So video games are a huge deal. More and more games are coming out and amongst the new generation games like Roblox are getting more and more popular. Here I wanted to leave my thoughts on why people play video games, what kind of video games to be wary of and the potential dangers and benefits of video games and give my answer to the question what is the purpose of video games?
Why people play
I would say and I think a lot of people will agree with me on this is that the reason why most people play video games is because it is essentially an escape route from the real world. In life we will face challenges and our expectations will not be met sometimes we will feel remorse, sadness, guilt, go through heartbreak and more. This is an essential part of life, these feelings teach you many things about yourself and the world around you.
However sometimes they might be too much or a person might just want to feel excitement, adrenaline rush and my favorite, experience a great story not like a viewer, like watching a movie, but as someone who controls a character and essentially is a part of the story.
So it is a means of escape, a means of experiencing a story in a way you cant experience through reading a book or watching a movie. If you play quality games and focus on the story side of games so in essence play games as a way of experiencing a story through a unique media not as a coping or escape method then you can avoid the negative effects of gaming and not fall in the pit of addiction. However it is not so easy and I do think that at a certain phase of a persons life video games can be a great tool to cope with your stressors especially if you don’t have anyone to talk to. I just think that after a while you must come to a state of mind where you no longer feel the need to escape your daily stressors but instead understand that they are tools for self-development and integrate them into your personality.
Games that take advantage of peoples desire to escape
One word… Gacha. These types of games were always around but they have had a massive increase not only in the amount of gacha games that exist but also the amount of people that play it.
What is online gaming addiction? A person is addicted to a game when they are spending the majority of their time playing a game often to the detriment of their health and responsibilities and worst of all is when you’re aware that you shouldn’t be playing but play anyways. Gacha games put you in a reward loop, with every box you open you have a chance to get that legendary character or whatever. You get it boom, instant dopamine strikes and you feel ecstatic, it feels amazing, its like you’ve won the lottery especially if you haven’t spent a single coin in the game. if you don’t get it then you spend more time doing all sorts of missions to get that currency which allows you to open another box.
Some people invest tons of money into the game and I don’t know which is worse, spending no money but a lot of time to get that character or lots of money but a very little amount of time. But lets be honest people you invest a lot of money in the game are the ones that have the most time in the game anyways. Otherwise its just a waste of money if you’re not going to play with that character.
These games can be very fun at first, they might even always be fun with all the new content that keeps coming. But if you’re reading this and you play any gacha game then let me tell you this. I get it, its really fun and you want to have fun but just imagine one day the company that makes the game goes bankrupt or they just decide to not give any more updates for the game and the game is essentially dead with no new content, no new banners and people are starting to stop playing. Then what will you do? All that time and maybe money you’ve spent for that game, all gone and what has it left you with?
I don’t want to sound harsh and I know that people who play these games are able to think this for themselves too. Im pretty sure they have at some point too. And thats exactly why you need to stop. Its an addiction and detrimental when you yourself know the negative effects of it but continue to play anyways.
I don’t want to get to much into addiction and my thoughts on how to avoid it here, but I just want to say this, I love playing video games like last of us, god of war, uncharted and more, games that have a lot of effort made into making, games that don’t try to take advantage of you to take your money, games that just focus on telling an amazing story. These are my kind of video games and here in this website these are the games that I will be talking mostly about and showing merchandise of.
So for me the answer to the question what is the purpose of video games is; to experience a one of a kind story in a unique manner which you are a part of the story.
If you have anything you would like to add, please feel free to do so, I would love to talk with you guys about this topic. If you have any experience with addiction I would be quite intrigued to read it, as I have also been in that road, thank you very much for reading and have a nice day :).
