The one time I started questioning my gaming habits was talking to that "Better Than Life" junkie in Shadowrun: Dragonfall who didn't really live in the real world anymore because she was so engrossed in and addicted to the virtual stories. It kinda hit home for me and felt like here was an engrossing videogame telling me to stop playing and go live my life instead, although I'm not sure if that was intentional. XD

Politics is one thing that slightly kills gaming for me but there are other factors. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is fantasy but it feels like everything in it is stolen from real life religion and ancient times, and those themes always exist in real life in some form (good vs. evil). The other thing that influences my thinking is that I should be doing other things. I volunteer at a primary school with children aged 7-9 and it's more fun than programming by a long way. I want to influence the younger generation away from games and toward electric guitar and music.

I burned my eyes last night trying to make a UWP app in Visual Studio but to no avail, now I'm going to play 8 bit armies with no v-sync LOL. Even if I had $200 NZD I doubt I'd buy a graphics card just for one game. I could get other games but then if I had a job I'd be working and spending my money on take-aways, car payments and bills, right?

Personally, I wouldn't mind chidren being steered toward music, but I *do* mind them steered toward electric guitar. If you want to steer them toward music, choose a better instrument, especially one that is less popular like the oboe or bassoon.

I also would prefer not to have the children steered away from games, at least the good ones.

For me, it's not really politics but rather the fact that certain topics seem to be taken as political when they really shouldn't be, like the inclusion of strong female and LGBTQ characters in games.

I'm 38 and I'm never quitting gaming, though how much time I spend on gaming vs other hobbies goes up and down.

50. Playing on a regular basis since I was around 14. Had a couple breaks from the hobby here and there, then got back into it in earnest around 1990. Another break around, mmm, '05 '06? Something like that. Lasted a few years and then gOg came along.

I don't play as much these days. Less time, less interest, less desire / ability to stay up until 2am. Reading a lot more instead.

Part of it, too, is the overwhelming number of games to choose from. Back in the day there'd be a few cool new games at a time at the store each month so you'd pick one and get absorbed in it for a while. By the time you exhausted your fun with that one, the next round of cool stuff would have come out. Now there's so many titles to go for that's it's almost paralyzing. For me, anyway.

Classical guitar is cool too, and electric guitar doesn't have to suck. There's a difference between Orange Dual Terror and Vox ac15c1.

I don't like the steering and influencing of children/people in general. Educate and/or inform them and then let them make decisions for themselves!

deleted

I would quit gaming for a million dollars, but I'd probably regret it.

How are they 'better' instruments?

Because they are woodwind instruments, but they identify their gender as brass instruments. :)

HEY! I play electric guitar!

Oh right, I see your point.

The electric guitar has an extremely nasty sound, so bad t gives me headaches.

One could improve pretty much any song that uses electric guitar by replacing it with pretty much any ecustic instrument.

(The other common music sounds I have issue with are pop/rock style singing (operatic and Broadway style are OK, though I prefer non-vocal instruments) and overuse of non-melodic percussion.)

For me it's the same. The number of games I could play is too overwhelming. One positive effect of it though, is it almost stopped me from buying new games. A bit late though, with stopping. Digitally, I have hundreds of games in my backlog. Most of which will never be played as the time spent playing game is dwindling.