A few weeks ago, after yet another frustrating match of Marvel Rivals caused me to power off my console and loudly deride the game and its players, my boyfriend asked how many hours I had played. The game launched shortly after my segue into the world of freelancing, and I had a lot of spare time on my hands. When my boyfriend, who often plays when I do, told me he had logged 16 hours so far, I conservatively guessed „at least double that.“
When I looked at my stats, I nearly threw up. I had spent more than 16 days in the NetEase hero shooter’s ranked mode (I don’t play anything else) since its December 2024 launch. That’s over 400 hours, and for most of that time, I was frustrated, annoyed, or „tilted,“ as the kids say–desperate to reach an arbitrary goal I had set for myself before I could properly take a break from the game.
Those shocking gameplay numbers, coupled with an unceremonious rank tumble after the Season 3 rank reset a few weeks ago, made me realize something.