Aging Video Game Culture

Being an adult playing Runescape I found the new Global Runescape Herald's article raising questions I've been thinking about a lot. How can an adult afford to play such engaging game as Runescape? How should I balance the game activities with real life, work and family? Am I really wasting my time playing games? All are tough questions. And there are no definite answers that would work for everyone.

I'd like to share my motivations with you.
First of all, I wouldn't be playing Runescape now if not for Runewise and Reader's Digest. That's for sure. These projects allow me to contribute to the Runescape community, community I came to care about. It could have been WoW, if I played WoW, but it happened to be Runescape, and I have no regrets.

For many years I lived so called "normal life", life where I cared for myself, my friends and my family. Nothing wrong with it. But something was missing. I started to feel like a "consumer of life", if you know what I mean. I tried charity, but it wasn't it. Then I realized that I actually already have everything in my hands. It was the head that was lagging! What I finally understood is that if I am passionate about something, I just should step forward and contribute. As simple as that. Not waiting for someone to come and do something, not paying someone to take care of things, but do it by myself. And the scale does not matter at all. That's how Runewise got started and that's why I am organizing orienteering events in real life. And you know what? Somehow there is enough time to do all these things and still work and raise a family. Kind of wondering where did I spend all this time before... And, by the way, it feels great.

So what about Runescape and time balancing?
Well, I play Runescape 15-30 minutes a day on a week days and sometimes 1-3 hours on weekends days. I do not play any other computer games ( speaking about saving money :-) ) or watch TV (except for an occasional basketball game :-) ). It was a conscious decision to limit playing time and avoid getting engaged with other games. Runescape allows me to role-play and relax (how can it be a time waster?), it is big and changing fast enough, so it never actually bores me. But at the end I spend more time reading and writing about Runescape than actually playing...

I am not sure how to wrap up this post. It looks like a bunch of thoughts and feelings jammed together, but I am glad I wrote it down. I think, it is important. Somehow...

Runescape or not, there are always ways to bring good things, life and light to this world, just open your mind and look around.