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King Athelstan

The Football Rant - Keeping Busy Without Football

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Now then, seeing as there's no football on this won't go on to rant about football, but rather the aspects of life without it. Like many an addiction the abstinence can hit you quite hard, but then slowly gets better. As for myself, I'm keeping busy with procrastinating studying for my exam next week. Normally I would have done that by watching football, but luckily there's a plethora of other things you can do to have your mind focused on something unproductive. I mean I know I really should start worrying and preparing myself, but I'll do that tomorrow. Which is what I've told myself for the past two months or so

Ah well, to illustrate how low I was on my lowest point, I'll tell you a short story. It was a dark and rainy night, and I had huddled up in front of the computer with a nice glass of water to keep myself hydrated. And then, I saw it. I had Origin open for some reason or the other, and that's when it happened. There was a sale, so of course I had to check it out. And what did I see? FIFA 20, for 60% off.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


Bar playing at friends houses over the years the closest thing I had was FIFA 10, on the Nintendo DS. My scrolling stopped there, and I pondered for a long time. My hand pushed the mouse ever closer to the "add to cart" button, and for what felt like an eternity it hovered over. Should I do this? Could I? Would this be the best way to relive the thrill? I had never played Football Manager and dared not delve into its complicated system, so perhaps Fifa was the solution? Perhaps it would give me the relief I sought? Perhaps it would make things better? I pictured all the glorious goals I could score, the triumph I would find in victory, and the feeling of accomplishment as I beat any opponent I faced. Maybe West Ham could actually win something for once? Maybe I could live out a fantasy I knew would never come through? I clicked "add to basket", absentmindedly and scrolled on, before minimizing the picture to go do something productive.

And so, we skip to three hours later.

I had forgotten everything about it when I had clicked away from Origin and gone to try to do something productive and subsequently failed. I revisited it and noticed it was still in the basket. Like Frodo tempted by the ring I yearned for relief, for the bittersweet touch of the ring, like Anakin to feel the Dark side, like Rand to feel saidin. I moved to checkout, and pulled out my card.

Then a series of images flashed through my mind. Lootboxes, card packs, child gambling, pay 2 win, EA bad EA BAD, all as if part of a movie where the camera spins around the main character while he looks around in confusion. I felt I was going to go crazy, I was pulled in two directions. Then I finally came to my senses, and closed Origin.

That was the story of how I almost bought Fifa. If I ever come so near again, I swear you might as well revoke my internet license.

Updated April 28, 2020 at 04:36 PM by King Athelstan

Categories
Hobbies & Interests , Entertainment

Comments

  1. Flinn's Avatar
    to be honest I thought you were actually going to buy it!

    I haven't played any FIFA in my life, only PES and I think the last one I played was like PES 2012, but you know I'm much older than you, and when I started to play those games there was only "Winning Eleven" which you could play in awful quality on PC with an incredibly complex and ever-broken "console simulator".

    Now that you made me think of it, I believe that the very first football game I played was like 33 years ago, at the time the only Consoles you could find where coming straightly from Japan and a friend of mine had one since his father was going there for work.. apart for the madness of connecting both the power supply and the TV (and it was like an already 30 years old TV! ) the only game we had was Captain Tsubasa (know in Italy as Holly & Benji), all in Japanese.. it was more an RPG than an actual sport game (you had to choose options written in Japanese).. ahh the good old times, you younger lads should really know what videogaming was back at the time, I'm sure won't complain about EA today
  2. King Athelstan's Avatar
    Hahaha, the good olde "Back in my day" - you really are getting old Flinn

    It's however not the games per say that the majority of the criticism goes to, it's the business.
  3. Flinn's Avatar
    I'm seasoned, please

    Yes I know what you mean about business, and I can agree with you for a wide extent, though believe me.. business is always evil, and modern time gaming companies are not much worse than those of 20 years ago (some are still the same, with same policies, for instance).
  4. King Athelstan's Avatar
    Haha, fair point