Introverts on Video Games

As most people know, introverts are big on their alone time and mental stimulation through reading. What many may not realize is that introverts make very good gamers as well. Video games share many qualities with books most of the time: a good story line, engaging characters and thinking critically about what is happening in the story. Then it has bonuses like being able to visually see the story happen in front of us on top of us being able to be more involved (controlling characters/narratives) of these stories.

With video games becoming more and more immersive and VR having rolled out less than a month ago, games are beginning to become more and more life like, attracting more and more players, including introverted gamers like myself. Our favorite games are likely not sports or first person shooters (fps) that are about the fighting but involved, open world games that enable us to be more than a single character stuck on the same story line as everyone else; Games like Skyrim, Dragon Age Inquisition, Assassin's Creed games, Dark Souls and others that allow us to not only be and play a character but come very close to building a life in that game and letting us choose how we play.

If an introverted gamer wants you to play with them, we are asking you to join us in a life, to share experiences on there. We want you to not only spectate but impact our actions, be involved in our thought processes. In Assassin's Creed Unity for example, there is co-op missions that allow us to see and work with other players, if two people were in communication on there, one person causes a distraction and the other goes in for the assassination, working together for the goal. To some it is just "whatever," to an introvert, having someone they know play with them builds a bond, another person came into our life in this game and partook in it in a positive way. If the gamer is a slow strategic player and their companion here works with their plan and accents it well, to the introvert this is a milestone in the relationship.

However, where there is space for advancing a relationship there is space for hurting it as well. If the same strategic slow player has plan and a "run-in, kill-them-all," companion ignores their plan and just bull-dozes in, it hurts the relationship. This happens because the introvert had a person in their life, their mind here in the game and ignored them. We introverted gamers might not say anything, because we just wouldn't, but there is a distance now because we invited you in to our personal space and you ignored our preferences and processes in our story, in our other "life."

Remember, to an introvert, this life is often dull and other people are sometimes hard to understand, so to us, other stories in books or video games are often an escape and to often fragile as well. If we invite into that space with us, what we are really asking you to do is escape with with us!