Why Game?

"I just flew in from the Chaos Lands and BOY!  Are my arms tired."
 - Stormskull Hawk, upon reaching the Tower of Night.

The real question here is “Why not game”?  Although gaming has become more main stream in modern times it is, by far, not a new hobby.  Dating as far back as 3500 B.C. Ancient Egyptians were enjoying games of Senet, a game which would later become Chess.  Proof of this was depicted in a painting from the tomb of Merknera who lived from approximately 3300 to 2700 B.C.

In ancient times these game would most likely have been played exclusively by royalty.   In modern times games are more accessible to the everyday person.  In simpler terms, everyone can afford to buy a game.

So what are the drawbacks that keep us from enjoying our hobby?  The most common complaint seems to be time.  We have so much hustle and bustle in our daily lives sometimes we just can’t find the time to relax and enjoy a good game.  Ancient peoples would have had the same dilemma, of course.

Where do you find the time to game there are wars to be planned and fought?  When you need to hunt for the days kill to feed your family or even your village?  It seems logical that ancient people would have also had very little time for a relaxing game.  Games would have been nothing more than a way to pass time when you were idle.

In our modern times we have more conveniences that make our lives easier.  Sure we have jobs we need to do, families to care for, but we also have more idle time then people who existed before us had.  We tend to use our idle time as a way to relax and drift in to our “me” time.  Sure, we would love to pick up a game and play it, but this idle time is for us to relax because we are tired.  We thrust our passions aside in the name of having just a few moments to ourselves.

Eventually this becomes our routine and gaming gets pushed to the side because we just don’t have the time.  If this is our passion then why can we not find the time?  If we want to game then why does the universe seem to forbid it?  The answer is crystal clear.  The reason we cannot find the time to game is because we spend more time making excuses for why we cannot game then we do making the time to game.  We are all guilty of this at some point, but this is our passion.

This is an open letter to all gamers, no matter what your genre of gaming may be.  We spend all day doing the same mundane tasks over and over.  We have bosses to please, wives or husbands to please, children to please.  We are tired.  We want to rest.  We want “me” time.

Gaming is our passion, we are gamers and nothing is more relaxing than a good game to end the day.  Games bring people together.  Families enjoy playing together as do friends.  Even strangers can sit and play a good relaxing game together.

It is up to all of us to embrace our passion and make the time to enjoy our hobby.  At the end of the long and mundane day noble gamer, how will YOU spend your time?  Idle or enjoying your hobby?