All my life I have been told that playing video games was a waste of time. Fortunately that has never stopped me from doing so. Today, being 30 years old I still play video games whenever I can find the time however limited. Knowing that there are many things I could be doing I still love spending afternoons shooting aliens, saving princesses, scoring goals with a jet propelled car and what not.
Measuring
Now a days, everything I do; I measure. The calories I eat, the money I earn or spend, the time I take to run 1o miles and so on. All of these measures should yield something in the end. The weight that I put on or off, my savings or debts, my likeliness to finish a marathon (or to star one). So that got me thinking that I have never measured anything in my life when it comes to video games. A couple of years ago I started a list of games I have played during the last 27 years.
The List
The list started after hanging out with some friends from college. We were all recalling what games we played lately and which of them were best. A lot of games titles started to pop up and of course I was keeping score in my head; as if it was a contest of who had played most of the mentioned games. Eventually I decided to actually make a list and add some detail on each item. Extra information included 3 things:
- Platforms/Consoles I have played the game in.
- How much of the game I completed from 0 to 1.
- How many hours I estimated to have played the game.
Even when the fun I had playing them cannot be measured by any means, I came up with a set of measurements that I think any thirty something year old former gamer can relate to.
The Results of Wasting my Time
Since I am a nerd and so are you if you read this far, my list ended up being a spreadsheet with some numbers and formulas. Those numbers can be summarized in this little info Graphic I put together using Canva Web.
Finally, blogging and doing these type of exercises is just how my nerdy self wastes time; when not playing video games. Even when I now like to measure everything, the results of what I love doing might not be value to anyone else but me. So please, like me, make sure you are wasting your time doing what you love most.
Make sure you check my latest posts in Nascento.