Every computer gamer is likely to be familiar with this scenario. It begins with something important that needs to be done. This could be attending a meeting or meeting a deadline for work, a midterm or homework assignment for school, or even a backlog of chores that need to be done. Of course, the things that must be done are rarely the things we truly want to do, so we procrastinate, dreading the task at hand, even if it’s fairly easy. If it’s the school midterm, we tell ourselves that we will start studying soon, just after we play this game for a few minutes. That’s where we make the mistake.

The Internal Struggle

Whether you’re into casual puzzle games, graphics-intensive RPGs, or top-down strategy games, chances are you will end up playing for more than just a few minutes. Once you’re engaged in the game, all thoughts of the important task to be done fade away, and your sense of real-world time is completely supplanted by in-game time. By the time you look up, a few hours may have past. You’ll feel a pang of guilt as you realize how much progress you could have made if you had been plugging away at that work assignment over the past few hours. Then the internal battle begins: you could stop playing the game now and get to work. You should get to work. But you’re enjoying the game so much, and (more often than not) you’re so close to earning a new badge, beating a boss, discovering a secret, becoming head of a guild, or whatever other goal is easy at hand. Read the rest of this entry »