Email: Treating life as a video game

Dear Master Malstrom,

 

I wanted to share this video with you, this guy (who was a collage loser and is now a successful entrepreneur) did a presentation where he compared living as a character to living in his real life. It remained me a lot of what you always say about how the appeal of video-games is in the way they reflect human nature. He talks about things like “exploring ancient ruins in Zelda and then growing up and exploring ruins in real life” and applying the rules of “leveling up” to leveling up in real life by gaining new experiences.

 

 

Sincerely yours, The Reader. 

Historians have realized that Plutarch’s Lives does little to tell us about the Roman people. Where historians go to learn about the Roman people are the Games that were played. Everyone went to the coliseum for the games. Even the Emperor.Video games are the only medium today that is the same for all classes. Rich people may be able to buy MORE games and might have MORE time to game, but there is no such thing as a ‘rich man’s game console’. There is only ONE form of video game: the mass market video game. Rich people play it. Poor people play it. Old people play it. Young people play it. Men play it. Women play it.

Our lives are games. Not everyone starts the game with the same abilities. Some start with additional resources. But the clock ticks equally for us all.

I can tell much about a person’s life by how they play a video game. Cheaters will cheat. People who look to be comfortable in life rarely push themselves in a game. Winners play to win. I love biographies. Did you know that Bill Gates was a huge poker player before starting Microsoft? He wouldn’t go to his classes. He’d just play, and he played to win. Before starting Apple, Steve Jobs worked at Atari. Even distant figures like Benjamin Franklin played chess all the time. [Hiroshi Yamauchi played Go all the time (as did Nolan Bushnell).]
The importance of toys is that they are preparation for real life. Mothers will note that the young boy playing with Matchbox cars will end up playing with real life cars that go very fast. Or the girl playing with dolls is preparing for when she has children. Toys are meant to frame our minds and senses for real life.

“But can you BEAT the game?” Silly reader! Games don’t exist to be ‘beaten’. They exist for you to enjoy. What you get out of a game is what you put into it. What do you want from life? If your video game is more interesting than your life, then you have work to do.