You either did or didn't waste your time playing the video game

• January 26, 2009
• James Skemp
• philosophy

You know what grinds my gears?

When people say that they wasted time playing a video game.

For example, 'I was playing Fallout 3 and it began freezing at this certain point, twenty hours in; since I can't proceed, I've wasted twenty hours of my life.'

Hello? What do you get for finishing the game? Not the hours that you spent playing it.

Or did you? If you spend 80 hours and beat a game, how is that really different? You beat it?

But isn't stopping after 20 hours because of a bug different than stopping because you got tired of the game? Sure it is. For the latter the game wasn't any fun; there's no point in wasting any more time. But for the former, the game is fun, and you want to spend more time with it.

But you can't. So suddenly the entire 20 hours becomes wasted time.

But then they fix the issue and you're able to continue. Yay.

But since you wasted 20 hours, why waste any more? Or did you really not waste those 20 hours? (Or did you, and wasting 20 hours wasn't a bad thing?)

Tagged xbox 360 since a video on Fallout 3 freezes was the reason for this post.

• xbox 360