jpdbaugh

I would imagine that like many people on this site I have a long history of being a bit of a "hardcore" gamer. When I was younger and in middle and high school I was the kid who got all of the gaming magazines, read forums, and got addicted to Counter-Strike and Warcraft III. I just really enjoy games. However, I am starting to think that they are comparable to TV in terms of being a waste of time. Granted, I do still enjoy the occasional game such as Demon's Souls but a game I really find great only comes along once in a while. This wouldn't be a problem because I really want to limit my time spent gaming and focus on working on development and potentially start-ups, but I am finding that I still feel the urge to buy games and especially read news about games. I am even contemplating building a new PC for Starcraft II. I am just worried that I have a compulsion really. Games really seem to limit my development time because there is just only so much time I can look at a screen in a day.

So I guess my real question is, did you give up gaming to become a better programmer? And if so, what sort of things did you replace it with? I am the kind of person who needs some sort of competitive hobby and I having a hard time finding one.