How to overcome "gaming impotence"

"Gaming impotence" is a situation that, sooner or later, every person associated with video games will face. Whether you are an avid cyber-sportsman, a gamer, a casual, a console gamer, or an RTX 4090 ti owner, this fate will befall everyone.

"Gaming impotence" is a state when the former things (in this case, games) do not bring the former pleasure and become a chore. During "gaming impotence," you feel sluggish, and the thought of your once-favorite form of recreation puts a grimace of disgust on your face, your leisure time turns into a procedure. Half the trouble if the games in your life do not play an important role, you're simply bored with the toy on your smartphone, which you played in the train car. It's quite another matter when video games were your favorite pastime, or, even sadder, you set a goal to reach the heights in cybersports. But those who earn their living from video games should be the most afraid of "gaming impotence": famous cyber-sport players, popular streamers or gaming journalists - these people risk not only moping, but also losing their former standard of living...

Tip 1: Play games of youth

All of us have those games that we haven't played in years or even decades. The brain is built in such a way that we remember these toys not as they really were. The gaming industry has already faced a creative crisis and started to exploit all kinds of Remastered and Remake: Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row - this is far from the full list of series subject to this unhealthy trend.

The explanation for this practice is in psychology: when people are in love, they are drawn to each other with all their flaws in character and appearance. If you remove any "flaw" - and this person will start to repel you.

Bugs, graphics of those times, sloppy voiceover or illiterate localization are all the things that remained in your subconscious once upon a time and will bring a smile and warm nostalgia when you encounter these things again.

Tip 2: Change the game schedule

This advice is especially relevant for eSports players and/or just ordinary gamers in service games a la Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, Dota 2, StarCraft II, etc.

If you are addicted to any cyber sport discipline, then over time you will start playing at certain hours, for example: 08:00 - rise, 09:00 - lost the game, 10:00 - upset, 11:00 - won the match and ate ...

Repeating the same activities every day on a regular basis turns absolutely any process into a routine. Even your favorite food will become hateful if you eat it every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for six months.

If you feel inwardly weak and your eyes are no longer burning, that's the first call to burnout. Try changing your daily schedule completely. Don't shy away from new practices either, like meditation or daytime sleep. Sleeping during the day is unhealthy, but very pleasant, and at night you can achieve the desired concentration or the desired atmosphere.

Tip 3: Indie games are a panacea

Many players are squeamish about indie games, because in terms of quality and quantity of content they are inferior to many AAA projects. And you shouldn't be squeamish...

No matter how many times you are the champion of The International or the threat of Faceit, you will find something to your liking in this peculiar segment. Often only in indie games you can see original ideas and really touching plots, in AAA games it's a rarity. The indie games will help you to relax after hard matches, there are such games as The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe and Arise: A Simple Story. And there are indie games that are very original, with branched out scenario and humor - detective Disco Elysium. The script and dialogues for this game were written by an experienced writer... that's just a way of saying.

But if you are looking for a relaxing indie game, we advise you to ignore Dead Cells for a while. For this game we'll have a beginner's guide, because Dead Cells is the Dota 2 of the Rogue-lite world. In Dead Cells you need to train timings, know the properties of dozens of items by heart, and be able to farm gold properly, hit timings, beat enemies, and so on and so forth. Dead Cells is a great game, but you can't relax in it.

Tip 4: Buy a board game

If the very process of pressing the buttons already makes you sick, find yourself a suitable board game. There are a great many of them. If the phrase "board game" only makes you think of Monopoly, you're hopelessly behind the industry.

Just don't try to diversify your leisure time with Warhammer 40,000. It's a terrific game, but so complicated in its mechanics and rules that it's not suitable for unobtrusive leisure. Either you're a Warhammer 40.000 tabletop fan, read 1000+ pages of rulebooks, assemble an army by soldier and get fully into this hangout, or you don't take up Warhammer 40.000 tabletop at all, there is no golden mean here.

Tip 5: Listen to your inner desires

Sometimes the lack of desire to play is not due to the game itself, but to external factors. Go over in your head all the things that gave you pleasure. Maybe it's not because your teammates were monkeys in the last game that you don't want to start looking for a match. Maybe it's the normal, circumstance-dampened desire for a pizza with salami and cheese that gets in the way.

Play with your dopamine centers and find the best combination with your activity. If you have set your sights on achieving great success in a competitive discipline and you drink energy, try replacing, say, Burn with Red Bull. It's not the specific product that matters, but the variety.

What if it didn't work?

If none of the above helped you, then I have to upset you - you are burned out. The only thing that helps against burnout is rest, and all these tips are designed just to avoid that very burnout.

It's a fool's errand to go against a burnout. Then you run the risk and completely hate the once favorite thing. Find out for yourself what exactly is bothering you: "Playing impotence" or a smoldering fire that used to be an inner flame. Take care of yourself; no one will do it for you.