We’ve all heard the talk about video games. They are mindless, they promote violence, you could be spending your time doing something better. However, they can be so much more than that. Video games can be an escape, a place far away from all of your troubles and hardships.
When I was younger, I didn’t have a lot of electronics to play with. Meaning I spent a lot of my time creating and playing in my own universes. When alone in the woods, it was my kingdom. The trees were my people, the sticks that riddled the ground were my weapons, and my imagination was the law. It let me be the ruler of any world I chose to be in. This was my serenity, my escape from the things that I could not help around me.
As I got older, and technology improved, I found myself slowly becoming more and more engrossed by video games. Not because of a lack of imagination, but rather as a new fuel for it. And many games are just that, other people’s imagination, their universe and their law. Just represented in a form of media that allows us to step into it and become part of it.
Many people only look at games on the surface, or focus on the mainstream big budget games. Yet there is an entire culture around them that a large majority do not see. Steam, an online game market similar to how iTunes works for mush, releases up to 80 different games a day. Some are old classics that have been ported from a console to the PC, yet many of them are original. With such flow of content, it’s never ending fuel for the imagination.
We often get too wrapped up in the world around us that we don’t know how to escape it, and to calm down a little bit. And to many, video games are just that. Some people use alcohol, others go out with friends, but for some people there is a peace in getting lost in another world. Letting your mind and emotions get wrapped up in something completely disconnected with what is getting you down.
They can take you to magical places similar to tales of old with fairies and powers. Or to a reimagined earth, where things are silly. Or they can take you to another solar system entirely. They can let you step into your favorite movie, except be a part of it. Or even be the star of your own personal movie. The possibilities of who you can be and where you can go are endless.
And they aren’t as mindless as you may think. Many games make you think and feel. More often I find myself emotionally upset by the events in a video game then I do in TV or a movie. They get you emotionally engaged to the point that you really feel like you are part of the game that your actions matter for this world that you have been thrust into. Some force you to make choices and take risks making you think about every action that you take.
