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Given Up
- Count Orlok
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Yesterday was a strange experience, and I'm still mulling it over. I'm not sure many can understand, but I certainly think the community here can at least sympathize.
I sold the entirety of my Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (a Richard Garfield CCG) collection yesterday, after 10 years of collecting, deck-building, playing, discussions, disagreements, vendettas, and friendships. At one point, I was playing several times a week, building new decks in-between, and generally looking forward to the designated time each week we got together and played. I really enjoyed a lot of my time, but as you all surely know, it eventually loses its luster.
Sometimes I feel like gaming is something akin to (without any personal experience, I should say) addiction, where first it starts out as thrilling, then as its charms wears away, you keep desperately chasing that thrill, despite how grating or frustrating it may become. What finally broke it for me was leaving the country for some time. Once you're forced to step away and you realize just how little you care about that game and that experience anymore, it's really difficult to come back to it with much enthusiasm. I tried playing here or there, but as the game group morphed, and people I was once fond of began coming less often, and those that bothered me became mainstays, I had little reason to even bother.
So here I am, having decisively given up the last game I played with any enthusiasm for good. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I also feel like I've cut off some great friendships I made, despite the fact that I'm free to see these players whenever. Yet was the friendship entirely about our mutual interest in the game?
I've sold off most of my games over the last few years, and now the last game I put much thought or effort into. I'm not a very happy person generally, and I've had to come to conclusion that games were worthless to me unless they brought me some kind of happiness. I didn't want to be that person, going through the ropes desperately grasping for that confluence of players, game, and environment that through some obscure alchemical process created those moments of unselfconscious joy. Those days are gone, and I've given up. Perhaps it's the threat of moving cross-country again, the threat of finishing my Ph.d. without employment, the threat of a career change. I'm not sure what exactly. But I had to make some changes.
So now what?
When I was younger I used to spend most of my days playing music, but I found it becoming difficult to continue. I'm glad to say that I've come back to it, and that it feels great to play instruments again, the tactility of the wood, the metal strings, the motions. It feels great to learn something new, to feel the results of it, nearly immediately as I bumble my way through a piece, and on towards a polished sheen.
What does it mean to give up something that was once so meaningful - even if just a game? What have you all given up - how has it been? If games have receded for you, what has taken their place?
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What do I do now? A lot of the same sorts of things, without having to follow a raiding schedule; gaming, reading, fishing, dragging my daughter around to her stuff, that sort of thing. I miss my WoW friends - a LOT. But when I go back to say hi, and maybe fire up my toons for a little bit, I realize there was a reason I quit. My WoW friends are wonderful people, that are spending a lot of time doing things that aren't all that much fun for me now. I don't regret the time I spent playing, at all. But I'm not going back.
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Like you, I got back into playing my electric guitar, as a result of quitting online gaming and it's been a real good season.
JINX EDIT - RobertB posting a similar experience - I quit just before Pandaria too
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For now, do music. If that ever starts to feel stale, sell that shit and do something else. There's no scorecard at the end of your life that you get more points for being better at one hobby and sticking with it longer.
But feel free to continue posting here, even if you don't own a single fucking game! Barney doesn't really game either (well, recently he has started to again...).
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It has been very nice to have my weekends and evenings free. Summers of kayaking, wine tastings, camping, etc. Even so, I found myself wanting to do that again. In part because I miss the players and some of the refs. Partly because my wife really wants me to get back into it. That is an oddity in the derby world. I recently contacted a startup team that needs some officiating help as they have no refs. It is closer to where I live now so the travel after work is not so bad. Now I just need to ensure that I maintain that live/derby balance.
I think sometimes you can come back to the things you love, except ex's. The time and distance away has helped me see the things I loved about the sport and people playing it. We'll see how it turns out the second time around.
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- Michael Barnes
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- Mountebank
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Gary Sax wrote: All it means is that you've changed. And that is not a bad thing at all. This is an area where I think the Barnes attitude towards games is right---if you don't get any pleasure or have any enthusiasm for gaming, and you feel like it's holding you back, I think you should definitely sell your stuff. Here's the other place he's right---you can buy any of this shit again if ever, at any point, you feel like you want to return. Even if you did have to pay more (you might, you probably won't), it's no big deal.
What I think a lot of people don't get is that when you cash out of something- whether it's one game or your whole collection- all you are doing is divesting ownership of the physical product. All the good times you had collecting, playing, painting, etc.- you're always going to own that. I've sold "favorite" games plenty of times, and when I've decided to come back to them, I've rebought to have new experiences...and haven't regretted the periods where I didn't have ownership of whatever it is, when it would have been sitting on a shelf, cluttering up my life. I actually find it gratifying to pass on something I've really enjoyed to someone else to enjoy themselves...I think that's much more rewarding, actually, than looking at my shelf and thinking "maybe we can play that game sometime within the next year". And a lot of times I'm looking at a game thinking "I like this game, but I like taking my family out for pizza more".
But people get bound up and attached to stuff...I've got my copy of Mare Nostrum up for sale right now (SHILL) and man, that is a storied copy of the game. Virtually all of the great Atlanta gamers have played that copy- Launius, Kenyon, Avery, Branham, Baden, Zoghby, all of the Hellfire Club and so on. It was a fixture at my store. Lots of great memories, and honestly that's why I've kept it around even though it hasn't been played in ages. But you know what, sometimes you've got to realize that ownership is overrated and letting go of something- even if it's an entire hobby- can free you up to do other things.
It is kind of sobering when you step away from something- like I remember it being with Magic- and realize how consumptive it was.
So yeah man, let that shit go. See if you care about it six months, a year from now and if you do there's always eBay. If not, use all of that time, money and energy to do something else that brings you joy.
As for Black Barney discussing games...every time he starts talking about games, I just think about SpongeBob Squarepants trying to get into a conversation at a neurosurgery conference.
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Even if nobody around here ever played Jyhad again, I'm hanging on to my cards for the rest of my life. I have many fond memories of the game, the players, and the setting. I even co-designed a big Kindred of the East expansion for the game with a player in Australia, though we submitted it for possible publication just weeks before White Wolf cancelled the game. I can understand why someone else might sell their cards and move on, but I'm too much of a sentimental bastard to do it.
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Count Orlok wrote: What does it mean to give up something that was once so meaningful - even if just a game? What have you all given up - how has it been? If games have receded for you, what has taken their place?
Now that I'm done with memory lane for the moment, I will answer your question. What does it mean to give up something that was once so meaningful? It means whatever you want it to mean. Experiences pass through our lives, sometimes briefly and sometimes for many years. Relationships, jobs, pets, hobbies, etc. No matter how much you cling, everything eventually changes. Some doors close behind you forever, and other doors are just waiting to be re-opened if you choose.
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I love playing music, too. I'm terrible at it, but I'd like to think that if I gave up my games, I'd go out and find other people to play with. Playing by myself, even when I'm recording & sharing with my brother, is not nearly as awesome as playing with others.Count Orlok wrote: When I was younger I used to spend most of my days playing music, but I found it becoming difficult to continue. I'm glad to say that I've come back to it, and that it feels great to play instruments again, the tactility of the wood, the metal strings, the motions. It feels great to learn something new, to feel the results of it, nearly immediately as I bumble my way through a piece, and on towards a polished sheen.
What does it mean to give up something that was once so meaningful - even if just a game? What have you all given up - how has it been? If games have receded for you, what has taken their place?
I gave up WoW a few years ago, and MtG a few years before that. My banjo's grown dusty but I've picked up the ukulele recently and I love it. People change up sometimes, that's ok.
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- SuperflyPete
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As it turns out, it became a business of a sort, once I realized that there were people just as crazy as me. Made a TON of money.
Quick short story: WalMart has a "no question asked" return policy if you have a receipt. I happen to have access to industrial x-rays. So, I would buy hundreds in blind booster packs, take them to my buddy's x-ray, scan them, and return the ones that didn't have super-rares. It was like Christmas. I made enough off that little side-gig to pay cash for my current car. There's something to be said about being a game nerd....especially one where you're playing a meta-economic game as part of the hobby!
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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As Barnes said, I still have those memories. I still appreciate the game. I don't have to own the cardboard to know I had a great time with it. But I moved on to other things. I enjoyed my time with RPGs, but I sold all of those and moved on. Our interests change. we grow up and grow apart.
My login name here and on BGG is Legomancer, but I've barely touched my huge pile of Lego in years, despite constantly swearing that this will be the year I finally get back to building. I'm about ready to pack it up, though I'm not quite ready to sell it off. I've had some great times with it, but if this is the end, that's fine.
A common trap in nerd-dom is to think that the things we like define us, that we are these interests. They're not. There is no hole in *me* if I find Doctor Who doesn't appeal to me anymore. We've just parted ways. We do this all the time with actual human beings; it's okay to do it with things.
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- san il defanso
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- ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
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I haven't had to make that choice with games yet, but I suspect I will have to eventually. I'm studying conflict management (mediation, etc.) and once that really gets under way I doubt I'll be able to put in the playtime I do now. When that day comes I'm sure I'll miss gaming a bit, but it'll be worth it to really pursue something I'm passionate about.
So yeah, more power to you.
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- Black Barney
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