A World Outside My Own

By Distrigon

Perhaps the main problems lies in the fact that I’m not a gamer. I can’t survive in an FPS (First Person Shooter), I’m too slow for a RTS (Real Time Simulation) and I’m the kind of person who will button-mash his way through a fighting game and still come up empty handed. So why exactly am I even attempting to try and survive in this gaming world?

Because its just too big of an opportunity to pass up. ^_^

The gaming industry today takes up a chunk of the world’s method of entertaining themselves. Gaming is not just limited to video games, oh no, it has so much more. Collectable Card Games, or CCG, such as Magic the Gathering or Pokemon, add a completely new level to the gaming experience, giving a tangible feel to what you are doing. Role Playing, such as Dungeons and Dragons let your imagination run rampant, in essence losing yourself in your own world, one which you can control and manipulate to your will. Gaming gives a person an escape, an escape from a life that may not necessarily be the most pleasant one, or perhaps just a way to be someone else for the moment, to do things that you would never be capable of doing. Gaming is a way to make anything possible.

Different people develop their own taste of game. Mine happens to be RPG’s. I can remember the first time I ever played an RPG. It was Christmas of ’97, when I had received a Playstation, and a brand new copy of Final Fantasy 7. The typical “save the world” story. For all of you gaming veterans out there, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that to start off on this game, definitely gave me a high opinion of what video games have to live up to. I must admit, despite having many friends in school, and not even playing the game too much at first, I did develop an attachment to the characters. I treated them like my own, because in a way, they were. They were everything I could not be. To me, they were everything I strived to be. They were heroes, yet just normal people at the same time. It was then I realized what I wanted to do with my life. I entered the stage that most gamers do, the stage in which they all want to create their own video game, and I never left that stage.

To this day, in studying psychology, my major in college, I am always looking for new ways to improve this game that I have had in the works ever since. My dream is to create a psychologically beneficial game, that gives people the same feelings that FFVII gave me. In a video game, you have power. In that game, even for just those few hours of play, you’re all that matters. And to some people, that feeling is the world to them, because a fantasy is always better than reality. I realized that if you can do it with simulations, if you can teach people things using realistic training programs, you can do the same with mental capabilities such as self-esteem and confidence, which is something that most people who play video games don’t exactly lack, but statistically test lower in. (“Cognitive and motivational correlates in video game structure” Dissertation Abstract International pg 1946) And to be able to create the video game of my dreams, I need to understand everything I can about this world, and its players in the first place. I’d have to say that about 90% of my friends here at college are gamers, and being around them, and learning about what it takes, what skills are necessary to survive in online battles…its quite a trip. So while I don’t strive to be better at gaming, it is a level I’ll need to achieve if I hope to advance my knowledge in this world of fantasy.

I hope to write more about my increasing culture adaptation by writing reviews for you and also entertaining you in areas that I do specialize in, being the CCG Magic the Gathering, and my wonderful knowledge of anime. The world of gaming will be broken open, I will find out all it’s secrets and share them, because I’m sure that there’s things even you don’t know about gaming as well. Until then, save before you quit. ^_^

    First Time Here?

© 2003 GameAlliance Media.  Lett/Thompson.  All Rights Reserved. E-mail