Tonight's musings addresses a slightly more depressing topic that I have decided to throw off my gloves and approach with brutal honesty: what motivates us, the gamers, to play, interact, progress, or even want to pick up a controller and proceed into whatever virtual world has been laid out before our eyes. I've actually discovered there are a plethora of intricate and well, sometimes rather less complicated reasons than you might believe.
Originally, I always just assumed everyone played games for the compelling story or for fun, but after truly thinking about it, I realized how naive a notion that truly was. First and foremost, there is the drive to just have fun. The thrill and enjoyment of doing whatever it may be in whatever world you're dwelling within. That's probably the most primitive and basic motivator of all, duh. Games were created to have fun and it's a completely legitimate reason to play, not that anyone needs to have a "legit" reason of course, who am I to say what is the right reason to play a video game...it's all up to the player to decide. There certainly does exist an urge to complete a game's story, we as human beings with brains, feelings, and thoughts all succumb to the curiosity (You know, that thing that killed a cat...or something rather.) of finding out just how the story concludes so we may go about our otherwise busy lives knowing we've peacefully, or not so peacefully, resolved whatever has been bestowed upon whoever, whenever, and wherever. I've actually found that I enjoyed playing a game simply for the characters.
Grandia II and the Ratchet & Clank series are two fine examples, I love Ratchet's humor and charm and Ryudo from Grandia was a huge sarcastic and abrasive breath of fresh air among all the other inherently cheery or depressingly "emo" Japanese teenagers with big swords of his era on the Playstation 2 and Dreamcast.
Violence in video games is another one; though I've yet to truly understand the reason behind about 90 percent of all the fans that exclusively play that brand of excessively violent video game. That drive to, as they might put it on any given Sunday afternoon, "kill shit, blow things up, light stuff on fire, and all that junk". I mean no disrespect, I promise, I've actually heard similar if not the exact statement numerous times before, I work at a Gamestop in my local area, heh. To me, it's almost a given nowadays that you will be allowed and, in most cases, suggested or forced to commit gruesome tasks in one form or another in almost every game that's released this day in age. So blowing your hard-earned cash, drug money, or even spending that much time contriving a system in which to steal a game that spends most of its resources looking pretty and letting the player kill things in a gajillion different ways at the expense of a roster of developed characters and a story that doesn't blatantly suck, to me, is a little wasteful...but then again who the hell am I to judge? I suppose sometimes there is a raging, pissed off side of me that just wants to run aimlessly through an alien wasteland as a marine with a head half the size of my neck carrying an over sized gun that could pass as a small tank, asphyxiating everything in my path with bullets, fire, and acid, just not a sixty-dollar purchase.
MMO's have fallen victim to a breed of gamers that thrive on beefing up his or her character through leveling in a power hungry quest to be the most superior, badass around. It's more of an addiction than anything else really, or at least it usually becomes one. I'll use WoW as an example for the sake that it's the most obvious case readily available. I think it's safe to say that the majority of people playing WoW don't follow the story, in fact they may not even know one exists, there are guides online on how to level up, sites on the best gear, and a multitude of other resources that help you advance your character in every way you can possibly conceive, but not one damn thing on the story behind what the game is all about. It's kind of a silly, yet vicious, cycle where you play for countless hours to get beefier, better, and badass-ier gear, so you can kill harder things, so you can get better gear, so you can then kill even more difficult things and just when you thought you were the most fuckin' badass Paladin this side of Azeroth...Blizzard raises the bar so you spend even more time invested in doing the same things over again. There does exist an almost social aspect to that type of game play though. Bonds are formed, friends are made, and more quests are completed along the way! I succumbed to this behavior with Diablo II. I think I invested one whole summer solely to maiming thousands of cows, Baals, and Mephistos in an attempt to obtain Stones of Jordans and other super rare gear. (Thank you Blizzard, I will never see that summer again!)
My only saving grace which doesn't even compensate for such antisocial behavior was the existence of an actual...decent story, but even then...I didn't pay any attention to it every time I played, it was the thrill of looting every body that hit the ground that plucked my heart strings. Actually the one game that got me really thinking about this particular topic was Borderlands. It looks pretty, it's post apocalyptic, and you can level up. Three huge flags that I will most likely enjoy a game. After hours of playing, I began a discussion with my brother about how fun it was until we hit the topic of it's story...or basically the near absence of any story at all! It sort of dug a hole inside of me because I suddenly didn't have a point in killing a ton of Skags and advancing in the game. It was a sad day in the life of this little gamer...
There's always the aesthetic appeal of those artsy or super realistic-looking games. Games like Okami, Braid, Odin Sphere, Uncharted, Borderlands, and many others that look so visually appealing that we tend to forget the drawbacks of their designs. The ever-so-popular-to-the-teenage-girl simulation games that simulate...well...life. Y'know that thing that we're all doing? Yeah, well she's playing a game based on it...and doing it in any outfit she could imagine complete with eighty different hairstyles! Oh yes, customization, what a lovely little personal touch to gaming. Many games provide statistics on how you, as a player, have done. It definitely boasts a sense of competition. One game I tended to play out of competition was Counter-Strike 1.6 and Source. Where there is no story, no single player, and only stats to brag or sulk in despair about, what else could a game of that scope really stand to deliver? For whatever reason, I find it hard to justify, now more than ever, playing and investing time and energy into games that don't give me a good reason to put the said time and energy into them, but I suppose it's when games are true to themselves that I can let a lack of story or purpose become obsolete. Counter-Strike doesn't even attempt a story...it never meant to and you'd be silly to think it was ever missing one. It was never even a glimpse in a developer's sparkling little eye over at Valve. Same goes for Left 4 Dead. There's a premise: zombies, and the zombies don't like you and the three others that make up that motley crew of yours. I tend to contradict myself and that's solely because when it boils down to it, I generally play and enjoy the games that are good at what they are set out to do and don't try to bullshit anyone. 
So, there's no cut-and-dry definition of a good game in my eyes other than a game that does what it was supposed to do in the first place.So now I end this petty little insight with nothing more to say. We all play games for the reason or reasons to which we find gives us the most gratification at the end of the day. It's a personal experience despite whether it's a social night spent in the comfort of others or alone in a candlelit room with nothing but a blanket between you and your television. There is no right or wrong purpose for fulfilling this desire and not a soul could tell you otherwise. To each his own...or her own!
