Hello everyone! After surviving another suicide attempt, I’ve come back to write a new astonishing article/essay, pretending to know something about things I do not know anything about. Anyway…
I have been suffering from this weird feeling of not being able to enjoy video games anymore. I could not decide whether I was actually getting old and the redundant tasks I would draw pleasure from were no longer engaging, or maybe the newer games were getting sloppy and samey. Or maybe my hardware was not enough to handle these miracles of modern ultra high resolution photorealistic graphics. Or maybe all of these factors combined?
The truth is, as much as I like to rag on how cool it was to be a 90’s kid, playing those ‘primitive’ games on the original PlayStation, I really do appreciate how the gaming as a whole has evolved. I mean, back in the early 00’s, nobody heard about the word ‘gamer’, at least in my place. When you played a game, you were simply referred to as ‘the player’ and the games themselves were maybe slightly above toys in terms of how much of a serious passion they could stand for. Nobody played games competitively; everyone just sort of picked the controller up and played the games. You didn’t even necessarily need to know the language or care about the story; so long as the controls were intuitive and the gameplay cathartic, you had fun. God forbid anyone even thought about making money off playing video games.
Now in the late 2010’s, it seems like the gaming consciousness, as a whole, began to reciprocate towards these old school standards. Just look at the vast number of indie titles completely rejecting the competitive gameplay mentality. Sure there will always be the multiplayer lot of the gaming community, hell bent on the ‘get good’ part of what makes a game, and seeing how video games have evolved over the past two decades, it’s no wonder that esports are being treated like regular sports more and more. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you’ve got all the ironically dubbed ‘walking simulators’, games like What Remains of Edith Finch which went out of their way to prove that you can actually tell a solid story using an interactive medium, such as a video game engine. There is no doubt that games are so much more than what meets the eye nowadays. There are so many things you have to stipulate on in order to fully enjoy a video game it’s almost mind-boggling. Even the all-so-complicated Final Fantasy VI or EarthBound on Super Nintendo are actually relatively simple, plug-and-play experiences with a smooth learning curve. Sure it won’t bite to take a look at the manual to figure certain things out, but the core of almost each game was very clear-cut. To reference Egoraptor, one of the biggest advantages a video game can offer is that it can teach you how to effectively play it without resorting to these obnoxious contextual pop-ups with on-screen instructions. (How good a game is in teaching you that kinda stuff is called conveyance, by the way). And because the games have changed so much, it seems justified that there are resources you have to rely on before you can throw yourself into action. Take Overwatch for example. At its core, it’s a multiplayer first-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on team play. Can you go into PVP right after having tackled the basics of control, equipped with nothing but your keen reflexes and rudimentary game knowledge? Of course, but you will face off against a bunch of people who have already figured a lot more about the game than you have; other players who had checked out every hero in the game before you did, thus giving you an innate disadvantage, because you didn’t go that one step further. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know, but it’s not stabbing pixelated monsters in Zelda anymore.
So if the video games are obviously more complex and demanding on the player’s part, and thus much more involved than they ever have been – is there actually a reason to get involved, unless you are willing to devote a lot of time to them, as far as the multiplayer scene goes? Well, yeah. There is one reason to play, even if you are never going to go beyond 1500 rating. That reason is the community.
Think about it this way – since online games are obviously competitive and you will never be able to completely finish them, considering they don’t have any true ending other than the one you are willing to bestow upon yourself, partake in them as though they were your social activities. You will probably not play a game that doesn’t do well in the gameplay department; tight controls, appealing aesthetics, a variety of playable characters, these all make up the game’s crunch (as opposed to the fluff). Now when you are playing online, you technically round up with a bunch of people who are there for the same goal – they want to see these gameplay elements in action, and possibly meet other people with insights about them. You don’t need to be the number one Widowmaker in your region to have fun and feel like you’re spending your time well. As a matter of fact, all you have to do is do your very best. Multiplayer games are designed that you always oscillate around players of skill level similar to yours. Try as hard as you can; get involved in what you are doing. Make the game you play develops your character as a gamer without placing yourself on the leaderboard and you will see how easy it will be to enthrall yourself in what’s going on. You will have people commending you for your investment, because – contrary to what you might think – friendly and involved players are hard to come by. And not every gaming community is filled with nothing but ragers and trolls. There will be other players more than happy to talk to you. You will make acquaintances, you will have something fascinating to talk about and you will have a good time – by playing a video game (!).
I would go as far as to say that the experience itself surpasses the idea of gameplay at its core, as it stands today in the amateur multiplayer scene. It’s by and large a much more expressive and creative activity and should not be regarded with the same mindset as the games from the 90’s or prior. There is obviously a lot more than just one way to enjoy a game – learning how to get good at anything can be a lot of fun, and playing video games for the story alone seems perfectly justified. But when you have a game that you cannot devote too much time off your daily schedule, and a game that won’t otherwise treat you to a well crafted and written story, don’t forget that there are other people out there, just as lonely and depressed as I am you are, looking for someone they can have fun playing with.
Thanks for reading. I’ve just launched a Facebook fanpage dedicated to my artwork. Check it out, if you’re interested:
Collarbone Incorporated 