Meeting Gaming Misconceptions

I jump from the tower in to the water 200 metres below and I feel my heart leap in to my mouth and the adrenaline kicking in. I surface gasping and swim to shore.
I'm hiding round the corner of a building to eavesdrop on a conversation. A hand is placed on my shoulder, making me jump and run the computer chair over my husband's feet, who had just come in to ask me if I wanted coffee.

Playing computer games is as much part of my life as reading and I will spend some of my free time in front of "that box", like my farmor calls it. I will lose myself in to worlds, strategies and stories with the universe at my fingertips.

When I entered the grown-up world of the work environment I found that I was constantly questioned about my gaming. Coming from a community where gaming is as accepted as going for fikas, I was surprised at the widespread prejudice, misconception and wariness people have towards computer games outside my community. I want to take some time to answer some of the statements that I have experienced.

"You're just playing to get away from reality"

This is, in some sense true. I also read books, watch TV, go to the movies, write and go on holidays to "get away from reality". Getting away from reality is something that everyone does and this is the reason why. Reality is not the one true thing we strive to experience. Change, innovation and enrichment is what we strive after. Just living in reality will never makes us strive for the impossible, nor make us aware of what we have now. Playing computer games is one of the many ways I dream and enrich my life.

"Why does it have to be so violent?"

I could say that not all games are violent. But that doesn't answer the question. Apart from that, some of my favourite games right now, like Assassins Creed and Dragon Age, are violent. Some of my favourite series and movies, such and Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, are also violent. Every day I watch the news and I see riots, attacks and disasters. Just looking historically, violence has played a prominent part in pretty much all aspects of our culture.

Crucifixion of Christ

Death of Julius Caesar

Violence has a lot of emotions associated with it, grief, loss, vengeance, anger to just mention a few. This is why it makes both good gaming and filming material. To question violence one should question the reason of why it is in our society as a whole and not only why it is in the game industry. No, I don't like violence. But I don't believe violence can be linked to only to the gaming world. "Why does it have to be violent?" should also be asked to our whole culture, which I don't see is being done to the same degree. I recommend Henry Jenkins blogpost for a more in-depth reasoning around media violence.

"Gaming is not good for you."

This statement is often followed with "You sit all day at work in front of the computer, it's not good to sit in front of the computer all day during your free-time as well".
Gaming, as all types of activities, should be done in moderation. But I am not criticized to the same extent as if I would spend the same amount of time reading as I do gaming. The fact that I could sit in front of the computer 24-7 is not the main argument in these statements.The underlying message that I get from these types of statements is that playing computer games is seen as unproductive and non-developing. And this I would like to dispute. I will now name a couple of popular games and what skills they develop.

Civilization - The two main skills this develops is historical knowledge and strategy. Being a turn-based game, it makes the gamer think carefully each step it does and how it will affect the future development of the game play. To understand how what you do right now affects the future course is a great skill to develop. Used in many areas of the real world from project planning to coding the skill to plan ahead is always useful.
Civilization uses historical figures and you build historical monuments. Understanding the importance of what the pyramids were for the Egyptians or Machu Picchu  to the Incans. Also, the possibility to play historical scenarios such as World War II and the American Civil War makes history much more alive then the hours in history class.
Minecraft - Creativity is the top skill developed here. To be able to expand your mind from the mere mundane blocks that you can see to imagine what can be created out of them. Youtube is full of videos where people have create the whole of Lord of the Rings world, built a working computer and designed amazing architectural skyscrapers. Some snapshots of some cool pieces can be found here. But I will attach a youtube clip where they have created a jukebox playing the whole Portal - Still Alive song:

Antichamber - Streching your brain to be able to think outside the box. This game focus on the developing puzzle solving skills and rethink the way you perceive things. This isn't the only game in this genre but it is definitely one that has stuck with me as its way of making me see things in a different way is a skill that I have used in the real world as well.

World of Warcraft - Teamwork and Economics. If you don't believe me about teamwork, try communicating with 4+ random people over chat while you are being outnumbered by orcs. This multi player game will really make you realise how each person plays his part in the whole picture. Being able to communicate is key and also to stick to the joint plan. The economics skill is from the auction house in the game. This is where you can sell and buy items from other players. The set-up is like a normal English auction style, and to understand the dynamics of when you get the highest prices, when rare items are sold what is ETS (easy to sell) is a skill which requires the understanding of the community behaviour.

There are all types of different games, each that has different goal. To assume that all games are just toys to pass the time with just shows how out of touch with the gaming world you are.

"Come on, space invaders isn't that great"

Just because the last games that you played was 20 years ago doesn't mean that the gaming industry hasn't evolved. In just the past 10 years the consumer spending  in gaming has overtaken the record music industry and the forecast is that it will overtake the newspaper within 5 years (see this article). An industry that is growing like this has spent billions in game development and game play. Game Design has become a science where it analyses what makes people want to play and how do you make a game that makes people want to play more.It is not a fluke that games like Candy Crush Saga become a hit. There are years of research behind many of the most popular games and to actually understand what is out there you need to spend some time playing the new games and not only Solitaire. Which, by the way, is no longer available on Windows 8. Another reason why Windows 8 sucks.