Addiction to video games

     I hunch down between a rock and the city walls trying not to be seen. It is night and it helps to cloak me. I look out on the city of Bruma. I can see the night fires burning and the shadow outlines of some of the town houses and the guard towers off in the distance. I can hear the wind whistle by, rustling the leaves. A cricket chirps. I hear footsteps and another guard walks by. I go unnoticed. It helps that I am a master of sneak and the light armor I wear fortifies my sneak ability.

I continue to sit here in the darkness waiting. I am holding my Bow of the Blaze in my left hand. One of my many magical bows, and have my quiver of basic silver arrows slung over my back. Silver because here in Tameriel there are many things wishing to make you lunch that can only be taken down with silver, like Vampires, ghosts, spectrals and the undead. I am waiting, contemplating my next move, for you see I have a bounty on my head. 46625 coin to be exact, and that’s no small change here. So what did I do to earn this fame? Boredom I suppose. I have beaten the main quest of closing all gates to Oblivion and the side quests of finding potatoes or fish or killing trolls and recovering lost amulets have become the same old same old. So I started to travel from town to town and city to city to try and kill all the residents. Of course the guards of the land weren’t too happy with this and I have been chased ever since.

I decide to move out of my hiding place. I run to the edge of the wall and leap onto the roof top of a Bruma city house. Alas it is too steep to climb to the top and I slide back down to the ground. I am not harmed for my acrobatic skills are fairly high, a journeyman to be exact. I sneak along the wall to the corner. I look around at the great chapel of Talos. It towers above me with its medieval stance. It’s towers reaching for the starless sky. I go to the front door and quietly enter. I am met with the pews and stained glass windows on the far side. There is no one here. I walk along the wall lined with alters to the gods. I make an offering at the altar of Julianos and I am denied by the god for being a lawbreaker. At the Altar of Akatosh I’m considered a sinner and my spirit and body to be corrupt at Arkays altar. I can see that I am not wanted here.

I exit thru a side door and can see light forming thru a hazy mist. Dawn is approaching. I walk along the wall of the chapel until I notice a crate just sitting outside of a local house. My curiosity gets to me and I look inside. Nothing but a Tobacco leaf and a useless quill. At least I can use the tobacco in my Alchemy to make a potion for my endurance level. I take the tobacco leaf.

Maybe there is better stuff inside and I enter the house. I am met by a man with shoulder length blonde hair well built but with commoner clothes on. His name is Regner. He is accompanied by a woman. She is older and it shows in her face. She is also wearing common clothes. I speak with Regner. He comments on how I look just like my statue that stands in the Imperial City. Useless information for me and so I move on.

I decide it’s time to go back to where I reside in this world of Tameriel. I begin to walk towards the city gates passing corpse after corpse lying on the ground. Most of the corpse belonging to guards but a few citizens as well. Their bodies already looted for anything of value. It had taken me quite a while sitting atop a roof picking them off one by one with my bow and arrows. This being my method of choice, it keeps me safe from the sword bearing characters but gives me an open shot of anyone who dares to cross my firing path.

I stop and decide that walking will take too long and summon my wisp. I raise my hand and light emanates from my fist. My wisp appears, small balls of yellow light floating around a main core of purple light. I command it to take me home and in a loud bang I am instantly back in my tree house bedroom. My furniture is all medieval style furniture. There are tapestries on the wall and candles light the room. There is a welkynd stone sitting on my desk giving the room a green haze. My altar of enchanting and foci of spell craft is also sitting on my desk. Next to it is a pot of mushrooms that I use in my Alchemy. On top of my desk is a simple pot for keeping souls in and it is not empty. On the floor is an arcane portal that glows blue. This portal is the access to the rest of the house.

Behind me is the door to my balcony which sits a lone chair and a wooden bucket of green goo. This goo when touched instantly transports you to the shivering isles a whole other world where I am the Mad God. What is the Mad God? Well a God. I am the God of a world outside of Tameril. What am I inside of Tameril? I am a Wood Elf from the western Valoenwood forests also known as Bosmer. I am tall, thin and young with light colored almond shaped eyes. My hair is long and light in color as well. I am nimble and quick and able to command simple creatures. I come from a long line of great archers and am an expert with my bow. I was born under the sign the thief and my class is an Agent which helps with my stealth. I am a master at marksman and sneak and an expert with light armor. I am a level 26 with 355 Health points 157 Magicka points and 319 fatigue points. I am known across Tamerial for closing the gates to Oblivion and keeping the demons at bay. I am the Champion of Cyrodill, a town in the northern part of Tameril and the Arena champion at the Imperial city. I belong to many factions and guilds and am the master of most of them. I have been in Tameriel for only 281 days and have spent 2 of them in jail, 53 of them as a vampire where I bit the necks of 34 unsuspecting victims. I have committed 133 murders, 427 assaults, stolen 6 horses, but that was only because my Unicorn had been killed while fending off a horde of Ogres, and I have had 5 different diseases.

So how many real days have I spent on Oblivion the game? Countless. I have been playing this game off and on for over six years now. When I first got it I would stay up all night and play. I wouldn’t go anywhere or do anything except for maybe five hours of sleep, going to the bathroom and getting a snack that I could eat while I was playing. There were days that I wouldn’t even take a shower. I would simply get up, brush my teeth, wash my face and head straight for the computer.

As I’m sure is obvious my real world relationships were greatly affected. I didn’t hang out with friends or talk to family. I lived in a house in Hawaii with my husband and 3 other hard core party guys that were my age (19 at the time) and I still didn’t come out of my room to socialize except for maybe the whole 2 minutes it would take to heat something up in the microwave. I didn’t even go outside, and were talking Hawaii here. Fortunately my husband understood. He would willingly sleep with the computer light on as long as I would wear headphones. He accepted nothing being done even though he was up at 5:30 in the morning for work and didn’t get home until after five at night. My guess is he expected this to happen since he did buy the game for my birthday or he was hoping that the next time he was really into a game I would just leave him alone to conquer whatever other world he was in. I realize that I was lucky however. I’ve seen couples have lengthy all out fights over one of them spending too much time with a video game. I have even heard of couples breaking up over it.

My constant need to play Oblivion lasted about 2 weeks straight. Once I beat the main quest I began to be able to take long periods of time away from the game and not constantly think about it or dream about it. I would get on and play for an hour or two from time to time but the time span between each time I logged on has gotten longer and longer. I still play from time to time now but it’s only every once and a while.

So why this hardcore addiction? For me it is a way to be something that is physically impossible in the real world. Kind of like playing make believe when you’re a kid, but if I was to run around the back yard now with my sheet tied to my neck and dollar store sword killing whatever invisible demons came along my neighbors would probably call the mental institute. But gaming is acceptable adult play. It is also a lot more realistic than the invisible demons in my back yard. So are the ability’s. For example I can’t make a fire ball shoot out of my hand or be so accurate with a bow and arrow or summon some mythical creature to fight for me in real life. And unlike playing make believe in the backyard I won’t get in trouble if I decide to be evil and kill off an entire town just because. Basically it is an escape into another world where you can do things that are either impossible or not allowed in this one. Oblivion’s style and game play just happened to fit me with its open range play and mythical creatures that I connected to it, I became addicted.

I am not addicted to video games as a whole though. I only have become completely enthralled with a few and once I have beaten it and it starts to become mundane I put the controller down. I do understand how others can be addicted to game play period, regardless of the game. It’s a total escape from reality, responsibility and thinking. Almost like why an alcoholic would drink I suppose. I can also see how it would give you a sense of accomplishment to. Even though it does nothing for you in your real life it makes you feel like you have done something. Just as if you put together a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle. It did nothing useful for your life but you feel accomplished none the less.

What scares me about getting addicted to video games is when I do have other things that need to be accomplished I will put them off or do them half hazardly just to get a couple of extra minutes of game play in. I might accomplish being a hero in the video game world but I end up being a loser in reality. So now that Bethesda, the same makers of Oblivion have come out with a new video game called Fallout 3 I have been using more and more will power to not get sucked in. I guess it’s the same line as there are only recovering alcoholics there are no ex-alcoholics. I will always be addicted but I can at least learn to control it.

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