The Hardest Part of Gaming
The hardest part about gaming is not being a boss or ranking up or completing some challenge or 100 %ing a game, but it's actually playing a game you've never played before. And that's why most of us play the same games over and over again. And that's why I'm challenging myself to play a new game every day on my brand new Jerry Banfield Gaming channel. If you're new here, I've been a professional gamer before. You might remember me from Call of Duty Warzone on Facebook or Retro Games or League of Legends. I've played hundreds and hundreds of games over the last decade. But what I noticed is where I put most of my time in gaming was grinding out the same games, trying to level up.
You can follow along with every new game I try on my Games playlist.
And it would often turn into this ego thing where I'm getting my self worth and my validation out of playing a video game. Then I would often be bored with the video game or hate the game, but keep playing it anyway because I felt like that was a part. Then I'd try and find new games to play. But I found this weird thing that happens when I go to play a game I've never played before. There's this weird resistance where it's like my brain is thinking, well, this might be uncomfortable, might be painful. You're going to go into an environment you don't know. Don't bother.
And then what I did for a while is I tried playing a new game every single day.
Deleting Everything and Starting Over
Out of all the thousands and thousands of gaming videos I've created, I deleted everything last year. And I took nine months to think, what was the best content I created? And out of that, I see that the gaming videos where I played a new game every day, a game I'd never played. It doesn't have to be actually new. Could be one that was made 30 years ago. But I played a game I'd never played before. And just for 10 minutes, because I often would try and play these games for like 30 minutes or an hour, and they would be so boring that I couldn't stand it.
But just playing a new game for 10 minutes is enough to get taste of a game. And this is just a game. And it's changed how I even think about gaming and watching gaming videos. And I've been thinking, what's the best kind of gaming content I can make for you is to show you that how it actually feels to play these new games. Because if you watch videos about a game, you might think it's fun. But I've found I've watched a lot of videos about a lot of games. Then I played them and they're pretty boring. And then there've been games like Blueprints. Blueprints, I saw a few videos about it and I didn't think it was that exciting.
I just was in a habit of playing. I was playing a new game every day and I'm like, let me try this one real quick. It doesn't look like a lot of fun, but I'll just give it a shot. And then I played it and I kept thinking about it. I'm like, that game was so fun. Why was that fun? And what I found is if I want to really have fun gaming. Now, yes, there are games I love that I want to keep playing. Like once I played Blueprints the first time, then I had to beat it. But I didn't know beforehand that it would be fun.
I'd actually try it for it to be fun. And a lot of us. I know most gamers I know don't play hardly any new games unless it's like a major new release that everybody's hyping up, especially games that were out like 10, 20, 30 years ago, unless they're in nostalgia. We just don't play that.
A New Game Is a Workout for My Brain
What I found is it's a workout for my brain to play a new game. It's like going to the gym, but for my brain, because my brain struggles and tries to go through the discomfort of like flailing around being like, how does this game work? And it's just like to me going to the gym. If you go to the gym. Which is why I, I'm not super big because whenever I went to the gym, unless I had a personal trainer, I would just end up doing the same exercises with the same reps on the same weights or I'd increase the weight too quick and hurt myself.
Whereas if and when you do that working out, if you do that working out, you're not going to build much muscle. Same thing to me with my brain. If I want to make my brain stronger and become a better gamer, what really helps is to do a little bit of a new game every day. And then occasionally. I get surprised by these new games that I wouldn't have suspected would be fun. And I consistently am disappointed by games that people think are so much fun. And I play and I'm like, that wasn't fun. Another game, Hades. I was playing a whole bunch of new games, just a new game every day.
One game I played was Hades. I played it and then returned the disc, the PS5 disc. And I'm like, whatever. I didn't see anything special even the day I played it. But then weeks later, I kept thinking, I'm like, I got to play it. I got to play that game again. I don't know what it was about that game, but I got to play it again.
A Decade of New Games
I'm thinking that what my content could do over a period of years and what value could I offer you as a viewer. That's not the same as what you get on other channels because most other gamers play the same games all the time. And then there's all these games that hardly anybody plays, but there are audiences that watch them. And what I want is over the next 10 years of my content. I've been a full time YouTuber since 2020. 12. That's 14 years. And what I want is the next decade of my content. Imagine if I had 3 652 games that I'd played over the next decade.
How amazing would that be to look at all these games and remember that, oh, I played that one. And to see my first reaction. And then to do some live streams on the games that are my favorite. I did get locked into a while for a while thinking that I just have to play new games. And I'm not going to play any games more. The. But that was no fun. Because when I found a game I really liked, I felt bad that I couldn't play it again. So I've got this strategy going forward for my channel I'm really excited about. Where I'm going to play a new game that I haven't played every single day.
And then whenever I live stream, I'll play games that I really love.
Breaking Out of Gaming Ruts
My hope is to encourage people to play more kinds of video games. Because what I see is a lot of gamers are in gaming ruts. I know somebody, they just play the same game over and over. They're not even that good at it. It's one of those competitive shooters. And they complain about the game. And they're frustrated with the game. And they dump money and so much time into the game. They told me, and I quote, I play the game like it's a second job. And I think that's crazy. Like what's the fun in spending 20, 30 hours a week playing a game when you already have a family.
And a full time job. And you're not even having fun most of the time. You're just grinding it. If you see yourself in that grind and want to talk honestly about what a healthier relationship with gaming could look like for you, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll work through it together.
I Never Want to Grind a Game Again
What I don't want to ever do again is grind a game. I want gaming to be fun. I'm tired. I'm tired of quitting gaming because I get myself into a place where gaming's not fun. I've quit gaming so many times over the last decades. At least three times for more than nine months. And what brings me back is because gaming is truly fun. When, for example, I'm a single dad right now. And what's really nice when I go out on a date and it doesn't go well. And there's not going to be a second date. To come home and I've got my video games. And I just love being able to like play a game for an hour and escape and forget about it.
Keeping gaming fun instead of compulsive is the same work I describe in Long-Term Emotional Sobriety in Action (12 Years Sober).
And then go to bed. It's really nice. And where I've gotten the past, I've gotten into these ruts where I made gaming not fun. And to me, the secret is to break out of, to keep trying new games all the time. And to try games that don't even look fun. I've tried games to where I'm like, there's no way that's fun. And lots of times I'm right, but occasionally I'm wrong. And it's so interesting to see when I'm wrong. But what's even more interesting is you might think, well, there's no value in playing. Let's say I play 50 video games, which I tried hundreds. And hundreds of new games over the last few years.
And sometimes I'd try a new one every day for months. And that was the best thing I did. But I made two mistakes. I play the game too long. Like you only need about 10 minutes. If you've played as many games as probably you and I have. I only need about 10 minutes to get hooked by a game. If the game can't hook me in the first 10 minutes, it's not fun. Right? Like they've got 10 minutes. And if they can't hook me, I'm not coming back. What I've noticed is if I try and play a game too much that I don't like. It really sours me out gaming altogether.
So if I just taste a little bit, then that is enough to see if I want to play it again. And sometimes I need to sleep on it. I need to think about it later to know that I want to play it again. But the side unexpected benefit I found is that when I play 50 games and I don't like 48 of them. Like 48 of them are boring. Like y 'all kept telling me, I don't want to put any games in particular down here. But so many games that my viewers told me, oh, you're going to play this. It's so fun. I played this for 100 hours.
I play it. And I'm like, that's so boring. And the benefit of playing 48 boring games is that the two games that are actually really fun for me. Those really stand out. And it provides a contrast. A lot of us with our gaming, we play the one game we really love all the time. But we get bored. We get burnt out on it. Now, it makes sense if you're having like a relationship. You're married like I was for 13 years. It makes sense to like have certain areas of your life where you stick with one person or one job. But boring. Gaming to me is a place to really explore.
Like it doesn't make sense to get locked in to a game like you're married to it or like they've hired you to play the game. And even when I was getting paid to play Call of Duty Warzone and getting paid really well to play retro games, I got bored being locked into playing only the same kind of games.
Building a Healthier Gaming Community
I have a desire to break out and play other games and enjoy the diversity of playing all these different games. And what I notice is even when I play a bunch of new games that I, I don't even like, then I appreciate the game I do like so much more. When I play a new game every day, I'm really excited to then play the game I'm really into at the moment. Thus, I'm looking at this video and my community with Jerry Banfield Gaming being a gateway to have a healthier outlook on gaming and to make gaming much more sustainable. Because a lot of us game addictively where we just play games all the time and then we feel bad about it.
And then we end up trying to quit or minimize it. I don't want gaming to be something I ever quit again. I want gaming to be a positive part of my life. I want gaming to always be there. And I figure no matter how busy I am, I can always try a new game for 10 minutes a day. I can always have time to play an hour or two a week at least if not five or ten hours of some game I'm really into. Because I look at it that if true wealth is having time to do the things I love to do and no matter how much other money or anything else, relationships, house, car, no matter any of that stuff.
If I don't have time to try a new game for 10 minutes a day and if I don't have time to play a few hours of game I really like every week, then how good is my life? What truly quality of life do I have if I'm so busy, I don't have time to have fun playing games. So I'm really excited to build a community around this idea of gaming being something we do for fun, for joy, of breaking the monotony, and the ego and the habits that we fall into gaming of consistently using gaming to exercise our brains to expand our minds to challenge ourselves and a community of people that are on the hunt for the very most fun games.
If this way of approaching gaming resonates with you, you can book a private call with me and we'll talk through your own gaming.
That are willing to look through all the games throughout history and find which games are the most fun today to play right now. A community of people that's interested in my unusual things that I share. I deleted the last four and the beginnings of what I envision of being my most sustainable gaming and the best gaming community I've ever had.