What Video Games Have Taught Me About Life
When I was 8 years old, I received my first console: the Playstation 1 (or PS1).
I didn’t know what it was about at first, but upon seeing the shiny box and disc of my newest game I knew it was going to be a blast.
So I plugged in the rig and turned the console on *click*. The rest was history.
Then and there my career as a gamer began and I flew from game to game, from console to console to eventually falling in love with PC games, and more specifically MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games).
What’s fun about playing different games is that you get to learn the mechanics and discover a whole new world every time. The graphics, cutscenes, and gameplay all differ just enough to keep you fascinated.
Playing video games isn’t just about the experience, you also learn a thing or two along the way. And that’s what this blog post is about.
Let’s get right into it.
The first thing that stands out are the quest lines. In almost every game, there is a series of challenging events that must be played through. They all require skill, patience and focus. Without completing the quest, you can’t pass on to the next stage and continue.
This is not unlike real life: sometimes challenges arise anew must be overcome before finding peace (i.e. peace of mind, inner peace) again.
Another thing is character progression: painted by levelling, experience points and characteristics. Experience points add up into levels, and levelling unlocks more freedom: either through the ability to wear better gear items or access to different areas.
This is very much like in real life, where you can gather experience through jobs or life experience and effectively level up your mind and body, thus getting smarter and stronger.
A third thing that you learn very early in video games is how to handle B.S. Unfortunately (or fortunately), video games are anonymous meaning you can be whoever you want to be. This means that people in video game forums or online within the game mat feel like they can get away with anything. So you really encounter a whole host of characters, for better or for worse.
If you stay long enough you realize that these people come and go, and that the video game community is not always angry. Usually it’s just the lag, or losing streaks, that we hate.
Video games have always been a part of my life, and because of the lessons I’ve acquired from my experiences of countless adventures and good times playing these games, they may as well be a part of my personality forever.
I hope games are as kind to you as they were to me.
