Gaming is an incredibly popular pastime, with more than 3 billion people describing themselves as gamers. This includes casual and mobile gamers, as well as players that are best described as hardcore gamers, sinking hours into a favourite title on PC or console.
And, while it is important that gaming doesn’t take over everyday life, this is true of all hobbies and pastimes, and there are various ways in which gaming can shape the everyday lives of players.
Gaming Experiences
Gaming encompasses various forms of pastime. The advent of powerful mobile devices and high-speed mobile Internet means even non-gamers pick up their phones to play the occasional social game. Beyond that, gaming genres can range from strategy and city building to sports and brawlers.
Options also include no KYC crypto casinos that offer luck-based gaming with the opportunity to win crypto-based prizes and jackpots, and are especially popular for the low-cost, near-instant deposits and withdrawals offered by pseudonymous cryptocurrency transactions. According to crypto expert Hira Ahmed, typical games include online slots as well as table games like roulette and blackjack.
Fun Matters
Fun is something we enjoy doing just for the sake of doing it, without any other motive for completing the task. Gaming, as a pastime, offers fun and enjoyment for players, and this can help reduce stress and anxiety.
It can also act as motivation – if you want to buy the latest gaming rig, costing thousands of dollars, that’s a good incentive to work overtime. If you want to ensure you can spend some time with your guild on Albion Online, it can provide motivation to get other tasks completed first.
Gamifying Life
This motivating factor presents people with the opportunity to gamify life. Gamification is the application of gaming principles to non-gaming activities. It’s commonly used to promote loyalty in businesses – think loyalty cards and loyalty programmes. It’s used in other areas of everyday life, too. Fitness apps and fitness programmes, for example, use various forms of gamification to encourage regular participation.
Even language-learning apps offer levelling up and other intangible rewards as a means of motivation. Pastimes like gaming can be used as rewards for completing mundane and less-than-appealing tasks. Once you’ve done two hours of college work, you can reward yourself with an hour playing online slots. Or, if you get the DIY jobs done around the house, you can level up your gaming by buying a new graphics card.
Stress Relief
With work, college, and even social lives, life, in general, can be stressful. Pastimes and fun activities can help us unwind and reduce feelings of anxiety. Playing games enables us to take our minds off real-world problems. Not only does this reduce anxiety at the time of gaming, but it can also make problems seem more manageable in the long run, therefore reducing long-term stress as well.
Connecting
A lot of modern games either offer online multiplayer or have some element of social gaming. Many friendships have been formed in multiplayer lobbies, and these friendships can be just as meaningful and emotionally relevant as real-life friendships. At the very least, when you connect with a new friend in a gaming lobby, you already have a shared interest.
Reconnecting
As well as being useful for forging new friendships, some of the best online games can be a great way for existing friends to stay in touch, or for people to reconnect with old friends they haven’t spoken to in a long time. Mobile and social gaming can be especially effective ways to connect with old friends, especially via social media invites.
Community
Not everybody we meet necessarily becomes friends. We can have passing acquaintances that we acknowledge and even work with to meet similar goals. This is also true in gaming. In-game guilds bring players together to complete tasks for the good of the guild and its members.
Even in squad games, like Warzone or Fortnite, players come together to compete against other squads, in a lot of cases without knowing their squad mates, who they may never meet again.
Cognitive And Technical Skill Development
Gaming has the capacity to develop cognitive and technical skills in players. Hand-eye coordination is essential for most games, but especially in fast-paced action games like first-person shooters. Puzzle games and brain training games, as well as simulators, can also help improve cognitive functions and sharpen the brain.
Cultural Implications
Gaming’s popularity has led to aspects of gaming becoming culturally mainstream. Fortnite dances are commonplace, and even terms like respawn and grinding have their roots in video gaming. Being part of the community means that players have a deeper understanding of these references.
