By Leah Bianchi
It’s 2 a.m. and you’re about to head to bed. But first you call your boyfriend to say goodnight because you know that, unlike you, he will be up for at least another two hours. He is suffering from a condition known as OSD: Obsessive “Skyrim” Disorder.
Released just two months ago, “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” is a role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. The “Elder Scrolls” games have a huge fan base and after the new installment’s release, fans quickly began their compulsive journeys, leaving their significant others in the dust. Or rather, forcing them to watch.
“He plays while I’m doing homework, so I’ll look up once in a while and see what he’s up to,” Samantha McManus explains with a smile. Like many others, McManus has a “Skyrim”-obsessed boyfriend. “He will say ‘watch this!’ and then I am forced to watch him kill something,” she said.
How much time does her boyfriend, Devin Young, spend playing the game? “All day, every day,” McManus said with a laugh. She continued, “Maybe about eight hours a day. It’s been decreasing steadily since he completed that main quest.”
That brings it to around 56 hours of game play per week – a full-time job for gamers. Morning, noon and night, they play and invite others to watch.
The passion for the game has even begun to transcend relationship boundaries: “He’s let me play his file a few times,” McManus said. “I like riding horses and buying food and talking to people,” McManus admits. “He’s leaving me the Xbox next semester so I might try my own game but I doubt I will play more than one to two hours a week.”
Another “Skyrim” gamer is born.