Go Selfish With Your New Year's Resolutions

All the game widows - and game widowers - I know are making New Year's Resolutions. For the most part, they are the same goals everyone else makes. Get more exercise, spend more time with family and friends, etc. However, unlike most people I know, most of the success of their goal relies on a change in Someone Else.

This Someone Else is the significant other who has no intention of cutting back on time spent playing video games this year.

So my game widow friends are doomed to failure. Why? Because you can't make goals for other people and expect them to be met. You can only make an impact on truly personal goals. Selfish goals, that have nothing to do with changing anyone but the goal-maker, and require action (or inaction, if quitting something is at stake) only by the person wanting change.

If you think about it, most gamers have no incentive to change. First, they don't see anything wrong with having another person waiting on them hand and foot. I'd truly love to be in that dilemma myself, honestly. Second, even if they want to pull back on gaming to enjoy other important parts of their life, when the goal is dictated from on high by someone really fed up and angry...well...the kneejerk reaction is to take the opposite point of view and fight for the right to be a total slob.

Most gamers want balance. They understand that gaming is a double-edged sword. Most of the benefits of play are also drawbacks when games are abused. However, changing needs to be their priority - not yours.

So this year, make some truly selfish goals. Change things the half of the relationship you DO have control over. Some suggestions: Stop being angry. Stop waiting on your gamer like a slave. And stop waiting on your gamer, period. In more detail: Gamers don't notice your anger while gaming, and use it as an excuse to escape back into the game. Stop punishing yourself, and them, and be shocked at how much happier you are. Don't do any personal chores for an adult gamer (laundry, toiletry shopping, etc.) that affect only them, and don't wait or expect them to help you. And don't wait on the couch for the magical "when the game is over" moment. Leave. Get a life. Have your own friends, career, pursuits and life that doesn't come to a halt just because your SO's head is stuck in Neverland.

Happy New Year, and...Be Happier This Year!

(Wendy Kays is the author of "Game Widow," a short guide to all the burning questions non-gamers have about why gamers are doing this to us.)

The Perfect Gift vs. The Perfect Holiday

A few years ago, a family member sent Jennifer and her husband, Bob, a check for Christmas. Bob asked Jennifer if he could buy a game console with the money. Jennifer reluctantly agreed. Bob immediately left the house to buy the console, invited a friend to come over and play, and they spent the rest of Christmas Day sitting on the coffee table playing. Jennifer, sitting on the couch, took a picture of the backs of their heads to remember the holiday. She still has it.

As millions of people across the globe prepare for a season of gift giving and family, many are unwittingly planning the failure of their own peace on earth. How? By buying the perfect gift for the obsessive gamer in their life – another video game. Experienced parents and spouses of gamers know that the worst days of game widowhood (i.e. being ignored by a gamer) are those when a gamer gets a new game.

For both gamers and non-gamers, the temptation to give video games as gifts is almost overwhelming. After all, they are received with great joy and enthusiasm, they are great babysitters, and they’re cheap in dollars per hour compared to other forms of entertainment. However, this cheap peace can come with a high emotional price tag. With the positives of video games, there are also well-recognized negatives: the tantrums, the fights over whose turn it is, the gamer’s emotional angst during play and hangover after playing…and the simple fact that a gamer gaming is not spending time with a non-gaming family.

Five suggestions for people considering games as gifts:

First, if you have a problem gamer in the family, don’t give him or her a video game gift. No hardware, no software, no virtual property, nothing. It just doesn’t make sense to give a gift, any gift, which will only cause more trouble.

Second, if you want a non-gaming holiday, set expectations for that, with your gamer, ahead of time.

Third, have your gamer help decide the non-game guests and activities for that day.

Fourth, if despite your best efforts your gamer does retreat into a video game, don’t yell, nag, or beg. But don’t wait on him or her with food and apologies, either.

Fifth and finally, enjoy holiday activities and friends…without the gamer. Don’t be an emotional hostage. It’s natural to be disappointed that things didn’t turn out as hoped, but you need to remember that adults get to make their own decisions, and face the consequences of those decisions. All you can control is your half of the relationship.

The Game Widow Phenomenon – Crunching the Numbers

One of the most common sensations a video game widow experiences is feeling alone. After all, feeling tortured because you’re second fiddle to a video game sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud. Many game widows don’t say it out loud. Most hide their game widow status in shame. Second only to the loneliness is the worry that being ignored for a video game is somehow your fault, and not the gamer’s. So we game widows don’t walk around confessing our situation. The game widows we’ve seen speak openly about it have either been used for a sensational news story and forgotten, or cast as either spotlight-seeking whiners or the butt of jokes.

But are game widows really alone? Only in the sense of social disconnection. In fact, game widowhood (and widower-hood) is a silent social phenomenon. Let’s crunch some conservative numbers to illustrate the size of our shadowy crowd.

If we’re talking Massively Multi-player Online (MMO) widows and widowers, it makes sense to work from the sales figures of the most popular MMO, World of Warcraft (WoW). According to a Blizzard Entertainment press release, there were 10 million people playing WoW as of July 2008. According to Nick Yee’s research, the average MMO player is spending 22 hours a week online. Of those gamers, 30.5% of MMO players are male and dating, 26.2% are female and dating, 33.1% are male and engaged, married or separated, and 60.3% are female and either engaged, married or separated. This means that there are more than five million adult female game widows either dating, engaged to, married to, or separated from a gamer who spends about 22 hours a week playing online, and about one and a quarter million adult men experiencing the same situation with a woman gamer.

If we’re talking worldwide game widow and widower numbers, it makes sense to go with the sales figures of the top-selling game console in history, the PlayStation2 by Sony. As of July 2008, Sony had sold 140 million PS2 consoles. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 33% of all gamers are women over the age of 18, and 42% are men over the age of 18. America Online (AOL) and the Associated Press did a poll that showed 33% of gamers are married and have kids. This leaves us with about 19 million female and about 15 million male game widow(er)s worldwide.

Even if you just want to talk about professional game widows, i.e. those in relationships with game developers, you’re talking a pretty large crowd. Nobody seems to be counting, but Jason Della Rocca, the Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IDGA) once guesstimated that about 100,000 people were employed in making games. According to the IDGA Developer Demographics Report, 88.5% of game developers are male, and 11.5% are female. According to an IDGA Quality of Life white paper, 61.5% of spouses of game developers say they work too much. We can assume, then, that at least 61.5% of game developers have spouses. This all adds up to about 55,000 female game widows, and 7,000 male game widowers married to someone who not only plays video games, but goes through crunch time for weeks, if not months, to get video games to the store shelves on time. This demographic doesn’t just know what it’s like to be ignored for a video game, they know.

Now don’t go writing to me about my sloppy math, numbers geniuses of the world, unless you plan on helping me tighten these figures up in a helpful (and polite) way. I realize that there are gamers and game developers married to each other, and more MMO and console games than World of Warcraft and the PS2. I also realize that the number of players, consumers and developers shift on a yearly, monthly, and daily basis. But I also know these numbers don’t take into account parents of adult or underage gamers, adults with parents or siblings who game, etc. So really and truly, these are conservative numbers.

The next time you feel alone, as a man or woman, trying to figure out how to balance a relationship complicated by video games - don’t. Talk to the people you know, and you’ll be surprised to discover how many are also struggling to make sense of the personal impact of digital entertainment. They’ll also be delighted to know you understand and sympathize.

(Wendy Kays is the author of Game Widow, publishing on September 1st, 2008 at all quality online and offline booksellers. Sneak preview copies can be ordered at GameWidow.org.)