Why do we play computer games?? The question is stupid, because it’s a no brainer: for pleasure, communication, relaxation. And yet, sometimes doubts overcome me: am I not wasting my life on meaningless things?? Society is increasingly reproaching games, saying they contain cruelty and in general. Friends and family are perplexed: why are you wasting time on this?? After which they get stuck on social networks, also, it would seem, mediocrely spending their time. Double standards are so double.
But let’s dig a little deeper, because I’m sure we need games for more than just entertainment.
So, sublimation and escapism. And yes, I read that Freud’s methods were debunked (this is specifically about sublimation), booed and all that, but this particular term fits perfectly.
Harsh reality
The modern world sometimes demands a lot from us: here you have schools with all sorts of (God forgive me) Unified State Exams, universities with budgets, and adult life implies stereotypes of “success”: an apartment, a car, a family. And also your appearance: lose weight or get fatter, start using makeup/stop wearing so much makeup, men don’t wear long hair – but your head is spinning! Who cares in the end?
But we are all different. And what is good for one is torture for another. Not everyone is able to buy an apartment or a car, they don’t always “get along” with personal happiness, and the same society is nipping at their heels: come on, be like everyone else, come on, loans, mortgages, a wedding “like other people’s”, be fit!
Some of us successfully ignore this, the other part is unable to curb this pressure. As a result, there is an awareness that some things are impossible to achieve or avoid. And then games save us.
We escape into worlds created by others, where we can become someone, travel to amazing places, spending significantly less money and effort on it, and direct our unrealized energy to saving galaxies, creating virtual families, developing relationships. Someone will say "horror"!"and would be damn wrong. If we are deprived of this, then the consequences, I think, will be disastrous.
I am Commander Shepard and https://electric-spins.co.uk/mobile-app/ this is my favorite game in the Citadel
It’s nice to feel cool. And doubly cool and necessary. Now I’m Shepard, everyone really needs me because I save galaxies. I’m having an affair with an alien or extraterrestrial. Or, for example, I am a Gray Warden, the future king Alistair or the witch from the Wild Lands Morrigan looks at me with delight, together we save the world from the Blight. And I’m also a Courier, and I need to help many in the Wasteland, because who, if not me? Thanks to games, you can try on many roles, you can be good or bad, you can “tailor” the world to yourself. But only to sharpen it, because these games don’t allow us more, and sometimes we want. For real space we need simulators and sandboxes.
It’s hard to be a god
Or maybe it’s easy, many people played “The Sims” and felt like they were the arbiters of destinies: this character will achieve a lot, but this one won’t, let me remove the ladder from the pool, let this goldfinch swim properly..
This game had an almost complete cycle of “sublimation” – both a big house and building relationships. With the release of various additions, pets and vacations appeared… And who needs boring reality after that??
But the game has a big drawback – it was designed for one player, and there was no way to communicate (at least the old “angular” Sims), accordingly, this important point “sagged”.
But in Minecraft it is possible to transform the world around you and even has multiplayer, but it doesn’t give the necessary sensations. Online games fixed this.
When the streets are empty
Each of us has our own special list of the first online games that greatly (or not so much) influenced us. At first I only had browsers, because the computer was weak and the Internet speed… not very good. But my friends played Lineage, WOW and other games. Here you can defeat evil (or vice versa, be on its side) and communicate with people. And in the line, among the first, it was also possible to play true love between the characters, and then it came to weddings. The names of spouses, hearts and arrows laid out in gold struck the hearts of other players with romance. In general, the line was a first in many ways, and for many it remains so. Whether this is so, everyone decides for himself. Similar “procedures” took place in Vova and other mmoshkas. All this gave a pleasant feeling of a closed gestalt for love and relationships. Well, the games also had all sorts of additional bonuses for the “newlyweds”.
Further – more. Both houses and lands began to appear in online games. In ArcheAge, if you believe the guides, it’s quite possible to get to the point where you have master’s lands; if this is too difficult, you can do simple farming. At my parents’ dacha, the garden beds are not so steep and the graphics are more boring.
What’s in my nickname for you??
Many single-player projects and online games now focus on developing relationships between characters; in some games we see the opportunity to “level up” relationships with different group members (ME, DA), which has a positive effect on the game itself. We make friends with group members – they fight better, bonus skills appear, etc.d.
The developers understand that people need this game element, since IRL communication puts many people in a wild stupor: guys are afraid to invite, and girls are afraid to go, and let’s be honest, building relationships is a difficult and lengthy process, and it doesn’t always result in something pleasant, and we’re not just talking about romantic relationships. And here almost everything is ready for us, the characters are written, they are interesting, bright, and we just need to make a little effort and play our role in this story. In online games (I’m talking about MMOs) you can choose any character, customization allows you to create the most beautiful or the most terrifying character. Women can play as men, men can play as women. Many people chose those juicy dark elves in the lineup, didn’t they??
I actually fell for the hype and played Revelation. I have no goals of finding friends in the game; frankly speaking, there is only one goal here – to enjoy the views. Traveling is expensive, even within our country. And here everything is simply beautiful, in some ways even meditative. I try to create characters similar to myself, because why else?? I associate myself with these characters – saviors, conquerors, pioneers. Except for games where gg is a man, of course.
May the savior come
It’s cool to feel needed and important, but you shouldn’t realize all this only within the framework of games. Maybe the world is harsh, and not everyone has the opportunity to reach some heights, but why is it? What are these “heights” anyway?? What some people we don’t need are telling us? We ourselves are able to determine our main goals. To begin with, it is enough to help those who are nearby, and, of course, appreciate them. And everything else can be entrusted to games. Or books. Someone else specializes in films and TV series, but that’s a completely different story.
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