Video Games Are A Cheat Code For Life

When girls are asked what the most unattractive hobby boys do, video games are always near the top of their list.

When parents are asked what they wish their sons did less of, video games are top of mind.

When most people think of boys who play video games, they also think of qualities like unproductive, low value, time-wasting, socially awkward, unfulfilled, and lost.

The stereotype of the young man in his mother's basement doing nothing with his life is a stereotype for a reason.

But it is a shame that an activity as great as video games gets such a bad wrap.

What everyone fails to realize is that video games are an absolute cheat code for development. But only if it is directed in the right way

The Cheat Code

I played a lot of video games in my younger years, but I would never call myself a gamer.

I had no interest in multiplayer online games like Call of Duty or Battlefield.

I only had an interest in playing through the story-driven narrative.

On the PlayStation 1 - the most notable was Toomba

On the PlayStation 2 - it was the Spyro and the Jack and Dexter series.

On the PlayStation 3 and 4 - it was Assassins Creed, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption 2 and the The Witcher 3.

These are my favorite games of all time. If you disagree, you are objectively wrong—sorry!

All these games start in very similar ways. You are dropped into a completely unfamiliar world. At first you are lost, abit clumsy, and the journey feels uncertain.

You are in the unknown.

You meet the characters. Get your mission. And embark on a truly epic journey to achieve a single goal.

Eventually, you find your way through the world. Slowly becoming less clumsy, more agile, and more strategic.

Powerful enemies are met. Obstacles are overcome. Puzzles are solved.

You die and respawn as many times as it takes to win.

You are the hero of that world.

The Bleeding Effect

There is simply no medium like video games.

TV shows and movies are cool, but you are a bystander in the story.

Video games are different. For the duration of that story, you became the protagonist. If you do nothing, the story doesn't progress.

I was Joel, trying to recover from his daughter's death.

I was Ezio trying to avenge his family.

I was Drake trying to find lost cities.

I was Geralt trying to find Ciri.

I was Arthur trying to keep his gang alive.

Their losses were your losses. Their wins were your wins.

Through them, you learn how complicated the world and the human experience are. Themes of family, loyalty, violence, death, morality, revenge, deception, and politics are integrated throughout the story.

These games provided a risk free simulation of the hero's reality.

Here's where your neurochemistry comes in.

Dopamine fires in your brain and tells you to keep going. Dopamine pulls you towards the end goal. To complete the game, no matter.

After hundreds of hours in the simulation for so many characters, in so many different worlds, for so many different purposes, there is a bleeding effect.

The only way to progress further in the game is to solve this problem.

It's true in games, and it's true in life.

You played through the hero's journey for multiple fictional characters. You put the effort in to develop your character, learn skills, solve problems, find your way through and eventually win.

There is a reason why video games are so attractive to nearly every boy. It's exploration of the hero's journey. This is the narrative of our lives.

Encounter a problem. Step into the unknown. Struggle endlessly. Give up all hope. Redeem yourself. Return with the reward but changed in someway. Then you do it again and again and again

The problem is when boys and men don't transition from simulation to reality.

You're the hero in a fictional world but not your own.

The thing is, there are no consequences in video games. You can always keep trying, and there is nothing to lose. Unlike in real life, there is no risk involved.

How to turn your life into a video game

Approach the problems in your life with the same energy and mindset that you would for a video game.

Except this time it actually matters.

I thought for a while how the mechanics of a game could be replicated for real life and theses are the steps I came up with. Treat them as ideas rather than a process.

Get perspective

You need to zoom out.

Identify where you are in the story. What problems do you face right now?

Are you resisting the call to adventure?

Have you started but are now struggling?

Have you obtained what you aimed for, but it was different to how you were expecting?

Or maybe you aren't on the journey and haven't heard the call either.

In any case, zooming out and seeing the situation for what it is provides clarity on what to do next.

If you are struggling with a boss fight in your life, there is no tutorial you can Google and watch to show you what to do—you have to figure it out yourself.

As I keep saying, there is no answer until you create one for yourself.

Mission selection

You start the game by embarking on the journey to the main goal. But you don't start with the main goal—you are not there yet. Instead, you complete smaller missions and side quests.

You are not a developer. You won't be sure how the mission is relevant to the greater goal of the game.

How is helping Leonardo move some boxes going to progress the story in assassin creed 2? It's not a thought you would have because it a game. You don't need to worry how to the story unfolds, you're just there to play through it.

You do not have that level of assurance or foresight in reality. You don't know what's going to happen, and you don't know how this quest connects to the greater journey.

Most of it is trial and error: starting new missions, making mistakes, seeing what sticks, and adjusting and pivoting. Eventually, the path becomes clearer over time.

You can't say yes to every mission, so start with what makes you curious to know more.

Find your allies

Epic games have a few things in common: Fantastic graphics, smooth gameplay, and a fleshed out world. But the most important element to a great story is the relationship you make with the others characters along the way.

Imagine Assassin's Creed 2 without Leonardo and Mario

Imagine uncharted without Sully.

Imagine The Witcher 3 without Triss, Jennifer, Zoltan, and Dandelion—the characters are what made this game.

Relationships like these make the game more fun.

Resource collection

The fundamental mechanism to level up in any game is to collect resources. It's how to you gain XP, get better gear, develop better skills, and progress further into the story.

It's one of the main reasons why videos are addictive. Developers structure the mechanics to tap into the reward system of your brain.

Dopamine is the molecule of more. It exists to motivate you to hunt, pursue, and find resources. Not so long ago, our survival completely depended on our ability to collect resources.

Guys will grind hard for hundreds and thousands of hours in a single game for a lot of reasons, but this is one of the main ones.

Collecting resources in a game is way more interesting than a stagnant life. If you are not pursuing something and progressing in life, your psychology will seek it out in other ways — video games.

Most of life is resource collection when you think about it. School was meant to be the collection of knowledge to solve a matrix of problems in the future. Money is the universal resource.

The more knowledge you acquire, the more skillful you become, the more problem you can solve, the wealthier you become, the more resources you have.

With more resources, you can acquire more knowledge, and so on. Soon you will snowball into a monster.

That's the game at a high level.

Every mission is a resource collection in some capacity.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Another reason why games are so addictive is the Zeigarnik effect. It's the effect that we are more likely to start tasks that remain uncompleted.

A video game is always in a state of uncompletion. In an open world RPG, there might be 5 or more open missions to continue working on.

If you want to make starting work sessions easier in your own life, never finish.

Leave sentences unfinished in the newsletter. Leave the video partially edited.

When you do finish tasks, start something else before you walk away. This does two things:

1. You start when resistance is lowest (instead of highest)

2. You lower the resistance to start in the next session.

Enjoy the process

We play video games not because we have to but because we want to.

If you didn't like a game you wouldn't play it. If it wasn't fun, you wouldn't play it.

Obviously, in life, we can't just do what we want. There are things that you don't want to do that just need to be done.

I think all of us could do with a little shift here. How you feel working on your project is more important than the project itself.

If you are working on a project and you despise it but become successful because of it, what kind of life are you building for yourself?

If you are not enjoying the process now, you won't in the future, and it would be wise to try something new.

One more try mentality

The hardest boss fight I think I played was against Imlerith in The Witcher 3 or the Rat King in The Last of Us, Part 2.

I died so many times. Multiple times, being so close to defeating him. Despite the rage, after every death, I was like one more try … one more try.

But it isn't about doing the same thing over and over again. You step back and reflect. What isn't working? What am I doing well? How can I adjust my strategy to beat this opponent?

Imagine sinking 70+ hours into Witcher 3 to get to Imlerith and then giving up on the game because you couldn't beat him. It's unfathomable.

The story you will tell

There's a quote from Alex Hormozi that rings so true.

All epic video games have seemingly impossible challenges to overcome. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a story worth telling.

So when it gets hard, remember this will be the story you will one day tell. Every epic story needs an epic hero.

That's all for today, friends.

Thanks for reading. Appreciate you. Turn your life into a video game.

Hope this was helpful,

Josh