I, like many others, am an avid gamer. Xbox, PlayStation, you name it, I’ve played it. I love hoping online with my friends and playing against others across the world. I get captivated with the experience. There’s something that video games does that makes me connect with them so much.
When I was young, I didn’t care too much for playing outside. I loved to stay in and immerse myself into an experience. That experience was video games. As a child, video games took me into a world that had endless possibilities. I could go anywhere, become anyone, the world didn’t matter. I had become one with a fantasy world. I enjoyed being in control of the hero. It was almost as if I was the hero in the eyes of all those computer generated people. As I grew up, that effect that video games had on me never left. When I joined something called Xbox Live when I was in high school, there was another emotional shift with my view of video games. I was given a username (or better known as “gamertag”) and it felt like I had an identity. Like I was one man and I could take on them all. I was now even able to play with my friends over the internet rather than having to go to their houses to show them how badly I could beat them in their game of choice. It felt good.
I’ve seen these same feelings happen through my friends, acquaintances, and other people from around the world. The feeling of identity and unity (when in a group of people who play the same game) are hard to avoid. A prime example is a game called World of Warcraft. It is one of the largest online games so far. So why do they play? They play because they become a hero in that world. And when they play fighting alongside with friends that feeling gets amped up even more.