I stopped playing games without really noticing.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t opening Civilization or Stellaris anymore. Instead, I was spending my evenings building software. What caught my attention wasn’t the change itself, but the language in my head. I started saying things like “just one more thing” or “let me quickly finish this,” and it immediately reminded me of “just one more turn.”

Same pattern. Different wrapper.

I enter this tunnel-vision mode when I build. Time disappears. I’m fully focused, calm, almost relaxed. It feels good. It also sometimes pushes aside other responsibilities. My relationship felt it and even my "actual work" was impacted. I know I should stop, but there’s always one more fix, one more improvement that feels quick and harmless.

What makes this different from gaming is that it feels legitimate. When I build, I produce something. There’s an artifact at the end of it. Code exists. A tool exists. It feels useful. There’s much less guilt than when I was gaming, where I knew nothing would remain once I closed the game, apart from this imaginary world in my mind. Building fits much better with the story I tell myself about who I am.

I’ve always seen myself as a builder. My grandfather was a builder. I like creating things, exploring ideas, seeing how far I can push them. Not building makes me feel lazy, like I’m wasting potential. When I stop, I don’t feel rested. I feel useless.

That’s where it starts to get uncomfortable.

A lot of this building avoids harder things. Talking to users. Marketing. Committing to one idea and killing the rest. Facing the possibility that nobody actually cares. As long as I’m building, I’m “being productive,” and I don’t have to confront those questions. Motion replaces direction.

The “just one more feature” loop is almost identical to “just one more turn.” The difference is moral cover. One is clearly entertainment. The other looks like progress. But the tunnel vision is the same, and the voice telling me to pause is the same too.

LLMs and vibe-coding didn’t create this behavior, but they removed a lot of friction from it. It’s easier than ever to explore endlessly, build quickly, and never really hit a stopping point. There’s always another direction to try, another idea to prototype. Fewer natural brakes force you to step back and ask where you’re going.

It reminds me of social media. Social media didn’t invent distraction or validation-seeking, it industrialized it. This feels similar, but for builders. Same psychological mechanisms, different audience, much more powerful tools.

If someone says this is just rationalizing procrastination, I think that’s partly true. It is still procrastination, but it is wrapped in something productive-looking. It feels better than scrolling or gaming, but I’m no longer sure that means it’s actually moving me forward.

So I’m left with an open question, and I don’t have a clean answer yet: When does productive obsession stop being growth? And is building without users just another game?