My Journey

The way The Player First Framework came into existence is quite interesting.

It was 2011.

I was on top of the world – happily married, working in an ad agency and driving around a Bullet.

Life was good. I was a happy man.

And then, I met the folks I had started working with.

One of them was building their house. Another was going on vacation in Venice. And a third was buying a fancy car.

And that hit me like a ton of bricks: Here were people who had started working on the same day as me – and they were way more successful than I was.

They had everything I wanted – and in comparison, I was lagging behind.

So, I decided to take things into my own hands. I decided to catch up with them as quickly as I could.

I joined computer courses. I bought personal development books. I started waking up at 5 AM and started exercising. This worked!

For a few weeks, I felt like I had total and complete control over my life. It was awesome.

But slowly, this started falling apart. I started waking up late. I skipped reading for a few days. And I didn’t really enjoy the computer classes.

Pretty soon, I crashed. I couldn’t keep up with the demands that my new lifestyle was putting on me.

And when I crashed – I crashed pretty hard.

I didn’t just return to my earlier avatar. I blew past it and lost myself in a spiral of depression and ‘giving up’.

I lost myself in video games – especially Diablo 3. It was a beautiful game.

I was a hulking barbarian or an exotic witch doctor who could go about destroying enemies left and right, gaining loot and XP, leveling up and unlocking super powerful skills to do the whole thing again – but faster and better!

It was glorious. I was succeeding at something in life – and I didn’t want to leave that feeling.

This video game addiction went from bad to worse.

I started ignoring things that were important in my life – my wife, my job and my happiness – and I fully lost myself in the game.

Luckily, all that changed.

I still remember.

It was late, around 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning, and I was taking a break after clearing out another dungeon. I opened the fridge and tried to find something nice to eat.

Now, I don’t know if you do this, but when I’m up late at night, the standards for a good snack drops as the night goes on.

At 3:00 in the morning, there wasn’t much in the fridge. All I could find was a plate of desiccated coconut that had been set aside for chutney.

I took that out and started eating in it – when it suddenly hit me.

What was I doing in my life?

Why on Earth was I up at 3:00 AM, eating cold, dry coconut shavings, staring at a computer screen?

That realization shocked me.

It jolted me awake and I had an epiphany: It was the game.

I loved that game because I was “winning” that game. I was making progress there. Every time I got some loot, some gold or a level up – my love for the game redoubled.

What if I could turn my real life into a game like that?

What if my life was a roleplaying game that I could play – with monsters, loot, level ups and special abilities?

That would be awesome!

My journey to do just that began over a decade ago. It didn’t work so well in the beginning. There was so much more to learn – and the journey, well, it’s been an adventure.

In this adventure, I’ve leveled up many things and found that there is so much more to discover in this pursuit of mine.

My love for games is at the heart of everything I do, and naturally it’s at the heart of Put The Player First.

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