Every story, no matter how unpleasant or disliked, has an audience in at least one of the 7 billion humans inhabiting planet Earth.
When you play a video game you willingly partake in the affairs of the fictional characters and the weaving conflict affecting them. Similarly to a book or a graphic novel, the best characters are those we can identify with best. In RPGs (role-playing games) the avatar rids players of the trouble by giving them a surrogate to act for them. Being there and experiencing things you would not be able to in real life is what makes playing these RPGs so much fun. Like any form of art, video games aspire two things: to entertain, and to sublimilaly send a message to the audience. All this the courtesy of the hard work of programmers and "geeks" out there.
Sadly, nowadays most people mistreat the game to fullfil sadistic tendencies. Most do not even care to engage in the storyline and jump right to the shooting, fulfilling an ever-present animal sadism present in humanity and retained by natural selection during evolution. With this comes the scrutiny given, regarding video games "too violent," by that minority of caring parents (considering nowadays there are many "imbeciles" who should have never been allowed to be parents in the first place; story for another day).
Skipping the whole debate of violence in video games (because lets admit it, everyone and even I have had fun with even the smallest amount of violence; looking at you, slapstick comedy), the true culprit for the corruption of video games can be narrowed down to lazy parents who raise victimized brats, and the industry who responds to the demands of said brats. So actually the parents of said brats. Again, the sadism is often a psychological response to lack of understanding. For example, as seen in "Lord of the Flies" by , when we are alone (because no one understands us) the self-centerness and self-pitty begins.
Back on topic, we love all video games but like books, true lovers are required to care for the characters and pay attention to the storyline (why do you think Twilight and Harry Potter are so freaking successful? ). The whole point being that when people do not appreciate the story, this can lead to many other problems for those who do.
In the case of competitive gaming, we often find hackers. These are those bad kids who got impatient and decided to Pokésav their way to victory or just give their miserable selves infinite power. In this case it can be said being impatient or not being a good players (undertone: talking about you anti-social one, the odd ball, the kid who could never be a "team player") results in hackers. Pittiful indeed.
This is why when playing video games it is best to take the same approach a reader takes to, well, reading (duh). This is why I admire gamers of Professor Layton and all those "brainiac" games (you rock love you all). These people can tell you best how engaging a game's storyline can really be.
From personal experience (breaking many rules in writing but I do not really care) the first time I played Pokémon Blue Version my only motive was boredom and curiosity. Like many youngsters battling to best others quickly enamoured me. However, as soon as I began seeing Team Rocket's deeds escalate to the point of murdering a Cubone's Marowak mother, I finally got how deep of a storyline an insignificant game can have. I looked back at the player's Mom, the things NPCs (non-player characters) told me, and finally realized the reason I was truly liking this game was because I had learned to become a real part of the story. The story was now my story, and the battles against Team Rocket became a personal motive to rescue the frightened employees of Silph Co. in Saffron City. Then the gratitude and the title of "hero" were the cherry to top it all. By appreciating the good storyline, the primitive graphics were an issue no more.
Appreciating the game's story, rather than instantly skipping to the action (takes patience for this P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E) lets you not grow bored of the game quickly and enjoy it for longer than 24 hours.
In competitive battling, namely Pokémon, the most scrutinized game in FriendCodes.com for having the most hackers, most gamers come to this website for competitive battles. Sadly most of us have crossed paths with jerks who call us "noobs" and these so-called "experts" who make us believe that to be good at this strategic game, about awesome masoquist animals from another dimension, you must resort to completing the game in under 24 hours to the to the best stuff because "everything else does not matter."
Get the point? When patience is lost and gamers fail to enjoy their game just to best those who bested them, they resort to playing dirty and by the end of the day (only rational people will get this one) no one really has fun playing anymore. Forget how to truly have fun and you spoil the fun for everybody.
Of course most readers (I am breaking the fourth wall now) by this point are going "%$@$ you!" or "%$#^ this article" and have already stopped reading, because those people are afraid to admit they have lost their will to have fun and merely seek satisfaction to somehow cope with their personal issues. For those reading this line, congratulations and thank you for your time. Good day!
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