I feel for the author but really the takeaway here is not to necessarily stop playing ranked games, but to stop playing games if you no longer find them fun.

Games are meant to be entertainment, if you're not entertained then why play?

Enjoying hobbies is valuable in its own right; your hobby doesn’t have to be building skills that can be exploited for a wage. I really hate the idea that it’s time wasted if it’s bringing enjoyment but it’s not exploitable or profitable. He stopped enjoying it so he should and did stop, but hours on a hobby you enjoy aren’t wasted imo.

Much like games life is full of challenges. Games are just easier than life because their rules are pre-defined.

I was an addict gamer not long ago. I thought myself one of the very best at the game and one day it became meaningless, boring, unfulfilling. I redirected some of my gaming time to creating stuff, maintaining relationships, getting rid of procrastination (eventually), working out, making a business and attending to my loved ones.

If you cannot play games anymore and need a challenge, try programming. There's always something to master through experimentation and if you are as good at mastering programming as you are at mastering games then you will be able to build anything you think of, if its possible. I suggest Javascript/Nodejs as its the language that does everything nowadays.

> But apparently not enough time to become even a half-decent player, since I never broke through the 3800 MMR ceiling in Dota 2.

Eh? 3.6k is Legend[5] which is 83rd percentile. https://www.opendota.com/distributions/ranks Maybe it didn't feel like it in an evenly matched pub, but objectively speaking you were very good.

But be as it may, I'm happy you've found hobbies you enjoy more.

All the above aside, if you're not great at it, you're almost forced to play with a bunch of degenerate idiots.

If you want to play the game for the enjoyment of trolling these idiots, then sure.. keep playing.

"Don't play video games, make them." -Terry A. Davis