This is a re-production of something I've just written on my blog. But I think it's fitting for ED so I thought I'd share it here. I think as adults we tend to forget that games don't always need to make sense to be fun.
I’ve been a gamer now since…. Well, since before I can actually remember clearly. I think my first ever gaming experience was playing Galaxian on a table top arcade machine in my local hair dressers. Then again, it might have been playing a Pong clone on one of those Binatone games console things with a gazillion different versions of Pong in it named after ball games like Tennis and Football. But either way, I’ve been a gamer for a long time. Probably since before the term “gamer” actually existed.
In the past I loved playing games. Either ones I’d made myself or ones I bought. By the time I was 13 my average weekend was getting my £2 pocket money off my dad, and any earnings I made from my paper round, and heading out to my local computer shop to buy a game. Most games were around the £1.99 to £2.99 mark, usually re-releases on budget labels, so I had a large selection to choose from. And if I’d made and sold a game of my own recently (because I was also a "bedroom programmer"), then I could even afford to get something more expensive. It didn’t matter if the game was unrealistic, or if the graphics weren’t quite up to par, so long as it was fun. And I had lots of fun playing games.
These days, not so much. For a while I’d been thinking that it because games aren’t as good as they used to be, but I’ve come to reallise that it’s me that’s at fault not the games. Where, in the past, I’d simply play a game for the fun of it, these days I find myself critiquing it on everything. I play a driving game and dislike it for not being realistic enough, I play COD and get annoyed that someone with a knife can kill you faster than shooting someone in the head with a shotgun, I play Elite Dangerous and moan about the fact that all the space stations look like ghost towns and have nobody moving around in them… I’ve become fussy.
I've started to take games too seriously. I forget that games are just pieces of entertainment and don’t always have to make sense to be fun. Where in the past I’d be quite happy to play Pitstop 2 and think it’s a great F1 racing game, these days I’ll look at Project CARS and complain that the car reacts the wrong way when it hits a kerb, or the crash physics aren’t right when the cars have accidents. I’m looking at the games through my adult eyes and forgetting that I should be looking at a game through the eyes of a child.
I watch cartoons. Usually they’re older cartoons from my childhood. Stuff like Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Thundercats, Transformers, and so on. I never look at a cartoon and go “Well, that’s rubbish! I mean, who ever heard of a Vampire duck!?!? How unrealistic!”. But I’ll look at Elite Dangerous and go “Well, that’s not very realistic. Surely there should be some people moving about in the stations!”, while conveniently forgetting that the ships just jumped millions of miles in a few seconds while moving from system to system.
So what’s the point of this long-winded ramble? Simply to say that most of the time the problem isn’t the games we play, it’s us, especially those of us who are older. We take games too seriously instead of playing them for what they are and having fun. Being adults we tend to want stuff to make sense. But when we’re kids this doesn’t matter quite so much so long as what we’re doing is fun.
I think it’s time we remembered why we became gamers in the first place. It’s not because the games were logical or made any sense… Alien invaders descending towards Earth in neat, uniform lines just waiting to be shot at, or a little yellow blob being chased by multicoloured ghosts around a maze lined with dots and fruit, not to mention fat Italian plumbers in dungarees jumping on platforms and squashing mushrooms... No, we played the games because they were fun and I think that's something that some of us have forgotten.
I’ve been a gamer now since…. Well, since before I can actually remember clearly. I think my first ever gaming experience was playing Galaxian on a table top arcade machine in my local hair dressers. Then again, it might have been playing a Pong clone on one of those Binatone games console things with a gazillion different versions of Pong in it named after ball games like Tennis and Football. But either way, I’ve been a gamer for a long time. Probably since before the term “gamer” actually existed.
In the past I loved playing games. Either ones I’d made myself or ones I bought. By the time I was 13 my average weekend was getting my £2 pocket money off my dad, and any earnings I made from my paper round, and heading out to my local computer shop to buy a game. Most games were around the £1.99 to £2.99 mark, usually re-releases on budget labels, so I had a large selection to choose from. And if I’d made and sold a game of my own recently (because I was also a "bedroom programmer"), then I could even afford to get something more expensive. It didn’t matter if the game was unrealistic, or if the graphics weren’t quite up to par, so long as it was fun. And I had lots of fun playing games.
These days, not so much. For a while I’d been thinking that it because games aren’t as good as they used to be, but I’ve come to reallise that it’s me that’s at fault not the games. Where, in the past, I’d simply play a game for the fun of it, these days I find myself critiquing it on everything. I play a driving game and dislike it for not being realistic enough, I play COD and get annoyed that someone with a knife can kill you faster than shooting someone in the head with a shotgun, I play Elite Dangerous and moan about the fact that all the space stations look like ghost towns and have nobody moving around in them… I’ve become fussy.
I've started to take games too seriously. I forget that games are just pieces of entertainment and don’t always have to make sense to be fun. Where in the past I’d be quite happy to play Pitstop 2 and think it’s a great F1 racing game, these days I’ll look at Project CARS and complain that the car reacts the wrong way when it hits a kerb, or the crash physics aren’t right when the cars have accidents. I’m looking at the games through my adult eyes and forgetting that I should be looking at a game through the eyes of a child.
I watch cartoons. Usually they’re older cartoons from my childhood. Stuff like Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Thundercats, Transformers, and so on. I never look at a cartoon and go “Well, that’s rubbish! I mean, who ever heard of a Vampire duck!?!? How unrealistic!”. But I’ll look at Elite Dangerous and go “Well, that’s not very realistic. Surely there should be some people moving about in the stations!”, while conveniently forgetting that the ships just jumped millions of miles in a few seconds while moving from system to system.
So what’s the point of this long-winded ramble? Simply to say that most of the time the problem isn’t the games we play, it’s us, especially those of us who are older. We take games too seriously instead of playing them for what they are and having fun. Being adults we tend to want stuff to make sense. But when we’re kids this doesn’t matter quite so much so long as what we’re doing is fun.
I think it’s time we remembered why we became gamers in the first place. It’s not because the games were logical or made any sense… Alien invaders descending towards Earth in neat, uniform lines just waiting to be shot at, or a little yellow blob being chased by multicoloured ghosts around a maze lined with dots and fruit, not to mention fat Italian plumbers in dungarees jumping on platforms and squashing mushrooms... No, we played the games because they were fun and I think that's something that some of us have forgotten.
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