Why so serious ??: May 2011

Obsessive Gaming Disorder – I read these words somewhere on the online gaming magazine some times back and I immediately liked them (& make an entry in my vocabulary journal). I seriously believe that these three words (OGD) themselves can so profoundly and strongly represent and define entire hard core gaming community, comprises of fanatic gamers like me, in a way that no other lengthy introduction is required. OGD is not a word but identity. And I am sure that all the patients suffering from this disease will take proud of it.

First of all, I’m not talking about only gaming here (casual gaming & occasional gaming is no symptom of it, so if you are like that, be happy and go marry with your usual ordinary life). I’m talking about people who eat, sleep (actually not sleep), drink and have sex with gaming (OK, last one is far too imaginative).Point is you just don’t play games; you live games, than you most probably suffering from OGD.

Why one becomes obsessive about something? (I don’t want to go in details about effect of chemical composition Serotonin on our mind which is prime suspect for obsessive behavior). I believe its gradual process from first impression to liking, enjoying, contemplating, passionate liking and obsession, just like Love (People say that love is obsessive, I prefer the other way, if it’s obsessive, it must be Love)

I still remember my first divine touch with gaming medium when I was a child, traveling to north India with my family and only attraction for me was to have a handheld electronic device from Delhi marketplace which allowed me to have singular gaming experience. The idea of moving something on the black & white pixilated screen with a press of a button was so much fascinating to me at that time. I had bought one with maximum buttons on the panel (four: two on each sides excluding “start” button). I still remember the premise of the game where a bird shooter had to shoot as many goose as possible coming from four different directions (top-left, bottom-left, top-right, bottom-right). You just had to press appropriate button to shoot and kill in particular direction with precise timing. If 3 gooses escaped, it’s game over. Thing is it was so much difficult to kill 1000 gooses (that was my target at that time) as after crossing the score of 600 to 700, you had to work so fast that it looked impossible to reach 1000 without having an alien hands with four thumbs and a brain induced with super power chip, working and acting and responding with teraflops of calculations per seconds (I still remember, my high score was 950).

Then I came in touch with retro gaming legends and similar sprit-ed games like Mario, Contra, Pac-man, Bomberman, Space invaders, and lot others, eating away my summer vacations like piranhas eating their prey. Then came period of time, during start of my secondary education, when I happened to shy away from two of my likings: comics and games. These were mere hobbies that time, still not converted to passion. Here I should make clear the difference between hobby and passion. I have a very simple idea for testing: What you do in free time is hobby and for what you free the time from your busy life is passion. So I had to move away from my gaming so as I could satisfy the expectations of the surrounding to be grown up, to rake higher up in the rank, to concentrate on study, to get selected in good carrier and thereby making bright future. Now looking back, I can do nothing but laugh at the irony of my life as after following so called “ideal-path-to-success”, after getting myself better and better over others’ expectations, getting into the grooves of set carrier and social status and earning hefty amount of money, what I’m doing to satisfy my urge of happiness: Gaming and reading Comics (Life is really a circle).

After completing my secondary and higher secondary education, There came a point where my ideal study-and-make-bright-carrier route allowed me to get myself admitted to well known collage with computer engineering as major. Anyhow, I liked the idea of having personal computer just because of that. My parents bought me new PC with same notions as every parents in the world would have when they buy personal computers for their child for first time like PC would help to learn and make study smother, somehow it makes child more intellectual and clever. To me, it’s absolutely wrong notion (somehow I believe that parents also know this). I can firmly say that PC is going to be used up to or more than 90% for gaming, multimedia, movies and for lot other things rather than study for boys (I can not say the same for girls as I believe girls are far more sincere and studious in that regard and also I’m not having demographic data for that part).

I got PC in the year of 2002. Four years before i.e. 1998, the newly found corporation called Valve by two former Microsoft employee (Gabe Newell & Mike Harrington) had released it’s first product which was going to revitalize and direct FPS gaming to new heights and branded me with so deep impression of gaming that I could not make myself free from web of computer gaming whole of my life. That product is called Half-life and that was the first game which I played with my new PC. I never heard the game’s popularity before. I just picked up and played by impulse of playing something horrible and weird. I always thought of how I can get forward and what to expect next in Half-life during whole of my days: during lectures, playground, at collage, everywhere. Next gaming session would not satiate my hunger but add fuel to it for more play (to this day).

From than on, I just played on, never looked back. Gradually but certainly my passion turns into addiction and than an obsession. I tried to play every genre (TPS, Action-adventure, RPG, Hack & slash). Even I made a list of all the played games till date (don’t know why someone is interested in it except me). I had upgraded my system (along with higher end GPUs) thrice so that it is capable of playing all games there in the market with all the glory (& gory) details. I can not muster enough time to go home and play like old days as I’m working in different city and I deliberately avoided taking my Gaming rig with me with fear that I may loose my grip completely over reality and real life problems. But still I bought whatever new game in the market without contemplating how I’m going to play and finish it. And whenever I’m away from playing games, I read about games, think about games, want to know about gaming technologies, collect games and lot more. Games just stop being portal to lose myself in another world; it just becomes my world blurring the line between real and surreal.

I don’t know why I’m writing all this stuff, why somebody really wants to read about my obsessive gaming journey. But may be I need a kind of valve to let my emotions and feelings out to something, same as Valve has done to me with Half-life years ago. At least games give me worlds and environments which based on some concrete values and rules. In games, I can prove myself worthy and can get rewards for my values and character development (it’s not as random and undependable as real world). May be games give me more freedom to explore and imagine (now I have idea why people get addicted to drugs). May be games give me courage to face my fears and live up to expectations. May be games give me notions that actions and traits matters more than your physical appearance (that’s why I like FPS more). In short, I love to be obsessed with computer gaming, I love to save the world again & again & again.

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” – Einstein.

Why so serious ??

Thursday, May 26, 2011

OGD-Obsessive Gaming Disorder