Wednesday it was lunch break 12:35 pm, I just had my lunch and there’s time left before 1 pm so I decided to play Symphony of the Night on my phone which I “bought” from the AppStore. When a female coworker approached me and tell that why am I wasting my time playing.
I didn’t answer her, not because I had no valid argument at that point but I took my prerogative not to engage in a banter with her knowing that she wouldn’t or even try to understand what I’m about to tell her.
Sad thing is some people think of gaming to be childish stuff and not real form of entertainment like listening to music or watching a movie.
Most of all why would I waste my breath arguing with a brick wall. Since I’m a member Writer’s Guild why not (ab)use this opportunity to voice out my thoughts.
Now where should I start? Oh yeah the “facts”, video games is one of the top three entertainment medium to date. It even surpassed the music industry terms of revenue about more than 80 billion USD compared to 30-40 billion USD that of music industry and second to the world wide movie industry of 100 billion USD.
Now how’s that for a valid argument!
That goes to say that probably Genshin Impact earned more money than Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
Still I can’t defend my case based on revenue alone. The toy companies earn hundreds of millions or even billions of combined. But I would argue that not all toys are made exclusively for the young demographic for there are some what I call specialty toys. Toys aimed for specific individuals namely hobbyists. Just imagine the amount of Gunplas or those toys based on certain anime IPs being sold each year making the Japanese toy company Bandai one of the top three toy companies in the world alongside Hasbro and Mattel.
I know what you’re thinking right now. Is that all Mr. Cringe Yapper? Well, not yet but I think you already know this one.
We all know playing video games promotes hand and eye coordination not only that we play games in order to socialize. Imagine the connection we made to a random person on the other side of their screen while playing on line be it competitively or co-op. The way we talked about our strategies, we comfort or even bicker at each other when we lose and how we celebrate, trash talked and brag at each victory.
Video games sets our competitive nature free to roam out in the virtual world. Competitive nature that made this continuously emerging sport thrive. Yup you’re right I’m talking about E-Sports.
From single player to multiplayer co-op and from amateur to the big pro league. No one can deny the emerging popularity of E-Sports where at stake are some real serious bragging rights and some cold hard cash that goes along with it. Lines are drawn with regular competitions being held to see who’s the baddest in the virtual world.
Okay this is it, it’s time to bring in the big gun!
“To game is to recover.”
Why did I say that? Not a very simple answer I guess.
Imagine this , you came home from work exhausted and mentally drained. But then you pick up an all familiar game to unwind. Little that you know you’re not just blowing steam you’re recovering.
How’s that supposed to happen?
As you play your mind goes on what psychologists call the “flow state”.
What is flow state? To simply put it , flow state happens when our mind goes into deep focus minus the pressure enabling it to fire in all cylinders. This revitalizes our brain relieving it of the the stress we unwilling acquire during our daily grind.
Flow state was coined up by this guy
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Sep. 29, 1939-Oct.30, 2021) a Hungarian-American psychologist. His credentials are quite a lengthy that I couldn’t fit it in here so if you’re interested just Google him.
According to the peer viewed publication Journal of Media Psychology (where some of the big names on the field submits their research findings on the psychological effects brought by media) video games are most potent trigger of flow state.
Lastly to prove that video game isn’t childish stuff are some statistics. Did you know that almost 80% of the gaming population consists of late teens to adults. About 50% of gamers came from the global workforce or working individuals like you and me. Last but certain not the least is that the total average age of the worldwide gaming population is 35 years old.
These are the facts I gathered just to prove that we’re not wasting time with gaming and I hope with this more people will be aware that gaming is now part of our modern culture.
As you all may or not know I’m not really good with closing statements.
So with that said I thank you for spending time reading this cringe yap of mine.
This is Stingy Perry signing off.
