Throughout the years I have learned a couple things about computers:
- They are expensive "at the time of purchase" but depreciate faster than an open cartoon of milk
- They can be incredibly useful when you use them for "work" BUT unfortunately they can also be great time sinks and procrastination tools
Basically, computers can be either very good for you and make your life more productive, or terribly (and I do mean TERRIBLY) bad for you and consume whatever precious minutes of free time you have left in your day.
Some folks out there might be new to computers, or have very strong will power, and as such could have no idea what I'm talking about. To get everyone up to speed, the issue is that today there are probably over 10,000 games that only exist for one purpose, and that is to entertain the user. This is good and great for folks that have free time BUT the problem is that these games can be quite addictive. Once someone starts using them you can't pull away no matter how hard you try. Your mind starts to crave the "high" that you get from these games and it convinces you that playing a game straight for hours, days or even weeks is perfectly fine.
It's fairly easy to roll off a list of the most addictive programs known to man. Over the course of my 20+ years of gaming I've tried everything from text based adventures (Zork!), to the greatest FPS ever (BF2!). Here's the list of the top 5 addictive programs that have hooked me for extended periods of time, sorted by time sink (least to worst):
#5 Zork I-III (1980s)
- Description: Zork was, and in my mind still is, the coolest text adventure ever. At the time it was revolutionary and you could really plug yourself into the game. Open door, close door, go north, go south... this was the best of the best in gaming in the early 80s.
- Time sink (low): I would suspect around 100hrs+ total of my adolescence was spent playing Zork games.
#4 Sierra Games (1985s)
- Description: Sierra had the best story line games with the best (at the time) CGA graphics. Games like Kings Quest, Space Quest and of course Leisure Suit Larry had no equal.
- Time sink (medium): Over the years I probably spent a good 300hrs+ total playing the Sierra games. These games were dang addicting.
#3 Dune, Total Annihilation and other RTSs (1990s)
- Description: RTSs are cool, very cool. These games allow players to “play god”, and build entire cities and then destroy them in a blink of an eye.
- Time sink (high): Adding this up is difficult, to this day I still play RTSs. I'd say over the years I've spent 400hrs+ playing RTSs of all types.
#2 Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft and many other Mega Multiplayer "Suck your life and never give it back" Role Playing Games
- Description: Ok, everyone probably knows what MMRPGs are. MMRPGs are crack for the mind. Everquest was the first (and greatest) highly addictive 3D MMRPG that came out. Interestingly enough I was actually hooked on text based RPGs (MUDs) before Everquest hit the scene. I should have known better and avoided Everquest like the plague but oh no, my inner gaming demon made me buy it.
- Time sink (high+): It's not hard to add up the time I spent playing MMRPGs... it just makes me sad when I do it. I easily spent 20+ solid days at 16hrs a day on Everquest one summer. Time spent on other MMRPGs is somewhat similar. When you add the numbers up, over 1500+ hrs were taken up by these game genre. Personally I think entire countries have had their GDP lowered because of MMRPGs. If you can control the "addiction" they can be fun... but dangit I couldn't. My only solution was to go cold turkey (as described later).
#1 Quake 1-4, Unreal, HL, HL2, BF2 and other FPS games
- Description: I figure that I have played nearly every FPS that has been made for the computer, and I have played nearly ever mod for every FPS (Action Quake was awesome!). My top favorite FPS engines have been BF2 and BF1942, followed by the Quake engines. The mods that users make for the FPS games are often far superior to the game itself. The greatest mod I've ever played is Project Reality for BF2, if you haven't played this I definitely advise you check it out.
- Time sink (incredibly high!): For the last 15 years I've been playing a variety of all types. For just FPS gaming, my average game time has easily been 10hrs a week for the last 15 years. Do the math and you have a huge, scary number: 15*52*10 = 7800hrs+!
