Useless Skills

I've lost my ability to sit down and play a one-player game.  It started happening when I was in high school, but I only really noticed it after I started playing World of Warcraft in college.  I had heard Bioshock was a great game, so I sat down and fired it up.  I couldn't manage to play for more than an hour - I had no motivation.  Sure the game looked great, but I couldn't find a reason to keep playing.

I used to play games like this all day as a kid.  Through middle school my weekends usually consisted of renting a game from Blockbuster and beating it that weekend.  I would play the game from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep.  I would explore games like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Banjo Kazooie for hours.  Why was it that I could do this as a kid, but now I can't even get an hour into Gears of War?  Aren't these fancy new games supposed to be better?

It's not like I'm not playing games anymore.  I play a lot of Magic, and I can put entire days into World of Warcraft when I have the time.  What's the difference between the games I play now, and the games I played as a kid?

I think the answer lies in the skills your acquire while playing a game, or at leas the skills you think you're acquiring.  When I went to play Bioshock, one question kept coming up: why am I not just playing World of Warcraft?  What I'm doing in Bioshock isn't contributing to anything - I'm just making a saved file on the Xbox.  When I'm done with the game I have nothing to show for it.

You could easily say the same thing about World of Warcraft, that I'm still not contributing, but for some reason it doesn't feel that way.  Not at all.  For some reason when I walk away from World of Warcraft I feel a sense of accomplishment.  I level up in Bioshock, and I could care less.  I level up in World of Warcraft, and I accomplished something.    There is something in the way that game is designed, probably having to do with being connected to a server full of people, that makes the hours you spend playing the game seem valuable.  The character you are leveling feels valuable (similar to how a kid looks at his card or comic book collection) and as you get better at the game you feel like you're acquiring a valuable skill.

Now I'm having a hard time identifying how valuable these skills actually are.  I've been playing magic for over six years and I gotten a lot better at the game since I started.  I feel like the skills I picked up by playing Magic are pretty aplicable to the rest of my life.  I find myself making other decisions better because of the decision making skills I've learned by playing Magic, so it does seem like I'm gaining something valuable there.

When I look at Dance Dance Revolution, though, is that a useful skill?  Directly translated, there is little chance that being able to push a button with my foot in response to an arrow will come in handy.  But, as another blog post talked about, I found that learning how to play other games, like Guitar Hero, a lot easier because I had played Dance Dance Revolution.  This makes me feel like my learning process has improved, but I'm still not sure if it has.

So what about World of Warcraft?  Am I actually learning a valuable skill?  I can't tell.  There is probably something to be said for learning about teamwork and cooperation, as well as resource management.  Looking back, however, I see a lot of hours spent questing and leveling, and I can't imagine that was useful, yet somehow it feels useful.

The problem is that now when I play a game, if I don't get that feeling of building something useful, I can't find the motivation to play.  It doesn't matter how good the graphics are, or how intricate the level design is, or how well-written the story line is - I just can't find the motivation to keep going.