August 31, 2008
The other games we play…
City wrote this at 9:24 pm:
As a gamer, gaming is a huge part of my life, as I expect it is for any gamer to be honest. So how else does it get into our daily lives? And I don’t just mean constantly chatting about and playing games, I mean how gaming changes the way you go about your day…
This idea came to me a while ago when I was obsessing over the history of Tomb Raider with my friend Caz; I know an unhealthy amount about it purely because it is one of my favourite gaming series. We saw a group of guys in hoodies and masks (or bandanas) walking past looking moody and it instantly starting me reminiscing about Tomb Raider 3. Specifically the London levels where you meet The Damned, guys who got stuffed up after being experimented on and now they all walk around dressed in a similar way because, well, they just aren’t pretty to look at anymore.
Anyways all this got me thinking about how much of our lives, as gamers, is shaped by the games we play.
When we were small children, we would make games out of everything, where I work now, they even make a game out of trying to drive me mad, but seriously, any and all types of games are fun… right?
From what I can tell, the type of games we are into shape the ‘other’ games we play as adults.
For my boyfriend, he is very into skill based games, FPS, RTS and so he goes and does things in a way which seems the most tactical, and tactics are a big thing for him.
Yesterday at work, I noticed I am a stats follower. I keep refreshing sales figures (yes I know, sad) but I like to achieve things, set more goals and then break them. I think this is influenced by my love of earning rewards for being brilliant.
These other games make the days more bearable, time passes that little bit quicker and act as nice diversions until you can get down to the real thing.
I mean, it would be amazing to be allowed your PSP or DS at work, but I think these other games we make for ourselves allow gamers to have the ability to be insanely creative in the dullest of times, and well, we just make the world nicer for everyone, really*.
September 1st, 2008 at 12:45 am
I really agree with this blog, work isn’t as fun as a game but when you include little tasks to achieve, it certainly feels more interesting.
I have recently formed a really sad, simple, but extremely satisfying ‘game’. Since I joined a work/business networking site called linkedin it’s become an obsession; there’s a ‘profile completion’ percentage, where you need colleagues to reccomend you, a summary, a certain number of work positions, an education etc to reach 100%…
Like I said, it’s really, really sad. Until my 80% reaches 100% I don’t think I’ll stop checking my page every 5 minutes and looking up everyone I know! :(
September 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I like stealth games and am very soft-footed in real life… Oh my God, you’re right! In fact, I am also very good at predicting people’s movements and using that when making my way about the place. I suppose that’s not really a game though…