Suspend Your Disbelief

One of the things that is used as a stick with which to beat the gamer is the idea that gaming is a “fantasy world“. Some people do believe that the player sitting with a controller in his or her hands has reverted to a child like state in which they cannot tell the difference between digitized figures on a screen and real people.

And while the best games do have an element of immersion to them, it is completely inaccurate to suggest that gamers have difficulty separating game and reality, as a rule.

The games are fun, but if gamers were as feckless as cheap shot columns in newspapers and magazines suggested, they’d never be able to afford the games they play.

It would be more accurate to say that gamers enjoyed the time off from doing real-world stuff, but that is really no different from watching a movie or reading a book.

People manage to do this stuff and hold down jobs. It is really not a case of regressing to childhood, and most gamers are every bit as aware of the difference between game and reality as are the people who write about their supposed lack of common sense.

At any rate video games, as intricate as they may be, are not so life-like that it is possible to forget what they are.

Games are fun, and that’s the whole story. Does playing Monopoly turn people into money-hungry tycoons who are not satisfied until everyone around them is bankrupt and homeless? No.