Planet Sillicon

What we’ll put up with

By blog on Sep. 8, 2009.

For our gaming. Seriously, gamers experience pain from what they do, especially if they are a PC gamer, because gaming just isn’t kind on the wrists and hands.

I spend a lot of time gaming on the PC and the PS3 Slim, at the moment, and whilst the PS3 is fine for me, the PC does give me some pains. First off, my wrists hurt like heck, after a while. I’ve got wrist guards to help with this – which my SO fondly refers to as ‘Gamer Gauntlets’, she has some too – but you can’t really take all the pain away from RSI injuries, because in most cases you don’t stop doing the behaviour which caused it in the first place.

Then there’s the inevitable back pain from sitting in the same chair, usually your posture isn’t fantastic, and you aren’t getting up often enough to stretch. Anyone who’s experienced prolonged back pain will know that it takes a lot of energy from you, it’s really draining. Having sore wrists and a sore back makes you very uninclined to do a lot of things, too, except maybe to lie down or have a hot bath.

Now, with the PS3, as I said, it doesn’t bother me. However, since we got it, and my SO has been playing it, she has said that her finger tips – especially her thumbs – get sore, along with her wrists and hands. She has to stop and massage them quite regularly, same with me and my wrists whilst I’m playing PC games. I find this amazing, that the PS3 can give me no issue, but she is still caused pain by it. She’s a uni student, so has to spend a lot of time on the computer, and she’s also stated that this leads to the same feelings of sore wrists – she’s essay writing, not gaming, though – along with sore elbows and knees from her chair and a sore back. She’s short, so she often gets extra pains because the world is sized for a slightly taller woman.

But we both wouldn’t give it up, even with all the pains, I don’t know if that makes us more or less geeky, though…