What are we playing at?

What are we playing at?

I’m not going to pretend that I’ve always felt gaming was the best use of my time. There’s a reason that I intentionally abandoned it altogether at important social times like first year of University.

At the same time, when I pencil in an hour of Destiny with podcasts on in the background, I feel like that’s a really satisfying way to unwind.

But there’s an additional layer of question I feel increasingly compelled to ask when playing games. With major games sprawling out with hundreds of collectables and subquests and compelling little diversions — at what stage are we still having fun?

Do you sign off after the main story finishes? Or was the narrative the real distraction? With cases like Halo/ Destiny’s perfect little 30 second bubbles of gameplay, perhaps it’s actually the story that’s just an excuse for you to enjoy the moment by moment experience.

Ultimately, there are worse problems to have. And it’s a sign of this new phase of maturity for gaming. We’re asking questions now about what is and isn’t the substance of the thing or worth interacting with.

Gaming is becoming a victim of its own success — now that it can supply moments of sublime experience that overlap great story, stunning views, stimulating gameplay and (best of all) co-op with friends across the world, the moments that reflect old gaming leap out.

So, moment by moment pursuit of seemingly trivial side objectives can be over intellectualised. But I think we need to remember that once upon a time, that’s pretty much all we had.