Why I Play Games
Thinking about this simple question has had me searching through memories as far back as I can possibly conceive. I don’t think there is a single answer to this question, my preference for the hobby seems to be result of a combination of factors. So let’s start chronologically and go way, way back.
Gaming is in my blood – I was a geek in school for as long as I can remember. I used to get pulled out of class in primary school to install software, set up printers and do up any newsletters etc that the school needed doing. How could a 7/8/9 year old know all this? Simple, my dad was as big a geek as I was. My mother says often that I was typing my name before I could write it. My dad has always been very patient with me and my interest in technology and when looking for something to share that passion with, it’s not surprising we fell into games.
He has always been a gamer, and one of his better stories is how he spent his wedding night playing the commodore 64 after his reception and my mother fell asleep. We used to play games on his old Atari, the grandstand, he even played a bit of playstation with my brother and I before he felt it was getting too advanced. One of the best days ever was when he hooked up our PC’s so we could play Age of Empires over a LAN and I can still remember the first day I beat him, months after we started and he had won every game. I still count myself lucky to have had such a geeky upbringing, the rate of technological infusion in our lives has been astronomical in the last 20 odd years and I was immaculately prepared for it. And for those of you interested in a happy ending, my dad picked up a PS3 controller approximately a year ago to try a little game called “Skyrim” and has since bought himself a PS3.
I am part of the gaming generation – Had I been 20 years older, this article would have been a lot harder to justify but at a meagre quarter century, I grew up with games on the TV, in the schools, the arcades, the times when you could rent more than just a game, you could rent a console as well! We had the cartoons based off gaming characters, Captain N: The Game Master, Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog were our Saturday morning heroes and what better way to celebrate a hero than to use him in a game? The school yard came alight with factions, SNES vs. Megadrive, Playstation vs. N64, PS3 vs. 360 and the ever present PC vs. Console debates.
Games were no longer seen as a pastime for the geeks, they became a stable in our lives. Everybody knew someone with a console and better again if they had multiple controllers. Warm, sunny days were shunned as we walked down the Streets of Rage or settled our differences with Street Fighter. We bought magazines that were nothing but pages of cheat codes, for hundreds of games we didn’t own, and then there were the cheat codes that people never forgot. You can be safe in the assumption that 9 out of 10 games know where to get a whistle in Super Mario 3 or how to get Super Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. And as someone pointed out to me recently, when dealing with cartridges, EVERYONE knew that if it didn’t work, you just needed to eject it and blow on the inside of the cartridge and you’d be back in action. That explains why I played them as a child but what about now?
Games are not childish – I’ve rewritten that title about ten times and while I know there are games aimed at children, let’s take a step back here and look at the vast library of games that are currently available. At any one time, the top ten games being sold is almost always going to contain at least one or two FPS games, usually sold as over 18 games. If it’s been within a year of a GTA game being released, you can count on that regularly showing too. Then we have the more artistic games, not designed to hold your hand and spoon feed you through the game but make you think, contemplate the designers motives and designs until you realise that the message you interpreted is so subtle that sometimes it can take weeks, months and even years for it to register. Look at the games that we have seen over the years, Shadow of the Colossus, Journey, Braid, Okami, all examples that games don’t equal big guns and aliens. Let’s take a more in depth look at the title Heavy Rain. Praised for its graphical ability, Heavy Rain offered more than just easy on the eye graphics. You were being told a story and the more you investigated, the more you received. Your choices mattered, your reactions mattered, your role, as a gamer, mattered.
It wasn’t the first game by a long shot to do this but it was a result of fine tuning years of experience to deliver a chilling story. But the best part was that the more you had experienced in your own life, the more the game resonated with you. I have three children at home and the eldest is almost the same age as the child in the story and the game struck a massive emotional response from me. I couldn’t help the fleeting moments of panic, fear, relief and joy as they fleeting across the screen. We’ve reached a stage now where games should no longer be referred to only as entertainment, games are now becoming Art.
Gaming is rewarding – It’s well understood (http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html as seen here on TED) that games reward us in a way that has us scrambling for more. Be it one more round of a deathmatch, one more race in a tournament, a final few minutes exploration, every little nuance of the gaming world is targeting your brain to make the experience fun and engaging and nothing appeals to your brain more here than being rewarding. Achievements and Trophies are one of the more debated upon features of this generation but we cannot dismiss the intelligence behind their introduction. I don’t feel the need to actively pursue them but I cannot help but be somewhat proud of myself when I have achieved one, either inadvertently or by design. And this coupled with progression in the game, rewarding you with items, additional plot or new levels, each leave me with a small swelling of satisfaction. This is amplified massively when you introduce friends and fellow gamers into the mix. Its one thing to beat the AI of a game but when you manage to beat the person sitting next to you, what would have been a small self-congratulatory smile becomes over the top hooting into your, soon to be ex, friend’s face as you remind them repeatedly how inferior they are to your “epic skillz”. The sorer the loser, the sweeter the victory. Be warned, this rule should not be applied to your partner or it can lead to you sleeping on the couch. Regardless how amazing the head shot was.
Gaming doesn’t get stale – This is not to say there are days when you don’t feel like gaming, I have gone through phases of weeks or months where I just haven’t the inclination to pick up a controller but rather that games have such variety that you can’t get to a stage where games all appear the same. Even the ones that may appear similar graphically may have vastly different game mechanics. Portal was a great example of a twist on the FPS genre, where we no longer have a big gun with the intention of shooting everything that moves, we now need to think about our plan and if there was one thing Portal did well, it was make you think. There are days when I want to get engrossed in a story and I have my RPGs for that, maybe I want mindless violence and I’ll go along with an FPS or Beat em up, and then we have the games that seem to just fall out of genre definitions but still deliver a unique and entertaining gameplay experience. I have gotten to that stage in my life now where I have more games than time but the beauty of this is now I have options to match the mood or mindset I’m in.
I wrote this, not just to explain my background and so people may be better able to understand my opinions and beliefs in my articles and reviews, but also so you may start to question it yourself. Particularly for those of you who may be going through a slump and have no interest in games or those who have never really considered the question before. Maybe now you can take the time to reflect on your pastime and perhaps even derive a little extra enjoyment the next time you turn on game.
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