I specifically stated that I wouldn’t do this. I stated that if I wrote about this, then I’d consider my goal of “writing things” a failure. This was supposed to be technical blog damn it! Well, I figure goals are like rules. Sometimes you gotta bend ‘em and sometimes you gotta break ‘em. Plus, now I get to write about the fuzzy line between addiction and obsession and how to waste your life. Here’s what I learned from playing Dota 2 for nearly ten years.

Back in the summer of 2012 some university friends and I installed a computer game called Dota 2. It started off innocent enough, just another excuse not to study. We already swim in a sea of digital distractions, what’s one more? Some friends managed their time better than others. Some fell down the video game hole. Playing and playing until their grades fell down the hole with them. Some dropped out of tuition completely. Yeah drugs are cool, but have you played World of Warcraft?

I played Dota 2 on and off for multiple years. Sometimes I took a break for over a year. Sometimes I played every available hour of every day. I would look at a block of leisure time and calculate how many matches of Dota 2 I could fit in. I didn’t have evenings after work, I had four matches. I brush my teeth in the mirror before bed, my beautifully bloodshot eyes stare back at me.

I see the same man every day when I leave my apartment. He sits at the bus stop across the street. He sits there for hours. Most of the time he seems to be asleep, his head nuzzled down into his belly. He’s bald, and he doesn’t wear a hat. On sunny days I can see the sweat beading up on his bare head, frying like a pad of butter. Sometimes, when I pass by he asks me what time it is, and I figure he’s waiting for the bus, but when I come back hours later, he’s still sitting there, sleeping. I wonder if he’s off his meds. I wonder if he’s supposed to be somewhere. Maybe he slept through his bus, or forgot which bus to take. I wonder if he has people waiting for him somewhere, and if they’re worried. I wonder if he needs some help. But I go back up into my apartment, and save the world in a video game. - Episode 5, A Life Well Wasted

A natural outcome of spending vast quantities of time doing a particular thing; you get better at that thing. The reward for getting better was playing against better opponents. A common mentality among players is blaming teammates for their inadequacies. A match wasn’t lost because of me, it was lost because of my trash teammates not doing their job. This mentality is so common it has a term: ELO hell. After a while I realised every loss could be attributed to me. If I were far better than everyone else in the match I wouldn’t be held back by my team. Imagine Ronaldo playing football with a bunch of kids - we can assume more often than not the team with Ronaldo on it would win.

So after every loss I began analysing my worst decisions during the match. After all, it’s all my fault my team lost. This mentality can be taken to the extreme, aptly named extreme ownership. This mentality can be applied to real life.

A match is a series of decisions and it’s tempting to incorrectly frame these decisions post-mortem. People love you when you make a decision that wins a match. People hate you when you make a decision that loses a match. This is commonly known as outcome bias. Even if the decision is right, it’s hard to recognise that when you didn’t get the outcome you wanted. This mentality can be applied to real life, too.

I frequently played with a friend called Kieran, and we wanted to reach the next ELO rank.

Me:          Hey, what will we do after we reach the next rank?
Kieran:    We will… reach the next one?

At some point I begun to question the point of what I was doing. I was spending hours every day sitting at my desk staring at a glowing rectangle. I was in my physical prime, and this is what I was choosing to do? Surely, the only way this makes sense is if I’m getting paid for it. Exchanging my youth for notes of paper with my Queen on it, sign me up - why question that. But I wasn’t getting paid and this wasn’t just taking up some of my time. It didn’t just consume the hours I spent playing. It consumed my thoughts. I’d be drifting off to sleep and be replaying matches in my head. I’d take a shower and theory craft a strategy. I’d eat lunch and read Dota 2 patch notes. I’d ride a train and watch Twitch streams. Well, you might be thinking isn’t this all a bit of a waste of time? Yes how very observant of you, how astute - but here’s the thing; to paraphrase a pro player “nobody cared until I won millions of dollars.”. I was nowhere near going pro or winning prize money. I was however struggling with the concept of what exactly a waste of time is. I was wasting my time playing this game. Yet, if I were making millions playing this game, then it’s a good use of time?

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time, right? And I was enjoying myself, mostly. But there were times when I was most certainly not enjoying myself. I’d be thoroughly not enjoying myself and yet, continue playing anyway. What’s with that? How can I not have fun whilst I’m playing, I’m playing.

I made a new game. The new game is simple. The aim of the new game is not to play the old game.
First step: uninstall the old game.

Reinstall the old game.
Play.
Play.
Play.

Uninstall, for real this time.

Reinstall.
Play.
Uninstall.

Reinstall.
Play.
Uninstall.

Reinstall.
Play.

Hey look - I’m me, I make the decisions around here. What I say goes. Today I’m not playing. OK, I played today - but tomorrow is another day and I won’t tomorrow. OK, I played tomorrow too. What an odd sensation, not wanting to do something and yet doing it anyway. Perhaps more often than not, I’m just a passenger in a meat sack.

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