I spent several thousand dollars on a mobile game like this when I was making $12 an hour. I absolutely regret the time I spent and the money I wasted on it. I got fired from another job because I wasted all my time playing the game. Ultimately it was impossible for English Speaking people to win anyway as Japanese players outnumbered us. So all the money we spent was for nothing.
What I was talking wasn't just merely over-investing in a game. This particular part of his comment was the relevant bit:
> I met people from all over the world who play. We had discords, ran guilds, had actual leadership responsibilities, would call people in the middle of the night when they were being rallied, etc.
Being a serious gamer is often much more than just the game, but the community/social experience and (potentially) personal development in highly a competitive environment. Eve is similarly known for being much more than a game but running pseudo-corporations. Of course the addiction/time/money stuff is where you start risking hitting the live wire.
Yeah, the game I'm talking about was like this. I spent 80+ hours a week on it. I spent literal years of my life on World of Warcraft, stagnating my life for almost a decade because of it. I was in one of the top guilds in the world for while. It was a full time job and to my detriment.
I hate every time I think about it, I could have been learning to code, advancing my career and doing interesting things that I think back fondly about. Instead there's just a void in my life where I did nothing, learned nothing, and copied other people's builds in a game and hit buttons really fast and stayed out of the red areas during raids while hitting buttons fast. It makes me feel gross.
You learned how to maintain a membership in one of the top groups of one of the top games. that's not exactly a marketable skill on paper, but you sound like someone who knows how to grind when you set your mind to it. As someone with ADHD who can't stop chasing squirrels, I admire that.
Try to forgive yourself. You can't take it back. The time you spend in regret is more time you are losing to the game. Maybe you can turn your experiences into something that can help yourself or others.
Well, you are probably right. I imagine quite a few people on here had time-consuming digital lives at some point or another.
What you have shown yourself is you can stick with something. Why not try something else now, that you can do for the rest of your life? Carpentry? Guitar playing? Not obsessively, but just regularly. You have time.
I'm sorry you feel that way. Do you mind me asking a couple of questions? Did you enjoy it at the time, or was it more numbing or just compulsive thing?
And was it a social thing? Did you make friends, enjoy talking to people etc?
