Addicted to Computer Games

From now on, I’ll stop playing computer games. No. I’ll reduce time spent for games. I think I better ration it. Well….
Maybe for most of you, this seems like a piece of cake. People who dislike computer gaming will also say so. I agree. It’s easy to leave games that’s not as intelligent as strategy game, whether is war strategies, business strategies or sport strategies, real-time or turn based.
Arcade games, shooting games, or racing –I call it child’s play- doesn’t make you hooked up for hours even days like strategy games that requires you to think, think and think. Me, I’m not just hooked, but addicted to strategy games. I’ve played it all, Civilization, Rise of Nations, Championship Manager, Age of Empire Warcraft, Starcraft, Dune, Jagged Alliance, Tycoons, Sim City, The Sims, you name it.
I’ve played strategy games for almost 15 years. I stil remember those DOS-based floppy disk games like Sword of Aragon and Art of War, these two introduced me to strategy games and made me leave Digger –the most popular PC game in the 80’s. I finished playing them both several times when I was still in junior high school.
Then came in Championship Manager (CM). I started playing it when I was in college, alongside other famous games like early versions of Civilizations and Sim City. CM will make you sit still in front of your PC for days. You’ll forget to drink, eat, bath or change your underwear. You’ll leave classes, exams, dump your girlfriend, ignore your friends. Well, fortunately that did’nt happen to me. But I know a friend who did.
Well, most people probably say that playing computer games is wasting time. But I would say it’s not so for strategy games. Because strategy games train you to solve problems, to think logically, to act rationally, and making decisions. Real-Time Strategy (RTS) even requires you to do it quickly.
And that’s where all those gaming experience help me to do my job. This new position that I’ve held since the end of last year requires me to manage things, watch for indicators, making decisions, solving problems. Sometimes I find a situation where it’s so similiar from one of my business strategy games I played two years ago (alas I forget the title… thanks for my brother who let me borrow it). Strategy computer games is like simulation of things, and when you face the real problem you know what to do, what to expect and how you going to handle the situation.