My wife's response to "My take on video games"

My wife, who has a blog of her own, wrote a response to my last post to provide her perspective on my video game hobby:

Daisies With Peanut Butter

Why video games are good - My take on video games

I married a wonderful young lady a few years back, and I'm very happy to be sharing my life with her. My girl, though, doesn't consider herself a gamer. In fact, she entered our marriage having a somewhat negative view of video games.

When a gamer and a non-gamer marry, you may wonder,

HOW DOES THIS GET RECONCILED???

Allow me to answer this decades-old question. The answer is simple: the same way married couples reconcile any of their other differences.

From my point of view, I had to recognize that there was much more to life than video games. This wasn't hard for me because I fell pretty hard for my wife and if I was given the choice to spend time with her or spend time on video games, I obviously would choose her! It also helped that by that point in young adulthood, I had already established responsible habits and set life goals for myself, largely because I was going to college.

From her point of view, she had to understand why I liked video games, what they really are, and how one can benefit from making a hobby out of playing them.

That's what I'm here to explain: how video games can be more than just a time-wasting diversion and can arguably be as enriching as reading a book or engaging in other hobbies.

Video game skeptics, including my wife at one point, would scoff at my comparison to reading a book. Based on parenting articles, church messages, and conversations with skeptics, this is why video games are "bad" and thus not beneficial in the same way a book is:

• they promote physical inactivity and laziness
• they promote interpersonal disconnectedness
• they promote violence
• just like watching TV, your brain is so overrun by visual stimulation that your brain activity decreases

Each of these concerns is valid for certain video games or certain playing habits. However, each of these points have counterarguments and examples to prove them:

Physical inactivity and laziness

The original Nintendo console (the NES) had certain games that used a "Power Pad' or a large electronic mat with foot-sized buttons to allow you to play sports games such as World Class Track Meet. That was 30 years ago. 10 years ago, we were treated to the novelty of Wii Sports. I worked up a sweat as a kid running in place on that power pad, and I still work up a sweat (and I get sore too!) when I play Wii Sports boxing at my parent's house.

To be fair, these games are nowhere near as common as traditional sit-on-the-couch games, but they do exist. To address those, or even laziness in general, one has to look at the gamer themselves, not the game. In future posts, I'll write more about how it is possible to manage your time responsibly (including having a good exercise routine) and still play your favorite video games.

Interpersonal disconnectedness

Since the days of Pong(1972) and before, video games have often involved multiplayer gameplay. Some of my fondest memories growing up involve playing video games with family and friends. Whether I was working together with my older brother to beat Bowser in Mario 3, dueling my friends in various fighting games such as Super Smash Brothers, or laughing with my wife and another married couple while playing Mario Party, I was getting some serious positive social interaction.

Again, there are plenty of games that are 1-player (or that involve playing online with people you can't see) that don't meet this criteria, and again, I will refer to future posts about managing yourself responsibly. With that in mind, I can also say that I've had numerous engaging conversations with other gamers about their progress and experiences in certain 1-player games that we both play.

Violence

This one is tough. I definitely believe that many video games are too violent for me or my family. With today's graphics capabilities, a brutal death can be depicted and carried out by the player with more disturbing reality than ever before. It can be discouraging to see how much of a hold on the video game market mature rated games have, especially among youth.

My argument here is that one's attitude about games should be the same as with other sources of media. If you don't like violent games, don't let them into your home! There are plenty of wholesome alternatives that are just as fun or even more fun. With that said, I personally am okay with mild violence or even more intense alien violence (like in Halo) depending on who is playing. If a child is too young or is imbalanced with their socialization (even as a teenager or young adult), they should steer away from violence in games.

It melts your brain just like watching TV

False. Even the most mind-numbing games require player input. Therefore, playing a game is not a passive activity. Yes, some games are more stimulating than others (see my post on games that aren't worth the time)

My best counterexample is the Legend of Zelda franchise. These adventure games require a lot of thinking and puzzle solving, among other brain-stimulating exercises. There are many other examples showing how video games are positively stimulating, but Ill refer you to future posts about what makes a video game good.

My take on video games
If the above concerns are avoided, video games can be a stimulating diversion like any other hobby. That's the point of this whole blog: to promote video games as a hobby and to blog about my hobby like anyone would about reading, following sports, quilting, and so on.

With any hobby, video gaming can easily become an obsession that causes imbalances in your life. Society singles out video games in particular as a negative obsession simply because it is one of the most popular hobbies and easily noticed. However, I have heard of people getting a little weird and obsessive about reading and other hobbies.

The purpose of video gaming, like any other hobby, is to expand your imagination, connect with others in your hobby's community, develop various skills, provide family and friends with a good product, and to simply provide a diversion from life's stresses.

Types of games that aren't worth my time - games I WON'T blog about

Video games are everywhere. They come in many different shapes and sizes. I like many of these types, but there are many I don't particularly identify with. Let's get these out of the way so it's clear what I will NOT be spending my time blogging about:

Casual games

Some sources use this term to refer to the type of game you play for minutes at a time, typically on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Sure, I have fun challenging my wife to a rousing game of Words with Friends while I'm away for the day, and when I'm standing in a long line, passing the time with 2048 or another puzzle game helps abate the boredom. These games may bring some positive social interactions or stimulate some intellectual skills, but they don't have the depth that causes real passion the same way my style of video games does.

Sports games

I'm biased here, because I'm not a very sporty guy myself. On the one hand, sports games allow me to actually be good at a sport for once, but on the other hand, I'm not out with a ball actually improving my physical skills or fitness.

Sports games can be fun, especially if there's something unique about them, such as games that feature less common sports such as Olympic events or games that feature popular video game characters. Even the mainstream-style games involve essential gameplay elements that I like, such as upgrading, customization, and simulation (I'll post later about essential gameplay elements).

The main reason I don't like sports games is because they are always coming out with new versions every year to simulate that season's lineup of athletes, and they usually run the same price as other new games for a given system (for example, current generation games are typically $60-$70). Because they are always cranking new ones out, not a lot of thought is given into refining the gameplay, graphics, interface, and so on, and they also have terrible resale value.

I have had fun with sports games, but again, they haven't really excited me in the same way other ones do. To be fair, the only video games my baby-boomer father would ever play with me were Tiger Woods golf and Wii Sports.

Internet games

Ranging from Flash Player type browser games to social media based games (remember Farmville?), these games are simply the pre-smartphone/tablet versions of casual games. Same lack of depth. Same time-wasting qualities. While they are great for wasting time at school at work when you don't have access to real video games, again, they aren't worth blogging about.

MMORPGs

This one's tough, because I have enjoyed a few of these before too and so do millions of others. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) are like RPGs, just with the online aspect. RPG games by themselves are quite fun and I consider them worth my time and worth writing about. The massive online aspect, though, changes things. The objective of these games is, well... actually there is no objective. Usually, you create a character in the world of your chosen game, and you work completing mini tasks to improve your characters skills. This often involves and even requires interactions with other human players. For many, the draw is the desire to keep leveling up, or improving the character's skills. Some even get bent on becoming a top player for that game.

I played one of these called Runescape in middle school. It was fun and it sucked my time away, until one day I realized it was stressing me out. In order to keep progressing, the tasks I had to do were getting harder and harder, and often they were very tedious. I found myself grumbling at having to click on a school of fish over and over and over again to improve my characters fishing skills, and that's the point where I realized I wasn't having fun anymore. I looked ahead and where this would go, and I realized that there was no end in sight. No way to "beat" the game. No objective.

I've avoided MMORPGs ever since (including the wildly popular World of Warcraft) and I will not be blogging about these games either.

Besides these types of games, I pretty much like everything else! In the future, I'll write about what I DO like in video games.