Gaming as a chore

There are those games you just never get to finish, but you still play them. You do not play them because they are fun, but because you have to. You have, after all, paid good money for the game, and maybe even played it for a bit. Playing for these reasons are, in fact, to throw good money after bad.

I have been moderately successful in keeping these sunk costs out of my equations; I have books I have never finished, games bought and paid for that never showed me their end of game credits, movies I never finished.

I recently told a friend I was thinking about how much work it is to play games sometimes. When you have to play even though it isn’t really fun.. —Why play if it isn’t fun? he asked me. At which I replied Why do you play World of Warcraft?. That is a game where I believe an enormous part of the player base is playing just because they have so much invested in it. Money; both up front and in monthly fees, Time; hundreds and thousands of hours spent working to get the best equipment possible. And emotions. My friend plays it mainly, if not solely, because he has made friends there. Friends he have little chance of meeting without crossing country borders. Friends that have little in common other than playing WoW. He has quit, stopped paying, deleted characters many times, but still he starts again.

I’m currently avoiding playing through Icewind Dale 2. Still. It is old and I kind of don’t like it. Then I read Slipping into Oblivion over at A Slime Appears. That article made me think a bit. And I am doing just exactly what I’ve been advocating against for a long long time. I’m playing because, I don’t know. he’s on third and I don’t give a darn!