My gamer regret usually takes the form of drawing up a humiliating list of other, potential activities I’ve forgone. I could have … volunteered at a local hospital! Learned a language! Cleaned up my rats’ nest of an office! Gotten a head start on a new writing project! Hell, I could have just, you know, played the guitar or something. Wouldn’t that have been a less howling waste of my precious time on Earth?
Do you suffer from it? If I sit down after I’ve accomplished something off the “list,” then I hardly ever regret the time played. But if I have to push a pile of stuff off the desk so I can play Everquest 2, then more often than not the time feels wasted. For as long as I’ve played games, though, I think I’ve done pretty well. The biggest regret for me would have to be all the time I spent with Diablo 2. I loved the game to death, but I played it way too much. Luckily there was no way to check how many hours I was logged on to Battle.net.
It wouldn’t be pretty.