There was a stretch of my life where games were the thing. W...

There was a stretch of my life where games were the thing. World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, StarCraft and StarCraft 2, the Tom Clancy titles, Battlefield, Call of Duty — I put real hours into all of them. As a kid and a young adult, sitting down to play felt like it mattered.

That feeling is mostly gone now. I'll load something up expecting the old pull, and it just isn't there. The same games that used to hold me for a whole evening feel boring within minutes.

What changed, I think, is what I'm actually chasing. Back then the loop was enough on its own — the next level, the next match, the next little hit of dopamine. Now that hit barely registers. It's nothing. I'd rather spend the time building something real than chase a reward that's gone the moment I get it.

So I build instead. It scratches the same itch the games used to, except at the end of the night I've got something to show for it.