Heinrich Böll (1963) "Anecdote concerning the lowering of productivity"

Unless you really want video games to be your entire world, it's a waste of time. Time you spend on one thing is not available to spend on others. If I took the POV that video games are a substitute for real life, I'd probably be stuck in a game.

I get that this is a gaming website, but I have yet to meet an elderly person that wishes they spent more time playing video games or watching TV.

Elderly people are crazy, their mind's going/gone.

There's a reason why people say that "youth is wasted on the young." At some point you're going to grow old and I'd be very surprised indeed if you still took this attitude about gaming. I love gaming and it's something that I enjoy, but I wasted a lot of time on it when I was younger that I'd like to have back.

Sure at the time I didn't think that it was a waste of time, but as one grows older ones priorities change and one can take up gaming in old age just fine, whereas there's a crapload of things out there that one could be doing which gaming tends to prevent.

And the jogging comparison is completely ridiculous. At bare minimum jogging will help keep your cardiovascular system in shape. Whereas gaming does the oppostite, sitting for long periods of time is terrible for the mind and the body. Jogging at least helps you maintain blood flow to the brain and ensures adequate amounts of growth factor to maintain what you have.
Not in individuals that spent their lives living an active lifestyle and learning things every day. Those people rarely wind up like that compared with the people that spend large amounts of time being inactive.

Anyways, I've wasted enough time on this sub thread. I just hope that you people don't live to regret the decisions you're making. I'm still young enough that I've been able to largely compensate for the wasted time. But, only because I realized that I was doing it while young enough to do something about it. Waiting until your middle aged or elderly and you might not get that chance. The games will likely always be there, but the other options for your life won't.

Let's just say that without videogames, my english wouldn't be half as good, my analytical thinking would probably suffer too as I enjoy games which require an analytical approach, nothing would motivate me to learn programming that I have seen as rather boring until I got into game development, and I most likely wouldn't get the best job I could have ever wished for as a direct result of that.

I get that you are only capable of seeing the world by your own eyes, but arguing that anything other people enjoy is a waste of time is rather arrogant.

i suppose you didnt get what i meant. I did not mean anything about staying fit, or anything about being healthy.

Rather, simply that (in my opinion) value and enjoyment of something is completely separate issue of whether youre any good at that thing or not.

Not everyone agrees with me ofcourse, some are very competetive and cant enjoy anything unless they are the best or have the reasonable chance of becoming the best.

-> I jog and run at the pace that i feel like i enjoy. Like few years ago i went to run official half marathon - i run it once the day before just by myself to see if i could do it. then i run it again the next day "officially". Sure my 1:45:xx wasnt the best in the world but i didnt do it for the records sake. I did it because i enjoyed do it the way i did it. At the same time i have some collegue who takes sports (triathlon) very seriously.

To be it looks like he doesnt enjoy it most of the time - but sure he is fast for sure. Anyways i think he is wasting his time practicing for those records if he doesnt actually enjoy the whole deal.

To clear up a few things: I don't mind gamepads. I use them for a lot of third-person games and I imagine getting used to them for first-person will just take time. There are special mice and wrist-straps I could get to force the issue of mouse gaming but since gamepads seem fine I would rather just go down that route and see what happens. With Steam's big picture mode and controller and such it might not even be that bad.

My other statement was that if I am going to be playing on a pad with my TV it might be less stressful to just go ahead and "go console," which is something I never wanted to do really but also am not to scared of, since 99% of games I like are on console now-a-days and I've never been a modder or graphics whore. I got a PS3 and GTA5 last night and am enjoying them immensely so far.

Lastly: definitely getting a second opinion at some point, but this is more about prevention than facing a surgery. The doctor said to avoid mice for a couple weeks and then go back, and after that I'll maybe see someone else.

Thanks for all the advice and well wishes everyone!

Shit bro, sorry to hear the news.

Is this your first foray into console gaming? If so, are you interested in trying out some of the older consoles? You can usually pick them up pretty cheap, and there's a massive library of excellent games out there (you buy games at this site, so I assume you're not averse to playing older titles). If you give me an idea of what you're looking for, I'm happy to recommend some titles from the PS1/PS2 era, which is when I did most of my console gaming.

This, I know a fellow GOG user (rarely posted here) who love to visit thrift store and found old consoles for super cheap (as in less than 20 bucks) and cheap games (around 99cents). Some thrift stores are like gold mine.

I was big into NES and SNES but faded away after that. I played the Final Fantasy games on PS1 after that and some multiplayer on N64 with high school friends but not much else.

Seems like everything worth playing on PS2 has been given an HD upgrade for PS3, so not sure I need one?

I wouldn't say you need a PS2 because your new PS3 has plenty to play on it. But if you ever want to go back to some older games, PS2 does have plenty of good games that aren't on PSN or in HD collections.

Since PS2 got a HUGE library of games I say get a PS2. There's a lot of hidden gems you need to try that don't get ported to PS3.

Well that's roughly what I mean. I'm not gonna play every good PS2 game, but I'd like to try out some of the classics. Seems like most of them have been ported to PS3. Final Fantasy XII seems to be the one I would want that might never be ported.

Sorry to hear that.

But since you yourself are talking about an addiction and a possible upside to a serious illness (which are frankly quite harsh statements which shouldn't be brushed aside), why not forget about gamepads and touchpads and whatever for a year or so, see how that'll affect your affliction and everything beyond that and then decide whether you even want to go back to gaming at all?

Depends on what you're interested in. Presuming you are into JRPGs, the Shin Megami Tensei series has some good stuff on the PS2, almost none of which is available on PSN due to problems with the PS2 emulator on the PS3.

Ultimately, it's your choice, but I think having an actual PS2 around wouldn't be a bad idea (especially since they're pretty cheap to get nowadays).