The one where everybody writes in -
July 30, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts!
Don't say we didn't warn you.
We got 80 letters on this topic by the time I stopped taking submissions, most of them lengthy, multi-paragraph affairs. In other words, I pretty much had to read a novella before I wrote word one of this col, which explains why it's so late in going up, and also why your letter (probably) didn't get printed.
And that's a shame, because the letters today were such where I could have written a week's worth of DA on just one topic. The perspectives, voices, reasons I got... just reading through everything was a tremendous education. I seriously considered posting everything without any kind of comment, but I thought that would decrease the chance that a lot of good letters would get read (most people don't have time to wade through 100-odd pages of text in a sitting) so I'm just trying to print as much as I can, and hopefully you'll still find it as worthwhile as I did.
Onward.
| First person |
|
Well, the easy answer is because games are fun.
There's a lot more to it than that though. Books, movies and anime are
suggested as alternate forms of entertainment, but there's one vital
elements missing in all of these: interactivitiy. Yes, while many games
are essentially as linear as anything mentioned above, the player is one
step closer to the action on the screen. It forces you to constantly
react, as opposed to simply absorbing.
It's more than just following the storylines or characters of, say,
RPGs. It works with any other genre. See of all of those explosions in
Bangai-o? I caused that. How about that big steaming pile of alien guts in
Unreal? I did that too. How 'bout that guard I knocked out and tossed
overboard in MGS2? That jerk shot me, and he deserved it. It's fun to get
involved in these things, even it results in you shouting at you FF
Tactics characters, calling them obscenities for once again failing to
make their sword connect with their opponent. Can you really say that
about any other movie, book, or comic? You can root for or empathize with
the characters, but you're still an outsider.
There's even the social aspect of gaming I enjoy. Back when I was younger,
it was mostly to brag that "I beat Mike Tyson on my first try!" or "I beat
Jaquio without continuing", but nowadays, it's more about experiences and
tactics. Who knows how many conversations I've had with friends about the
equipment of FF6 characters, our favorite girl in FF7, or war stories of
monumental proportions regarding Starcraft. I'm sure there are people that
have devoted plenty of their time mastering Dance Dance Revolution to show
off their insane footwork on 10-foot level songs and make other people
drop their jaws.
-Kurt |
This letter's sort of the baseline comment on gaming; if I got pulled aside to do a man-on-the-street type interview, these are the kind of answers I might give in a generic, impersonal sense about why people play games... although not necessarily why I play games. I think there's a common visceral thrill that nearly everybody gets out of playing the standard classic interactive entertainment (Mario, Tetris, etc.) but beyond that, we get into more personal compelling reasons, and that's what the rest of this column's about.
| Why do I play games? Er, I don't... |
|
What a bugger of a topic. Normally I just glance at the next day's topic
and run along, but this one actually sticks with me.
Why do I play games?
You'd think that for a hobby that consumes so much money and time, I'd have
an answer at the ready (if for no other reason than to justify my
purchases)...but I don't. And that bugs me as much as whatever answer I may
come up with. As has been said before, by the Agents and readers, as I get
older I simply find less and less time for games. I think what's important
here is that it's not that I don't have as much time as before, it's that I
choose to spend that time on other things.
I find that I'd rather pull out the guitar, get out and kick the soccer ball
around, or talk with my girlfriend than turn on the newly-bought PS2. And
at college, heck, the last thing you want to be doing is spending time alone
in front of your TV; this is the time of life where you're surrounded by
exorbitant amounts of young, attractive people overrun by hormones.
Honestly, what does running around with a giant sword have to stack up to
those activities?
Obviously, these thoughts aren't boding well for my future as a gamer...I
loaned an old friend of mine my copy of FF9, and he logged twenty hours in a
weekend. The thought makes me sick. It's safe to say that's not the kind
of life I want to live, although 10 years ago it's something I might've
aspired to.
I do still get a kick out of gaming, but it's been a long time since I've
sat down _alone_ and played for more than 20 minutes. I find that I play
the most videogames (and have the most fun) when I'm over at a friend's
house and playing Smash Brothers or some other multi-player game, or even
playing through an RPG (or any one-player game) with one of my good friends.
So I'd have to say that I enjoy games as a fun activity to do with my
friends, as all the magic of playing alone seems to have disappeared/been
replaced.
-Marc "Slowly realizing that he's probably bought his last console" Duyungan
|
There's not much to comment on here, except that I think Marc's reasons hold true for the vast majority of people who play games (although they might not consider themselves "gamers") and I thought those reasons were common enough and important enough so that they warranted mention near the offset of this thing. Let's face it: if you're reading this column, chances are you like games more than average. But to most people, they're a distraction, an entertainment thing, a social thing, not any more or less special than watching the occasional TV program or going to the movies. Again, that's not what most of the letters I got today were really about, but it's something that needs to be said so we can move on to other things.
| Once more, Victor Ireland shows us the way |
"...for pleasantly and painlessly sucking away your leisure time."
Text featured on main page of www.workingdesigns.com
I think that this quote best explains why people play games. Well, me, anyway. I guess one could equate it to a game of chess. It's a luxury activity, as activities go. No physical development, aside from moving your fingers. Mental stimulation is found in both. And it's not like homework, you're not assigned a particular move or level-up to achieve by the end of the day. But you do have to work at it to get any good at the darn things. Both take time, God knows. Now, while I'd like to say that it's as intellectual an endeavor, I know I'd be lying out the proverbial wazoo. It's a way to blow off some time when you don't have something pressing, as WorkingDesigns' webpage states. I do it for the ability to immerse myself in fantasy, alternate realities, etc. It's like reading a good book, only now you have a ton of pictures to go with it.
Realizing he's late for Juvinile Court (internship, not delinquincy hearing),
-Aleksandrs Bomis
|
"Luxury activity". I like the sound of that. One thing that usually doesn't get talked about in this column is video games as "games", something relatively lightweight, compared to the rest of life, something that challenges one particular mental or physical skills, but doesn't (shouldn't) ever get taken too seriously. There have been plenty of good books written about the value of such things, and why they're important, not only in the sense of relaxation but in the context of society and creativity.
The problem is, there are a lot of people who'd disagree that video games, for the most part, have anything to do with that legacy. Most of the time, you're fighting against a puzzle or reflex pattern a programmer inserted into the game, and when you're playing against someone else, it's often just to see who can twitch faster than the other. I'd like for video games to be able to live up to the tradition of, say, Go, but for now, I'm forced to agree: as great games go, they're little more than a trivial game of checkers.
| Do what thou wilt |
| Part of me doesn't want to write this, because I also don't think too highly of most "hardcore" gamers myself... But Nich's smugness and blatant self-superiority complex forced me to respond despite my best efforts.
The bottom line is, nobody has any fucking right to question why a person chooses to live a certain way (within such limitations set by legalities and good taste of course), nor do they have any right to consider themselves better than anyone else because of such lifestyle choices. I have a job, a family, a house in the suburbs with a German sports car in the garage and you know what? Sometimes when I hit the pause button and look around, I long for the days when all I saw was a 12inch black and white TV, a folding metal chair, and a Styrofoam cooler full of discount beer.
I've got friends and I get exercise daily and I still doubt that I will ever live to see 40. You can be mister fucking universe with all the friends in the world and your life may very well still suck. Happiness and contentment is wherever you may find it, and Nich (nor anyone else for that matter) doesn't have the fucking right to question that or say it's inferior to anything else. Even if my hobby was pounding nails through planks with my forehead, if it makes me happy does that make it inferior to teenagers who get off sitting outside mall entrances passing around a cigarette in some lameass social ritual?
Nich should stop acting like some religious convert who has "seen the light", get off his fucking high horse and accept people who live the way they want to. Maybe someday down the line when he's haunted by some past memory, or some friend backstabs him for reasons he can't understand, he'll flip on his PS5 and sit back and realize how simple life can be sometimes, if only for short, fleeting moments.
The Trooper
|
I guess this is the part of the col where I get to weigh in my own opinion on what Nich said yesterday, and for the most part, I agree with what you say above. From a purely theoretical standpoint, people should be able to do whatever the heck they want, and it's not anybody's place to say otherwise.
Except...
If only from a practical standpoint, there are productive and unproductive ways to waste your time. The crux of Jason's letter yesterday wasn't merely playing games, or even merely going on gaming binges - he was talking about obsessing over games, living your life for games, to a point where you might measure your self-worth through how many times you've played through Chrono Trigger or Dragon Quest 6, how spectacularly you can flame someone who doesn't know what's old school, or how many hundreds of Japanese RPGs you can claim to have finished.
I think what Nich was getting at yesterday (and what I agree with regardless) is that while you might enjoy yourself while you're doing it, in a few years (or decades) you'll look around and find yourself with nothing but a lifetime of cutesy sprites for company. Of course, as you say, you can find yourself with nothing no matter what you do, but it's not like you can't have both, and given the choice, isn't it better to try and do something productive than to wrap yourself in a dream world for the rest of your life?
| Full of hatred for someone who's full of hatred |
| Chris,
Over the past few weeks I have noticed that Nichís
columns are full of hatred. He has been extremely
rude in his responses to some letters and has openly
insulted all the readers. Several times he has stated
his opinion that hardcore gamers are losers thereby
suggesting the greatness of non-hardcore but devoted
gamers like himself. He is forgetting one small
detail, most of the columnís readers are hardcore
gamers and it is disrespectful to insult them while
they are the ones clicking the banners so the GIA can
make some cash.
His hatred to the gaming world goes even further. He
has repeatedly criticized you, insulted your free
topic days, and suggested that you are not part of the
GIA. Then he follows his remarks by some sarcastic
comment suggesting that he is better than you and all
the GIA reader. Initially I thought that maybe his
girlfriend dumped him and he was taking revenge on the
readers but by now I am convinced he has some sort of
mental problem. His lack of professionalism is
inexcusable.
|
I very nearly didn't publish this because it wasn't signed, even with a pseudonym; if you're going to write in such things about members of this site, it seems only reasonable that you give a label to the person saying them.
Still, this did said most concisely what a lot of letters were trying to say, and it's something that I wish Nich could have handled on one of his own days, since it's his right to defend himself in person. But that aside, I'll disagree pretty strongly with what's being said - having met him in person, and worked with him for over a year, "full of hatred" is the last adjective I'd use to describe Nich. He's a really, truly, incredibly nice guy, almost too much so at times. I've never felt that any insult or judgement towards me or the site's readers as a whole was implied, but I do think he's very much frustrated, and I can't say I blame him.
Consider the Legend of Dragoon flames feature: while it might have been interesting and amusing to everyone else, those only represented a fraction of the mail he got about his review, flames that came in bit by bit over a year. By the end of it I'd have been ready to rip the throat out of anyone who looked at me funny, so it's amazing that he's only slightly disgruntled about people who treat gaming as if it was some sort of sacred religion. And as with the rest of the staff, he's had his own moments of doubt considering the monumental amount of work he's put into this place, and while it's definitely his place to talk about those issues, I will end this with a consideration that all full-time GIA staff have to think about:
We put so much time and effort into this place that it is, for us, the kind of time and money sink that video games are for the abovementioned hardcore gamers. The difference is that while they're free to pursue their hobby in peace, we have people commenting, often unfairly, on what we do, day in and day out. There are some benefits to working here and doing what we do, but if you were in this situation, I doubt that the burdens would weigh any less heavily on you.
| Not everyone agrees, apparently |
| Chris,
Nich pointed out that there are far better ways to spend one's time than firmly planted in front of a screen and for the most part, I agree with him. But don't get me wrong, I'm by no means a casual gamer. Some of my earliest memories are of videogames, namely atari and NES. Being 19 years old I am willing to bet that I've spent more time playing videogames than watching TV or dare I say, reading books. Do I feel like my time was wasted? Not in the least. I was a kid and thats how I chose to spend my time. Sure I went outside and played. Kids were always coming over my house and not just because I had all the games. But still, when I could I'd be alone in my room playing a game.
Now that I'm older it is beginning to catch up to me that life isn't always about videogames. I've known this for quite some time but only recently has it stuck out in my mind. But yesterday when I read the last paragraph in Mr. Alexander's letter I was floored:
"Hardcore" and "Entrenched" gamers, unite! Spend hours sitting on soft sofas in dark rooms playing RPGs, eating horrid junk food and surfing the 'net for the latest gaming news. Maybe even take a break every now and then to watch some anime while your thumbs heal up. And don't let anyone tell you that your lifestyle is "wrong". So what if all the exercise you had today was walking to EB or Babbages to pick up a game? You probably got it before anyone else. You were the first. That isn't laziness, that's devotion.
That's not devotion at all, thats obsession. And such a thing as that isn't healthy at all. I realize I should be one of the last people to talk, especially right after my 10 hour Diablo 2 session but I was stunned by what I read. I've always believed in freedom of lifestyle but to read something like that and realize that the person is serious is disturbing. If being a "hardcore" gamer means shrugging off family and friends, then count me out. I love these damned little games but, as corny as it sounds, I value my friendships more. Whats the point in being alive if you're practically a corpse anyway, just sitting there staring at nothing all day? Ack, too much thinking...
A6025
|
The question of "devotion" vs. "obsession" is something that I've been thinking about with regard to games (and my working on this column) for a while now. On the one hand, it's true that devotion can pay off - some of the greatest artists in history have been obsessed with their craft, and among other skilled people (musicians, for example) it's that extra little bit of attention to practice that separates the merely good from the really great. And even if you're not making or creating anything, at least you're interested in something, right? You're not drifting through life, appreciating nothing, without a purpose, mocking everyone who does have something that they care passionately about.
And again, I think it boils down to how much you really care about what you're doing. If (and this is a big if) you honestly understand the tradeoffs in obsessing about something to the exclusion of almost everything else, then it's your decision to make, and more power to you. But I think a lot of the time, people don't understand their obsessions; it's something they stumble in to, without ever realizing what they're losing or what else they could be doing. That's a tragedy, and it shouldn't happen.
| Fighting the future |
| Other than the twin excuses of "Good storylines" and "fanfiction fodder," I think the main reason I play games so much is out of sheer nostalgia - allow me to explain.
The fact of the matter is, I'm getting old. I'm pushing twenty, and games were an intergral part of my childhood. Since I really don't want to grow up, this is part of the rebellion.
It's an odd bit of obsessive-compulsiveness - I'm always trying to capture the feeling I had playing games as a kid. The excitement I used to get when my cousin would let me use his SNES, or when I got a new issue of Game Players - there's really nothing like it in the world.
The closest I've ever come to re-capturing this elusive emotion was when I played FF7 for the first time. It definitely was there, and now I play through stacks of RPGs, hoping to find another one like it. Sadly though, I don't think I ever will.
-Negative Creep
|
I can't relate to this.
I know it's odd to leave that sentence up there by itself, but I wanted to get across just how much it is true. From a purely personal standpoint, I can't get behind it because I've never really felt that I was "getting old"; I change, sure, I learn, I adapt, I grow, but the core things that made me happy at 10, 15, 20 are still largely what makes me happy at this age. To put it succinctly, I've never felt I had to rebel against my own maturity.
That, and as a 25-year old geezer, I do have to take the phrase "...I'm getting old. I'm pushing twenty..." with a grain of salt. That's not to say it's not a perfectly true or valid way of looking at things, but like I said...
I can't relate to this.
| Holding on to the past |
| Chris-
Well, the farthest back memories I have of gaming were when my parents bought
the NES for Christmas. I was 5 at the time, I believe, and every subsequent
memory that I can scrape out of my skull from that time involve video games.
Watching my dad play Duck Hunt so far away from the TV the NES fell out of
the entertainment center. I remember getting Mario Bros. 2 and reading
through the instruction book while my brother tried to play. I remember
making maps on Excitebike, playing slow-mo baseball with Baseball, playing
golf with my dad on Golf.
What I'm getting up to, is that video gaming's been ingrained into my mind
from childhood. It's followed me from the NES, to the Master System (yay for
garage sales) to the Game Boy, to the Genesis, to the SNES, to the N64, and
finally to the PSX. I remember each day of when I got each system as if it
were yesterday. Personally, I play games because they're one part tradition
and two parts fun. They're fun to me for reasons I don't really truly know,
though. It's a strange need brooding inside of me, if I haven't played a
video game in a month, I'll get out whatever game I haven't beaten and start
a new game to try and beat it. It's like an addiction, but one that's low
enough on my list so I can get exercise or do schoolwork when needed, instead
of playing till 5 in the morning and writing an essay in the 2 hours left
before school. It's all terribly insane. I'm starting to get confused by my
own letter. I'd better stop now before I collapse and take the fetal position
with the nearest console controller. Ciao.
--Opty
|
Initially when I sorted through the letters today, I read this and Negative Creep's letter above, and mentally grouped them into the same category, intending to reread them later and print whichever one seemed to make the point better. But after rereading it, I'm starting to think it gets at something entirely different: whereas NC seems to be playing games as a way of holding on to who she was, Opty seems to be playing games because of who he currently is.
I have friends who have been jogging since they were in high school, and they're now at the point where it's so ingrained that the things that bother most people trying to jog (shortness of breath, leg pains, a general inability to push yourself that hard) don't even come into play. Part of it's physical, but mostly it's mental - those things are such an established fact to them by now that they've stopped being problems and are just part of their daily lives. In the same way, gaming for Opty's like the air: you never notice it until it's not around anymore. In a way, this Zen gaming's far more hardcore than the most entrenched gamer could ever be, but it's a lot more subtle and less intrusive too; not at all a bad reason to play games.
| Yet another GIA member who "hates" games |
| The questions that Nich posed in yesterday's column are precisely why I'm not too keen on games these days. There really isn't any reason to play games as long as they're not going to live up to their potential and challenge other media on equal ground.
We're well past the age of tiny sprites, tinny music, and all-caps text. Developers certainly have the power to create intelligent games with real substance, games that could actually be deemed art. Unfortunately, they get away with releasing the same formulaic least-common-denominator tripe and tired remakes because they keeps on selling. (I should add that this is a problem with pretty much every medium, not just games -- I see even fewer new movies than I buy new games.)
And as long as enough people are willing to accept less than the best because "they're just games" or "we should be thankful for whatever [insert company name here, usually Square] gives us", that's never going to change. After all, from a financial perspective, why bother putting heart and thought into your games when you can just dredge up the standard RPG clichés, call it Skies of Arcadia, and garner rave reviews from nearly every gaming publication in existence?
I like games, but I can certainly live without them. If I don't see any games coming out that interest me, I simply won't buy them - and, unfortunately, that's getting to be more and more the case these days. I still buy, love, support, and thoroughly enjoy the creative, thoughtful games like ICO and Xenosaga when they come out; I just wish there could be more of them.
And until there are, I'll be voting with my wallet.
- Fritz Fraundorf, also impatiently waiting for fanfiction.net to come back up
|
This isn't even so much about playing games as it's about not playing games, and even among GIA staff, there's few people I know who know more about games than Fritz does. There's nothing I can do to qualify these remarks, and the only comment I can make is that given that Fritz feels this way, is it any wonder the rest of us don't adopt totally hardcore attitudes?
| Variety is the spice of life |
| Well, I play games because I enjoy them. I don't know, to the letter,
why I enjoy them, but I do. I have free time, I have $40, I go buy a
game, and I play it.
However, I do feel that Nich was kind of off in regards to that first
letter. Basically, because I've been there. I play soccer at my high
school. I'm far from being good at it, mediocre at best, but I enjoy
the sport on a personal level, much as I enjoy games. However, I've
seen many people there who have nothing but soccer. Or football, or
basketball, etc. They aren't stars, they won't get scholarships, but
still, the sport dominates their lives. And the "accompanying
lifestyle" is massive drinking, insane driving, and an utterly mundane,
unchanging lifestyle. They, really, are not better than the
over-obsessed gamers who do nothing but games. I know and interact with
these people quite often, and I can safely say that if their lifestyles
are "productive", then I'm glad I'm "unproductive". When they "hit the
pause button", that is, no longer have their sport to occupy their time,
they too will see that they have nothing left, and they'll in pretty big
trouble as well. On the other hand, most "gamers" I know, ie. the kids
at school that I would play Diablo II with every so often, tend to be at
least somewhat in tune with real world issues and at the very least
could squeak by in some IT job (just like the rest of us, huh?)
My point, I guess, is that no "extreme" is ever a productive and healthy
lifestyle. However, I don't think it's correct to say that people who
never pick up a controller in their lives are automatically better off
than those who do - Nich seems to be in the midst of some kind of denial
or masochism to think that the very people he serves by working at the
GIA are scum who are forever doomed to live unsatisfactory lives in
comparison to "non-gamers".
...which leads me to my last point, which is that there is a LOT more
diversity, at least in my (teenage) age group, than he would make it
seem. Come on. Who hasn't, at some point, played Snood on their
computer? Or gone to their friend's or or s/o's house and played some
Goldeneye on their N64? Everyone has played "games". To different
extents, but electronic entertainment is part of American culture and
lore now. I know football players who thought FF7 was loads of fun, and
I know total brainiacs who think games are a big fat waste of time.
It's ALL relative. It's forcing yourself to live up the expectations of
others that makes you go sour on life. Games are supposed to be fun,
and nothing more. Look at your own motto: "E Ludis Delectatio" - From
games, enjoyment.
- xmatt
|
This kind of gets me coming and going; when you criticize obsession in general and comment on the breadth of experience most people (even "non-gamers") have with games, you don't leave me much to comment on. I guess all I can really do is caution against completely blowing off the idea that there's some correlation between quiet, asocial nerds and games, as the next letter shows off pretty well.
| Self-hatred |
| If we're that obsessed to be writing into a letter column on an RPG gaming site, I do believe we play RPGs for the sole reason that the people in RPGs have rich, fulfilling lives.We all also realize that we can never amount to anything like that, so we just pretend that we are them. By the way, I'm this guy too. Thanks for asking.
-Vert
|
Here's the flip side of the above letter; yeah, if you're reading this, you likely have more than a passing interest in games. And while I know there are plenty of gamers out there who have complex, fascinating personal lives (not to single out anyone whose name is synonymous with sex and evil or anything) there are also plenty who don't, and don't feel like they ever will. I could have printed five or six letters nearly identical to this one, and that's likely just the tip of the iceberg.
And I don't know what to say about that, except that as someone who used to be a good deal less social than he currently is, I can say that there is an interesting world completely outside of games for you to find.
On the other hand, my social life has largely picked up because I started obsessively writing a letters column about video games for a major video game website, so maybe you should take what I say with a grain of salt.
| Be all you can't be |
| I play games because I like what they can be when they transcend power-ups,
weapons, armor, high scores, lives, bosses, and secret levels. It doesn't
happen often.
I like being presented with moral choices that challenge my view of the
world. Having the person I considered "me" in The Sims kiss another guy.
Do I choose to throttle my creature in Black and White for eating a fickle
human who doesn't really know me, or be patient with the only thing in a
videogame that has threatened to know me, look me in the eyes, and wants to
play catch?
I like given the chance to feel what is denied of me in human form. Flying
in Mario 64 just fit a space of my dreams so well that it hurts at times.
I like seeing games allow me to express myself in new and interesting ways.
Dancing in DDR or Samba De Amigo. Having the most odd conversations in
Seaman. Being a chicken farmer in Harvest Moon.
-Scott-
|
Earlier I said that "games are fun" was the answer I'd give as to why people play games in general, but this answer - "games let you do cool stuff" - is partially why I believe people should play games. Other media vicariously offer you various thrills and experiences that you can't get in real life, but none offer them quite the way games do, and the reality of the gaming experience only gets better as time goes by. I don't ever want to be wrapped up in games so completely that I forget who I am forever, but every once in a while it's great to be a flying plumber, like Scott says. And if games get good enough so that everybody can get that flying plumber feeling, I suspect a lot more people will start calling themselves "gamers".
| Triumph of the nerds |
| Well, I was reading through the Megatokyo archives yesterday, and came across one of Piro's rants, this one about save points. You have to scroll down and search, but he says... "The real thing gamers crave is the ability to go in and become experts in something - mainly because it lets them do it over and over again till they get it right." And that's what it's all about. Getting that little self-esteem boost from doing something right. You don't get that feeling of accomplishment when you finish a book or movie. It's the same as winning a race or at sports, only without the exertion. Or, a better comparison would be solving a Rubik's cube or coding and debugging a program till it works right or something. It satisfies the psychological desire to not suck. 'Cause sucking at something... well, sucks.
Of course, then why games and not sports? Well, many of us aren't very talented at physical activities (like typing... hold on, let me catch my breath...). And since sucking at something is not desirable (and we can't be good at everything), people tend to avoid doing something they suck at. And at least with video games, before you master it, nobody else knows you suck.
Since mastery of a video game usually occurs during normal play these days, it's much easier than mastering basketball or hockey, which take thousands of hours of practice to play like the pros.
-Aeonus, sucky at sports... not at games.
|
What you say strikes me as partially true; I used to get a buzz that I'd beaten a certain boss, or figured out a particularly intricate puzzle, but these days I don't go for that particular thrill so much, and given that you can now look up nearly any solution you need on Gamefaqs, gaming in general doesn't seem much directed towards that type of payoff either.
On the other hand, "why not sports" is pretty interesting. There are a fair number of physical things you can do that play off of the same hand-eye coordination that video games reward, so why isn't, say, archery as popular as games? For me at least, I can say that in nearly every sport I've ever seen or been a part of, the problem isn't lack of skill but sheer boredom - things didn't happen as quickly as I wanted them to, whereas in games, things happened at a suitably entertaining pace. Since I figured this out, I've always been plagued by the question: have video games completely destroyed my generation's sense of patience, or are all sports just too low-bandwidth for the digital age?
| Your daily plot fix |
| My reasons for playing tend to depend on the game. If the game heavily
involves strategy (FFT and the like, the more stealth-oriented action games)
and/or puzzling out a solution (any Sierra or Lucasarts adventure), I usually
play to exercise that grey matter of mine. Platformers, first-person
shooters, and other twitch-fests I play simply to blow stress, have fun, and
perhaps prove my superiority to some guy in New Jersey named d00d-Meister.
And then there's RPGs and similar games, which I mostly play for the story.
Yes, I know Nich eliminated that last one as an option. But it doesn't
matter to me that there are better stories out there in literature. There's
nothing, after all, stopping me from reading the Wheel of Time saga when I'm
not playing Deus Ex. But you see, I'm the type that gets seriously involved
in any long plotline. Be it book series, anime, or game, if I'm not
dying to know what happens next by the time I'm 5 to 10 hours in, the writer
probably needs to go back to welding school. In fact, I've played all the way
through some otherwise seriously sucky games simply because I had to see the
ending of a good tale.
Call it a personal quirk, or the mark of a born RPG-addict. Either way, I
can't talk about it anymore, because JC Denton's about to discover the truth
about MJ-12. Excuse me.
- ChocoMog ZERO
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This answers the question "why do you play RPGs" a bit more than "why do you play games", but it's an answer that likely holds true for a lot of people out there. A good long RPG gives you nearly as much plot as you'd find in a season's worth of a TV or anime show, which leaves you with the following options: wait 9 months for your favorite serialized show to give you a drop of plot every two weeks or so, spend a couple hundred bucks acquiring all the DVDs to the anime series of your choice, or spend $50 bucks to buy a game you can plug and play in your PSX immediately. Tough choice.
| Evolution's ladder |
| Books do have better stories. Movies do look better. But games have the potential to take the depth and complexity of a novel and combine it with the visual splendor of a summer blockbuster.
I've been playing games ever since the C64/Coleco/Atari days. I've seen the evolution from Pole Position to Gran Turismo 3. Real video gaming did not exist before I was born; yet here we are, witnessing beautiful displays of technological creativity that surpass anything we could've imagined just a decade ago.
The reason I've always played games is because I'm still waiting for the one that immerses me completely in its world, just like my favorite novels have. Except instead of forming my own vision of that world, I'll get to see what the creator really intended. Don't get me wrong; I have a deep-seated love of actual life, but what I seek from games is the opportunity to experience the bits of reality (or realistic unreality, as the case may be :) that aren't available to me (or aren't desirable without that "It's Just A Game" buffer).
Yeah, it's kind of a high-falootin' reason when I could just say "because they're fun", but it's the truth. We're witnessing the infancy of our culture's latest form of storytelling, yet most people write it off as something trivial. Bleh. :P
-Jason Golec
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And we're gonna leave this column off with one simple, final reason: potential. The potential to play something really, truly unique and marvelous and incredible, and the potential to say to people that you were there on the ground floor, all those years ago, when things were getting started. Sounds like a good reason to stick around to me.
Closing Comments:
I honestly wish nobody would send me any letters tomorrow, just so I could print more of the stuff I didn't get a chance to today, but that's not likely to happen. So for tomorrow, on top of the inevitable feedback I'm gonna get on this column, anser me this: you've just told us (at great length) why it is you play games. But do you really think you'll still be playing them in 20 or 30 years, when you've "grown up", for want of a better term? And more importantly, how will you be playing them? Not so much on the technological side, but will games be something you'll do as a family activity, or will you be mooching off your kids' games, or will you be playing stuff like Silent Hill 2 that's adults only, or what? See you then.
-Chris Jones, asks himself not why he games, but "why do I write this column?"
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