What makes us to play the games? Part 1

It's been a few days since my last article, so apologies for lack of them lately.. Just been enjoying my life and having fun playing some games, chatting with my girl etc but, that brings me the question.. What makes us to play the games? Hour after another, day after day, month after month, possibly even years? Is there some trick to it, or is it just coinsidence that people tend to like some games more than others?

After talking about the subject with RetroGen, he mentioned something like "interest to the subject" but.. Is that really all? I say, definetly no. It can't be all there is to the matter, I mean.. City building/Economy simulator games haven't been really that close to my heart ever and yet I have been playing Evony daily for over month already.. I mean, I like the genre, but can't believe I would play a game with nearly no graphics, lagging system (mostlikely due bad programming), non-existant gameplay and not really that much things to do in the end.. It is a good game to play while doing other stuff at the same time, like writing an article about gaming, but why to choose it over other games that have similar "casual" style of gaming and perhaps even better system?

Well, RetroGen did say couple possible reasons for it.. First of all social interraction, playing against others, chatting, writing mails and overall doing things together? Would that be the answer? No, it's definetly a part of it but there's still tons of games where you are lot less social, but they still keep you playing hours straight.. Like for example, I'm right now watching Final Fantasy series, played by "The Speed Gamers" on stream (www.thespeedgamers.com) for one week straight for charity, and those guys clearly have been playing the same games for years and Final Fantasy games are single player games.. Besides do I interract with other people while watching it? No, I'm just playing my own games and watching it occasionally.. Some people do chat there all the time, and that's part of the whole event, but I'm not really there too much.. So what interests me there?

Seeing someone else playing the game that I have played before? Well, it's one of the reasons why I got interested in it.. But it's definetly not the reason why I have been watching this for hours.. I guess it's mostly because I enjoyed playing it myself.

But what makes you to enjoy games? Graphics? Gameplay? Sociality? Interest to the subject? Uniquenes? There could be so many reasons for it, but what makes millions of people join with you? And what makes one game so special from others? I will think about those things and write about them once I come up with some answers, but until then, fare thee well ~ and keep enjoying the games..

Del signing out~