DON’T HATE THE GAMER (Or the Game!)

 

Gamers are a special breed of talented human beings who are thoroughly misunderstood and unjustly maligned. The reasons for this misunderstanding are numerous and varied but are generally perpetuated by non-gamers who are driven by religious, social or cultural beliefs that spurn the  Intrinsic benefits of gaming. Due to preconceived notions and unfounded moral misgivings, the avid practitioners of video games "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" both in the gaming world and IRL, (In Real Life).

Non-gamers and other opponents of the video gaming world see this form of entertainment as non-productive, time-wasting recreation, with sedentary, fat-enhancing propensities that promote mindless, blood-thirsty killing, and provide zero benefits to the practitioner or society as a  whole.

The truth is that many great gaming experiences, (the Diablo© series for example), draw their inspiration from the Holy Bible, which graphically depicts the horrors of warfare and the moral decay of biblical civilization,(one of God's warriors could kill ten and so on)! Most daily Bible readers must admit that there is no greater example of war, murder, incest, lust, and total societal destruction than exists within those Hallowed pages. In fact, murder was first committed by one of the most perfect human beings in recorded history, Cain, (the elder son of Adam,) who undoubtedly utilized more than 10% of his near-perfect brain. Cain killed his brother Abel because of envy, the underlying cause of many biblical and modern-world tragedies.

King Saul, the first ordained king of the Israelite people, fell from grace with "The Most High" because he failed to put all of his enemies and their possessions to "destruction". This included men, women, children, and their livestock. God knew that any remnant of a decadent society would bring ruin to His people, so He ordered the total and complete annihilation of most of Saul's enemies, who inhabited "The Promised Land". When Saul fell, a boy named David arose, and became one of the world`s greatest warrior kings in history, when he defeated Goliath.

Since most scholars agree that wasting mental capacity and cerebral potential is a travesty, understand that nothing requires more brain-building power than a puzzle or a mystery. Video games provide mysterious intrigue and promote sleuthing acumen as well as troubleshooting and problem-solving abilities. The added incentive of "staying alive" adds urgency and motivation for a gamer to resolve issues quickly and succinctly. The gamer's brain is required to filter through varying degrees of "if-then-else" scenarios to arrive at the safest, most complete solution to any given enigma that the game presents.

In senior retirement homes, games are integrated into video exercise bikes to promote competition and ease the pain of the actual physically challenging workout. The mentally stimulating brain-exercise computers, (by Dakim®), use games and puzzles to push the elderly mind to its limits and restore and maintain memory and other cognitive abilities. Games like the WII® system incorporate mild physical exercise and sensory acuity into one cohesive gaming experience.

Playing video games easily trumps watching mind-numbing hours of television, even if both viewers are stationary for the same period of time. When watching a mentally stimulating mystery or thriller on TV, the viewer can only watch as the actors methodically move through the script, scene by scene, to an often predictable end. The same mystery or thriller in a video game is orchestrated by the gamer, who determines the outcome of each scene by the choices he/she makes during the course of a quest, mission or full-scale battle of wits and might. In addition, when a viewer watches a re-run of a great mystery, the outcome is always the same. In a video game, the outcome may be modified by the choices the gamer makes, the skills he/she decides to employ, or the number and proficiency of other players and non-player characters, (NPCs), in the game. There are also other factors that determine the outcome of a quest or mission in an online community that constantly changes each time the gamer logs in. Furthermore, there are instances that allow the gamer to be in the same place and time as other players, but see and interact with different people and objects within the same environment, based on previous choices or actions. Some games also offer tactical variance, which adjusts the difficulty of the game for each player based upon the player's character level, or raises all characters in the same instance to the level of the highest player's character. Finally, unlike the television viewer, gamers generally have both hands occupied for long periods of time and cannot stuff themselves with food and snacks as often as a casual viewer can. Hand-eye coordination is enhanced during the active pursuit of the "treasure/loot" or heroic glory that awaits the player at the end of each mission or quest. There are battles to be won, skills to be mastered and territory to be explored each time a gamer leaves the safety of the town, stronghold, ship or rest area. Though some games offer "auto-targeting" to decrease the skill and hand-eye coordination required by the player, most premium games ask the player to practice aiming, firing, and dodging to survive each successively escalating mission as the player "levels up" from one to infinity.

The US military applications of video gaming have also become evident, and first-person-shooter games that require teamwork and tactical abilities to achieve success have been utilized by various branches of military service to train and prepare military combatants for live action. So, until you know all of the facts, "Hate not the gamer nor the game!"