Games, like most hobbies, are something that cannot be enjoyed nonstop. At least, not to the same degree of enjoyment. Breaks are needed, sometimes even long ones. I find myself contemplating such a break now, but there are complications. Friends constantly want to hang out online, there’s always new stuff in the pipeline and there’s also force of habit. Stepping away isn’t easy, and yet we all need to do it sometimes, I think.

Games for me have long been my main means to connect and keep up with my friends. We sit online and just talk while we enjoy whatever it is we’re playing. It’s always fun, but also kind of a wrench in the system whenever I’m trying to cut back. It’s hard to keep things contained to those sessions, and they just feed into the other things that keep the habit going.

Those other things are, chiefly, new games. When everyone’s playing new stuff, the impulse is either to  want to be able to talk about the same thing or at least have something new to share yourself. That means finding something to talk about, be it something brand new, something from the backlog or something older that finally went on sale. Gotta have something to talk about, so ideally you’d play something, right?

Another problem with having a regular hobby is, I think, figuring out what to do with the time you’d usually spend on it. If you typically spend an hour on games each day, what do you do with that hour while you’re on break? Watch TV? Study? Learn a skill? Get some sort of work or more chores done? I often find it difficult to decide, and so the pull to go back to games gets that much stronger. Again, I don’t think gaming is itself bad, it’s just that sometimes it’s nice to step away for a while, you know?

Perhaps, this is why most people aren’t so all in on one thing or another. Maybe. it’s better to maintain multiple interests in a variety of things, with some, ideally, getting you outside for sun and exercise. If you’re out of the house, you can’t just fall back into the gaming habit, right? Now that the weather is nicer, I think I’ll be making a point to go out and enjoy my surroundings more. Then, once enough time has passed, it’ll be nice to come back and jump into the next adventure.

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What are some things you do when you want to take a break from games? Do you find it easy to do or do you find yourself going back to games pretty quickly?

Image is an official promotional screenshot for Control published by 505 Games and Remedy Entertainment.