Supercharging Enjoyment: The effect of fast Internet on my gaming life

Growing up in South Africa, having a fast Internet connection meant you could watch videos on YouTube without having to pre-load them. When I moved to Korea over two years ago, my definition of what fast Internet meant changed. Now I could download entire games in under an hour, and watch live streams in high quality. This movement to fast Internet changed the way I game drastically.

South Korea boasts the fastest average Internet connection speed in the world at 20.5 megabytes per second (Mbps). It also has the highest percentage of broadband higher than 10, 15, and 25 Mbps per second. South Africa’s average internet speed is a paltry 3.7 Mpbs, more than 6 times slower. South Africa’s peak connection of 18.9 Mbps doesn’t even breach Korea’s average speed. I had one of the better connections in the country, and I was still astounded at the difference.

Gotta go fast!

A faster, more reliable connection to the Internet has meant many things for me as a gamer. I can download games much more quickly. A beefy triple-A game that I would have had to leave downloading overnight in South Africa is ready to go in under an hour in South Korea. As a result, I am now much more willing to purchase a game on sale. I want to play it on a whim, I can start a download and be playing it within the hour – there is no pre-planning required. Because I can download and play new games so rapidly, I am now much more cognizant of how much time I spend playing any particular game. I no longer put hours into a game because it’s better than waiting for a new game to download. I don’t play games past the point at which I stop enjoying them.

The most prominent example of this to me was my experience with Sukeban Games’ VA-11 Hall-A. I enjoyed the first couple of hours exploring the world of robotic cyberpunk bartending. The fact that it seemed to be a visual novel with a small bartending mini-game intrigued me. I spent a handful of hours happily serving a colourful host of robotic characters their desired alcoholic beverages. After a particularly long session of the game, I took stock in my head. I mentally assessed whether I had enjoyed that playing session. I decided I hadn’t. So I uninstalled it and browsed my embarrassingly large Steam library for a new fix. I was playing The Game Bakers’ Furi within 20 minutes.

I now spend less time invested in games that are not right for me. This means that I have more time to dive wholeheartedly into games I enjoy. I quickly establish whether I am interested enough in a game to stick with a game until I have completed it. Then, I act on that decision. I have finished more single-player games recently than I had in my last few years back home, without letting up my love affair with Dota 2’s unmatched online multiplayer experience.

Higher-quality internet also means better connections to the online gaming world. This includes online games, streaming sites like Twitch.tv, and video sites like YouTube. I am no longer worried that my connection will drop in the middle of a game of Dota 2 or Hearthstone. In the past, this would mean agonizing defeat unrelated to my mediocre skill level in both games. I lose enough because I’m a scrub, I don’t need technology acting against me as well. With Korea’s superb Internet, all my online gaming grief is a result of my skills, not my game connection. I also consume a great deal more gaming-related video and stream content now than I did back home. My wife and I watch our favourite streamers while we eat dinner, and the quality is always set on the highest. I watch replays and guides for Dota 2 and Hearthstone. I also try to keep up to date on the latest news in the world of esports and gaming as a whole.

Looking back on these changes, I believe that they are largely positive. I only play what I am truly enjoying, and I play more often because of this. I have matured from a frothing-mouthed gaming cultist into a seasoned games enthusiast. I am now willing to opine maturely about the latest gaming scandal or development in the world of gaming. I do not feel the need to flash my gaming credentials nearly as much as I did back in South Africa. Now, gaming arguably plays a bigger role in my life now than it did then. Korea truly is a gamer’s paradise. When the time comes to leave its sheltered shores, I will miss many things. I suspect that the Internet speed might be up there with my newfound friends and life experiences.

New Home, New Challenges

So, Kris and I successfully moved to Wonju. I sit now in our new house, mooching off of our lovely neighbours’ Internet, trying my best not to procrastinate writing this. The moving process was more onerous than we expected, but we got here in the end! Our time in Dongtan is officially over. But, with being in a new place comes new obstacles to overcome. I have to find a job. We  have to make the largely empty space that is our house into a home. We have to try and still save money. We even have to run the local Ultimate team. However, we knew that these challenges would come with the territory. Tackling them will be more than worth it, because we are now in a place where we have a friend base, and Kris and I both think that we will be even happier here than we were in Dongtan.

Moving here was a special kind of mission. Sure, we didn’t exactly have to rent a truck to haul all of our stuff over, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t require logistial planning. We chose instead to pack all of our things into every available bag in our house and bring them with us on the bus to Wonju. As it turned out, we have accumulated so many things in the past year (or we are simply so bad at packing) that this required two separate trips in order for us to physically be able to move all of our things.

What made the move even harder was the need to move Catsby, our one remaining foster cat. We were incredibly worried that he would be like his foster brother Kichu and yell his little furry head off throughout the trip. Luckily, he was superbly behaved, only loosing a mew when the bus ride was particularly bumpy. So, after attempts at shifting luggage, we got our stuff all moved into our new place.

The most pressing issue on my mind currently is my need for a part-time job. I have elected to forgo full-time employment in order to have more time to write and create Dota 2 content such as YouTube videos, streams, and articles. In order to stay in Korea, I still need to maintain a visa. The easiest way to do this is to procure a visa through employment. Sadly, the pool of part-time jobs in Wonju that are willing to sponsor an E-2 visa is not a very deep pool. It resembles an incipient puddle left in a pothole after a short rain. I do have a couple of promising leads though, and I hope to have successfully chased one of these down in the next week or so.

While we may have brought a fair number of belongings with us, our apartment is still rather barren. The only furniture that has been provided to us by Kristen’s employers is a single bed, complete with base. Compared to our last apartment, where we received a table, some chairs, a couch, and a bed, this is slightly underwhelming. What amplifies the sense of emptiness is the sheer size of our apartment. It is easily double the size of our place in Dongtan. There are three bedrooms, a living area, a bathroom, and a small laundry area. We do have plans to outfit each room to fulfill a specific purpose, but for now, they are mostly empty.

Something that will make the transformation from house to home harder is our desire to save money. This was a simple task in Dongtan. We were both earning full-time employment money. Our cost of living was low. We only rarely ate out or left our home to see friends. All of these factors have been altered by our move to Wonju. We will have more expenses because of the bigger house. I’m not likely to earn as much as I was. We have a bigger friend base, so we will undoubtedly go out more often than we did in Dongtan. This all adds up.

Despite all of this, Kris and I are both happy in Wonju. I will get to pursue my dreams. Kris gets a nicer job. We have a bigger house. We are closer to our friends. These are things that we wanted last year, and we’ve managed to get them. Sure, there are things we need to take care of to make sure that we can make a living, and not simply exist. But it will definitely be worth the effort. I think we’re going to love it here.