Didn't know that about Starcraft, because I picked it up in 8th grade and correctly realized it would suck me in so I never played it again. Which I sometimes regret because it does look interesting. Oh well. (Mental tangent: I wonder if it's more rewarding to play Starcraft than it is to play football, because most Starcraft players can at least approximate some of the things they see professional Starcraft players doing at tournaments, whereas none of us will ever get too close to the NFL standard. --same reason golf is so popular, it's the one sport where all of us will hit a shot worthy of Tiger at least once in our lives if we play enough.) Your last paragraph makes sense. Just -- the problem is, you spend all day playing video games and you may be happy or satisfied, but you won't have anything (unless you happen to be an elite Starcraft player). Happiness is great, but it's the TPS reports that pay the bills. I completely get what you're saying, but taken to extremes ... I could spend all day on hubski because it satisfies me to have conversations like this with smart people but it won't get me too far. Someone who spends all day farming in Diablo II -- you get the point. It comes down to having a balance, and a lot of video games (take the only one I'm currently involved with, Borderlands 2, which needs something like 60-80 hours to beat) require an amount of time not commensurate with the happiness reward they may give you. In my opinion. Caveat: I didn't actually read this article because I loathe internet articles that seem to emit the stink of self-help books.
For the record, I can play a video game 3-4 hours a night until I get stuck, I beat it, or something else interests me. Then I'll go months without turning the console on. I'm one of those annoying shits that can wait for Steam to get its shit together before deciding between The Big 3. And I think you're right - there's a little bit of "amateur hour" to it. Turntables have outsold guitars at Guitar Center for more than 20 years… although now I'll bet it's all Serato. For one thing, you need two of them while you only need guitar. But notably, it takes half a year to get mediocre on guitar. It takes half an hour to get mediocre on the tables. Back when it was "Warcraft" and you got the first chapter for free with an Ensoniq Soundscape sound card, I played Warcraft for 12 hours straight. And I beat the first chapter. And I was all set to run out and buy the full game when I realized that was twelve hours I'd never get back. I write. Some years I write a lot. And when I have a lot to write and it's hard and I'm stuck, there's nothing I want to do so much as play The Sims. Which I have wisely never purchased nor played. I can create worlds, so I do that instead.
Well as far as that goes I'm probably the last person on the planet to play Borderlands 2, and it's probably the only reason I bothered to reset my Steam account when I got a new laptop. When I was ten I could never figure out if I was going to be playing video games when I was 20, 30, 40. Now I'm pretty sure I know the answer for all of those.For the record, I can play a video game 3-4 hours a night until I get stuck, I beat it, or something else interests me. Then I'll go months without turning the console on. I'm one of those annoying shits that can wait for Steam to get its shit together before deciding between The Big 3.