There's something compelling about gaming...
I thought gaming was one of the many diversions people who live in hectic and frantic lives revel in, but I was not cognizant with the fact that the majority of avid gamers are those who are not amiable, diligent, or decorous.
I am very astounded to see that many people who are playing in online role-playing games, those where you got to embellish virtual characters in a medley of weapons and clothes, are gruff and curt in the way they speak. All along there have been expletives, punctuated with demeaning words such as noob. Even though that word has not made it into the official dictionary, it is still endemic; and almost every gamer enthusiast uses it like bread-and-butter every time they log in to the game.
When they tend to be so brusque in online games, I wonder whether they could have a genial and charming persona in real life, and whether they could focus more on down-to-earth matters such as earning a livelihood. I know that some fervent gamers, who are involved in the workforce, tend to have a reverie somewhere in between tasks where they dream of the games they are playing. Some of them have abysmal moral values, rebuking anyone who criticized them, even for valid reasons. They occasionally make grammatical and spelling mistakes in documents and emails, and if you had the chance to look into their hand-phone messages, you would see glaring English misuses you wouldn't want to see (provided if you love proper English). And in some cases, the virtual and the real world have been mixed together in a melting pot of restrictions and freedoms, and gamers who are not wise could end up hurting people just because of a trivial matter of squabbling.
Time is being frittered away in gaming. Gamers who are just playing to reduce stress end up conversing with other players over trifling matters like the tactics and information pertaining to the game. They become more engrossed in attaining their goals, and as a result, they spend more time playing just to level up and vie with the other high levels. Time is also wasted as gaming has made inroads into their daily lives, to such an extent that they do not have time to spend with their family members and maintaining a salubrious lifestyle.
There are games which require a player to compensate for more benefits such as the access to exclusive members' worlds and the ability to equip more powerful weapons. Gamers who could not suppress their temptations will fork out their money and give them to the providers impetuously. It is usually because of this that gamers find it hard to pay off their debts and meet their basic necessities.
Gamers who have lost their sense of equilibrium tend to be unsuccessful in consultations with therapists and family members. All they know is to sit down on a chair, switch on the desktop computer, and glue their eyes to the screen for hours, with a sweaty palm and palpitating heart. These people who have reached to this stage are usually inveterate gamers.
Gaming can be perceived as a silent killer. True, games can make anyone enthralled, just like any other hobby, but not to such an extent that you have to forgo your meals and whatnot, unless you cannot restrict yourself. Often, the repercussions of obsessive gaming are related to the person's well-being, so there have to be boundaries.
Just like gambling, gaming has good and bad qualities. Everything else has a yin and yang symbiosis, the kind where the good and bad qualities coexist. But in the case of gaming, I would suggest that you experience more good qualities than bad ones.
I have a caveat: If you play games, don't ever let it affect your real life. If you can do it, go ahead and play.