Looking in the mirror I sometimes see a decent, upstanding, mildly stylish and independent/responsible guy. While and after reading David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, a work chronicling the early careers of John Romero and John Carmack, I saw the zombie of a gamer creep out. Having a basic familiarity with some aspects of this saga from being wonderful MMO friends with a Daikatana-era Ion Storm insider made the new perspective all the more enchanting.

Book Report

The Johns had very similar backgrounds: broken families, rejects at school, and an unfettered love for gaming. Most notably they were the best at what they did, programming, and looked down on everyone else who tried but couldn’t compete. From their meeting at Softdisk until the untimely breakup, as lots of people have observed, some of the greatest strides in technical computing were made because of their seismic and magnetic genius. The demise of Romero post-Quake as told through the Ion Storm story and the dwindling of Carmack’s ambition in the face of id becoming rather crowded and corporate were sad, but the happiness that seemed to follow for them both cleared that up.

Plenty of moments that I learned of, like this one, were great.

Romero v Carmack

Clearly, the more technically gifted Carmack probably wins more votes than the brash, arrogant Romero. Upon pondering whether it could have all happened without Romero, though, I think he was just as important and contributed just as much to his success in the beginning.

Never Learned Programming

After reading Rand and seeing the role of things like wood, steel, and electricity played in innovation during the last century, I really strongly believe that programming is the new, almost exclusive tool for innovation today. Not learning this crucial skill has kept me from getting many great jobs (game industry, finance) and is very disappointing.

Rage

Without a doubt, John Carmack is one of the most deft engine programmers ever. Seeing some coverage of his newest project, Rage, excites me oodles and can hopefully reproduce that wonderful, visceral experience that old id games are known for. I’m keeping news-scouring about it to a minimum so I don’t even know if it has multiplayer or anything, but if you’re as excited as I am let me know.

Homo sapiens, or homo ludens?

Once again some sources have told me that the guild is in disarray and that it will probably fall apart or change identities completely. Each of the five or six posts I’ve made in response to similar events in the past have been ones of emotion and strife. This one, however, will be more about freedom, overcoming denial, and a clear realization that MMORPG’s are wholly destructive.

Six years ago, here, when I was going through a rough patch due to my attempts to solve multiple integrals while healing and curing JP NIN’s from 1am ’til 8am, I would have blamed life’s problems on a lack of money, on a lack of parental support, on a lack of preparation thanks to my high school. These scapegoats all support the claim that serious MMO play is closely analogous to other more well known forms of addiction.

To further argue against my past position, that denial, as long as it lasted, stunted and even reversed my growth in so many terrible ways. Even after the worst of it was over a couple of years into college, the decay persisted as long as I dedicated any amount of focus on a fixed, daily basis. It wasn’t until Japan, until a forced withdrawal, that I finally, somehow, randomly realized how massively mortal these games had really been. Even at this point I had to deal with momentous opportunity costs in the form of lost credibility, stagnant growth in terms of finances, skills, and maturity, and on and on and on. A lot of damage had been done and to this day it hasn’t all been mended.

Recently, the ultimate manifestation of this damage is my crippled GPA, a full 0.4 lower than it could have been had I performed at the mean during my two “MMO” semesters, all else equal. This dampened my competitiveness for law school enormously. Lately, as I thought of retaking the LSAT to augment a potential fall 2011 application, I decided against primarily because my UGPA is a permanent scar.

Earlier today my brother and I discussed whether calculus was a legitimate prerequisite for linear algebra. He, at one point, said he wished he had paid attention in high school math instead of wasting time on WoW. His case, along with those of countless others who were under my tutelage in some form or another (I’m thinking guildies here), have at times brought on a serious level of guilt. I was wildly successful at motivating them to fill the wrong bullseye.

Other than these sad anecdotes I do not have much more of a compelling argument to avoid MMO’s and addictive gameplay in general. I’d bet large sums of money though that properly conducted studies could show eerie similarities between Keith Richards and Keith the level 85 high warlord.

For me, I’ve sworn MMO’s off and even taken preventative steps (traded away desktop, decided to buy blu-ray player sans PS3) so as to have no possible way to play FFXIV. My advice if you don’t play them, but know someone who might, is to forcefully encourage them not just to stay away but to find alternative time fillers as well. If you do, please stop. No matter what level you’re playing at you can spend your hours better doing something else. The friends I have kept touch with best are ones who have also kicked the habit, and the ones who haven’t just leave a sort of awkward barrier that is difficult to cross, even in simple conversation.

I’ve had dreams lately of being the lawyer who spearheads the movement to attach some level of liability or responsibility to game designers’ reward system manipulation. To make it a controlled substance of sort. Yes, libertarians, wince. While in reality I don’t think such delusions square with norms of personal liberty, especially the freedom to perform some sort of leisure activity, repeated publication of studies proving similarities to addictions to certain things that ARE controlled will at least advance the case for caution in participating in such worlds.

My big problem, henceforth

Over the last two plus years I’ve substituted a mix of law school application/preparation obsession, socializing with friends at various venues, cooking, and exercise, among other things, for the void left by quitting MMO’s. Not since high school have I been more constructive and since all the sundry sundering I’ve repaired quite a bit. Regrettably, a lot more is left, and at the same time I am left with an awkward feeling whenever I face free time.

What do I love now? What is my main hobby? The combination of nothing as compelling as games were then and trying to block out that past mess has created another kind of limbo, one with no real extracurricular or extra-professional focus. This is unhealthy and unhappy, but as with the other deficits I am slowly chipping away at it.

My advice is to stay away entirely and to preach that as loudly as you can. My objective assessment is that the choice is yours and yours alone but should you choose to play (defined as gun for any level of “success,” in the game’s terms) MMO’s, your other endeavors will suffer and possibly fail. Make MMO’s suffer instead. Try succeeding at life instead, try framing achievement points as dollars or the depth of your love for someone or GPA points or standardized test numbers or quality publications or something, just not achievement points. You will not regret it.