Does anyone actually find video games boring and a waste of time? And by extension gamification of anything is not a motivating drive? Every ADHD advice usually centres around some form of gamified strategy but to me this is flawed. How do you manage dopamine without it being gamified?
It’s very rare that I can find myself engaging with any video games these days and it’s usually down to a few reasons:
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The gameplay is something that I recognise the mechanics of and feel like I’m playing something I’ve already played and once I recognise it there’s little reason to continue. Completion or challenge of the game is not a motivating factor to stick with it.
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I have so many things that I need to be doing that I can’t even do and anything not on the list and video gaming is a waste of that time that could be going to literally anything else.
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Narratives in games are… not that interesting. I usually find the balance between interactivity and story always off and any gameplay is either boring or the narrative is boring so one is always cancelling the other out, so “engaging” with a story is cumbersome and at that point I may as well watch a passive form of media.
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Online multiplayer is rarely fun as I have little time to invest in being any good at a game to the level I can enjoy it. Usually the enjoyment comes from making other people’s lives miserable by beating them.
Oh and forget about achievements, they are just a bunch of todo items that I can’t process at all as they are either micro indicators of progress in the game and useless eg. You do literally nothing aside from play the game as intended and you get some achievement. Or it’s some ridiculous set of tasks that I get task paralysis by which in the end there’s zero reward for accomplishing so why bother.
When one breaks something down to its components, nothing is new under the sun. I used to feel the same about games several years ago (albeit a little more about story rather than gameplay), but I eventually I reframed that into familiar systems and stories being comfort food. Now I actively seek those things out. That way, I’m generally assured of some enjoyment at worst, and at best I find some fun ways developers are putting twists on frequently-used concepts. Some of my all-time favorites are games I’ve played only in the past few years.
I also felt that way about time wasting, but once I started being more intentional and structured about my daily goal setting and time boxing my day, that went away. Now when I’m done for the day, I’m done for the day and I give myself permission to have downtime. Tangentially, Adderall also helped with this by giving me a hard physical signal to tell me I’m probably not going to get much more done for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, these days now I’m often too tired during the week. 🤷🏻♀️
That said, I also don’t like achievements. It’s something I would have loved 30 years ago back when there was way less to play, but there’s too much choice now. I’d rather see what else is out there instead of spending time digging into something I’ve already seen most of. Feels like diminishing returns. Some people really get into it, though.
Yeah I guess overcoming task paralysis and getting momentum to completing daily IRL tasks through support and structure can make that space for more truely free time