If my 3,276 hours in CounterStrike have anything to say, it’s simply ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day’. As I have grown up and carried the hobby of videogames with me, I have always felt that way. Even if I can look back on 136 and a half days spent of the last 10 years on just one game alone. There are constant sacrifices being made as minor or major as they might be when we make a choice on what to put our time into. With an ever growing backlog, new games releasing every week, and the clock growing smaller by the day, what do you choose? CounterStrike, probably.
I love competitive shooters. Ever since I was introduced to Halo and Call of Duty in the Xbox 360 era, that repetitive loop to make some number go up by mowing down other people online had its hooks in me instantly. As I continue to play I find the real reason these games draw me in is the countless sleepless nights spent screaming with friends. Adding competition and shit talk really is just icing on the cake.
Now with a job that requires more travel and not as many nights to game competitively, I rarely opt for the competitive shooter if I have a moment. My only time spent playing them is either on the designated Tuesday CounterStike night, or if I catch the impromptu ‘you up?’ from the guys on Discord. If I’m picking up a game by myself, I prefer to play it that way. This has been a new value of escapism for me and that hasn’t always been the need or reason I have wanted to fire up my computer.
If I’m playing a shooter it has been purely for the hang. It’s been super valuable for me to recognize that, because outside of hanging out, when I get a minute for myself I’m hopping into my backlog or the latest single player game. I would get absolutely DOGGED on by friends for never being able to beat games, but buying all of them. Because every time I fired up my Xbox I was getting a party chat invite and instantly hopping into Call of Duty. Now I find myself beating more games than I ever have and getting lost in these worlds. And I have a new found appreciation for videogames as a whole because of it.
Probably the entire reason I wanted to start a blog and talk more about videogames is because now I truly see it as a hobby and something I care about. Friendships hold one of the largest parts of my heart and videogames was a slice of that. Now being able to experience games like Doom, God of War, and Red Dead 2 by myself then going on to share those stories with friends has created a whole new layer of depth to the hobby.
As much as I’m now trying to go through my backlog and revisit all of these classics I picked up for 90 minutes previously, I also still love the latest and greatest. I’m now making a lot more lists and just playing even if time is limited to 15-30 minutes. That was always the golden time period where I would end up on reddit or twitter, because I was telling myself the 30 seconds it takes to boot up a game was actually 5 of those. Or if there was an update that might be 45 seconds, it wouldn’t even finish before I had to head out. Now if I beat a game, I can check my list or what might have just come out that looks interesting and I just play. It has led me to beat more games than I could have imagined over the past few years. The best part is that I won’t ever run out. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to experience them all, but there aren’t enough hours in the day.
-Evan Kuhn
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