In Alexander Galloway’s book on the art of gaming he describes what the gaming world really is and talks about
how people feel and why people are so interested and drawn to these virtual
worlds. I personally have never been one to sit down
in front of a screen for hours and play video games or computer games, although
I am surround by friends and family of my generation who swear by their gaming
abilities and probably couldn’t go long without playing.
To me
gaming just seemed as a pass time. I
never really read too far into them or really thought about how the gamer
interacted with the game but Galloway made me look at it differently. He argues that games are more than just
something to pass time and stare at.
They can take a person out of reality and into a world in which they can
control almost everything. A game can
take your mind off the real world and transport you into a place where all of
the bad things can so simply be solved with a complex X, Y button combo. People crave that and therefore crave games
of all verities. People want a way to
escape their problems when they become too much to handle and a world in which
they can control their fate and have multiple lives where starting over is a
click away. While board games and
puzzles have only one way to become the clearly identified winner, video and computer
games have different ways around levels and alternates ways of winning
depending on how the player plays the game.
It is really adjustable to each individual player, which I never thought
about.
Although I
don’t think I will ever be a true gamer per say, I have a newfound respect for
the creators of games and the world behind them. It’s not easy to create a place everyone
would want to escape to and it’s even harder when your goal is to have a unique
experience for each player.
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