Why do you think we game? A question of philosophy.

[Vrex360]

I've been a gamer for quite some time now, playing from a selection of *very* specific types of games. And I have been thinking... why do I do this? Why do I play games? What is the long term reason why I am playing games? For a long time I believed that it was simply for the sake of fun and in fact the puzzle games like Portal and the online shooters like Halo 3 and fighting games like Soul Calibur 4 do support this view that I only play for casual fun.
But then...
I played RPG's like Oblivion, Mass Effect, Bioshock (sort of) and did a deeper analysis of the stories in some of my other games. I began to come up with a personal theory of why people are attracted these days at least by games... this is just a theory mind you:
People play games to escape from reality, if you want to be the space saviour of the galaxy you will find yourself playing Mass Effect, if you want to be a high skilled tech soldier you play Metal Gear Solid, if you want to be an arse kicking super soldier you play Halo etc.
This theory extends deeper, being allowed to pretend you are a super soldier is one aspect of the appeal the other part is being able to loose oneself in fantasy and get caught up in a world where things that can never happen in real life exist here.. like for example the women with big bossoms and thin waists in fighting games (shallow but an example nonetheless) because in real life women like that CANNOT exist and while my ethics make me confirm my belief that it is an abomination nonetheless you can only get women like that in fantasy so fantasy has become a favourite thing.
Another more common effect is the overwhelming level of violence, in real life it would be horrible to watch but in games we laugh at it at the realisation that it's not real.. if we laughed at Gears of War 2 style execution in real life then well... we'd get locked up.

That's my theory anyway, why do you think people play games these days.. including yourself?

 

[edinflames]

Two things spring to mind:
1) Escapism, the fourth desire (after food, water and sex) of the human animal. Games deliver better escapism than any other form of entertainment (except perhaps for novels).

2) Games trick the achievement/reward system of the brain.

 

[Legion]

Simply for the sake of fun

People play games to escape from reality

I'd say these two parts are what qualifies for me. I enjoy games, and I enjoy spending the time in a fictional world, the same reason I enjoy reading and watching films.

I don't think the rest of it applies to me.

 

[iJosh]

I think people game because they have actually gotten bored with real life.

Like me, Only real thing I have to look forward to is driving around in my car or playing consoles. I usually go to my friends house then we usually end up having to sober drive our drunken parents. Maybe that's why. Drunken parents?

 

[The_Deleted]

Quick answer: Have you seen what passes for entertainment on TV these days?

RPG's like Oblivion and Fallout3 allow me to get totally lost in a whole other world. Racing games like Burnout or FullAuto2 are just "fucking cool" and let me play something that makes a lot of noise. Sandboxers like GTA & Saints Row2 are just a lot of fun to tool around in when you get bored frustrated with certain missions and games like ROME:TW feed my interest in history and let me play something a bit more cerebral.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

Quick answer: Have you seen what passes for entertainment on TV these days?

This. Theres not much left to do. I've been a gamer my entire life and i play even more these days cause there is nothing on tv. Most movies kinda bite these days too. I'm 29 married with a kid and another on teh way. SO the days of going out, partying, bars, random places of stupidness are over.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

Escape from reality in my opinion.

Either that or they get attracted by the lights and sounds of the game world as kids and that hook stays with them.

Most likely the first one though, in my opinion. Gaming, you can be anyone you want.

 

[Simonccx]

I like escapism but i think in itself it all boils down to fun, you enjoy a game more that immerses you because you become attached to it, the feelings of empathy are stronger. I don't think violence is necessarily the key because some of the most popular games are seldom the most violent, and if you took the level of violence and gore away they should still be good games.

We only need to look at WOW for escapism in practice but i think the other element is social, thats why internet gaming is so popular its a greater challenge but its always fun to have someone to share it with "DID YOU SEE THAT". This is the same reason the wii is so dam successful, its a social console.

Thats my 2 cents, please invest them wisely... in pie perhaps?

 

[Ronwue]

You're not the first person to say that we game to escape reality. It's so obvious it screams captain obvious. Besides giving you the ability to be something you're not, they're also fun.

 

[Shepard's Shadow]

I like the stories in games. Its like reading. Except, you know you dont read it you experience it. Not all games obviously. Some are for the same reasons I go to the movies; its entertaining.

 

[teisjm]

I game therefore I am.

Also, i need the finger muscles to choke small innoscent woodland critters. I play violent games so i have to do sick shit like that or people will think that TV is lying.

 

[veloper]

gaming it's the best form of entertainment.

 

[Rickyvantof]

Same reason why people read books and watch movies, I suppose.

 

[quack35]

You can't hunt deer with a mixture of arrows and lightning in real life.

 

[Biek]

2) Games trick the achievement/reward system of the brain.

Wich is a nice, big dose of endorfine.

Gaming also makes your brain create Adrenaline. It all comes down to chemistry, really.

 

[dukethepcdr]

When we were little kids (at least when I and my friends were little kids back in the 70's) we didn't have video games at home. If we wanted to play a video game, we had to go with our parents to town (about 50 to 90 miles from our homes in most cases) and talk them into letting us go the arcades. If we were lucky, they would take us out to eat at places that had arcade machines. Pizza Hutt in Ogalalla had Ms. Pacman and Galaga when those games came out. If the family went bowling, there was an arcade there.

When we were at home (or went over to visit a friend at their home), we'd play all kinds of games. Not on consoles, but board games, card games etc. Some of my friends had a lot of action figures and we'd make up games or reinact favorite scenes from TV shows or movies we liked with them. We also played outside a lot (we were in the country and it was perfectly safe for little kids to spend almost the whole day away from the house unsupervised). We'd play cowboys and indians, aliens, superheros vs supervillians etc. Sometimes, we had actual toy guns and/or swords, but other times, we just used sticks or made toy weapons out of cardboard tubes and whatever we found lying around. My favorite made up gun was made from a piece of pipe and some kind of valve. The valve even had a part that looked like a handle grip and with the pipe on it, looked like it had a barrel. Put together, it looked about as good as some of the prop guns on Buck Rodgers (I loved playing Tweedee the robot). Of course, we'd all seen Star Wars when it first came out, so we played a lot of lightsaber duels with the biggest cardboard tubes we could find (didn't have any of these fancy plastic lightsabers the kids have these days). We'd even paint them different colors sometimes.

Anyway, my point is that playing video games is, I think, based on that same desire to play-act and pretend that we had as kids. It's not culturally acceptable for people in their teens and older to run around pretending to shoot toy guns or hitting each other with toy swords (unless you get into LARPing or laser tag or paintball or renniassance festivals, but a large percentage of society outside those groups rather look down on such 'adult play'). But, it's perfectly ok, and getting more popular among wider segments of the world's population (make fun of "casual gamers" if you want, but at least they are joining us "hard core gamers" now instead of making fun of us or looking down their noses at us) to do basicly the same thing only in virtual worlds created by our computers and game consoles.

Playing multiplayer deathmatches in Counterstrike, Halo, Team Fortress or whatever your favorite shooter game is, is really just playing cowboys and indians again. Playing RTS games is not that different from playing table-top games of Risk and Mechwarrior. If you have a Nintendo Wii, you can get those lightsaber controllers and duel with your friends in Star Wars Clone Wars in almost the same way we did with painted cardboard tubes back in the day. In fact, most of the games we play on consoles today are based on something we used to do with mostly our imaginations and maybe a few toys or board game pieces as kids.

"I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up" is what I think pretty much sums up the philosophy of gamers like us.