How Richard Kuo Plays Video Games in Moderation

Today we have a special guest for you and his name is Richard Kuo.

Richard and I first met through YouTube where has a few videos himself on video game addiction, so I thought I would bring Richard on to share his story – how his gaming has changed over the years and how he manages today to play in moderation:

Cam: How did gaming impact you growing up, what brought you to a point where you wanted to quit and what brought you back to moderation?

Richard: So for me, gaming growing up was fun. My brother, who was my biggest role model played, so if he did something it was OK for me to do too.

After he got into college, I was still in high school, he stopped playing video games and the one thing my parents always said was “oh stop playing video games it’s a waste of time,” but I enjoyed it so I kept playing.

I got into college and I played a lot, sometimes I would play twelve hours a day and I would go to class and then I would come back and I would be playing Starcraft, Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2, whatever, and I kept playing.

But because there was a guilt trip growing up, “game shaming” you could say, I would always keep it a secret. For example in college we had roommates and even with my roommate he didn’t care if I played video games but I remember whenever he would come in it was almost like watching porn, close tab close tab close tab you know because I felt ashamed to play video games.

I knew it didn’t make me feel good and what ended up making me want to quit was that reason and then I made a video on YouTube posted it and it was like hey here’s why I quit video games because there’s so much to do in the world and at that time that’s what I believed.

Then a few months later I came back and I was like ah I just want to relax because I enjoy playing video games and I kept realizing that every single time I played video games I had a bad feeling about it, it was just like this doesn’t feel right, I feel like I should be doing something more productive.

So I quit for a combination of guilt from the game shaming growing up but also today I realize I have my own mission and purpose in my life, which is to create content. I’m a YouTuber as well as having conversations, speaking, anything like that to help teens and young adults overcome their self-worth conversations.

I think that’s really important and to me authentically speaking that is more meaningful to me than playing video games.

Going back to moderation I still play in moderation because I enjoy it occasionally, because I always keep myself in check, because I’ve trained my mind I’ve gone back and forth so many times, dozens of times, because I didn’t have the control before, but then I was like no no no Richard stop, just you’ve got to stop right now because you’re letting your bad habits control you.

Cam: So do you think that you had to quit and use that time where you weren’t playing to kind of get your life back to a place where you had more positive habits and that now allows you to be more aware of your gaming and for it to not spiral into more bad habits do you think that was important?

Richard: Ya, I think so. What happens is when we get stuck in a negative habit, in this case video games, we just constantly feel bad about ourselves, I just felt crappy and I couldn’t, it was really hard for me to feel confident and proud of myself.

So once I was able to say ok I’m just going to uninstall League of Legends or whatever the game was, first I would get frustrated because I would want to play again, but I’m like Richard don’t do it, just try to challenge yourself to do something else, that would give me the opportunity to grow and expand myself in a different way.

Cam: Ok last question, how much do you game now? Like, is it less than 5 hours a week, how much are you gaming on a weekly basis?

Richard: That’s a tough question to answer because how my habit is right now is not per week, it’s more like every other month I would pick-up gaming again because oh I kind of miss that feeling, I do. I’m going to say on average every single month I will play less than maybe less than ten hours, something like that.

Cam: Ok so this is really important because a lot of you guys ask me about moderation and you know I always say I don’t play because I just prefer to do other things, it’s not that I’m against gaming or that I don’t think moderation is possible, but if you want to moderate, first, complete your 90 day detox and then you can re-evaluate.

And if you are going to moderate, then as Richard said he’s gaming less than ten hours a month so moderating is not playing three four hours a day, two hours a day I still think that is a little bit too much so you really want to use Richard as an example and if you want to try moderation do it after the detox but then again, you know keep it to less hours than more hours.

So I hope that helps you guys out and if it does, make sure you leave a comment below. Did moderation work for you or did you have to quit cold turkey? I’d love to hear about it below:

Make sure you also check out Richard’s channel, he’s got a ton of awesome content especially around self-worth, which is really important for all of you guys because if you’ve been gaming and struggling with it, you’re probably also struggling with self-esteem, I know I did, so definitely check out Richard’s channel.

If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.

P.S. Richard and I also recorded a video for his channel and you can watch that here:

How Habits Affect Confidence ft. Cam Adair (Game Quitters)