I've often thought about how great it would be to have a career which involved playing computer games for money... Having said that I've been in a band - thought that would be good to be paid for, and acted in a play, which was fun, but would nice to be paid for... But if you became a full-time computer games journalist, would it take something enjoy and turn it into work?
 
Lately I've been feeling a bit retro and have rediscovered the PS1 classic Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2.  I've been playing it on my PS2.  Now the trouble is I found myself feeling a little guilty last night.  I was enjoying churning through THPS2, and thinking, 'Really I should be playing a 360 game, working on my achievements...' I resisted the temptation to turn off - boot up Left 4 Dead and try for a few more achievements... Just...
 
But it  left me a little unsettled… At the same time, I’m playing THPS2, really, wanting my character to have better stats and more tricks, and to be skating on the higher levels… I’m basically ‘jobbing it’ through the lower levels trying to get to the stage where I can really have fun…

Is this gaming in the norm?  It’s a bit like back in the days of old Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies, I would play for so long, and then start thinking, ‘This isn’t efficient, I’m not gaining enough XP per hour at the moment – I ought to go and do something else.’ That something else might be really boring, but efficient in terms of the effort/time for XP gain.  Again, it’s investing time in something that isn’t that much fun, in theory so you can have more fun later.

I suppose this is a truth in most RPG style games, when having a retro- bash the Secret of Mana, I’m slightly conscious that I’m ploughing away with a rusty sword and no spells, so I can enjoy unleashing fiery death on my enemies later.  Power is fun, but games make you work for that power.

An interesting alternative view is that of the Guitar Hero games, playing on Easy difficulty, is frankly boring – but the game is a separate skill in itself.  I defy anyone to pick up Guitar Hero for the first time, no matter how good a musician or gamer you are, and play Through the Fire and Flames or Jordan on Expert… There’s no XP or artificial improving how powerful you are – it’s simply learning a skill, but learning a skill that is essentially playing a particular game.

All this considered, games playing is work, it involves work and always will – so why do we choose to do it?  Doing work which paid, or which would have to pay others to do for us would technically be more useful – so why spend so much of our time working hard at something fun, but unproductive?

I can only guess it’s to escape the mundanity of modern life, to experience ‘flow’ that sense of being so focused on something that the real world doesn’t exist – which you only get from high intensity games.

Ultimately computer games are escapism, finding a career as a games journalist and being forced to play all games, would probably still give that ‘flow’ experience.  Afterwards of course you have to consider the good and bad points and articulate them to your readers….

And you probably have to spend a large chhunk of time playing games which are a complete chore to play and pretty damn awful…

I would still choose that as career having said that.