When I was a kid, if there was one thing I could always get away with buying, it was books. To my parents books were educational, something I could learn from no matter how trashy the material was. With that I was allowed to stagger out of libraries and bookstores laden down with enough tomes to last me maybe one or two weeks (I read fast in those days. These days too). And then I’d just get more books until my bookcases were overflowing and I was making stacks on the floor and in my closet.

On the other hand, if there was anything my parents refused to help me with, it was with purchasing video games. They just simply couldn’t understand how my brother and I could be obsessed with such stupid wastes of time. The only way I could ever get my hands on them was by buying them with my own money or by getting them through special occasions. I suppose to my parents they were seen as mental candy, sugar that was just rotting out the good stuff in my head and would prevent me from going to a good college. In fact, when I got accepted into Cal my parents expressed wonder that I actually managed to get in despite seeing me do nothing besides play computer/console games.

To be honest, there is some justification in their critique. It’s much easier to point out all the good things that came from my voracious reading habit then from my gaming addiction. It helped my writing, increased my vocabulary, aided my speed and retention rate, increased my knowledge base, strengthen my imagination, the list just goes on. So I think it was inarguable that my time spent reading for hours on end was not wasted.

It’s much harder to argue in defense of my gaming time.

Why play games at all except to kill time? Learning things like THACO, or the recoil of a MP5, or the proper build order in a game like SC seem to only benefit me when I exist in those worlds. Trying to apply them, hell, trying to talk about them in the “real world” is at best, futile.

But I have alot of fun playing games. After all, I wouldn’t have stuck with this obsession for 18 years if I didn’t think it was worth something. So what do games have to offer?

I think that if you focus on things you directly learn from games, you’ll just end up seeing nothing but meaningless arcana. Zooming out though, I can point out numerous amounts worthwhile life skills. Teamwork from playing with others online. Learning how to work with people I’ve never met before. Aspects of human nature. How to quickly analyze a situation and respond effectively. How to lead others effectively. That talent can’t make up for hard work. To ignore discouragement. How to persevere and overcome. And that’s ignoring the training to my hand-eye coordination, peripheral vision, reflexes, etc.

Like anything in life, I think you only get as much back as you put in properly. If you focus your efforts, talents, and time, you can find the worth in just about anything reasonable.

With that said though, I think that more can be done to make games much more beneficial in the real world.  Some people believe that should be done by teaching about real life issues by making games on the Holocaust or about the conflict in Israel-Palestine.  I think that’s the wrong approach, and I think it all feels a little hokey personally.  I want to talk about the timeless.