An essay for my fellow gamers

[Molenator]

Hey guys, I wrote this for a college class a semester back and thought i share it with fellow gamers, if you guys like it, I would like to write more and see what you guys think. Let me know.

You know, it has become apparent to a lot of people that video games are becoming popular, and not just you’re Shadow Run kind of popular to where it’s big for a while and decimates over a period of time. As a lot of individuals (not just gamers) know video games are here to stay. “Why?” some people might ask. What the hell is it about sitting in front of a TV for countless hours struggling to stay awake, stomach running on fumes and butt aching from sitting that only a person in a wheel chair could understand. Why kill hundreds of flesh eating Flood, or countless numbers of Nazis that don’t stop coming unless you advance forward. Why you might ask. Well life has something to do with it. Life as much as you want to complicate it is simple, you live, you pay taxes, and you die. As much as you might want it you will never have super powers, you will never be able to fly, and you will never be able to experience the sensation of killing a zombie. See people say to live life to the fullest, do stuff that makes you happy and live life. Gamers live life people. Gamers get to explore lush forest, blistering hot deserts, freezing tundra’s, other planets! We get to save the princess, kill the guy threating the universe, parkour in Italy, meet other species that don’t even exist. Sure it’s not real but hey, it’s real to us. Now im not trying to suggest not to go outside and become a cavemen excluded from society, im just trying to say understand. Understand why we do it, understand why we play games that get you so mad that you actually give a second though about smashing your controller against the wall. Its entertainment people, its fun, sad, frustrating, satisfying, its video games. There’s nothing like it.

[egg-whites333]

wow deep :P i like this but you should post a new gamers post you seem cool

[Molenator]

Thanks for the advice, I went ahead and did that.

[egg-whites333]

always good to see a new gamer come :D i can tell your not a spammer so i will + rep you to say welcome

[Muffincat]

This is a nice post, and I don't want to be rude, but... you wrote this for college? It's chock full of grammatical/spelling errors, and you're addressing the reader, which generally isn't kosher. You're also using a lot of contractions, which you never use in an essay... It's extremely colloquial and, again, I don't want to be mean, but this doesn't seem college level to me o_O

[Diligence109]

As a piece of academic writing, this essay should express the core arguement, the existence of the phenomenon of "immersion" in video games and the positive qualities you argue are inherent in it, more clearly, directly, and upfront.

That's just what I feel could help the essay outside of the things Muffincat pointed out already like grammatical issues and academically uncharacteristic stylistic features like addressing the reader, using romantic expression, etc.

In terms of the actual argument, though, I agree and feel like many people, some gamers and some not, don't have tangible experience with immersion or really understand how fun and, with some moderation, how it can stimulate and nourish your imagination. If you wanted to write a fuller piece, you could talk about how immersion in excess is similar to drug abuse or other addictions and you could talk about the host of other rewarding feelings that come from video games that keep gamers coming back (ego boost from good performance in competitive games, adrenaline junkies in action games, satisfaction from completing a good, mentally engaging puzzle, etc) and explore how those can have long term positive or negative impacts on the player's maturity and growth or immediate mood and state of mind when practiced in moderation or in excess.

There's plenty of interesting information to get into on the topic, anyway. I'm not sure why I took the time to write all this, but I suppose I'm the kind of guy who's interested in being on a gaming forum, after all, so it would make sense that I'd have some interest to write a post like this, I guess.

EDIT: don't write like me, though, because I routinely use run-on sentences that express simple ideas in about three times as many words as necessary.
EDIT: the above edit is intentionally ironic

[Molenator]

This is a nice post, and I don't want to be rude, but... you wrote this for college? It's chock full of grammatical/spelling errors, and you're addressing the reader, which generally isn't kosher. You're also using a lot of contractions, which you never use in an essay... It's extremely colloquial and, again, I don't want to be mean, but this doesn't seem college level to me o_O

Hey man im actually glad you wrote this, and don't worry about your criticism being taken the wrong way I actually fully agree with you in almost every way. I wrote this as an introductory essay last year when I had just started college. As you can clearly observe I messed up pretty bad and actually got a B for the paper. I wanted to write more but it was a half a page assignment. I didn't want to correct anything feeling that I would of somehow been lying to you all saying I wrote it for college. Basically I just copied and pasted which I can clearly see now was a mistake. I probably should of corrected the mistakes but didn't. I can assure you my writing skills is a little better then this.


As a piece of academic writing, this essay should express the core arguement, the existence of the phenomenon of "immersion" in video games and the positive qualities you argue are inherent in it, more clearly, directly, and upfront.

That's just what I feel could help the essay outside of the things Muffincat pointed out already like grammatical issues and academically uncharacteristic stylistic features like addressing the reader, using romantic expression, etc.

In terms of the actual argument, though, I agree and feel like many people, some gamers and some not, don't have tangible experience with immersion or really understand how fun and, with some moderation, how it can stimulate and nourish your imagination. If you wanted to write a fuller piece, you could talk about how immersion in excess is similar to drug abuse or other addictions and you could talk about the host of other rewarding feelings that come from video games that keep gamers coming back (ego boost from good performance in competitive games, adrenaline junkies in action games, satisfaction from completing a good, mentally engaging puzzle, etc) and explore how those can have long term positive or negative impacts on the player's maturity and growth or immediate mood and state of mind when practiced in moderation or in excess.

There's plenty of interesting information to get into on the topic, anyway. I'm not sure why I took the time to write all this, but I suppose I'm the kind of guy who's interested in being on a gaming forum, after all, so it would make sense that I'd have some interest to write a post like this, I guess.

EDIT: don't write like me, though, because I routinely use run-on sentences that express simple ideas in about three times as many words as necessary.
EDIT: the above edit is intentionally ironic


Hey man awesome advise, thanks.

It's a little funny how you brought up that it can be a addiction like drugs. I had thought about that but like I said before it had to be short. I have a cousin that, well let's just say if there is a such thing as video game addiction, he has it severly. Gamers Score over 150,000, and it greatly causes problems with the family. Again, great recommendations man.

[paecmaker]

It's a little funny how you brought up that it can be a addiction like drugs. I had thought about that but like I said before it had to be short. I have a cousin that, well let's just say if there is a such thing as video game addiction, he has it severly. Gamers Score over 150,000, and it greatly causes problems with the family. Again, great recommendations man.

Well, most things can be addictive to atleast some people, even things that arent thought of being addictive.

[Diligence109]

Well, most things can be addictive to atleast some people, even things that arent thought of being addictive.

anything can be made into a compulsive destructive habit.

Like foruming! :D

[Kenoi]

hmm, it was interesting. thanks for sharing that