly after we die save for a select few special individuals. Those destined to be remembered throughout the ages sure as hell aren't shitposting on Sup Forums.

I personally look down on these jobs, but you have to respect that some also enjoy what they do.
Btw, posting on imageboards is also not productive and you could do something more useful than pushing meta discussions

I'm gonna find you and shoot you john lennon

>Is it possible to be a productive and well-rounded person
Yes.
>while also having your main hobby be video games?
Sure. as long as gaming isn't your only hobby. Have some productive side interest like working out, drawing, writing, ect. A mind and body is a terrible thing to waste.
>How did playing video games your whole life into your 30s affect your life overall?
They didn't and you'd be kidding yourself to prioritize it over other aspects in your life.
>Is it a worthwhile hobby to pursue?
Most things aren't unless you either A.) Can make money from it, or B.) its about your overall heath. Video games are just entertainment, and if they keep you entertained and interested then its fine.
>If you could, would you go back and take up something else as your main hobby and maybe only play video games casually?
I'd of tried streaming my vidya or doing game design. I don't particularly regret playing games, just the shitty games I wasted my time on.

>Productive
Is this an american thing?
What does that even mean? Being a wageslave? Taking pissing contests on who gets the bigger paychecks from your boss?
And if you're on Sup Forums you're obviously not a "well-rounded person" to begin with.

>And if you're on Sup Forums you're obviously not a "well-rounded person" to begin with.
Leaving Sup Forums is the final redpill.

I work 4 days a week, have a wife, and play video games roughly once a day. I'm 32 and work in a pharmaceutical lab.

I prefer to play games that are more skill-based than just addictive timesinks. Been playing a lot of Sonic Mania, oh and I am a white nationalist - but I don't hate non-white people or jews.

Good thing I only post on Sup Forums maybe two or three times a year at this point. I haven't been on in a few months and I just happen to find this thread. Now isn't that a sign.

You can't play games the way you used to when you are devoting such massive portions of your time to work/woman/keeping your house in order. When I just had an apartment with my gf and a part time job, I could still play a fair amount of games. I couldn't marathon multiplayer games like I used to or pull all nighters with an rpg that I couldn't put down, but I could still find time. Once I got a house, it started to seriously cut into things. Not only do I have work and girlfriend to deal with, but you have to spend some of that free time fixing shit, working on the house, and doing yard work. You can't fuck up your sleep and you learn fast not to shirk your responsibilities. I don't have time to be very good at multiplayer games, so I have largely stopped playing them, its just too frustrating. Any game with mostly teenagers is insufferable and its not fun spending your 10-12 hours of free time a week getting destroyed and not improving either. I mainly stick to single player games and it takes me a while to beat them. I can't play nearly as many games anymore, so when I'm deciding what to play I mainly stick to old games that are pretty well established as being worth playing. I really can't be bothered with most newer games, they just aren't engaging and I'd rather do something else if I want to turn my brain off for a while.

Lol who cares

You can play video games and still be able to do healthy things as well. My gf and I both play games but we also exercise a little and eat healthy most of them time while also holding down jobs+school

You don't have to forgo one just to have the other. If you have fun then it isn't a "waste"

No. Almost any activity, save doing heroin, is better for your health than video games.

Of course you can you dunce. The real question is whether or not you should.

Spending your time playing vidya is no different than spending all your time scrolling through your phone or vegetating in front of a television, which is what virtually everybody else at your office does with their time.
I don't know why this board is so insecure about the fucking board topic. As long as you aren't shirking the rest of your life to grind mobs 20 hours a day it doesn't matter.

If you have a sense of priorities, gaming turns into a hobby and less of a lifestyle?
I'm 33, with 1 kid, one on the way, and I've been married for 5 years. I work 40ish hours a week, and will use early mornings and late nights to play games. I still get in 15-20 hours of gaming a week usually. I still have other hobbies, and hang with friends and junk. Again, it's all about a priority swap.

>Reality>virtual reality.
>thinker.png

You have no idea what you're talking about. Reality is what you make of it, nothing more.
If you're talking about the consensus reality then you're very clearly under significant influence of your peers who condemn any form of reality they can't comprehend and you blindly agree with them.

And to that I say "who cares"

I spend my free time either hanging with friends or playing games and I have fun so who gives a fuck if I "should" or not

As long as important responsibilities are still getting done, it shouldn't matter what I do for fun as long as it's legal and not killing me

28 here. The addiction is real. I spent lot of my young hood playing videogames, but, met amazing friends and cherish many of those years.

Sure, if i were not that addicted to the vidya, i would had better grades and interships and shit, but dueto liking videogames so much. I forced myselft to learn howto program. Finished a SE carreer and here i am, postingn Sup Forums as a code monkey. The pay is good tou

I exercise a lot and eat healthy all of the time, the healthier I've gotten the more I've avoided video games as a result. There has to be a link there.

The question isn't if video games are socially acceptable, or what other people do with their time.

Maybe for you but I don't think there is unless you somehow see enjoying your hobby as "unhealthy" even though playing games isn't inherently unhealthy

This

>all those days wasted of doing nothing but browsing Sup Forums from noon to midnight

ok retard, just keep blaming the evil video games for making you waste all that time and never bother to question if maybe you could have done something about it instead

The real truth. My life really went downhill after I discovered this place.

No you fool, reality is reality. Reality is using your real body to do things in the real world. Interacting with nature, getting into shape, making love to a woman. That is reality. Virtual reality is you with a helmet on your head in the corner of your room with a controller in one hand and a fleshlight in another, draining yourself all day.

I don't see why it has to be an either-or

I would add that it becomes very hard to have more than 1 serious hobby unless you are the kind of person who is in constant go-mode. I'm not, so I basically split between playing guitar and video games. I learned to play guitar at a young enough age that I have the muscle memory to not have to practice much, but I haven't really improved much in any technical capacity for years. If you are trying to learn something or seriously improve at something like an instrument, you pretty much have to dedicate all your time to it and can't play games at all.

>or what other people do with their time.
That's absolutely relevant considering most "productive, well-rounded people" piss away large amounts of their time on things just as pointless as games.
Yes if your definition of "productive" is "every second of every day must be milked for maximum gain" then video games are a bad hobby for you, but you're also going to be a permanently miserable person because it's not possible to live like that.

The whole question is retarded, you don't take up a hobby to be "productive" in the first place. Hobbies are diversions you do in the times you don't need to work.

You're the type of person I was looking for to answer this question. Tell me, do video games still manage to appeal to you at 33? I assume you grew up playing them. Also, since you're a family man, do you want your kid to grow up playing video games? You're well aware of the possible negative affects, and how hard it is to stop kids from doing what they like. Do you think video games are something you are willing to pass on to future generations?

Are you me?

If you don't care then why did you come to this thread? Why didn't you just ignore it and move on with your life?

>playing games isn't inherently unhealthy
It kind of is though.

the fact that you're here right now already rules you out of greatness

Sitting in front of a screen all day is literally unhealthy. And yeah that means watching TV, browsing the internet, etc. are all unhealthy. Only if there's some kind of mental improvement that goes on to make up for the lack of physical improvement and with video games there usually isn't. Better hand eye coordination and what else? Go here, kill this thing, move on. They're all the same. Films have better stories (not blockbuster movies but real cinema). Books make you brighter. There literally is no point other than fun which again can be had by doing real activities such as: sports, hiking, swimming, etc.

>But if video games are hurting more than they're helping,
No more than any other medium or any other activity that you indulge in excess. I know people who destroyed themselves by exercising in two years than people did by playing games 8 hours a day for a decade.

I've seen people being ruined by books, by movies and TV, by fashion fascination, even one by historical studies and research.

It's not the games that hurt, it's you who is hurting himself. The problem is in the use, in the lack of restraint usually associated by lack of ability to establish any meaningful goals of existence. If you lack those, anything you indulge doing can immediately become a weapon.


>A movie is a couple of hours.
A TV show up to hundreds. A neat thick little book collection... yeah, you get the point. People have been saying the exact same about TV before. And internet. And recorded music. And books. And alcohol.

>Feels good living in a 'commie' country, huh?
Except you are paying for the pensions of people who are old now. And you can only PRAY TO GODS your countries economy will not fuck up till the time you reach that pension yourself...

>I don't see why it has to be an either-or
Because when it comes to people who are losing control of their existence, the single, absolutely most important thing they have to do in order to begin improve their situation is to get rid of the delusion that they are a victim of someone, and something.

Because as long as you maintain the delusion, not even the best psychological and psychiatric care is going to ever help you.
That is a sad, ugly truth of human mental health.

Living is inherently unhealthy.

I wish I never found video games. They re wire your brain for easy gratification.

But some hobbies have extra benefits that can help you in your life. For example, if you play a sport, your body gets healthier, your social skills improve because you're interacting a group of other people in a neutral environment, etc. What does a video game give you in return? A dopamine hit to your brain and nothing else

Who are you to determine who can and can not be great? How about I never come on this site again as soon as this thread 404s and then go become great. Joke's on you pal.

Yeah, I still love to game. I usually do it with RL buds and we'll BS and stay in touch that way inbetween actual real life social stuff. (Since we're old and everyone's fucking busy all the time) -- I DO want my kids to play video games, but be a bit more well rounded with things than I was. Video games are fun, and a good time, and a great way to relax or engage with people (bad gaming communities aside), but unless it's something you can make a living out of, it shouldn't be a priority. Even then, you should still focus on bettering your real life too. Games come and go, and the "esports" world is very ADD (from what I've seen), so I wouldn't want my kid ditching life to train to play dota.

It's hard to get kids to stop doing anything the like. Vidya's no different. Just gotta be firm, and provide other outlets too.

Luckily you can have more than one. I enjoy games much more after a good workout.

I actually find the opposite. They wire you to believe that the world is more stable and fair than it is. That if you take the time to improve and do everything right, you will get the outcome you want. Some aspects of life, especially romance and friendship, are unfortunately not like this at all.

Alcohol I can understand. But let's get real here. Getting addicted to listening to music, come the fuck on man. You can literally listen to music while doing anything (working out, taking a walk, working, etc.). Video games are designed to suck up all of your free time. A single long game can last up to three hundred hours. It's a scourge on mankind.