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"Why do you play games?" Asked my mum yesterday after I’d emerged from my room after a four hour stint on Excitebike. "I’unno" came my offhand reply. "Because I enjoy them, I suppose" I followed up.
This short but sweet conversation got me thinking. Why DO we play games? Is it because, deep down, we want to be that bloke running around with a gun who always gets off with the gorgeous bird? Is it because, just for a little bit, we want to get away from our miserable stinking lives? Just for a bit, we can get away from it all. We can leave it all behind, forget our problems and immerse ourselves in a different world? Maybe it’s because we’ve just got nothing better to do, so we just need something to kill time. Which one of these is it for you? I know which one it is for me.
Let’s be reasonable here, who DOESN’T want to be James Bond. Who DOESN’T want to leg it around Russian bases blasting the hell out of anyone who gets in your way? Remember what you used to play in the playground? You and your gimpy mate going around, pretending to break in to secret bases, and disarming nuclear weapons. Hell, I even know people who still do that! We’ve all done that. Any normal kid SHOULD have done that. It’s only natural to want to be someone else at some point in your life. Who hasn’t watched Michael Owen on the pitch and not thought, "God I wish I could play like that" Maybe we play games so we look up to the main character in it. Maybe we don’t.
Then there’s the "God I hate my life" option. When you encounter a rough patch in your life, you just want it to go away. So what do you do? Go out on the razz and get completely ratted until you’re so drunk you fall asleep in a flowerbed. What’s the result of that? You wake up with a horrible hang over and the problem seems to have got worse. So what else can you do? Whenever I hit a low point I lock myself in my room, slap WWF No Mercy or ISS 2000 in my N64, stick Acquiesce by Oasis (especially if it’s a family problem) on and just play and play and play. I play until my problems gone, until I feel good about myself again. I immerse myself so much in the game that I just forget what’s going on in my life and until I BECOME the person in the game. Until it’s ME who’s kicking the Rocks rear all over the ring, until it’s ME who’s just scored from 30 yards. I’ll emerge from my cocoon feeling better and happier, read to embrace whatever the problem may be.
Then there’s option 3. I’m bored so I’ll go and play my computer until I can think of something better to do.
I barely ever do this. If I do it’s usually only for five minuets. Why? Because playing a game just to pass time leaves me feeling hollow. I just don’t enjoy it when I do this. I can’t explain why I don’t get enjoyment this way but I just don’t.
I believe that these are the three main reasons why we play games, you may very well have other reasons or thoughts. Post them.
So, which of these 3 is it for you? Is it another reason why YOU play?
This short but sweet conversation got me thinking. Why DO we play games? Is it because, deep down, we want to be that bloke running around with a gun who always gets off with the gorgeous bird? Is it because, just for a little bit, we want to get away from our miserable stinking lives? Just for a bit, we can get away from it all. We can leave it all behind, forget our problems and immerse ourselves in a different world? Maybe it’s because we’ve just got nothing better to do, so we just need something to kill time. Which one of these is it for you? I know which one it is for me.
Let’s be reasonable here, who DOESN’T want to be James Bond. Who DOESN’T want to leg it around Russian bases blasting the hell out of anyone who gets in your way? Remember what you used to play in the playground? You and your gimpy mate going around, pretending to break in to secret bases, and disarming nuclear weapons. Hell, I even know people who still do that! We’ve all done that. Any normal kid SHOULD have done that. It’s only natural to want to be someone else at some point in your life. Who hasn’t watched Michael Owen on the pitch and not thought, "God I wish I could play like that" Maybe we play games so we look up to the main character in it. Maybe we don’t.
Then there’s the "God I hate my life" option. When you encounter a rough patch in your life, you just want it to go away. So what do you do? Go out on the razz and get completely ratted until you’re so drunk you fall asleep in a flowerbed. What’s the result of that? You wake up with a horrible hang over and the problem seems to have got worse. So what else can you do? Whenever I hit a low point I lock myself in my room, slap WWF No Mercy or ISS 2000 in my N64, stick Acquiesce by Oasis (especially if it’s a family problem) on and just play and play and play. I play until my problems gone, until I feel good about myself again. I immerse myself so much in the game that I just forget what’s going on in my life and until I BECOME the person in the game. Until it’s ME who’s kicking the Rocks rear all over the ring, until it’s ME who’s just scored from 30 yards. I’ll emerge from my cocoon feeling better and happier, read to embrace whatever the problem may be.
Then there’s option 3. I’m bored so I’ll go and play my computer until I can think of something better to do.
I barely ever do this. If I do it’s usually only for five minuets. Why? Because playing a game just to pass time leaves me feeling hollow. I just don’t enjoy it when I do this. I can’t explain why I don’t get enjoyment this way but I just don’t.
I believe that these are the three main reasons why we play games, you may very well have other reasons or thoughts. Post them.
So, which of these 3 is it for you? Is it another reason why YOU play?
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Hehehehe, lol Biggles.
I play games to celebrate. I play games to sulk. I play games to pass time. I play games to beat my mates. I play games to lose to my mates. I play games for any reason there is any time.
Biggles
Biggles
Gaming ms exciting, and with companies like Ninty, it is one of the best things around - It could be almost like a drug!
Anyone else?
I play games because I enjoy them. I've been playing them since I was about 10 years old, and always enjoyed them. There's nothing else I'd rather do, it's my favorite form of entertainment apart from Lizzie the lapdancer (who just happens to be a Final Fantasy fan on her days off).
I'll be playing games and playing with Lizzie until I drop dead of exhaustion. (In this heat, we're probably looking at sometime around the end of July...)
I'll be playing games and playing with Lizzie until I drop dead of exhaustion. (In this heat, we're probably looking at sometime around the end of July...)
For me it's a mixture between 1 and 2, never 3.
So option 1 then :-D
You see RBS for me it is because they are fun and you can't do the stuff in games in real life so you can have fun doing stuff you wouldn't normally do!
There are many different reasons why people play games. Games are fun, so if you are bored and want something fun to do you can go and play games.
The also offer you the chance to do something that you probably will never do in real life like drive an aston martin vanquishat 100mph or lay the smackdown to stone cold. Games are so popular now that everyone probably has reasons why they play them. Some games are addictive as well so you tend to play them over and over until you complete them.
The also offer you the chance to do something that you probably will never do in real life like drive an aston martin vanquishat 100mph or lay the smackdown to stone cold. Games are so popular now that everyone probably has reasons why they play them. Some games are addictive as well so you tend to play them over and over until you complete them.
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