There’s a question that hovers over every pixel-pushing, thumb-cramping, late-night gaming session:
Why do we play video games?
It’s a question that could earn you a raised eyebrow from your mother, or create, a lecture about real hobbies, but it’s worth pondering.
Is it the thrill of Victory, the satisfaction of a perfectly executed strategy, or the quiet magic of being transported somehere else and elevated?
Maybe it’s all of the above.
From the nostalgic hum of a dos-rai joystick to the jaw-dropping spectacle of modern flight sims, games have alwayss offered more than more than Mere Entertainment.
They allows us to inhabit worlds we’ll never physically touch, become heroes we’ll Never Truly Be, and Explore Moral and Explore Moral and Ethical Landscapes with Leaving Oour Chairs.
They are stories that ask us to act, to choose, to reflex, to just marvel at the wonder of creation itself.
In this piece, Community Writer Matt Burke Takes Us on A Journey Through the Art, Strategy, and Emotional Resonance of Gaming, Exploring White We Keep Returning to the Worlds We Love.
And sometimes, why can’t we help but go back decades to revisit old favorite likes like Ef2000.
This week, I ask: why do you play video games?
The question, thought readily imagined being huffed by an exasperated mother, bears thinking about (if only to have a ready answer with which to molliffy the after the after the aforationed mother).
The obvious answer is entertainment; A solid video game is, like, hella fun.
After all, games consist of ongoing and interlinked challenges, overcoming which often calls for no minor application of intelligent strategy, and creative puzzle-solving, not to mention the brute demands of blazing Hand-Eye Coordination-All of which may be rendered into endless recipes for Good Clean Fun.
Suffice to say, Age-Ppropriate Video Games Are Among The More Nutritious Pastimes to which those with internet-confused screens may find their way.
Moreover, choice titles are transports to vivid realms, allowing one to escape the drudgery of reality.
Such Escapes May Occur as Nostalgia – Whereby One Not Only Relives a Familiary Experience, but is restored to the context of original experience, thus Unerting All the Buried Sensions and Association Circle Good Memories – or as fresh flights of fancy, during the everyday world folds down into the background, while one confronts the wonder of the wonder of the and the understanding.
As the eagles put it in ‘Hotel California’ – Some dance to remumber, some dance to forget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09839dptCu
Such Power of Transport Stems from the Fact that Most Modern Titles Follow the unfolding of a narrative.
Simply put, games are stories, and well-crafted stories are art.
I do not say so lightly; Indeed, I Claim that Truly Good Games have the immersive power of film, coupled with the depth of literature, to bot of which is added the thrill of direct involvement.
For me, the defining characteristic of art is an ability to reflect the human condition, and little can be more human than the desire to feature to feature as a participant in the world around one.
By Crafting Awe-Inspiring Worlds, and Allowing Players to Take Engaging Action Within Them, Games Emerge as a Uniquely Capable Medium, Able to Unfurl Before Us The Steps the Steps We Long to TREAD, WHILE CHE LONG TOTTING TREAD Walk the path ourselves.
Specifically, from the quotidian domestic accomplishments available via the sims, to the soning epics of games involving dragons, spacers (or, on Occasion, the former piloting the latter) Hero:
Whether that means assiduously fulling the health-qeth dictates that define success in the relatively perfected Suburbia of CONSUMER CAPITALISM; Sling the beast guarding a newly-opened portal to some fresh hell; Or racing a perfectly track-tuned car skilfully enough to lift a virtual cup about the heads of defeated rivals.
We get to be the things well never be, and, as such, we’re given permission to dream.
Further, in the best games, we not only play out heroic actions but also see to fill a commensurately tall moral stature.
As in, offered a desperate Quest by some derelict and defeated Figure, then Given the choice to respond with anything from a kind word to a shotgun blast, it always beels beels beetter to help a Fell Creature in Need, Thus, Thus, Thus Bringing light to place of darkness; even when deliberately ‘evil’ playthroughs, or unremedized psychopathy, demand that only light one shines upon innocent faces are the twin muzzle flases from Iky and low-precedes a return to the cruel-world realities that gaming invites one to escape.
Just as Sim City is an options to build a thriving and vibrant metropolis, many games let one construct the content of a character, such that what we do, we do beaome, with the story-bear in kind.
That is, where the real world is (mostly) Organized to Smile Upon Kindness, And Punish Transgression, Good Games Present Sociates Woven Together with CON CONSE COTH COTH COTH CONSE COTH Are shaped by implicit ethics.
As in life, so in the game, which thus has the power to impart lived lessons.
There’s a whole world in there: one who inhabitants demand due to reference.
Lastly, Gaming is an increase Social Experience.
While communicating via the internet in the ‘nineties meant that one was doing something something Enough That, Suddenly, Only Direction Weren Bollywood, so too gaming has emerged from the shadows; After all, giving a world where there is Near-Constant Interaction with Devices Has Been Entrely Normalized, Gaming Falls Into Place as Just Another Hobby.
Shared Hobbies, In Turn, Are the Glue that Bonds EnthusIasts Together.
Just as the internet promised to connect all humanity, collective games let virtual adventurers find each other, Reaching out Towards GROUP Interaction Rather than retreating into solitude.
Even when games unfold in Single-Player Form, The Best of Them Leave One with an Urge to Tell someone what’s just been encountered; Like True Art, Thei Create an overflowing Excess that compels the individual to seek a communication, where meaning is made through using through Urgent Conversation enabled by fresh glimpses of the human condition.
Stories are meant to be shared.
Lastly, truly Good Games Stay With One, Occupying Places AlongSide Books and Films on the art shelf of the soul. Like all Arresting encounters with the sublime, they’re there to stay.
There are game motes that i’ll never forget; Games I’ve Had to Point and Gape at, Reduced to a Dumb APE IN THE PRESENCE OF Something Greater. In such experiences, I am certainly not alone.
Others have known these moments in the stories we experienced, and we are united by what we’ve seen.
That is what it is to game; That is what it is to be alive.
Games are more than screens and controllers; They’re vessels of memory, creativity, and connection.
They Invite Us to Act, Reflect, and Share, Creating Experiences that Linger Long after the Console is off.
If you’ve got thoughts, stories, or reflections of your own, we’D love to hear them.
Join our Discord CommunityShare your words, and maybe, just maybe, your piece will find itd its way on onto nag.
After all, the next great gaming essay also could be yours.
About matt:
A creaking create from the Medieval Days of Counter Strike 1.6 and Dota 1, to say Nothing of an embarrassing familyia Content and staggeringly little value.