As I’ve mentioned before, I have wasted — I mean “spent” — a lot of time in Second Life, so it’s probably natural for the average person to assume that I’m a hard-core computer gamer. I’m not. Really, I’m not, and here’s why: I have no patience for computer games. Games mean heavily structured game mechanics, hours of learning the controls, grinding, leveling up, and of course frustration. That’s not entertainment to me; it’s a chore and a colossal waste of time. I don’t want to get into the debate over whether Second Life is a “game” or a “platform”, but I can say this about it: when it comes to Second Life, time spent there means free-form creativity and the possibility of real-world income. There’s a real-world reward and the winning scenario is defined by me, not the big boss at the end of the level.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t tried games. I have. They all got uninstalled and the discs/cartridges gathered dust. Back in the nineties, I’d play all kinds of things: Quake, Duke Nukem, Descent, A-10 Tank Killer (or was that the eighties?)… and more. Since then, I bought a Nintendo 64, which, like my Wii, I largely ignored until I gave it away. I also tried MS Flight Simulator, Rise of Flight, and assorted others that just failed to catch my interest.
So no, I won’t try Angry Birds or Farmville any time soon, and I guess I missed out on the Portal craze, though even without playing it, I do know that the cake is, in fact, a lie. As for Warcraft, I gave it a try, got slaughtered in the newbie area a few times, and figured out that it wasn’t worth it.
Honestly, I have better things to do than grinding, shooting, and leveling up. In SL, I say that my winning scenario is to keep an airport running and in the black until Linden Lab shuts down the servers. I think I’m winning.
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