I was talking to a friend recently who said that he would never play Fifa because he thought, if he ever felt like playing football, he would much rather get a ball and a few mates and head down the local park. This got me thinking. Is the reason we play games all down to escapism or is there something else?
Taking my mates comments in mind, if I wanted to play war games, surely I could join the Army. There, eventually, I would be given a gun and I would be able to run around a battlefield at some point, shooting bogies all over the place and making sure I kept my frag-score high. This, however, sounds more like scary, scary shit than jump-for-joy fun! I think the problem here is that if I die in real life, respawning ain't so easy. In fact, some might call it impossible. Since ending my life isn't exactly what I had in mind, the next best thing is to grab a copy of Call of Duty 4 and shoot the shit out of my friends. This is fair, I think.
Let's get a little bit more ridiculous with this. The reason for the controversy behind Manhunt and Manhunt 2 was that, if these acts were to be carried out in real life (Manhunt is about making snuff videos), one would most certainly be locked away for quite some time. Also, I don't know about you but I find the prospect of making snuff videos rather immoral. So, people who agree with me (that should be most of you) can play this game and get away with it. This obviously is escapism. It creates a world where the immoral and the highly illegal are allowed and won't get anyone hurt (except for the minds of young children everywhere!).
Grand Theft Auto has a similar means of escaping the real world. You can steal a car, drive to the gun shop, buy an arsenal, sleep with a lady-of-the-night in the daytime, kill some cops, run some innocent pedestrians down, smash the car up trying to jump over a river and calmly walk home and go to sleep. There is a way for Americans to escape everyday life too; fly a plane? earn some money? go to a gym? Anyway, my point is that escaping real life by committing crimes in a video game is something that occurs often.
Let's bring it closer to home. If I wanted to, I could go and buy a skateboard from a shop in town and I'll be skating in mere minutes. However, if I ever wanted to pull off a 360 flip to Crooked grind... well, it would never happen. So therefore, a brilliant game called Skate was invented so that I don't have to humiliate myself. This is a game that allows me to achieve pro skater status without ever falling off and killing my chances of procreation.
So here is where I prove my friend that he's an idiot. Take all of the sports that I can't at least reasonably well; skateboarding, golf, cricket, basketball, ice hockey, snowboarding, race driving, etc. All of these are sport that I could never play to a skilled level even if I practiced everyday. This is why I play them on consoles, because it allows me to play them to a skilled standard. The same could be said of the sports that I do play, even if I'm a bit rubbish; American Football, Football, Rugby. Playing these sports on a computer allows me to play at a level I could never reach. This still isn't enough to claim escapism though.
I think there's something else. Maybe I enjoy games on a different level than simulating what I want to do in life. Some games run on a narrative and then the game turns into something more like a film where, instead of escaping my own life, I'm involving myself in someone else's. This can't be said of sports games, however. Some games are just about playing. Pacman has no real-world values and no narrative but I love playing it. The same goes for Tetris. Maybe sports games are the closest things we have these days to arcade games and, while they play no real part in escaping our lives because we could play them ourselves for real, they are fun to play. They don't need to replace the real thing, it isn't a choice of one or the other, they are both there for the enjoyment of all.
Games are fun and we enjoy them, sometimes because of the escapism, sometimes because of the narrative and sometimes because we just do.
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3 comments:
It is amazing how much the games have changed over the past 30 years. The realism in today's games as opposed to the block and pixel scenes presented in the 70s and 80s games is unmatched.
You still can't beat a bit of Tetris though.
As gaming blogs go, this is perhaps one of the worst I've seen in a vast cyber world of 'wannabes'. Putting aside the poor structure, grammatical errors and incoherent sentences such as "Maybe I enjoy games on another level that simulating what I want to do in life", it ignores many of the important factors in the debate.
It ultimately fails to answer what appears to be the key question; will video games produce a generation of unsociable hermits?
The common misconception that gaming is a solitary activity is at no point challenged. A key attraction of games like Halo 3 is that many people can play simultaneously, communicating with each other as they progress.
Many people assume that video gamers who spend hours in their bedrooms meeting people online must lack social skills when put in real-life situations. This blog does little to dissuade that myth. Banter is rife and often this brings the so-called 'anti-social' out of their shells.
Finding a common interest is a key concept in this; school or work friendships often revolve around shared interests and experiences - gaming is no different.
These suggestions are not mere conjecture. This is perhaps where this blog lets itself down the most - where is the supporting evidence? If the author took the time to do his homework (and not come across as a complete amateur) he would find that there is a great deal of research around. To name but one, Dr Mark Griffiths, a professor in the Psychology Division at Nottingham Trent University has found that playing video games can even make the gamer more sporty. Evidence such as this would have done a great deal to enhance what is ultimately an extremely amateur and incoherent blog.
Gav Ogden
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