How the time in quarantine helped me rediscover the world of video games | Opinion

After a working day, you have often spent several hours behind a desk looking at a computer screen. When you get home, you often do not want to turn on the computer or game console to continue your adventures in the games. The time in quarantine offers me more free time to rediscover the lost interests in games and technology.

As a student, you have a lot of time after you finished your homework. Games and technology were a personal interest and after working hard during the day, they were considered as a reward. In this period of my personal life, most days ended with friends and games.

A blog about games and technology

This trend continued during my further studies in journalism at the university college. A long-term task for a profession required the creation and maintenance of a blog. This required a lot of written content about a certain topic. I chose as subject games and technology.

After school, different opinions, reviews, tutorials and news were published on this blog about games and technology. Somehow, the blog became the forerunner of this current project. The periodic feedback and critique from lecturers were positive with some points for improvement.

Less time for games, more time to work

After graduation, the working life began and we realised there was less and less time available for games and multiplayer sessions. My friends were occupied with their job and often did not have the time to sit down behind their computer to enjoy the multiplayer games we used to play together. Most of the social contact known from games disappeared and so did my personal interest.

In the last years, the interest in games and technology disappeared more and more into the background of my personal life. There were other priorities and these two interests became small additions, not the priorities from prior periods in my life. The renovation works of the house and the daily tasks at work became the main focus of recent years. Games and multiplayer games in particular were seen as a past interest.

The correct balance

To be honest, my personal life focussed too much on work and too little on the personal interests. With the outbreak of the epidemic, my colleagues and myself were allowed to work from home and spend more time at home. Due to the absence of the daily commutes to the office, we had more time to relax and enjoy our personal interests outside the working hours.

As a result, the older games were taken out of the closet and reinstalled on an older computer system. It was an adventure through the past of games and helped me to rediscover the pleasure of games. The time in quarantine has given me the opportunity to rediscover personal interests in games and technology.

To admit it, I kept blogging about games and technology so the interest had not completely disappeared but the pleasure of playing the games myself had been absent for the last two years.

More game worlds to explore

The games played were Gears of War 4 and Gears 5, two incredible detailed titles released exclusive on the Xbox One ecosystem and enhanced for the Xbox One X. As to be expected, they were both completed in a few days. The most important thing learned from the experience is that games as a medium are able to bring the required distraction to your personal life.

Working hard is important, but so is taking a break from time to time. As a student, my friends used video games as a social medium and method to relax after a long day behind the school desks. However, somehow we forgot the importance of these gameplay sessions. They were pushed to the background and marked as irrelevant for adults.

Rediscovered interest

The current situatuon shows life can change and become different. The quarantine offers the opportunities to further incorporate your rediscovered personal interest into your daily tasks. The challenge is to keep practicing these interests as soon as normal life can be resumed.

The time in quarantine made me look back at the past and showed me the positive effect of games as a medium. It is important to take the time to relax after a long day at work, even if these games demand more time behind a monitor or television. Time to find a better balance between work, household tasks and games.

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Disclaimer. This post contains copyrighted images from the Xbox One X, a console developed and produced by Microsoft. The fair use of copyrighted works for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting or research is not considered as an infringement of copyright.