I’m not trying to put down video games at all, I love video games as much as the next guy, but I got to thinking the other day about why we enjoy them so much..
We all play video games for various reasons: Because they’re violent, competitive, challenging, and just overall entertaining. I’m sure a lot of people would agree with me on that.
But I think subconsciously we enjoy them more than we think. I think they’re fun and interesting to us because it gives us certain freedom to be what we can’t in real life, whether it’s a pro UFC fighter, a cold blooded assasin, or just some guy running around stealing cars and blowing shit up. I also think that other than the subconscious freedom it brings, it also lets us make our own decisions without any reprocussions (outside the game of course). For example, you can choose to go down a certain path in a game and fall in a pit of spikes or something like that. What’s the worse that can happen? You start over from the last checkpoint.
Video games give us a sort of comfort blanket in the sense that it takes you to a world that is under your control, a world that never changes. Where you can screw up a million times and not have to worry about whats going to happen. You can make the game easier or even harder if you want. It’s too bad that some people, especially little kids, forget that the real world is the complete opposite of a video game. No checkpoints, no extra lives, and most importantly no reset button.
I really don’t care about video games at all lol, but I actually enjoyed reading this a lot. Your last few sentences were especially great reminders to people that life isn’t a game.
I’m really feeling your style in these last few posts imott. The things you touched on go so much deeper than video games. This has to do with television and other similar outlets as well. I think it’s a nice feeling to sometimes get lost in a game like that, but when it takes over your whole perception of reality, it might not be the best thing for everyone. People often forget that there are no redos in life, but I think that it’s okay to do whatever you want as long as you’re aware of that fact. Great stuff man.
loved it