Games have been a big part of my life for just about as long as I can remember. I've always enjoyed playing video games, boardgames, and I even enjoy sports - the more-likely-to-cause-injury kind of games. I like games so much they that occupy an entire bookshelf in my apartment, a cupboard in my entertainment stand, space in my closets and storage locker, and currently a couple terabytes of harddrive space. I have a lot of games.
The annual gathering of the nerds, PAX East, Boston, MA
But why?
Why do people play games? Aren't they just wasting their time? Anyone who's ever spent time in their youth playing video games can attest to the things said by parents, relatives, and other authority figures in regards to electronic entertainment: "Put down that controller!" "Pick up a book!" "Go outside!" The list goes on.
And while outside has it's merits - the resolution is stunning, and the graphics are amazing, although the game mechanics could use a little work, no extra lives or savegames? Really? - I feel that a lot of the time video games are misunderstood.
Ask anyone who's ever spent hours - or even days - playing a giant RPG, or an adventure games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or Fallout, and they can attest to the richness and depth of the stories told by those games. Many games rival the greatest books in terms of storytelling, with characters embarking on epic quests to save the world, or to escape a terrible evil, or to discover what it is to be human. Games let you do fantastic things: jump higher than anyone has ever jumped, fly, drive amazing vehicles, and save entire universes. How many times have you found yourself reading a book and wishing you could be part of that world? Games let you do that.
I've recently been playing through a game called The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, made by a Polish game studio called CD Projekt RED. The story and worldbuilding in the game is so rich and engaging that it can be easy to assume the world the designers have crafted is a real one, not since the first time I read Tolkien have I been this drawn into a fantasy world.
As a child, I played games because I loved the stories they told, the gameplay was fun and engaging, and so I could explore. Sure I could go outside and explore my backyard, or explore the forest down the street, and I did those things often. But how could that compare to exploring an entire new world, inhabited by fantastic new creatures and alien flora? My generation was born too late to explore the Earth, and too early to explore the stars, but we were born at just the right time to explore the imaginations of each other.
Books, as much as I love them, can only tell you about other worlds, and authors must let you imagine them yourself. Television and movies can show you the worlds of their creators, and yet you only see what they want you to see, and only fleetingly. But games, games can show you those worlds, exactly as their creators intended them to be, and at the same time, let you live in them, however briefly.
It's not just mere escapism that draws people like myself to play games. It's certainly part of it, but games allow the mind to wander, the imagination to soar. Games let us be kids again, and as we get older, isn't that something we all wish we could be?