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Comment by DiggyJohnson | Hacker News Reader

I'm writing a book about Why We Play, and I've been a fan of your blog (though only as a reader) for some time now. Number 3 on your list speaks to me very deeply, especially now that I've been working on this project daily for well over a year.

I intend to start publishing essays and excerpts soon - I'll be sure to share them back to you if you're interested. Thank you for your time and energy in the blog.

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The first three lines of my draft, if you're curious: ;)

I've played a game called RuneScape for 5000 hours and I don't know why.

Was all that time wasted?

Was any of the experience valuable?

And for this not to seem like shameless self-promotion, I am always interested in an individual's answer to this question. Comprehensive or not, to anyone reading this: why do you play?

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Didn't think I'd see RuneScape on HN today. As someone who plays and has since I was around 10, I often think about that same question. Sometimes I think of myself as being from the early 2000s Internet, rather than my hometown. Being online was where I felt like I belonged. RuneScape was like going out to play in the woods. I grew up there.

For me most of that play time has been worth it. Games and wanting to make them are what got me interested in programming. Now I'm a software engineer. People worry about kids' screen time, but I spent most of my time as a kid in front of the computer, programming and gaming. Far beyond acceptable amounts of screen time for a kid, but without that I don't know what I would've been interested in. Certainly there were different kinds of games back then. No ads, short gameplay loops, or microtransactions. From games I learned how to find information online, not many wikis then. I got better at reading, typing, and socializing through online games and forums. I set my own goals and achieved them. I was able to gain more confidence about myself. Games gave me a safe, small microcosm of the world to be excited about.

I could ramble on, but I'd definitely be interested in reading your thoughts about games and play.

This is a great outline of the question at the heart of my book. Why do we play? Well, why do we do anything? Why do we grow up? Why are we motivated to do anything that doesn't lead to security, water, food, sex, and status?

Why do we dream in RuneScape?

Why is "coping" the meme answer to Why We Play?

Why this game? What makes it different? Is it different?

Why is this place a viable world?

Why does the RuneScape wiki grow and grow? Is it inevitable?

Why did RuneScape come into existence? Why and how does this game evolve?

> Games gave me a safe, small microcosm of the world to be excited about.

Bingo.

I'll make a note of your HN handle and try and get in touch when I start publishing. I really appreciate your comment, it's so validating when someone says: "As someone who plays and has since I was around 10, I often think about that same question." You and I are not alone in this, every time I talk about this project people are really interested. I don't think the same is true for most non-fiction books-in-progress.

I don't think OP is the blog author. The post title is just the original title from the blog. If you follow the link and leave a comment on the blog post, the Addict himself will see it and probably respond.

Thanks for pointing this out; you know what they say about assuming (and HN-ing during status meetings).

Cheers.

Why do you play the games you play? Is there more to it than escape, relaxation, and coping?

Mastery is a big one. Getting better at something feels good, even useless things. This ties into "progress", which is what a lot of games are doing to give us a false sense of mastery (collect the things, get the rote achievements, etc).

I've also played for pure adrenaline sometimes - a bout of CounterStrike before my AM classes helped wake me up back at university, better than coffee, but not as good as finding a spider in the room.

There is also some chatter that gaming can be a form of self medication for ADHD and related disorders. I haven't tried getting a diagnosis, but it runs in my immediate family, and I definitely feel like I sometimes game for a bit to "get it out of my system" and settle my mind to focus on other things.

i’m going to answer you because you seem to be seeking external views on gaming.

personally i only play video games as an “escape”. what was shitty is that i was always just escaping something that had to be done by a certain time. it was my goto procrastination technique.

as i grew as a person, and spent less time lying and taking on too much, and more time on how i define me and what i actually care about, i quit playing most games.

but i didn’t stop the escapism totally, now i bike to escape the pressure i’ve put in myself to be my best. the biking helps me handle my problems as it gives me time to reflect.

frankly, if gaming gives you the space to decompress and reflect than it’s fundamentally a form of meditation, which is how i see my biking.

the real challenge is to figure out if you’re gaming to escape yourself or to explore yourself. if you’re doing it right, does it matter how you decompress?

Video games are an art form unique from literature and film because you can interact with the world. Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, the original The Walking Dead Telltale game, and even indie browser games like One Chance on Newgrounds [0] created unique experiences.

For example, Disco Elysium (depending on your choices) talks about genuine change and the fact that other people who've known you for a while might not accept it upon seeing you again. Other games help place you in scenarios where you can make moral choices and experience the consequences (besides the original Telltale games, I'm also thinking of entries from Choice of Games LLC, assuming interactive fiction counts as video games). There are also works of genuine art like Myst or the indie game The Little Red Lie.

Outside of enabling a unique approach to storytelling, certain games can also help grasp specific concepts (e.g. Kerbal Space Program, flight simulators), though typically it's better to study a subject directly than consider video games as work.

There are a number of scenes in the television series Halt and Catch Fire where video games are presented as an art form. Interestingly, a character who treats game development as an art form initially doesn't like Doom because it looks like mindless shooting at first (but I think she warms up with it, as gameplay with a friend lets her open up about a problem on her mind [1]), and she also later enjoys Mario (also primarily gameplay-driven). In real life, trying out a couple of single-player video games recommended by different people I've met have deepened my friendship with them, surprisingly more than what I thought.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Chance_(video_game)

[1] (Spoilers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HIfq3xH0Mk

Thanks for this reply. I agree with a lot of it, especially:

> Video games are an art form unique from literature and film because you can interact with the world.

This is the starting point for the entire analysis. I haven't heard much about Halt and Catch Fire, I'll have to take a look at it.

> In real life, trying out a couple of single-player video games recommended by different people I've met have deepened my friendship with them, surprisingly more than what I thought.

Right? Part of the answer to Why We Play, as sappy as it sounds, is the friends we make along the way.

mastery, friendship, competition

Definitely, also consider: exploring, collecting, and building secret bases.

While my list is a bit more tongue-in-cheek, it can be fun to try and argue against that list. The same is true of yours.

Absolutely :)

A Life Well Wasted - Why Game?

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-game/id303688916?i...

Thanks for sharing, I can't believe I hadn't come across this already.

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