Why play games?

I have been playing games for as long as I can remember, since the day my brother put a controller in my hands at the age of 3 and I was able to hold it on my own, games have been a massive part of my life. That was a long time ago now but still the love for games holds strong and I do often get asked why I play games: is it the entertainment? The bright colours? Well today I’m going to explain why I game and why I think others should too, not because I want to feel better than everyone else - though that could well be an incidental bonus - but because there are aspects of gaming that I think can provide a genuine advantage for people.

A long time ago when I first started playing games, I was very lucky to be in a household that owned an Atari 2600 (for all you youngsters out there that was a very early games console that had wood panelling for reasons that were never explained). This legendary box was the catalyst for such games as Pong, PacMan and Asteroids, the holotypes of what gaming has become. Our Atari was in such a bad condition that you had to prop up the plug input at such an angle otherwise the power would drop out, but none the less I used to brag to all of my friends about how awesome this thing was. Playing multiplayer on an Atari wasn’t the easiest, especially for me as we only owned one joystick, but that didn’t deter me from inviting my friends round to play some of the best games ever, having to pass the joystick between us once we’d died. That was what we classed as local multiplayer back in the day!

From my Atari 2600 to today I have gone through many a console all improving on the last, not just graphically or by what games they offer but in regards to improving local and introducing online multiplayer by producing better platforms and UI’s. Throughout the series of consoles I have owned,  there has been a plethora of games I have attached to and followed. For a lot of them I’ve done this because I like what the game has to offer in theme or look (Fifa is a big example of this being the huge football fan that I am), but there are others that have kept me hooked for more than that. I’m a Halo fanboy, I’ve followed the series from Halo CE all the way up to Halo 5 and I will continue to Halo Infinite. One of the biggest reasons for this is because I can attribute a lot of my hand eye coordination skills to FPS’s (First Person Shooters). For some, a spec on the horizon might not register as a threat but thanks to games like Halo and Call of Duty I have learned to be wary of that spec and usually for good reason.

It’s not just FPS’s that I feel can help a person’s skills, I also spent a large chunk of my life playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band games - to the point of playing without the sound to give myself a challenge. Both these series of games have provided with additional coordination, timing and matching skills that I am very proud of no matter how insignificant they may sound. For a lot of people these may seem obvious but there are definitely people that miss these aspects of gaming. Memory is another massive one that I think people overlook because it comes in game form rather than test form. There are many a game that test your memory skills in a lateral way (showing you a series of images, then hiding them and seeing if you can remember where the pairs were for example) but how about pattern recognition? Boss fights in games usually employ a pattern to the boss’ moves and being able to understand that pattern can be the key to taking that boss down. It’s not just video games that do this though, a lot of tabletop, board and card games offer opportunities to improve certain skills such as understanding probability, reading players and process of elimination. Even the more basic of games like Monopoly and Cluedo utilise these. When you were younger, you may not have realised that the total most probable to show up when rolling two dice in Monopoly was 7.  Cluedo was a game that aimed to teach player the process of elimination. These may seem very straight forward points that I’m making but I bet there are people out there that didn’t know these things.

Moving on from what a game can offer a player mechanically, they can also offer good social skills. Those of you that have read my Magic and Me article will know that my vocabulary skills improved tenfold thanks to Magic: The Gathering along with widening my social circle. Games offer people a new way of meeting others that they may not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise, I know that game chat on something like Call of Duty does damage my point a bit but on the whole I believe there are a lot of good, interesting people out there worth meeting and both video and tabletop games have allowed me to do that.

In conclusion, I think games have brought a lot to people’s lives and I believe they have so much more to give. People may be down on video games but I would argue to the ends of the earth on any point someone could provide me with. I owe a lot to gaming as a genre and without it I don’t know if I would have become the well rounded, socially adept person I am today. So the next time you find yourself condemning your child or a friend of yours for the amount of time they spend gaming, maybe you should think about why they are doing it. Maybe it’s just the sheer enjoyment factor that games can provide but it could also be one of the few ways that person feels comfortable socialising or expressing who they really are.

I hope this has given you a new perspective on gaming culture, if you’d like to hear more let me know on twitter @gcgamingtank. Keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates and as always, happy gaming guys!