Throughout my childhood, I really enjoyed video games. In fact, I always chose to play the hero more in a video game rather than the villain. My favorite, of course, was Spider-Man. I felt like I had a skill for swinging gracefully around the city. Another reason I looked up to video games so much is that I loved being able to play with friends and family. Perhaps the Nintendo Wii was the most exciting video game I played in my entire life because it was fun for the whole family.
On the other hand, I want to focus on being a life-long learner, so I play video games that are educational on my phone and require more attention, logic, and memory than any other skill. Video games have now become subscriptions on which people tend to spend a lot of money on and, to me, there is kind of a sense of awkwardness playing somebody I never met in real life. Sometimes people perceive "interaction ethics" as crucial to being part of a gamer community. Yet, I want to play on my own time. For me, I have friend who I play Clash Royale with after 6 months of no interaction. I met this person in real life, but we play and talk when we are voluntarily able to do so. Sometimes due to work or school, I tend to put aside video games and only play when I am on vacation. For this particular reason, I rarely paid online subscriptions to be able to play with other people. In addition, a lot of people I know in real life do not play video games online.
For a lot of games today, one is required to have a lot of skill or a lot of money. Not many video games are being made to play locally inside my house with my friends while having a good time eating pizza. Additionally, the pandemic has made it so rare for people to meet up and play a game.
To be completely honest though, sometimes I feel a lot of shame playing online even with people I know. I lack the skill to play Fortnite and I cannot really pause the game when important matters in life come up because other online players are depending on me to play. Also, for example, I played Roblox Tower Of Misery with a family member and this family member has such good skills in the game that I feel not worthy to play with them. I grew up pressing buttons, and they grew up playing on a touch-screen.
Overall, I perceive video games as a waste of time unless you can actually play locally with your friends while having pizza and talking nonsense on a convenient day.
