I have been a huge gamer but I stopped to play 5 years ago. I started to play on the master system and all the video games on DOS I could find. I started with Wolfeinshtein 3D, Prince of Persia, Another World since then I never stopped to play video games. It was a great way to "reset my brain to neutral" and to have fun while using my intellect and imagination. Me and my twin spent all our money on it, it was our passion and one of the biggest reasons I wanted to be a developer. We had a PS1 and a PC, friends had a N64 and so on. I was able to play on a lot of platforms to a lot of video games. I loved series that everybody knows like the Zelda, or Tekken knowing all the background stories of each character. I played and loved also less known or banned video games (because being violent it was a thing at that time) like Carmageddon, Die Hard, Road Rush, or Dead Ball Zone... Just thinking about doing a list right make me remember all the games I played and loved. I even remember sharewares that I loved that only a few people know like Chaos Overlords or experimental video games like Black and White. I loved that time and these games teached me a lot. But I also sunk a lot of time playing them.

I remember here on HN someone posted an amazing article to explain reverse engineering from the first level to the end boss. And that was really interesting to learn about it from an expert Point of view. You had specifications about different electronic components, he explained different tools he was using... Someone impressed on HN commented about how this was amazing and even more about how he could do all that when him had no time. He came home after a day of coding and plays video games to rest and then sleeps. The author responded that it wasn't as insane as it seemed to have his level (he even did some crazy things in Haskell just for fun for his RE) and he said that all he did was to poke around when he came back home and learn more and more about reverse engineering.

Back in the days video games felt to be made with a lot of love from the developers. Now it's really hard for me to find a game I can really dive down. The world is so much wealthier and the games so limited. Even as a pure gamer we can quickly find the limits of a game. I can only find my happiness in indie video games but they are still limited. The rest is all about graphics, additive designs, marketing, or just meh. (The only games that are relevant to me now are Distant World Universe, Assetto Corsa, and Wargame).

When You cut yourself of video games, other distractions, and open your mind to see the possibility offer by this world, it's like the impression you have when you play Shenzhen IO. You realize that the real world is complex and hard but that make it makes it so much more interesting and rewarding. I took the real course at Stanford in ML and intent to do the one about convex optimization, I learn a lot about law in general, pattens, finance, investment... (In fact my MacBook right now is sitting Chartered Financial Analyst books) and this month I am learning Kubernetes and techs like that even thought I am not a devops. This wouldn't have been possible by being focused on video games.