Can a Game Change Who You Are in Real Life?

Gaming is our favorite hobby. We sink countless hours into it, some of us have been that since we were little boys and girls.

There are plenty of reasons why we play games; to escape reality and exist in a surreal world; for competition and the thrill of challenging actual people across the country maybe other countries; exert power in a virtual world and make decisions that affect it; maybe unravel an interesting story and get to know characters through the span of a series; or just have something to do with your friends even though we’re at home.

While we all have different tastes in games, some take it a bit more seriously than others. There's more to video games than winning, getting the best loot, blowing things up, or getting clutch headshots. But, can a game change who you are in real life?

Never do we go into a game expecting it to change our perception of our real lives. The impact of a game is circumstantial. You probably have to relate to the situation that it's portraying, or identify with the events and even make a leap to interpret the events as you see fit. Games that act as stress reliever or coping mechanism to life's challenges are therapeutic. I've even learned about myself and gained perspective for real decisions.

Braid

The first time fully realized a game’s impact outside its virtual world was when I completed Braid, a 2008 side-scrolling, time-manipulating, puzzle platformer, which was a pioneer of the modern indie game scene. You play a man who is in constant search of someone who just isn’t there.

Through searching for puzzle pieces and putting the pieces together, both figuratively and literally, you see a story of someone who struggled to maintain a relationship. In its last stage, you fight through the toughest obstacles thinking you’re within reach of who you were searching for. Just when you thought it ended, the game uses its own mechanic of time reversal to reveal that you weren’t the hero. That person you were reaching for was trying to get farther away from you. As the ending unfolded, I felt my stomach drop because in that moment not only did I realize what the game was really about, but I realized what I was doing wrong in my personal life. Braid embodied my situation and I saw myself in a greater context.

After I played this game all those years ago, I had finally come to terms with the fact that there will be people who don’t want to be a part of your life anymore, no matter how hard you try to keep them around. You can get so caught up in your own world and what you think is right that you can’t actually see what you’re doing wrong.

Antichamber

The 2013 MC Escher-inspired first person puzzler came at a time when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep doing the work I was doing. I felt lost and struggling to justify the professional decisions I needed to make.

As you solve increasingly complex puzzles, the game presents panels on the wall of ambiguously motivational quotes which also vaguely reflect the solution to the corresponding puzzle. Whether or not the quotes were actually deep or profound is beside the point. It provoked the thought of making the most of life by taking risks for what you truly want.

Intentional or otherwise, I saw the gameplay mechanics and level design as a parallel to the message it was trying to convey. I thought longer and harder about my career and where I was going. Antichamber proved that a little perspective can go a long way. Whether or not it actually influenced my decision-making is impossible to tell at this point, but the fact that it became a part of the process and provided clarity is powerful.

Key SNES RPGs

The more I thought about games that made an impact, the more I retreaded my early gaming years. What I call my Super Nintendo trifecta were major keys in improving my reading comprehension, understanding of context clues, and imagination of storytelling when I was about six years old.

• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Final Fantasy VI
• Chrono Trigger

This was before cutscenes and voice-acting, so I had to work to understand what was happening or what to do next. Boss battles challenged my critical thinking skills. I catch new story elements I glossed over as a kid each time I revisit these games. I also see these games as time capsules reminding of who I was as a child.

I loved Super Mario RPG so much that I told my 2nd grade teacher I wanted to change my name to Geno. I was met with reality when she told me straight up that it's not happening.

Deus Ex, Undertale, and Choice-Based RPGs

In the Summer of 2003, I first played what became my favorite game of all time and still is to this day. Deus Ex introduced me to cyberpunk and first-person stealth action RPGs. It showed me that PCs could offer deeper and more complex gaming experiences. Deus Ex showed me that music and sound can make good games great.

While I know I was young and impressionable, Deus Ex told a story I’d never been told before. It perpetuated my interest in government and politics. Along with many other influential books, games, and documentaries, I pursued a professional career in politics and government affairs.

The plot twists set a precedent for how game stories can surprise me and how my choices can affect outcomes. Deus Ex shifted my gaming paradigm, more so than any single game since.

The same could be said about my experience with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic just a few months later.

Speaking of Bioware games, I got around to finishing Mass Effect 3 this year. Playing through the Citadel DLC not only made me reminisce the days of playing 1 and 2, but it also reminded of who I was and what I was doing at the time I played those games. I was also thinking about my friends and how our bonds were created and strengthened through what we experienced together. I’ve always valued friendships to the highest degree, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded every now and then.

Just this year I got around to playing Undertale, an experience that hit just as hard as Braid. It is one of the best examples of innovative storytelling, a game’s awareness of your decisions, the power of sound to convey emotion, and the weight of life and death. It was one of the better interpretations of racism, xenophobia, humanity, and self-awareness which in 2016 is just as relevant as ever.

I’m not trying to convince anyone how great our medium is, but I’d like more of us to think about the value our games might be giving us outside of pure entertainment. I don't want to be pretentious, because there is nothing wrong with enjoying games for its simple fun-factor. My hope is that we could understand that sometimes there’s more to games than what we simply see on a screen.