I find the internet to be generally a large, nosey place, but that’s not to say that it’s bad, it’s just quiet contemplative fellows like myself can sometimes miss the kind of news story or column that is right up my alley. That’s when I count on my loyal Riders, like my buddy Nav, who sends me this gem from Wired.com by commentator Clive Thompson:

Battle With ‘Gamer Regret’ Never Ceases

(snip) I was 10 days into playing Dungeon Maker: Hunting Ground – a little RPG I reviewed here last month — and I was poking around the “settings” menu. I noticed that it had a “time played” option, which shows you how long you’ve been toiling away at the game. Curious, I clicked it.

Thirty-six hours.

Upon which my heart sank into a fathomless pit. Thirty-six hours? How in god’s name had I managed to spend almost four hours a day inside this game? I should point out that this was not the only game I’d been playing during that time. I’d also been hip-deep in BioShock and Space Giraffe, so I’d been planted like a weed in front of my consoles for hours more.

This is a missing-time experience so vast one would normally require a UFO abduction to achieve it. (snip)

(BTW, BioShock is a great game, but don’t take my word for it) This is a good, short piece that they managed to stretch across two pages, but they have bills to pay, web sites cost money (it’s a problem I don’t have) so it’s ok.

Focusing now on the content, that feeling that a gamer gets after finally looking up and seeing the sunrise, I’ve felt it. There was a time when games saves were a feature. A time when Bionic Commando all-nighters were de regure and one didn’t have a choice but to play through to the end. In those days games weren’t designed with 30-40 hour critical paths, you could play five of six old school titles in that time.

So nowadays, when the control finally drops from my stiff fingers after hours of not following the main quest in Oblivion or whatever, I don’t despair, I think of I guy I know in the world (and not “The World”) known as Walt. Walt wouldn’t know a PS2 from PCP, but he likes golf. Not like some people like golf, Walt lives for golf. He plays 18 twice a week, and he is very good. And just like some Halo 2 griefer, he’ll let you know it every chance he gets.

I think about that a lot; he’s out there golfing for 10 hours a week, not to mention an unknown amount of time he must spend at the driving range or the putting green. I can only speculate, and I can’t be for sure, but I wonder. I wonder if when he puts his clubs in the trunk of his can and shuts the lid, does he feel what Clive feels, what gamers feel? Does he think that he could have spent this time singing at the hospital or picking up trash on the side of the road? I bet he does, and I’ll bet he deals with that feeling somehow. I’ll bet that all avid fans of any pastime do, and I know that once we have 100+ years of history we’ll be well on our way to dealing with in our own way.

But if you need to fill your free time with something charitable for now, go hold a Child’s Play Fundraiser, and I’ll send you some money.

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Back of the Bus is © 2007 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.