The Entertainment Aspect of Video Games

    I have talked quite a bit about the scholarly value of video games. But now I would like to take some time to talk about another aspect of them. The aspect which is most thought of when people talk about video games. The entertainment aspect. Video games are first and foremost a medium for entertainment, just like novels, movies and TV shows. So I think that it is important to examine this aspect of video games as it is important to any true understanding of the medium.

    Benjamin Franklin once said that, “Games lubricate the body and the mind.” This, I think, is an incredibly great insight. Obviously he was not talking about video games, but I think the same thing applies to them. Games, and enjoyment in general, are needed for healthy living. Just as the mind and body need exercise, so too do they need rest, relaxation, and enjoyment. The mind and body cannot constantly be working, for they will exhaust themselves. Yet the idea that entertainment is important is not one that is universally accepted. I have met several people who have expressed the idea that a person should be spending all of his/her free time studying. That unless you are working, taking care of your home, and taking care of and spending time with your family, then you need to be reading the works of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, or other great classics. That all spare time you can muster up should be spent studying great works of old. I cannot express enough how unhealthy this is. It is not good to have your entire life be work and studying. You need rest. You need enjoyment. I have found a similar mentality with some people who believe that they should be spending all of their time working, whether it is house work or a job where they are making an income. Once again, this is unhealthy. It is not good to spend all of your time working. You will become exhausted. People need time to take a break and do something that they really enjoy doing. Something to ease their mind. People need fun.

    Fun is a concept that seems to be losing its value. There seems to be a mentality forming that having fun and playing are things that children do, that the older you become the less “fun” you should be having and the more “work” you should be doing. This mentality seems to indicate that once you reach a certain age it is unacceptable to collect Pokemon Cards or go to sci-fi conventions. That once you are an adult sometimes messing around and goofing off is immature. And that in order to grow up you need to stop playing video games. In short, we have created a mentality that doing many of the things that we love to do as kids, things which we considered then to be “fun,” are not things that are acceptable for us to do as adults. This can be seen in many aspects of our culture. When you are watching a movie or TV show about youth, often you will see the kids at school divided into several different social classes. You have the jocks, cheerleaders, skater dudes, and various others. What group is made up of the people who spend time playing video games or loving sci-fi?  A lot of the time it is going to be the socially inept nerds. The people who, though smart, are often immature. The people who close themselves off from human contact as much as possible, unless it is with each other. The people who are clumsy and childish. Those are the people we portray as liking video games. Other examples are in shows about families. Often, when the husband is being depicted as lazy, he is seen playing video games rather than fulfilling his duties to his family or job. The mentality is that video games are for the slacker. That sitting back and enjoying yourself is what lazy people do. Hard-working people don’t waste their time playing video games. There are better things to do with your life. More important things. This, I feel, is not a good attitude to have. What is so wrong about taking some time to do some things that you truly love to do? Collecting the things you want to collect. Going to the events you want to go to. And playing video games if that is a passion of yours.

    None of what I am saying should be construed as meaning that studying or working is bad, and we should spend most of our time playing video games. Work and study are both very important. I have always considered myself to be a very hard worker. And I spend most of my time reading and studying. But studying certain subjects is a passion of mine, so I am getting my entertainment from some of things that I read. For others video games are a great passion, as they are with me, and so why should we discourage playing them. Some people read or watch Shakespeare for entertainment, some read Jane Austin novels, and some play video games. Everyone has their own form of entertainment, and if sometimes a person chooses to play through the game Kingdom Hearts rather than reading Romeo and Juliet, is that a bad thing? I do not think so. As I said before people need entertainment, they need fun, they need relaxation. Study history and you will see that this has always been commonly accepted. Go back centuries and I think you will find that people have always played games or read novels, children have always played with toys and with each other, people have always tried to have fun. Enjoyment is good, and video games are extremely valuable when it comes to entertainment.