How a Video Game Saved My Life

I didn’t get to have a normal childhood.

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When I was growing up, my mom was a traveling nurse, and my dad was an unemployed ham radio enthusiast.

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We moved often, so I didn’t go to public school. Mom worked most of the day, and Dad spent most of his day listening to static on the radio, so I didn’t get homeschooled either.

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Mom taught me how to read and write, basic math, and other fundamental things every kid should learn. But I never got the typical school experience other kids get.

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My early days were spent reading, listening to the radio, and eagerly waiting for the next episode of my favorite shows. Pokemon, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and WWF wrestling were the highlights of my week.

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One thing I did have in common with “normal” kids is that I eventually fell in love with gaming. I completed the Pokedex in Pokemon Crystal. I mastered tracks with the Nissan GT-R in Gran Turismo. I dueled rivals in Yugioh - in person - at Books-a-Million on Saturdays.

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I even started an online Yugioh team called Omega Revolution in 2005. I made us a website, created a forum, and organized team events, membership promotions, and meetups around the country.

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Gaming was addictive, entertaining, and fun. But it was also a distraction from the strange life I had.

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From 2001-2006, when I was 11-16, we lived in a camper trailer in the back lot of a flea market. My dad’s health was declining because of (terminal) cancer. My mom was a shell of herself because of my dad’s verbal abuse.

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At the time I worked 40 hours a week for $5/hour cutting grass, taking out trash, and opening/closing the buildings at the flea market. That $200 I brought home was basically all the money we had for groceries each week. I was the sole provider for my parents and I at only 15 years old. All I did outside of work was play games.

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Gaming was a big part of my life. But nothing in my life - game or otherwise - has had as big of an effect on who I am as World of Warcraft.

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How I Entered My New World

World of Warcraft is the most popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) of all time.

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I had heard a lot about it when it came out in 2004. But I didn’t want to try it because people always talked about how addictive it was. I finally downloaded the free trial in early 2006. I did this as a joke - a girl I was dating at the time had complained about her mom’s addiction to the game. I decided to show her I could try it without getting addicted.

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Two things wrong with this. One, this “joke” didn’t make much sense. Two, I immediately got addicted myself. And so began the five year period of my life where I spent 12 to 16 hours almost every single day playing World of Warcraft.

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My life had changed a lot right before I started playing WoW. My dad lost his battle with cancer. My mom got a new nursing job. We moved from the flea market to an apartment.

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But even though life was getting better in the real world… I found myself instead spending my life in the virtual world (of warcraft).

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My daily routine looked something like this:

Get up around 2pm

Start playing WoW

Go to bed around 6am

Repeat the next day

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I didn’t really care about anything else. I mean, I loved my mom, and we’d go do things together often. But other than our outings together, I stayed inside, playing WoW, eating, and sleeping.

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This lifestyle took a toll on my physical and mental health. I passed 370lbs, developed prediabetes, and had low testosterone. I had zero motivation to do anything else in life but play WoW.

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About five years later, around 2011, I began losing interest in WoW and regaining interest in life. I started college in 2012, lost 170lbs over the next 7 years, and pursued other interests (including other games).

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I feel a mix of emotions when I look back on this period of my life from age 16 to 21. As you may expect, I feel a tinge of regret, since I could’ve spent those years on more “productive” things.

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But I mainly feel a sense of gratitude. The era of my life spent on World of Warcraft shaped who I am today, taught me valuable skills, and in some ways, even made up for things I missed out on in my childhood. It developed me in three key areas in particular:

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1) Social Skills

I didn’t get any social exposure until we moved to the flea market when I was 13. I was a typical introverted nerd. I wasn’t good with people.

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After I started playing World of Warcraft, I rarely went outside (without my mom), and so I didn’t try to make friends… but I was able to make a lot of friends in World of Warcraft.

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WoW is a multiplayer game. You can play it solo, but to do the “end game” activities, you have to group up with other people. Typically, you join a “guild”, which is kind of like a group chat of players who do those activities with each other.

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I’ve been a member of numerous guilds during my 18 years (wow I didn’t know it was that long til I wrote that out) of playing off and on. I talked to countless players in game, on Skype, and in Ventrilo (basically Discord’s decrepit father).

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This gave me a lot of social experience. When I started college in 2012, I was terrified of being an introverted outcast, but I found myself easily talking with people because of the years of talking with players in WoW.

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2) Leading People

Two of my favorite activities in WoW were:

- Raids where players grouped up to fight difficult bosses

- Battlegrounds where players grouped up to fight another group of players

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I quickly found myself becoming a leader in my group activities. I gravitated toward being a “tank” in raids and a “healer” in battlegrounds - roles that allowed me to be the strategist for my groups.

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Being a leader in WoW gave me experience with explaining strategies, directing people, and dealing with interpersonal problems.

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I’ve used that leadership experience as a foundation in real world situations where I’ve lead:

- Multiple clubs in college

- A team of engineers at a US Air Force defense contractor

- My senior design team who developed a project Home Depot is now using

- My current team of engineers at ​Kortex​ - the software startup I cofounded with Dan Koe (and Matthew Ao)

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My time leading people in Azeroth helped me lead people in the real world - a role I very much enjoy.

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3) Goal Setting

The main “point” of a game like World of Warcraft is getting better gear to make your character stronger. Gear is easy to get at first, but as you level up, it gets harder to obtain upgrades.

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Sometimes a piece of gear you want is a random drop from a boss you can only kill once a week. Sometimes an upgrade requires 75 tokens you can only get 25 of a week. Sometimes an item costs thousands of gold - so you have to find ways to make that gold.

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This means making your character as powerful as possible involves setting, pursuing, and achieving goals. I’d figure out what items I wanted, discovered how to get them, and worked toward them.

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This relentless pursuit of improvement is what made me one of the best players in my community back in the day. (some people reminisce on their football days, I reminisce on my gaming days… built different)

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That approach helped me do things like:

- Get my degree from Georgia Tech

- Lose 170lbs (the first time)

- Build my own business

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Would I Change Anything?

If I could rewind back to my teenage years, knowing everything I know now, would I take the same path - the path that went through five years of playing a video game? Yes. I would.

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It sounds cliche to say… But I wouldn’t be where I am (or who I am) today without that period of my life. I wouldn’t have my exciting future - building a software company with my best friend, moving to Phoenix in two weeks to be closer to him and other friends, and helping my mom build a new life - without the things I’ve done in the past.

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We could theorize I may have a better life if I hadn’t “wasted” five years addicted to a video game. But I don’t think about it that way. In my 33 (almost 34) years of life, there are infinite things I could’ve done differently, and infinite things that could’ve happened to me differently.

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But none of that matters because none of the other infinite potentialities happened. What happened is what happened. Every single thought, decision, and action I’ve taken has led me to this moment right now.

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What matters is what I did do in the past, what I can do in the future, and what I choose to do right now.

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I had what some may call a “bad” childhood, I missed out on the formative experiences “normal” kids have, and I “wasted” five years playing a video game. But I’ve gotten to where I am today because I try to make the best of what I have.

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What if I had never started playing World of Warcraft? Say everything else was the same before going down that path. Strange father. No schooling. Lack of socialization. How would my life have turned out up until the present moment?

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Based on how things were before then… I’d say it’s easy to assume my life wouldn’t have turn out as well as it has. Perhaps, in a way, the period of my life spent on World of Warcraft saved me from the life I had been headed toward.

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That’s just an assumption. There’s no way to know. The only thing to do is focus on making the best of what I have right now.

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I’ve played World of Warcraft a little lately. When I travel through the fantasy world of Azeroth, I feel a sense of connectedness to my past… and excitement for the future in the real world.

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I hope you’re on an exciting journey as well - and I hope you can see how your past makes you who you are today.

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Joey Justice