Why Do I Play This Game?

Day 395, 05:36 Published in United Kingdom Australia by Patrick Reckitt

This is a question I have often asked myself, and I’m sure you have, whilst playing eRepublik and other online games, such as CyberNations and I have always had trouble answering this definitively. Do I play for fun? Or do I play for pure escapism, for something to distract me from my daily life and to get away from the endless daily cycle of lessons and coursework? The problem comes in the fact that playing this and other games does not always provide either of these and does, in fact, cause some rather stressful situation in the past. So why do I play this game exactly? This is the marathon question that I seek to answer here and now, fuelled by endless cups of tea and the occasional Jaffa Cake.

So, let me start with the idea that I’m playing this game for fun. This is an idea that sounds plausible enough, considering that games often describe themselves as ‘fun’ or at least ‘entertaining’. Dictionary.com gives the definition of fun as ‘something that provides mirth or amusement’. While I have found eRepublik to have provided a degree of amusement so far, mainly based on the experience of discovering the ins and outs of a new game, something which tends give to give me a certain degree of amusement, or excitement at least. But I can’t really saw that the game has provided much mirth yet, excluding the out of character forums. But while I may be getting amusement and a degree of excitement from discovering the potential that this game provides, I know that once I end up with a degree of responsibility and stress starts then that goes away to a certain extent. An example is called for I think then, although it isn’t an eRepublik one and so may not actually be valid. As I mentioned above, I used to play a game called CyberNations, which some of you may be familiar with. I played the game for a couple of years had some responsibilities, which were mainly Foreign Affairs and dealing with irate characters with inflated egos. Naturally this wasn’t always providing ‘amusement’ and sometimes provided a fair degree of frustration, which isn’t particularly entertaining. Writing this first article has proved frustrating at times and so isn’t overwhelmingly fun all the time. So essentially, ‘fun’ isn’t always the reason that I play these games. But what is then?

Let’s try escapism as a reason, and on the surface, it appears to be a reason as valid as fun is. So, does this game provide pure escapism? And more importantly, is playing a game where you lead a life not too dissimilar actually escapism? Dictionary.com gives the definition of escapism as ‘the avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind in entertainment or in an imaginative situation, activity, etc.’ eRepublik is certainly the avoidance of reality in my view and that seems pretty correct, eRepublik is definitively not reality. It certainly seems absorbing too, with enough features and jobs to do to absorb me and generally distract me from life, which is an admirable goal to follow at the moment, all things considering.

So, escapism is a completely valid reason for me, but I get the feeling that it isn’t the complete reason for playing this game. After all, I’m writing this article, talking about my life and I get the feeling this isn’t just escapism. Talking about my life isn’t exactly escapism, after all. Such confusing logic. So, what are the other reasons I play this game?

I suppose you could say I do it for the experiences I get from it, experiences which have taught me some valuable lessons, despite the fact that they aren’t technically real. I’ve learnt how to observe things in detail and pick announcements and treaties apart and I’ve learnt how to negotiate with some force. These are lessons of some worth and so you could say that I play these games to learn. But, like escapism, that isn’t all of the reason and there must be other factors.

In the short time that I’ve played eRepublik I’ve got the feeling that a big part of being successful in this game the ability to work together. This provides, for me at least, a good feeling of camaraderie, the sort that makes you feel stronger than you would normally feel. Naturally, as a Socialist, I would say that working together is a good thing but the simple appeal of camaraderie has caused me to play games that frustrate me in the past, like CyberNations and World War II Online. There is certainly a lot to be said for the pleasure that working together for or against a common cause but even this isn’t the whole reason why I am playing eRepublik.

I’ve spent the last couple of hours creating these reasons and none of them are the definitive answer. There is a simple reason for this that I have discovered in the course of writing this article: The reason I play this game is a combination of all the above factors. This seems quite simple looking back, after all nothing in life is ever as a simple as being one factor. The same goes for politics within life and this game, because no ideology can possibly work without being tempered with elements of another ideology. So that is the answer to the question that I posed, discovered after a couple of hours of introspection and soul-searching. The message I leave you with is this: Nothing ever happens for one simple, clear cut reason. After all, I’m not playing this game or writing this article for one clear cut reason and you would not drink pure alcohol, you’d temper it with other liquids. The same can broadly be said for anything else that happens in the world or eRepublik, countless examples could be quoted.

In the event that you’ve found this article interesting, do put your own views across, I would very much like to hear them.