Why Do We Play Video Games

Many gamers spend countless hours saving princesses, shooting bad-guys, and fighting our way through multiple bosses, but what keeps us coming back to these wonderful and or not so wonderful experiences? Many researchers around the world studied that videogames have multiple affects on our society: how they discourage violence, inspire creativity, and or nurture laziness. However, people rarely ask why we play videogames in the first place. What drives us to collect coins, kill zombies, or roam around the cities looking for people to assassinate? Scientists and psychologists have now only began to understand why. But unlocking the mystery behind this desire may do more than help us understand our obsession- it could- possibly help shape our society.

Some gamers (not all) throw around the term "escapism" when talking about their many hobbies, but this is only a brief/hollow explanation for what actually motivates us to play games. The word "escapism" contains some negative implications suggesting that those who play games feel the need to break fee from their slavery of the real world or their reality. I personally enjoy retreats to other realities, I mean who doesn't, ones more fantastical than our own- but not always are we driven to play games just to escape our real world lives. The real motivations we play games are more far complex then we could imagine, and fulfill several-real world human needs, in many positive ways. We all have psychological needs, and these needs operate all the time - when people are at work, school, or when we play videogames. These specific needs are always operating. Games perfectly target these needs. These needs classify into three categories . The first need is for competence. Competence is that desire to seek control or to feel mastery over situations. People like to feel successful, and growing in knowledge and accomplishments. This need plays out in various real life situations, for example: when people decide to switch jobs or go back to school, because their career isn't rewarding or challenging enough to suit their needs. It's also easy to see how videogames make us feel more accomplished. Like when we level in any RPG or MMORPG games, or when we spend countless hours beating a game fulfill our desires to feel competent.

Our second psychological need is autonomy. Autonomy is the desire to feel independent or have certain amount of control over our actions. This need permeates nearly every fact of our culture. The drive toward autonomy is why people don't like being manipulated. That's why imprisonment is a punishment, and why we feel an urge to rebel against slavery. This is why game series that offer gamers a variety of free choices - The Elder Scrolls series and Grand Theft Auto - are so popular. "Terrible Two's" are a great example of a need for autonomy. It's not terrible for the kid, it's terrible for the parent(s) to hear their kid say 'no' all the time.

The final psychological need is relatedness. We like to feel like we matter, or have an important role in life, like we are making a significant contribution to society. It's easy to see how games can fulfill, playing games with friends online, but oddly enough you can still meet this need even when playing by yourself. The way that gamers are written, or their style of gameplay, this can generally be met when players are talking to an in-game character, or NPC (N on Playable Character). NPCs are often structured around helping them, find or collect treasures and or kill people.

Over many years we gravitated towards experiences that make us feel more competent, more autonomous, and more related to these experiences make us feel good, and mentally healthy. These needs however, can also be met at school, at work, or playing sports. But psychologists have just discovered video games are the most seductive and efficient method of meeting all these needs.