It would be quite interesting to see what gaming means to each one of us. Hmm, what about myself? Well, over a period of last 10 years, I have personally spent innumerable number of hours on computer games. It would be quite fair to say that it has been some sort of semi-addiction to me from time to time.
Although my schedule in recent years doesn’t allow me to do so, I myself have been quite a versatile gamer. I have played 3D action games ranging from the legendary Wolfenstein to the more recent ones like Max Payne. I have been a forever loyal fan to strategy games like Age of Empires (a game I would actually recommend as a fun way of learning about history), Caesar and even Commandos. I had quite a fiery fling going on with a Need For Speed 5: Porsche Unleashed (a racing game) before my longer lasting love affairs with games such as GTA: San Andreas (role playing strategy) and The Sims (virtual simulation of real life).
But it was not till the recent time that I realized why I actually loved gaming so much. Now that I come to think of it, I find that we humans sometimes act like such ridiculously dumb creatures! We go on doing a thing without even realizing why the hell we started doing it in the first place! But I guess that’s the charm of it, isn’t it?
All these years, all I was looking for was a chance to become someone/something in the virtual world which I probably cannot become in my real life time. If you come to think of it, there are so many things one would just love to do in his own life, but just cannot. For example, who would not like to experience adrenaline rush of driving a German sports car at insanely high speeds without the possibility of getting actually hurt in the process? Who wouldn’t want to be a king of a great empire of the old ages and win huge wars against his enemies?
I was always fascinated by the kind of activities the soldiers did during the World War II. Various strategies that the allied forces used during the war still interest me a lot. However, given the sort of person I am, I would probably neither survive the strict discipline of an army nor be so ruthless as to stab another person to death with a knife. But a game like Commandos gave me the chance to follow the footsteps of those brave soldiers and totally teleported me into that era. I have thoroughly enjoyed every single mission in this game.
A game like GTA: San Andreas gave me the thrill of playing the role of a thug who becomes a master criminal as the story progresses. You steal cars, you ride stylish bikes, you fight against rival gangs (occasionally against police too)… In short, you get to become the rock star of the imaginary underworld. Now it can be argued that such games might encourage young minds towards criminal mentality. Here, I am not trying to glorify criminal behavior. I agree that there are some objectionable and controversial features in such games (even various other games do have a lot of violence & other inappropriate content). But I feel that if handled sensibly, such games do give us the kind of thrill we all secretly wanted to experience some times. Come on… let’s agree on the fact that we all were at one point or the other fascinated by the anti-heroes in various stylish
Again, a game like The Sims actually gives us the chance to live a second life! The virtual person that you control can actually do the things that you would have loved to do with your own life – play a musical instrument like a maestro, own a huge house, progress through different attractive careers, form different relationships with other (virtual) people, go shopping, wear fashionable cloths and what not. You can actually live your dream life in a virtual avatar!
Now I know that spending lot of time (and money!) on computer games has its own negative consequences too. Your studies and even your eventual careers may get affected because of it. But if kept under control, I feel it is a pretty useful thing to have with you – a thing that allows you to forget the harsh realities of life for some time. If you are sensible enough, you should be able to keep your priorities right. You will know where to draw a line. But within this given space, if you are getting a chance to experience something that you may never get to experience, I think it is a risk worth taking.
There are countless numbers of gamers out there with various degree of interest in gaming. Some may categorize gaming as a total waste of time and money, while some may even go to the extent of considering playing games as their full time profession. Having said that, I feel that surely there has to be fairly good amount of ones who will agree with my above point of view.
With the help of the legendary John Lennon, all I can say is: “You may say I’m a gamer… But I’m not the only one…”
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