Why I Quit Playing Need For Speed: No Limits

Since June of 2016, which was 19 months ago as of this writing (2/1/18), I’ve played a car-racing game on my phone called Need For Speed No Limits (NFSNL). It’s a very popular game around the world and it’s super fun to play. But just a few days ago, I made the sudden, drastic decision to not play it anymore.

Just to be clear, the decision wasn’t due to any problem I have with the game itself. As I mentioned, it’s a fun, challenging game with short-term and long-term goals to achieve. A player must have great racing skills to add new cars to his personal garage. I have 56. And then it takes months, or perhaps even years, of adding parts and materials to those cars before they reach their maximum level of performance.

And even with a maxed-out Koenigsegg CCX or a Ferrari LaFerrari, you’re still gonna get smoked by some kid who has all the time in the world to perfect his racing skills.

Lots of players whine and complain like sissy boys to the game developers that the game is unfair, too hard or too expensive. But I have no such complaints. The developers (Firemonkeys & Electronic Arts) made a fun game with brilliant graphics. They regularly come out with updates, challenges and new cars. They reasonably try to make money with in-game purchases which can expedite the development of your cars. I spent an average of $10 per month on this game.

It’s Not You, Need For Speed No Limits, It’s Me

It’s not you, Need For Speed No Limits, it’s me. My reasons for quitting the game are based on my own issues. And I had these issues long before I ever started playing your game. The main thing is that I just don’t have time for games. Of course, there are plenty of short moments throughout the day – on the train or in the bathroom – when it’s perfectly harmless to pull out the phone and play around with a few apps.

But never in my life have I ever limited my gameplay to those short moments. I get super-obsessive with my games. In the ’80s it was Super Mario Brothers and Mike Tyson’s Punchout. And then it was Madden NFL and other sports games in the ’90s. In recent years it’s been word games like Scrabble and Words With Friends. And in the last 19 months it’s been this racing game. I get compulsive over my games. I steal time and attention away from important tasks to get better at playing. And I don’t even bother trying to impose limits on how much I play because I know I won’t stay within those limits. The name of this racing game is literally No Limits.

Gaming Addiction

From ’02 to ’04, my roommate had an Xbox in our apartment. Imagine you’re addicted to crack and your roommate leaves crack rocks, pipes and lighters all over the coffee table…that’s kinda what it was like for me to have a game console in my home. Of course, my roommate and our friends played responsibly. They played Halo, but only when we were all together. I never was too good at Halo, so I never really got into it.

But one day I found myself alone at a GameStop (big mistake). Next thing I know, I was walking out the door with an Xbox version of MVP Baseball 2004 (Albert Pujols on the cover). I knew I shouldn’t have bought that game. I knew that I wouldn’t control it. And I knew that the game would suck my time into a vortex of wastefulness.

But I bought it anyway. And unlike my responsible friends who played socially on the weekends, I played all alone, every night…often late into the night. I played entire baseball seasons which included 162 games each. No one was using the term “gaming addiction” back then. But I knew I had a problem.

And the problem wasn’t just that I was wasting time. Compulsive gaming really messed with my head and weakened me morally. When you spend countless hours ignoring the conviction to stop doing something, it gets easier and easier to ignore convictions in general. And then you eventually don’t hear or feel those convictions anymore. No one ever leaves a gaming binge with more discipline or more self-control than they had before the binge. Gaming was eroding me from the inside.

Smart Phone, Dumb Guy

After that time in my life, I bought a few games and game consoles. But I always eventually gave them away or threw them away. I just couldn’t handle them. And then smartphones got smarter. In 2007, Electronic Arts had an excellent version of Scrabble for Blackberry phones…and I played the hell out of it. My addictive device was no longer at the house, next to the TV, waiting for me to come home and play it. No…it was in my pocket all day long. I often played more than 20 games of Scrabble a day. And make no mistake…I became a pretty good player with a highly-developed vocabulary.

But once again, I was wasting away on a frivolous game. Phones got even better and so did the apps. I transitioned to Words With Friends along with most Scrabble players and I played it like it was my job…for years.

And if that wasn’t enough, I ended up joining a Words With Friends community in which we played an endless number of tournaments. I eventually created a Words With Friends league of my own which became so time-consuming to maintain that I no longer had any time to play the game itself.

Something’s Gotta Give

I got married 3 years ago and became a father 3 months ago. I work a full-time job with a long commute and run a business on the side. Plus, I maintain multiple websites and write regular blog posts (like this one you’re reading) on my personal site. I also read books and listen to audiobooks.

Yet somehow, on top of all that (and my undiagnosed addiction to Twitter), I still managed to work in a few dozen races on Need For Speed No Limits EVERY SINGLE DAY. I literally don’t remember the last time I went a whole day without playing it. It has become – in every sense of the word – an idol in my life. All the time I’ve spent playing that game – countless hours – if I had spent that time doing something productive instead, I’d already be an expert at it. Unfortunately, I wasted all those hours and now I’m just “pretty good” at racing imaginary cars.

And if there wasn’t already enough activity jammed into my weekly routine, I started working out again a few weeks ago. I’ve been going to the gym almost every day lately. I already feel better and look better. If I don’t make it to the gym before work, I go during lunch. And as I sit there doing one repetition after another, one singular thought keeps going through my mind:

Something’s gotta give

I gotta cut an unimportant thing out of my life in order to free up more time for the important stuff. And I needed exactly zero seconds to figure out what I should cut; Need For Speed: No Limits. But you and I both know that habits aren’t easily changed and addictions aren’t easily abandoned. Or are they?

What If…

Last week, I was on a Need For Speed: No Limits forum, reading and writing about racing strategies (don’t judge me). I figured out a smart way to maximize an All-Access Pass during which you can acquire a ton of parts and materials for your cars. The trick is that you’d have to activate the pass at a specific time on a specific day. Also, the pass lasts for only one hour, so you’d have to complete dozens of races during that hour to pull this off. It wouldn’t be easy. You literally cannot be distracted or do anything else but race during that hour.

For about a day, I thought about when I should try it and whether or not I could do it. And then…this past Sunday…in the afternoon while brushing my teeth, a series of hypothetical questions came to mind;

“What if…instead of doing this thing with the All-Access Pass…what if…instead of doing it…you just DIDN’T do it?”

This thought made no sense to me because I fully intended to maximize an All-Access Pass and I already had one that I could use. And then another question came to mind;

“What if…instead of continuing to play this game on a regular basis…instead of continuing to do that…what if you just sorta stopped playing it altogether?”

Again, I had already dismissed the question as soon as I thought it. In fact, I actually started a race. It was going to be my first race of the All-Access Pass which I had just activated. I had one hour to play it and no time to waste. The thought of walking away from the game was still on my mind. But in the meantime, I figured I would knock out these races and think about quitting at a later time. But then, in the middle of that first race, the last question came to mind:

“What if you didn’t even finish this race? Also, what if…instead of thinking about quitting this game in the future…what if you have already raced your last race? What if…right now, you’re already done with this game and you never play it again?”

Already Done

I thought about it for a second or two as I raced a Dodge Viper around the sharp corners. And then, quite suddenly, my decision was made. I purposely crashed the Viper into a wall. The 3 cars I was leading flew past me towards the finish line. I pressed the settings button and quit the race instead of finishing it. Therefore, that wasn’t my last completed race. My last completed race, which I don’t remember, was sometime earlier that day.

I was done. Entirely resolved to never play NFSNL again, I removed the game from my phone. I even unfollowed @NFSNL on Twitter so that I wouldn’t be reminded of it again. The 56 cars in my virtual garage…which took me hundreds of hours to earn and maintain…will simply sit there collecting virtual dust.

Deep down, this abrupt, final decision is what I wanted and needed. I just didn’t think I could do it…didn’t think I could quit cold turkey. Several times this week, I’ve had the impulse to pull out my phone and race. But when I look at my home screen, the NFSNL icon is no longer there. And I didn’t fill that spot with another app. I just left it empty to serve as a reminder than I can do something else – anything else – with all the time I was about to waste.

Gamer Productive Person

Every moment of this week when I would’ve been racing, I used that time instead to write this post. Instead of developing a meaningless garage full of imaginary cars, I created something permanent which might encourage or help someone. That possibility makes me happy…happier than I’ve ever been while playing a game. And if you would comment below with your thoughts about this post…or if you mentioned how it relates to you, that would make me happy too. Thanks for stopping by :)

Why I Quit Playing Need For Speed No Limits by Joseph Gonzales